Silovoki: Ukrainian Edition – Mikhail Dubinyansky

Siloviki Versus Oligarchy – the so -called column published on the pages of The New York Times in 2003. Its author, now the late Pulitzer laureate William Safaire, commented on the resonant case of Yukos in the Russian Federation. And he wrote about how the influential Russian oligarchs are replaced by even more influential Siloviki: in early Putin, this word was included in the Western political vocabulary without translation.

It is known that Ukraine is not Russia. However, some civilizational phenomena are characteristic of both post -Soviet countries, and one of them was the power of oligarchs. If in the Russian Federation the flourishing of the oligarchy occurred in the 1990s, then in Ukraine the oligarchic era lasted in the 2000s and in 2010.

Over the course of decades, the oligarchs have been considered the most influential people in our country. The main events of Ukrainian political life were associated with the oligarchs. The oligarchs were associated with eternal domestic problems: backwardness, misery, corruption.

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Oligarchic money seemed to be the most powerful weapon on Ukrainian soil. At the same time, the domestic force apparatus did not compare with the Russian.

For many years, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have look unnecessary to the Soviet past. And the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SBU were perceived as a paid service of the oligarchy and were surrounded by general contempt.

However, there is no disaster without good. Permanent competition of oligarchic clans created spontaneous restraints and counterbalances that prevented the establishment of true authoritarian rule in Kiev. And the relative weakness of the force apparatus has largely contributed to the success of domestic protests in the 2000s and 2010s. Unlike Putin and Lukashenko, Kuchma and Yanukovych, it was not possible to create a fairly powerful repressive machine, a fully dedicated mode.

But everything in this world is once passing, and the era of powerful Ukrainian oligarchs has also come to an end. A full -scale war was a devastating blow to the oligarchy. After 2022, the former masters of life not only lost billions of dollars, but also political influence – that is, they ceased to be real oligarchs.

In the new Ukrainian state, centralized and militarized, their fates have developed differently. Someone sits behind bars. Someone is under sanctions. Someone fled from the country. And others focused on personal survival, provided their media acts at disposal of the current authorities and abandoned the former ambitions.

Now the true power in our country is not provided with money – but power levers. People in expensive costumes are confidently moving people in shape. And it would be strange to wait for something else in the midst of the greatest war in history over the last forty years.

Today, the survival of Ukraine depends on the power structures. The Ukrainian Army is the main damper on the path of hostile hordes. Ukrainian special services – a shield and a sword of a belligerent state. Ukrainian law enforcement officers are the key to rest in the rear. It is quite natural that in the last three years our force apparatus has gained power, unthinkable until 24.02.2022.

Thanks to Russian aggression in post-Soviet Ukraine, their own truly influential Siloviki appears: much later than in post-Soviet Russia. On the one hand, it is a natural requirement of wartime. And on the other, the unexpected satisfaction of a people’s request for a strong hand, which was fixed long before the Great War.

However, the population is inclined to dream of ideal, spherical security forces in vacuum: people who, having received almost unlimited powers, will remain knights without fear and reproach. But, unfortunately, there is another pattern in the world. The more power the security officers receive, the more abuses will be related to this power. This has always happened everywhere. And, of course, current Ukraine could not be an exception.

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If the force structures carry out unfair mobilization, someone will inevitably try to turn it into a source of enrichment, and someone – to a tool of political pressing and accounting.

If the power structures provide protection of the information space from hostile influence, someone will inevitably try to use it to suppress opponents.

And if the power structures find a business related to the enemy, someone will certainly try to use this activity to extort, raid and destroy competitors.

And it cannot curb himself. Any attempt to fight abuse exclusively by repression leads to the fact that the main repressive organ is the main nursery of abuse. Therefore, in the Soviet Union, the most unique and the most striking structure was the OGPU-NNKVD-KDB, in the third Reich-the SS, and in Putin Russia-the FSB.

Only effective public control allows you to restrain the abuse of the force apparatus. However, in the country of security officers, this is a more difficult task than in the country of oligarchs. It is enough to mention that in the oligarchic 1990s Russian journalists were considered extremely influential people, and the chain dogs of democracy from Moscow were set to Ukrainian colleagues. But it was worth it to take the mountain over the oligarchs there, and the praised “fourth power” in the Russian Federation capitulated in a matter of years.

Does this mean that Ukraine is doomed to be partially like its enemy? What in the near future our country is sure to slip into force autocracy? It is clear that no.

This means only that many years of experience in the struggle for democracy, acquired by Ukraine by the 2020s, has largely lost its relevance. The domestic realities of the oligarchy and two Maidans became the property of history. And a new reality requires new approaches, skills and skills. And if one of us is still going to defend democratic values, human rights and freedom of speech, then this will have to do in other historical conditions.

One thing is when street protests try to suppress under the pretext of “public order protection”. The other is when unauthorized street activity stops in the name of national security.

One thing is when the law enforcement agencies try to fight “radicals” and “extremists”. The other is when the security forces deal with a supposed agent of an external enemy.

One thing is public criticism of the oligarchy and its henchmen, which guarantees friendly applause of readers, listeners and audiences. And the other is the public criticism of the power apparatus, which many can consider the betrayal of the Motherland.

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Real democracy, freedom of expression and human rights are not without influential opposition. But in oligarchic times, Ukrainian opposition was perceived as a struggle for everything good and against everything bad. And in the era of security forces, any manifestation of opposition can be interpreted as a struggle with their own state in favor of a hostile state. And in many cases, such interpretation will be quite fair.

Therefore, from now on the Ukrainian public will have to be permanently looking for answers Idy for two damned questions. How many power should domestic power structures have to get so that they are not defeated or replaced by Siloviki enemy? And how much power can our power machine get so that it does not have too much similarities to hostile?

Mikhail Dubinyansky