Echoes of Maidan Mark Zelensky's Sudden Fall from Grace
It appears rumors of Trump’s flushing of Zelensky may have had something to them, as tonight the knives have come out for Zelensky and his gang. What started as gripes against push back on some irrelevant NGO-run organs has turned into a fledgling ‘Maidan’ against the now unfavored Ukrainian leader.
As always, establishment rags were swift with their coordinated messaging to energize the push:
Most eye-opening about the fall from grace is how boldly the chosen actors are playing their lines, pearl-clutching about some imagined ‘repressions’ of a pair of organizations virtually no one has heard of or cared about until a few days ago, in this case NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office).
There are myriad other far more pressing concerns for Ukraine, not even counting the war itself, and yet the pitched fight around some Biden-era “anti-corruption” watchdogs is what has animated the intelligentsia and paid-off ‘influencer’ sphere to take to the streets with pre-branded slogans and obligatory ‘English’-scripted signs?
There’s no real point rehashing the whole backstory because it’s just a convoluted cover for the latest psyop-turned-color revolution. But for those interested, the most detailed accounting was written up by this Ukrainian commentator—though likely cribbed from Grok.
The real machinations can only be speculated on, but one plausible version was outlined by former-Ukrainian MP Artem Dmytruk—who fled Ukraine late last year after challenging Zelensky for his persecution of the UOC (Ukrainian Orthodox Church):
‘He steals 10 billion dollars a year’ — MP Dmytruk explained to Europeans why Ze is liquidating NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine)
‘As for what is happening now between the anti-corruption body and the Zelensky regime, it can be said that the anti-corruption body has started an investigation, a small investigation into corruption crimes committed by Zelensky, about the so-called ‘black’ money that he allegedly steals from Ukraine. And we are talking about more than 10 billion dollars a year that Zelensky allegedly steals in Ukraine.’
In short: Some believe the anti-corruption organizations finally got their marching orders from above to target Zelensky’s coterie by digging up “dirt” on them, presumably to initiate the process to eventually remove Ze from power, or at least begin putting major pressure on him as an implied threat to toe the line.
Sensing the plan, Zelensky moved to preemptively begin hamstringing the corruption watchdogs. He arrested the ‘head of detectives’ at NABU under the trumped-up suspicion of spying for Russia, not long before submitting the bill to the Rada to effect a ‘hostile takeover’ of these “independent” organizations, putting them under total state control.
The formation of these institutions was demanded as part of mandatory “reforms” by the EU for Ukraine’s eligibility for accession into the bloc; this is for a reason. Like NGOs, such organizations are designed by the establishment to serve as levers of power, control, and leverage working “independently” away from elected government—which in actuality means they are unaccountable and unelected. This is in strict accordance with the elites’ classic blueprint for subverting governments and taking power away from the people, no different to the “federal” reserve system that was foisted on the world without any real debate.
This is just the latest replay of the Biden scandal, wherein he openly bragged about eliminating chief prosecutor Victor Shokin who had dared to investigate Burisma and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine. The excuse given then was also that Shokin had “failed to properly investigate corruption”, which is the establishment’s favored MO each time they need an inconvenient pest removed. Fancy beau ideals like ‘reform’ and ‘corruption’ are eaten up by the hoi polloi like a steamy batch of protest brownies.
Even back in his seminal speech of February 22, 2022, Putin had exposed these very organizations like NABU as being run out of the US embassy in Kiev—listen closely:
“The US Embassy in Ukraine directly controls NABU and SAPO.” — Vladimir Putin, Feb 22, 2022
The other thing Putin is referring to above confirms what I just wrote about unelected bodies. When you dig into how these organizations are run, and how their key players are appointed, you find that the process is controlled by a commission of European “specialists”. Ukrainians are also on the board, but the Europeans have the overriding vote. From one source, describing the process for the ESBU, otherwise known as BEB or BES, in short, the Economic Security Bureau that was forcibly created at the behest of the EU, alongside NABU and SAPO:
Candidates for the ESBU are selected by a Selection Commission consisting of three international experts and three government-nominated experts, with international partners holding the decisive vote.
Another Ukrainian source directly writes that the UA government had to ask the international commission to resubmit new candidates for the director position:
The Cabinet of Ministers asked the competition commission to resubmit candidates for the position of Head of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES).
It further writes:
The bill provides for mandatory recertification of employees, and also establishes that international partners will have the decisive voice in the selection and recertification of employees.
So, just as in the “democracy” of the EU system itself, an unelected commission of outsiders has all the say in positioning their favored directors of these Ukrainian organizations. These directors then take all their marching orders from the US embassy, as per Putin.
This is why Zelensky’s head of the SBU Vasyl Maliuk today denied the organizations were being ‘abolished’, but rather, they were being returned to their constitutional mandates:
"Nobody has abolished anything" — this is how the head of Ukraine’s Security Service, Vasyl Maliuk, responded to the bill that would eliminate the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). "This is simply a return to the constitutional framework. Neither SAPO nor NABU has been abolished — they continue to exist and operate effectively. We are working together with NABU leadership and detectives. I believe it will be a positive development for them that the Prosecutor General brings in fresh ideas, based on his experience. Unlike them, he supported Yanukovych’s indictment — and they did not," Maliuk stated.
Not that there’s any “good guy” in this, but you can’t deny that Zelensky’s moves are in effect correct, despite being for obviously ulterior reasons.
Either way, this may have been the opening shot of what may turn out to be a coup, or at least a period of destabilization and factions vying for power in Ukraine, amidst a big societal shake-up. One of the things to watch will be the potential for a ‘perfect storm’ to broadside Ukraine at this critical moment.
I refer to the situation on the front, wherein today the Pokrovsk line has “catastrophically” deteriorated—as per Ukraine’s DeepState maps’ words. One analyst even described it as the single largest one-day breakthrough of the war since Ukraine’s own Kharkov offensive in late 2022. Russian forces were said to have sprinted somewhere between 6-10km in the north Pokrovsk region, cutting a critical road between Nove Shakhove and Shakhove. But I will refrain from elaborating on it in detail until next time, when it’s determined if Russian forces actually established themselves in new positions there for definite or not.
But one can see the potential for this kind of perfect storm: an untimely frontline collapse just at the moment Zelensky is enduring his fiercest internal pressures—things may get very interesting in Ukraine soon.
Where will current protests lead?
No where, Zelensky retains control
Long decline and destabilization
Color revolution and coup