Russian attack Hundreds of people are now being accused of treason in Ukraine, but the country faces a much bigger problem, says researcher

Ukraine with the President Volodymyr in Zelensky was a surprising announcement last Sunday: the president said he had fired a security chief in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Kharkov has been one of the key places in the war in Ukraine, where there have been fierce fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Zelensky’s arguments for dismissal were strong. According to him, after the Russian invasion, the chief had not worked for the defense of the city but had thought of himself.

“What were the motives? Authorities are figuring it out, ”Zelenskyi said.

Zelenskyi did not accuse the chief publicly directly of conspiracy with Russia, but there is currently a fierce debate in Ukraine about treason and the Ukrainians who have cooperated with Russia.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has announcedthat there are hundreds of open cases of Ukrainians being accused of treason and cooperation with Russia. Wall Street Journal According to him, there would be more than 900 suspected fraudulent fraud, and almost 800 suspected of cooperation.

Shortly after the Russian invasion, a new law was passed in Ukraine condemning cooperation with enemy forces. Cooperation can lead to more than ten years in prison, and treason for life.

When Ukraine has regained the territories once occupied by Russia, and the search for those who have turned to Russia has begun in the same areas.

In addition to the Wall Street Journal, among others Washington Post and The Guardian have written about how very unpleasant discussions are going on in Russian-held areas: Who has “sold their neighbors” and shared valuable information with Russian forces?

For example, Russians may have been given information about important soldiers living in the city, their families, or rich people living in the city whose property may have been stolen by Russian troops. Oleksandr Filtšakov said to The Guardian.

The Guardian the story tells of the mayor of the city of Kupyansk near Kharkov, who decided at the beginning of the war to hand over his city to the Russians without a fight – in his own words, “to avoid death”.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, tells of a Ukrainian man appointed by Russian forces as the new mayor of the town of Dymer near Kiev in the early stages of the war. After his appointment, he began feeding Russian propaganda to the city’s residents.

Both are now accused of cooperating with Russian forces. However, cases like these are extreme examples, and most of the alleged communities are much harder to prove.

There are a lot of big questions: Where does the boundary of cooperation go? Is it the case, for example, with all the teachers in the occupied territories who have continued to teach in the name of a new, pro-Russian curriculum? How should harsh sentences be distributed to ordinary civilians? How serious damage has any cooperation caused? How little evidence is enough for cooperative charges?

Russia believed at the start of the full-scale attack that there would be far more people involved in so-called cooperation.

The assumption was that the central administration would give up and the Ukrainians would not have enough will to defend their country.

Senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute Ryhor Nizhnikau says Russia ‘s confidence was probably based on misinformation from within Ukraine.

“It is important to remember that there is still a lot of corruption in Ukraine. Russia has paid even for the people who worked in the Ukrainian administration. It is very possible that they have conveyed to Moscow information that Ukraine would surrender the moment Russia attacks. They have told Russia what Russia has wanted to hear, and Russia has been entrusted with it, ”Nizhnikau says.

Nizhnikau says that before the war, many in Ukraine were dissatisfied with Zelensky, the current regime and the promised promises. In eastern and southern Ukraine in particular, many also voted against Zelensky’s party in the previous election, and the protest channeled into a pro-Russia party.

“They thought this would bring peace, but it did bring war.”

According to Nizhnikau, the Russian invasion completely changed the situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian nation became unitedly anti-Russian.

“People have a common understanding that the biggest problem is Russia, not Kiev.”

What so has driven some Ukrainians to cooperate with Russia or even to treason?

According to Nizhnikau, the main explanation is money. In the same way that even before the full-scale attack, Russia had succeeded in bribing the people in the Ukrainian national administration, the same is working at the regional level.

There are other reasons. In the beginning, people may have thought of maintaining some form of security by surrendering. Similarly, in the beginning, it may have been thought that Russia is so effective that it is better to turn to the “winner” right away. And, of course, there are still some pro-Russian people among the Ukrainians.

Nizhnikau points out, however, that the talk of hundreds of suspected traitors and collaborators is above all Ukraine’s own propaganda. He believes that only a fraction of these alleged cases will eventually go to trial. The reasons may be minor in some cases.

“Ukraine’s security service needs to show efficiency and loyalty to the central government, and it will do so, for example.”

Nizhnikau also blames Zelensky for similar populism in the case where the Kharkiv security chief was fired.

“This is an example of Zelenskyi fighting the symptoms, but not going to the heart of the problem.”

According to Nizhnikau, the crux of the problem is in the system. The Ukrainian security service, for example, is “poorly functioning and corrupt,” and has not been addressed in any way, Nizhnikau says. It should be completely reformed, but in times of war there is no desire to focus on such matters and create internal dividing lines within the country.

Somewhere stage the war ends, one way or another. If Ukraine then has the opportunity to make independent decisions, convictions of traitors and those who have cooperated with Russia are expected – or could be expected.

Here again, Nizhnikau recalls pessimistically that after the conquest of Crimea and the start of the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, most of those in power accused of corruption and links with Russia finally managed to escape money, for example, with money.

But is today’s – or especially the future – Ukraine similar? Probably not, Nizhnikau says. If Zelenskyi is still president at the end of the war, he will probably have a much better starting point for making changes than his predecessor. Petro Poroshenko was in 2014.

However, when talking about the future, Nizhnikau sees two major threats.

“First, Zelensky’s style is populist, and I don’t think it’s well suited for reconstruction. Second, Ukrainians as a nation have tended to favor populist decision-makers. They want very simple and quick solutions, not in-depth explanations. This creates a spiral in which populist decision-makers respond to populist demands. It can lead from one disaster to another. ”