In a sense, we were really lucky that Yanukovich was a fool and a coward. Trump too is committed to ignorance and he is definitely a huge coward, but he knows how to “own” his corruption and criminality in a manner that appeals to a significant portion of the US public (perhaps not a majority or even a plurality, but whatever it is, it is large enough to matter). That wasn’t true about Yanukovich.
The killing of protesters in Feb 2014 was the inflection point, a point of no return. That’s when a significant portion of society came to the conclusion that the Yanukovich regime has to go. And the fact that the public pushed back, even with the use of violence by regime goons, is what doomed Yanukovich. The Yanukovich regime was not able to take back Maidan Nezalezhnosti; the “main square of the country”, if a government can’t control it, it de facto does not have legitimacy.
His senior allies started to get worried that they would have to go down with the ship and that they wouldn’t be able to “lawyer their way out of it” and might have to face true justice from the public. I would argue the same was true of the security forces, when the public fought back, they started asking themselves uncomfortable questions about whether it was worth risking their lives for some thugs (who would be focused on saving their own butts).
There really was a sense of “history is being made in front of our eyes” or the apocryphal quote “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” There was a whole parallel self-organized administration. Tens of thousands of people were flowing in from the regions to Kyiv to back anti-regime protests (not to mention every region had its own protest HQ, even Crimea had protesters opposing the regime). During the day the crowds would swell to hundreds of thousands. People were constantly bringing in supplies (food, medicine, protective gear, I personally delivered donations from foreigners who supported the protesters, but didn’t want to enter Maidan/Khreshatik). In the night the security forces would try and siege the liberated part of the city, you could even see how the barricade line would move through the square over the days (security services gaining a bit, protesters pushing them back in other days).
Of course, America is not Ukraine, but perhaps this is a case in which America can learn something from Ukraine.
This is a pattern of authoritarian drift that Ukrainians are closely familiar with: rapid consolidation of executive power, aggressive use of state capacity against perceived enemies (including former allies who dared defy the president), and a growing insistence that legality is whatever the leader says it is.
In pushing against all that, Americans can take a page from Ukraine’s civil society playbook.
I tend to agree. Life is a strange thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nNFrvGOb9o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwf9EjesvtM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eTuFAR169s
Sure US has its own specific challenges: much more competent and violent security forces, much less “motivated” society (a national liberation movement is a powerful thing), but US also doesn’t have to deal with many challenges that are present in Ukraine. Specifically, an enemy neighbouring country x4-x5 times larger where the overwhelming majority of the population is committed to genocidal imperialism.
I live on a high floor and it’s a fucking pain to deal with the cold and lack of water. Than being said, I can manage. I do feel for ladies like Janchuk. My grandma is 80+, but we can support her.
Individuals like Merkel with their arrogance and de facto support for russian genocidal imperialism are massive enablers of the russians (Schröder is a piece of shit too, but unlike Merkel I don’t think he actually believes in anything, if the bribe is large enough he will pitch anything). I hope both of them get a severe case of Alzheimer’s.