Pro-Russian activist arrested for planning “white balaclava” riots

A pro-Russian Ukrainian activist has been arrested as
part of an intelligence operation to disrupt a Kremlin project to provoke riots
during the Ukrainian elections, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed
on Feb. 19. Yevhen Morenets was named a suspect in charges of acting to
violently change or overthrow the constitutional order or seize state power,
SBU Deputy Head Viktor Kononenko told a Feb. 19 press briefing. Morenets posted
on the Internet videos from an organization referring to itself as the “white
balaclavas” that called for overthrowing the Ukrainian government. They
“pursued the goal of provoking or organizing mass protest activities
immediately following the first-round voting on March 31,” Kononenko said,
referring to the presidential elections. “Consider: the Russian Federation
planned for not recognizing the elections by ‘the people,’ calling for mass
gatherings, and making demands of the government that can’t be fulfilled,”
Kononenko said.

Morenets worked in close cooperation with Nikolai Dulskiy,
a pro-Russian Ukrainian activist currently operating from Russia to provoke
destabilization in Ukraine and recruit members to the white balaclava network,
Kononenko said. Its participants are planning to capture administrative
buildings in Ukraine’s regions, organize mass protests and engage in violent
street riots to radicalize society, he said. “In the view of Russian
intelligence services, a situation of ‘uncontrolled chaos’ should form in the
eyes of the West an image of Ukraine as a territory of anarchy … It will create
conditions for activating separatist tendencies in regions as the basis for
open military invasions by the Russian Armed Forces on Ukraine’s territory.”

Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry has opened two
elections-related criminal cases in response to complaints filed by the
presidential campaign of Yulia Tymoshenko, the candidate told a Feb. 19 press
briefing. These cases involve alleged vote-buying schemes implemented by the
Poroshenko re-election campaign and alleged falsification of voter registers to
enable fake voting. Tymoshenko claimed she has sources within Poroshenko’s
campaign who confirmed its goal of buying 6 million votes at UAH 1,000 each.
“Our goal is to fully halt the vote-buying and return the elections to an honest
democratic flow and we will achieve that,” she said. The Internal Affairs
Ministry has yet to issue a statement confirming whether these criminal cases
have been opened. The Poroshenko campaign has denied the accusations in the
past, accusing the Tymoshenko campaign of vote-buying.

Zenon Zawada: Tymoshenko’s
criminal complaints – regardless of whether they are justified – are already
laying the groundwork for elections-related turmoil that pro-Russian groups
like the “white balaclavas” will be ready to take advantage of. For months, we have been anticipating
the emergence of a Yellow Vest-style movement following the elections, and we
believe this arrest won’t necessarily prevent its emergence in April,
particularly in the streets of Russophile cities such as Kharkiv (Ukraine’s
second-largest) and Odesa (Ukraine’s third-largest). (We mentioned yesterday that the
popularity of Volodymyr Zelenskiy might undermine support for such riots in the
southeast.)

Tymoshenko will allege vote fraud, regardless of
whether she qualifies for the second-round runoff. She is incapable of
organizing mass protests among her supporters, who are largely marginalized and
destitute members of society. But we believe mass protests are possible (not
necessarily likely) after the second-round runoff (scheduled for April 21) if
the Tymoshenko and Zelenskiy campaigns combine their forces. (Zelenskiy’s
supporters are largely young and active members of society.)

If they do launch a mass protest genuinely
questioning the election results, they will have to distinguish themselves from
the pro-Russian forces aiming to stir riots, including the white balaclavas.
For this reason however, they might decide to avoid protests, even if polls are
currently showing that Poroshenko would easily lose a runoff to either
candidate. And the pro-Russian forces might riot regardless. There are numerous
scenarios of how the elections will unfold that are impossible to predict at
this point.