Democracy Is Ukraine’s Most Powerful Weapon in the War Against Russia

Sometimes, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelinsky sometimes depicts him as Winston Churchill. It is not difficult to understand the reason. Both men highlight an innate understanding of the stones and symbolism of modern policy. Churchill made noisy letters and insisted on the heroic challenge of Nazi aggressors. Zelinski directed the will of his collective people to resist the numbers of Russian invaders, and refused to leave his office in the center of Kiev to resort abroad even when the Kremlin killers wandered around the city in the early days of the war.

However, the comparison illuminates other reasons as well. Even in the fullest strength, Churchill is still a point in sharing power. When he became prime minister in May 1940, the Al -Wahda Alliance government formed that included representatives of all major political parties. Clement Ateli, head of the opposition Labor Party, has eventually deputy Churchill, the position he gave him widespread authority. It is true that Britain did not hold any general elections from the last pre -war vote in 1935 until 1945, and of course it changed only a little for the peoples of the British Empire, which came out of the war as much as it did not happen. However, Churchill has never surrendered to the temptation of authoritarian power – even though his country was fighting one of the most vicious dictatorships in history.

Sometimes, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelinsky sometimes depicts him as Winston Churchill. It is not difficult to understand the reason. Both men highlight an innate understanding of the stones and symbolism of modern policy. Churchill made noisy letters and insisted on the heroic challenge of Nazi aggressors. Zelinski directed the will of his collective people to resist the numbers of Russian invaders, and refused to leave his office in the center of Kiev to resort abroad even when the Kremlin killers wandered around the city in the early days of the war.

However, the comparison illuminates other reasons as well. Even in the fullest strength, Churchill is still a point in sharing power. When he became prime minister in May 1940, the Al -Wahda Alliance government formed that included representatives of all major political parties. Clement Ateli, head of the opposition Labor Party, has eventually deputy Churchill, the position he gave him widespread authority. It is true that Britain did not hold any general elections from the last pre -war vote in 1935 until 1945, and of course it changed only a little for the peoples of the British Empire, which came out of the war as much as it did not happen. However, Churchill has never surrendered to the temptation of authoritarian power – even though his country was fighting one of the most vicious dictatorships in history.

Zelinski can learn something or two British war leader – as this week’s events clearly showed. On Monday, the Ukrainian President’s decision to impose control of independent investigators in the country against corruption in the country has sparked the largest public protests since the full invasion of Russia began in 2022, which has now spread from Kiev and some big cities to many other parts of the country.

The size of this popular reaction reflects a wide visualization that Zelinski has become increasingly isolated from society in general, and not at least because of his tendency to rule through a small group of loyal advisers. Instead of exchanging power, similar to Churchill, some critics say that Zelinski has marginalized and excluded critical sounds.

“The source of the authority in Ukraine is the people of Ukraine,” Daria Kaliniuk, head of the Anti -Corruption Center in Kiev, told me in an interview via a phone. “This is what Zelinski forgot. There was no such screaming in society in response to his action to demolish anti -corruption organizations.”

In response to the protests, Zelinski now said he was planning to cancel the controversial law. That will be a welcome step. The institutions that were targeting did not manage the mill agencies; They are the product of more than a decade of efforts made by the vaccine to combat widespread graft. The demonstrators who overthrew the pro -Russian leader Victor Yanukovic in a field revolution in 2014 partially opposed his superior disagreement. Ukrainian activists, with wide support from the United States and the European Union, have worked for years to establish the National Anti -Corruption Office (NABU) and the Office of the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor (SAPO), both of whom received wide powers to investigate and prosecute officials. The Zelensky Law tried to allocate both sides to the country’s chief public prosecutor, which canceled their independence.

This will be bad enough in itself. But an editorial in Independent KyivA leading Ukrainian newspaper warned that Zelinski’s attack on anti -corruption bodies was just part of a larger and more fateful direction: “This step is not an isolated incident, but it is part of a massive campaign.”

The paper was martyred with a series of police raids on NABU staff and the fateful prosecution of a high -level activist to combat corruption, Vitaliy Shabunin, who has a long and shiny profession in a monitoring body. Zelensky rejected such criticisms, claiming that he was trying to just purify the alleged Russian influence agencies – although its critics answered that the government had generally failed to provide any evidence of this claim.

During my visits to Ukraine in wartime over the past two years, I heard many concerns about the erosion of democratic institutions. I heard reports on government pressure on the leading newspapers. I have heard that people express fears that the trial of the prominent Zelensky competitor seems suspicious like political revenge. I have heard frequent criticism of the arduous pillars in Zelinski, Andrei Yermak, who used his position as the head of the president’s main gate to focus the tremendous power in his office.

However, Zelinski is far from being a dictator – as it appears specifically thousands of demonstrators who moved to the streets in the last days to protest his actions. However, the latest events prompted some observers to warn that public dissatisfaction with the president threatens national unity in Ukraine at a moment when Moscow continues to pressure home attacks on multiple fronts.

The Kremlin uses the protests “to undermine the legitimacy of Ukraine and inhibit Western support”, and a report from the Institute of War Study. (The absurdity of the Russians, who wander around the demonstrations that will be suppressed brutally if anyone tries them at home) American MP Margori Taylor Green confirmed that she was the most severe Maga members in congress by claiming that the crowds in the Ukrainian streets were in fact the attack of Zellinski because it is a “dictator and refuses to conclude a peace deal and end the war” – which is a satirical matter.

One sometimes hears the assumption that democracies cannot really sue wars successfully. It is better in nature, as the argument says, to have one leader who calls the shots, thus simplifying decisions and eliminating the chaotic disorders of competing sounds. What Ukraine shows us, again, is that the opposite is true. The country’s strong culture of harsh activity and civil pride is exactly that made it difficult to defeat. Ukraine and its democratic institutions have survived specifically because the ordinary Ukrainians were very fast in the streets and the battlefield to defend them. Perhaps the most influential slogan of demonstrations: “This is not the future that my brother died for.” It has been amazing, over the past few days, hearing the front of the front lines chanting and pumping the protesters’ demands.

Ukrainian journalist Elijah Bonomarmoko climbed a similar point in a modern publication on X. In fact, he continued: “In particular, the fact that civil society in Ukraine takes to the streets and protests, and continues to kick his government at the rear even during the time of war” which was one of the main reasons that the country managed to continue “resisting Russian power for twelve years already, including three and a half years of comprehensive war.”

Ponomarenko right. This is the same popular energy that prompted ordinary civilians to fight the invaders in 2022, and praised the efforts of millions of volunteers to support the armed forces, and fired countless inventors of inventors and designers. Kyiv forces invented many impressive weapons during the conflict with Moscow. But the stubborn desire of millions of ordinary citizens to vote, protest, talk about their minds, and determine their destinies, which represent the strongest resource in the Ukrainian arsenal.