Compilation image of Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Left) and Vladimir Putin (Right). Photo: Batoul Chamas/Al Mayadeen English.
By Dmitri Kovalevich – Mar 27, 2025
Aware of all the changes in public mood, the movements of the Ukrainian leadership in the turbulent times ahead will be chaotic and unpredictable, like the thrashings of a cornered rat that has already played its role.
Prospects for a ceasefire and a lasting peace in Ukraine remain unclear in the second half of March 2025. The Zelensky regime is still stubbornly resisting any talk of either. On the contrary, the Kiev regime, headed by Volodomyr Zelensky, is intensifying its military conscription. Those who might previously have had legal grounds for deferring service are finding themselves kidnapped by military recruiters in an increasingly losing cause. Kiev’s Western sponsors are scrambling to delay their looming political and military defeat. They are praying for a miracle to rescue them from a defeat of historic import.
Legalization of lawlessness
In late March, the Supreme Court of Ukraine issued a paradoxical legal decision, ruling that an illegal act of conscription does not release its victim from compulsory military service. “Mobilization [conscription] is an irreversible process,” the Ukrainian court ruled. The case involves a man considered to be ‘recruited’ to military service even though he had not yet passed a medical examination.
“The judges confirmed in their decision of March 17 that there were indeed violations by the territorial recruitment center, but they refused a dismissal of the conscript from service,” explains the Focus.ua news outlet.
By the same logic, a person thrown illegally into prison would not necessarily win release. The mere fact that an act of conscription was illegal (for example, when a recruit does not pass a medical examination or when his or her age is outside the age of military service) does not imply a release from detention and waiving of military service. The decision turns upside down the very system of justice in Ukraine, turning illegal actions magically into legal ones.
As a result of the court decision, residents of the city and region of Kharkiv are hitting back against military recruiters, according to Viktoriya Kolesnik-Lavinskaya, the ombudswoman for human rights and children’s rights for the Russia-controlled part of Kharkiv. She told Russian state broadcaster RIA Novosti on March 18, “The situation in Kharkov and the Kharkov region has become so tense that residents are gathering in groups to carry out acts of resistance against the officers of the TCC [Territorial Centers for Recruitment and Social Support], setting fire to their vehicles and putting up physical and sometimes armed resistance.”
Ukrainian authorities routinely react very harshly to any resistance to military enlistment officers. Sometimes, these officers have even been killed. Large police operations are staged as needed. Military conscription in Ukraine requires tens of thousands of armed police, special forces, and groups of military officers in the rear to enforce it. Zelensky’s regime may thus be said to be waging a two-front war, both of which aim to maintain the power and hegemony of the economic and political elite of Ukraine along with that of its Western masters.
In many cities of Ukraine, even far from the frontlines, there are almost daily exchanges of gunfire in both directions. Air defense units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shoot at Russian attack drones in the sky, while there are exchanges of gunfire on the ground between police and military recruiters, on the one hand, and people resisting conscription who do not want to fight and die for the Zelensky regime, on the other hand.
The May 2014 massacre in Odessa and the hypocrisy of the European Union
Another judicial precedent in Ukraine was issued on Thursday, March 13, by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It issued a verdict regarding the massacre of anti-coup protesters that took place in the Odessa city center on May 2, 2014, six weeks after the illegal and violent coup of February 20 and 21.
The massacre killed 48 people and wounded some 250 more when the city’s historic Trade Union House was set on fire while protesters were sheltering inside. The massacre was carried out by right-wing Ukrainian ultranationalists. Images of protesters jumping from the windows or the fire-engulfed building and then being beaten to death by waiting ultranationalists shocked the country. These would have shocked the world except that Western media carefully shielded its consumers from such images, blaming instead “pro-Russia demonstrators” for much of the violence.
The massacre in Odessa quickly sparked armed civil defense in the Donbass region of what was then eastern Ukraine. Today, the region is a constituent region of the Russian Federation in the form of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics.
The European court reports on its website:
“In the case, the European Court of Human Rights Court held, unanimously, that there had been:
1. Violations of Article 2 (right to life/investigation) of the European Convention on Human Rights, on account of the relevant authorities’ failure to do everything that could reasonably be expected of them to prevent the violence in Odesa on 2 May 2014, to stop that violence after its outbreak, to ensure timely rescue measures for people trapped in the fire, and to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events;
2. A violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) in respect of one applicant (application no. 39553/16) concerning the delay in handing over her father’s body for burial.
