Attempts to impeach Ukrainian leader Poroshenko are a stunt

The far-right Fatherland party led by former Ukrainian Prime Minister and arch-opportunist Yulia Tymoshenko has moved to impeach the current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

For anyone thinking that this represents a rejection of Poroshenko’s war of aggression on Donbass and his wider persecution of the large number of ethno-linguistic and cultural Russians living under the Ukrainian regime, this would be wishful thinking.

Tymoshenko has been known to be a political thorn in the side of all factions in Kiev. There is no doubt that her policies are based on an odd combination of cynicism and aggression, a phenomenon that in many respects is uniquely Ukrainian. Earlier in 2017 she agitated for “total war” on Donbass, the clear implication being that Poroshenko’s execution of the war which has seen the use of illegal chemical weapons on Donbass civilians hasn’t gone ‘far enough’.

READ MORE: When Ukraine dropped chemical weapons on Donbass, the west didn’t care (VIDEO)

As things stand, under Ukrainian law, 3/4ths of the Rada (Paraliament) would need to move for impeachment for proceedings to begin in earnest. As things stand although the ultra-right wing Radical Party as well as moderate opposition parties appear to be supporting Tymoshenko’s move, it is unlikely that she will be able to get the numbers in Parliament which would be required to begin the process of removing Poroshenko from power.

That being said, in Ukraine, the letter of the law is often less important than the letter of lawlessness. In 2014 an armed mob forced the sitting democratically elected President to flee for his life and since that time, a post-coup regime has more or less made the rules up as they go along without any considerations for the standards of law and order let alone the standards of human rights demanded by both the UN and also the EU.

The main grievance that many living under the Kiev regime have with Poroshenko is based on economics rather than any opposition to policies of war and extreme violence. Under the Poroshenko regime, Ukraine’s economy has gone from functionally bad to unworkable dysfunctional. A combination of shutting off territory controlled by the regime in Kiev from the Donbass republics and the shunning of Kiev’s traditional trading partner, the Russian Federation, have made it so that Ukraine simply is not an economically viable state.

Ukrainian products are generally unwanted in Europe as Ukrainian industry is geared towards the Russian market  in respect of the mechanical standards of products which are designed to confirm with Russian rather than EU regulations. Simultaneous to this, the shrinking purchasing power of Ukrainians means that most EU products are more un-affordable to Ukrainians than at any previous time.

Changing one anti-Russian regime for another will not solve this. It was this consideration, over and above anything more ideological which led the deeply compromised President Viktor Yanukovych to reject an association agreement with the EU.

The reason that hopelessness has set in over the regime in Kiev is due to the fact that none of the front-line political leaders are willing to face the fact that Russia is inexorably linked to Ukraine’s economic fortunes. Russia can easily survive without Ukraine but Ukraine cannot survive without Russia. No amount of waving of the EU flag in one had and a fascist flag in the other can change this basic economic fact.

If Poroshenko is to be deposed, something which due to the anger over Ukraine’s flagging economy is an increasing likely possibility, it will almost certainly be done in an extra-legal manner.

The question then is who will come after him? It will likely be the case of ‘meet the new boss, same (if not worse) as the old boss’. To paraphrase the same song lyric, Ukraine likely will get fooled again.