Maria Popova 🇨🇦

Our book isn't straightforwardly about "war and peace", but about the regime and identity divergence between Ru and Ukraine, which Ru refuses to accept. We'll take the "hot new releases" label, though! Thanks, Amazon. @OxanaShevel @politybooks

Important context. What we're seeing is active Ukrainian civil society, political competition, and enough freedom that no one is afraid of pushing their cause and making themselves heard.

Also a reminder that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is a democracy with a strong civil society, despite all its problems. No such protests would be allowed for a second in Moscow.

Indeed. If Europeans tacitly conclude from this that Ukraine does not deserve to join the EU, the accession process will grind to a halt. Zelensky did so much to make Ukrainian EU accession plausible, it'll be tragic if he's the one to kill it.

There haven’t been any anti-Zelensky protests since the Russian full-scale invasion of 2022, as the Ukrainian society realized that to survive it must stay united. Today’s move, unless reversed, is likely to change that. Soldiers on the front are particularly infuriated.

This is it right here: Ukrainians are not fighting for NATO or for cookies or for “the empire”: they’re fighting to defend what they have built over the past decade.

Zelensky ignored the protests and signed the law. Fateful decision.

With Russian strikes continuing, Ukrainians are taking to the streets to protest attacks by the government on independent anticorruption agencies—some of the top accomplishments of post-Maidan reform. Ukrainians demand democracy and they deserve every ounce of our support.

OK, this is a massive blunder. NABU being full of FSB spies and being investigated (with arrests) should have been brought to the public's full attention (domestic and international) if there is proof of that before any of this was voted on or signed. Otherwise, there is…

"Yermak out!"

This is very important 2acknowledge. Rhetoric that these agencies "achieve nothing" is misguided & manipulative. Process 2bring top officials to justice is very long & NABU & SAP don't sentence - courts do that (not well). But NABU & SAP r key investigative bodies, & unless 1/n

This is what I would call "preemptive finger-pointing". The US hasn't even done anything yet but it is already complaining that Europe is not doing enough. It's a bad sign. It means sanctions are unlikely.

For the first time in 3-4 years, there may be an anti-government protest today in Kyiv.

The attack on Ukr anticorruption institutions suggests they were doing something right and moving against well-entrenched corruption networks in a serious way. Facade, controlled institutions don't get attacked. It's important now to capitalize on this success by protecting them.

"Don't sign it!!!" says Serhiy Prytula, one of Ukraine's biggest fundraisers for the military, a popular actor and someone thought to possibly be a political leader in a post-war Kyiv. He's filming outside parliament, where MPs passed the legislation today that could dismantle…

I've rarely seen Ukrainian society so uniformly furious about the actions of the government as they are about the passage of this bill. A major misjudgement of the public mood here.

"we're open to peace but insist on destroying you first" Enough talk. Defeat russia.

I woke up from explosions, moved to corridor with kids. Combined strike : shaheeds, missiles. Now explosion by explosion. Windows are shaking.