“The Court concluded that the relevant authorities had not done everything they reasonably could to prevent the violence, to stop that violence after its outbreak, and to ensure timely rescue measures for those trapped in the fire in the Trade Union Building. There had therefore been violations of the substantive aspect of Article 2 of the [aforementioned] Convention.”
The court wrote further, “The Court concluded that the relevant authorities had failed to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events in Odesa on 2 May 2014. There had therefore been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the Convention.”
And so, nearly 11 long years after the events, the state of Ukraine has been named by the ECHR as a key culprit in the Odessa massacre. The court ordered the country to pay the relatives of 28 victims up to 12,000 euros in compensation, for a total of some 112,000 euros.
The ECHR ruling does not name the organizers and perpetrators of the violence in Odessa on May 2. Only the inaction of law enforcement officers and firefighters is blamed. Its decision included smears against Russia, saying that “Russian propaganda” played a key role in inciting the violence that day, as though the violent, ultranationalist propaganda of the perpetrators did not exist and had no influence on events.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Justice took the ECHR decision as an opportunity to blame predecessors in order to absolve itself of any responsibility. “The tragedy in Odessa occurred three months after the Revolution of Dignity [the ‘Maidan’ coup], when the country still retained the institutional legacy of the regime of Viktor Yanukovych [the elected president who was overthrown in February 2014] in its structures, especially in the law enforcement system,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
Last year, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, called the events of May 2, 2014, a “shameful page” in the history of Ukraine. “The people who stood behind this crime against humanity and those who carried it out have never been punished,” Peskov noted.
An Odessa communist and participant in those tragic events, Maria Simikchi, found refuge in Crimea following the massacre. She spoke to the Southern News Service in Crimea on March 2, explaining her experience on that horrific day 11 years earlier. She explained that the arson in the Trade Union House was planned, and the governor of the Odessa region simply stood back and watched. “For me, today’s war has been taking place for 11 years, beginning with Odessa and then quickly spreading to Donbass.” The coup regime in Kiev reacted to the anti-coup protests that erupted in Donbass in May of 2014 by undertaking a civil war to suppress them.
Igor Sivak, a poet and songwriter living in Odessa, wrote on Telegram on March 13 that the ECHR decision once again emphasizes the falsehoods behind declared ‘European values’. “Here are ‘European values’ on display. In Europe in May 2014, in broad daylight, Ukrainian human rights zealots and supporters of integration into the European Union burned people alive, finished off the wounded, and then went on to intimidate the families of the dead. Meanwhile, the great ‘humanists’ have taken 11 years to decide whether that this was, in fact, premeditated, mass murder and a crime against humanity.”
Assassinations in Maidan Ukraine
As a likely consequence of forced, military conscription and impunity for participants in the neo-Nazi terror of May 2, 2014, assassinations are now taking place in Ukraine. On Friday, March 14, in broad daylight in Odessa, in front of dozens of passersby, Demian Hanul was assassinated. He was one of the active participants in the 2014 massacre in Odessa and an activist of the fascist, ‘Right Sector’ party and paramilitary force.
Ganul has, in recent years, been working for the Ukrainian secret services and actively terrorizing the citizens of Odessa in efforts to make the historic, multicultural Russian city into a ‘Ukrainian’ city and destroy all reminders of the city’s Russian and Soviet past.
Ganul and his followers were very active in promoting Ukraine’s forced military conscription. His assassin, a Serhiy Shalayev, has not spoken of his motives. He is reportedly a lieutenant of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who deserted and was once an activist of the Right Sector. He is reported to have participated in the 2014 massacre. Zelensky sent an entire police regiment to Odessa to detain and watch over Shalayev, which shows how seriously Zelensky takes the public relations troubles, which neo-Nazis helping to prop up his regime can cause to him.
‘We have already lost the war’
Ukrainian unit commanders are complaining that the prospects of a truce with Russia are affecting the combat spirit of rank-and-file soldiers. They say that soldiers have no wish to die on the eve of a truce. It is now much more difficult to order soldiers to advance on this or that position; they are more likely than ever, instead, to sabotage any orders placing themselves in danger.
Against this background, television channels in Ukraine are stepping up their bellicose rhetoric. Ukrainian military ‘experts’ now appear regularly, talking of an ‘eternal and existential’ war with Russia to be passed along to the succeeding generations.
