“I want Ukraine to remain independent,” Mykola Makitenko wrote on Instagram, hours before she set herself on fire in Kiev’s central Maidan Square.
The 49-year-old died on October 14, October 14, three days after his violent protests in the center of the country’s capital, where months of anti-government protests took place in late 2013 and early 2014.
His daughter Yulia told reporters at a memorial service shortly after his death that he was protesting against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mikitenko, a veteran of the military conflict against Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine who has claimed more than 1,000,000 lives since its inception six years ago, said he was frustrated by the leader’s policy toward Moscow.
“He did it at night because he didn’t want others to get injured.” “Besides, he didn’t want anyone to stop him.”
Running on an anti-corruption ticket and promising to curb Oligarch’s power, Zelensky, a political apprentice who played the role of president on a television series, vowed to end the conflict with Russia in the East and improve relations with Moscow before 2019. Poroshenko.
But the former comedian’s popularity has waned as he has led the country, which sits directly on the side of the West’s stance with Russia, as he struggles to manage the coronavirus epidemic and revive its sprawling economy.
His approval rating was 46 percent in a national poll conducted by the highly respected rating group Think Tank earlier this month, while 51 percent said they did not trust him. However, this was more than many of its competitors.
Opponents of the Million દેશના Million country, in which a significant minority of the population, especially in cities and ized industrialized East use Russian as their first language, have accused them of leaning too close to the West.
Others have accused Zelensky, who was admitted to hospital with Kovid-19 earlier this month, of favoring Moscow.
“Winners always lose electoral support during the first year of power in Ukraine,” said Volodymyr Panyotto, director general of the Kiev International Institute for Sociology. He added that people have returned to traditional parties, which have amassed their resources against Zelensky.
This was demonstrated when the pro-Kremlin anti-Platform for Life party, led by Viktor Medvedev, a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, rallied in local elections last month.
“They lack his experience and use it against him,” said Oleksandr Danieluk, Ukraine’s former national security chief.
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Ukraine’s constitutional court has also condemned Zelensky’s popularity at home and abroad, outraged by the October 28 ruling.
Eleven of the 15 judges broke the mandatory asset register for public servants and removed some of the much-needed powers of the key national agency for prevention of corruption, or NAZK, which lost the right to verify the accuracy of information in officials’ declarations, as well as to conduct investigations at state agencies. Free access to the public for official advertisements was also made illegal.
The ruling also made it illegal to hold officers criminally liable for misrepresentation in their property declarations.
Activists claimed the ruling was part of a systematic effort by the court to crack down on anti-corruption organizations and drew attention to the fact that 47 pro-Russian lawmakers, including Medvedev, had been sued.
Questioning the decision a day after the verdict, Zelensky said Ukraine would lose the World Bank’s support by leaving a “big hole in the budget”.
On the same day, the European Union expressed its claim. In a statement, it said the court’s decision “calls into question the international commitments that Ukraine assumes in relation to its international partners, including the EU”.
Zelensky responded by reversing the verdict, dismissing constitutional court judges and introducing a bill for new appointments. But this was denied by his fellow legislators, including some members of his party’s ruling Servant. Some people accused him of power theft.
Instead, a bill has been introduced that would restore rules broken by the court. That is yet to be discussed.
Zelensky was also criticized for his lack of progress with Russia, although he said Ukraine was to make a deal in October 2019 to withdraw troops from major front-line areas in eastern Ukraine and had received prisoner exchanges in September and December 2019.
Calling it a success, he told NBC News last month that some of his rivals had claimed that the withdrawal would encourage attacks by Russian-backed forces. “Instead, there’s an ongoing ceasefire,” he said.
However, sporadic explorations of the fire on the 250-mile front line continue and about 14,000 ceasefires were broken between July and September 2020, according to a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
For people like Dmitro Filimonenko, a 25-year-old information technology expert from Kiev, Zelensky is making progress, albeit slowly.
“I voted for Zelensky because I expected a quick change,” he said. “He wants to do this. However, in a year, I understand that one person cannot change everything. ”
But for veterans, some of whom were physically trying to prevent Ukrainian soldiers from leaving the front-line, the withdrawal was seen as an act of imprisonment.
Mykitenko gave his life on the issue.
“He wanted to hear,” said his daughter Yulia.
