It has been a very long while since I have posted a Ukrainian SITREP and there are good reasons for that: nothing much has happened there, at least nothing nearly as dramatic as the developments in the past. In fact, ever since the crisis in Syria has taken center stage in US foreign policy preoccupations, the Ukraine appears to have been almost forgotten. Did anybody even notice that local elections have taken place there recently? Or that they were the most marred by every conceivable form of cheating and irregularities imaginable?
I don’t think so.
And, again, this makes sense. Election in Banderastan are really irrelevant and they decide nothing. So why vote anyway (abstention was record high)? Or why care about the results? The real power struggle in the Ukraine is not at the ballot box, it is with the Kalashnikov (that is, until the Ukies develop their own assault rifle). And on the “Mafia wars” from there have been some very interesting developments.
The big news is that the Poroshenko clan has openly launched a repression campaign against the Kolomoiski clan. We all remember how Poroshenko succeeded in pushing Kolomoiski out of Odessa replacing him with Saakashvili and Gaidar’s daughter! The big fear at the time was that Saakashvili would be used to trigger some kind of “08.08.08” against Transdnistria and the Russian peacekeeping forces there. Thank God, this has not happened. As for Kolomoiski, he began funding the UKROP Party headed by his fellow Jewish mobster Gennadii Korban.
Korban
If Svoboda, Right Sector and the Radical Party are the bona fide Nazis, while the Poroshenko clan fills the CIA-run puppet regime slot, then UKROP would be the Jewish Mafia party. Interestingly, UKROP also has ties with Dimitri Iarosh, who apparently wants to keep his Nazi and Jewish friends apart but who covers all his bases. The power base of UKRPO is, of course, Kolomoiskii’s Privat Bank, the largest commercial bank in Ukraine.
And now, UKROP’s leader, Korban, has been arrested for being an organized crime boss. No kidding! Who would have though?!
Kolomoiski has immediately organized some “spontaneous protests” in support of Korban because he fully understands that he now needs to fight back before he becomes the next one to be arrested by the Ukrainian secret services. And, make no mistake, Kolomoiskii has plenty of resources left.
Kolomoiskii
First, he can always use the various death squads he has financed over the past years. Second, he does control Privat Bank which wields huge economic power in the Ukraine. Third, Kolomoiski most definitely has links with Iarosh and the Right Sector who also can be mobilized to threaten Poroshenko. Finally, even though it is Saakashvili and his allies who are in formal control of the Odessa region, Kolomoiskii still controls the local mobster gangs which he can also activate in his defense. In contrast, all the Poroshenko really can count on, at least for the time being, is the support of the USA and, especially, the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, the man who basically run the Ukraine.
The timing of the latest move by Poroshenko against Kolomoiski is also interesting: right after the recent elections, of course, but also at a time when the world has more or less forgotten about the Ukraine. Last, but not least, the IMF has now broken its own rules just to keep funding the regime in Kiev (the IMF money will go only to the pockets of the oligarchs and to finance the war against Novorussia) and that means that Poroshenko now has the means to strike at his main opponents.
Poroshenko
Does that mean that Poroshenko is securing his power? Maybe, but I don’t think so. As I said, Poroshenko only real “weapon” is the support of the USA, but that support is very over-rated. If, for example, it came to an open armed opposition between pro and anti Poroshenko forces, there is very little the USA could do. Furthermore, the USA have a long history of dumping embarrassing or disappointing puppet dictators. Finally, the simple fact that the Ukrainian economy is basically dead guarantees that popular anger and frustration will, sooner or later, turn into rage at which point none of the freaks in power (Poroshenko, Iatseniuk or Turchinov) will be safe while those who opposed them will have at the very least a power base of support to mobilize against the regime bosses.
That is not to say that Poroshenko is not doing the right thing by cracking down on his competitors. I just don’t think that this will be enough to protect him. Now that Liashko and Timoshenko have also dumped him, he looks awfully isolated to me.
The Saker
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