Legislator Oleksandr Dubinsky wrote on telegram on March 17 that, in fact, the Ukraine government has no choice but to “agree to everything” the Western countries place before it. He writes, “The war is over. Now we see pitiful requests to extend it a little. But the bottom line is already clear to everyone: ‘enough!’ Verbal games are being played solely to somehow save face.”
Dubinsky wrote on Telegram on the same day, “It is completely wrong to assume that a truce of 30 or more days is beneficial to Ukraine. The fatigue of the war is such that the army will simply run away or at least a very significant part will do so. That’s because due to his greed and stupidity, Zelensky has not provided soldiers with rotation and rest during the past three years.”
Ukrainian serviceman Alexander told the Spanish daily El Pais on March 15 that, in his view, Ukraine has suffered a military defeat due to its large number of losses. “In fact, we have already lost this war – simply because of all the dead.”
In an interview for the Ukrainian online publication Strana in mid-March, military expert and historian Colonel Markus Reisner of the Austrian General Staff said that the exhaustion of the Ukrainian army is producing a cumulative effect due to the accumulation of problems. “The cumulative effect is playing out. One second, the enemy enters your position; seconds later, he has already moved beyond you and, ‘oh no, he is now in Lviv [in western Ukraine].'”
Reisner continued, “As we have already said, one of the most serious problems of the Ukrainian army is the lack of soldiers. The front line is being constantly stretched. The Russians, as my Ukrainian colleagues say, behave like water: they penetrate through any unprotected place. At some point, they may end up behind you, with the remaining options being to retreat in an orderly manner or to run away.”
Reisner summarizes the dilemma facing the warmaking governments of the European Union: “In my opinion, we are still not entirely honest in the West. Someone has to say to the Europeans, ‘Listen, we agreed that we will help the Ukrainians. But the 16th package of sanctions against Russia did not produce the desired effect. All the tanks and so much more that we supplied did not stop the Russians. Let’s now try this option: We will take money from funds to combat climate change and from social security payments and use this to produce more shells for Ukrainians and ourselves.’ I am not sure that the peoples of Europe will react to this with shouts of ‘Hurrah!'”
He continues, “Western help is the center of gravity for Ukrainians. Why? Because Ukraine cannot independently restore the strength to wage war.”
The Austrian colonel also admits that it is the system of privatized military production that prevents the West from catching up with the Russian defense industry. “The defense industry [in the West] is made up of private companies that all want to earn a lot of money. In Russia, with its state-guided military industries, an artillery shell costs about 800-1200 euros. In Europe, the price ranges from 8,000 to 10,000 euros. Companies say ‘we can supply, but it will be very costly.'”
Reisner believes that if the European governments do not provide Ukraine with any positive prospects, this could lead to the next government in Ukraine to accept re-establishing normal relations with the Russian Federation resembling those that prevailed before the 2013-14 Maidan coup and the far-right paramilitary forces spearheading it. In fact, Western governments are well aware of the rising mood in Ukrainian society for peace with Russia, but they are ready to sacrifice the entire country so that the anti-Russian and anti-communist regime in Kiev may remain in power for just a little while longer.
Former Ukrainian legislator and nationalist Igor Mosiychuk demands that a truce be signed immediately since, according to him, this is what the people of the country are now demanding. Otherwise, in his opinion, a political explosion could occur, leading to a loss of statehood and of the very viability of the country. “This [truce] currently corresponds to the aspirations of the Ukrainian people and to the human, and military and geopolitical interests of the country. If war continues, it will inevitably lead to further losses of territory,” the nationalist warns.
Ukrainian political scientist Ruslan Bortnik says that peace may arrive quite suddenly, “like a heart attack or a stroke. But it will be a heart attack or stroke to our political system, not to those of others.”
“We can negotiate, we can express our remarks, we can give beautiful interviews to all kinds of publications where we will repeat our demands to Moscow. But we will not be able to resist the combined pressure of Moscow and Washington.”
The Ukrainian leadership is well aware of this fact. Its movements in the turbulent times ahead will be chaotic and unpredictable, like the thrashings of a cornered rat that has already played its role.
Dmitri Kovalevich
Dmitri Kovalevich is a Ukrainian Communist, member of the organization Borotba. He is the special correspondent in Ukraine for Al Mayadeen English.
