Ukraine 2.0: Where is the Ukrainian opposition heading and who is going to take the lead?
Mind Intelligence analyses what is going to come about in Ukraine's politics after the war and how actors opposing the ruling team can come into the spotlight
Russia's offensive against Ukraine forced Ukrainian politicians to unite for a certain (rather short) time to confront the common enemy. But the war reality does not eliminate the organic processes that continue to unfold in the government, inner circles, and special interest groups seeking to (re)gain this power.
The architecture of the Ukrainian establishment is experiencing tectonic changes which to some extent are even fueled by the war. Despite the seemingly wide support of the ruling political force and President Volodymyr Zelensky personally, groups in opposition to the current government are preparing the ground for seizing important positions in the post-war period.
Mind Intelligence presents an analysis of Ukrainian anti-government trends unfolding in the historical context, as well as a forecast of what the configuration of the Ukrainian opposition and government will be like after the war.
On the crucial role of the opposition in a democratic country
Every advanced democratic country has a well-developed institution of political opposition. This is an undeniable axiom. Not only is the opposition an integral part of a democratic political regime, but also one of the key machineries that ensure progress of democratic processes, keeping the state from sliding into the abyss of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
The unpleasant news for the authorities is that support for the opposition and its chances for victory do not always depend on rational factors. We are used to understanding the situation in a rather simplified way – the opposition grows stronger when the current government fails to implement the tasks assigned to it, nor does it meet the expectations of citizens.
Another conclusion naturally follows from this statement: an effective government that is guided by the priorities of society and fulfils its key tasks will have a guaranteed vote of confidence from the citizens. However, this rule does not always work. History knows a lot of examples when the opposition came to power even though the ruling political group's performance had been exceptionally efficient. This may be due to several factors:
First, a democratic society does not favour routine and sometimes needs change for the sake of change. This also applies to the political realm. Even those political elites who brought the country to a new quality level of growth can begin to bore the public. Time always plays against the authorities.
Second, its natural tendency to be closed in itself, always plays against the government (even the most effective one). After a few years in power, ruling teams become absolutely insulated, keeping new politicians and pressure groups out. There are, of course, individual cases, but the general trend is that the top of the ruling political faction becomes too conservative over time, focusing on preserving its own positions and influence. It perceives new elements as competitors and a threat to itself.
Political processes are, instead, quite dynamic, and new players and special interest groups regularly appear on the political landscape, willing to have access to power as well. In this situation, the opposition acts as an alternative elevator to the highest offices and areas of influence. Those who are unable to get to power through the ruling political group will look for alternative channels, so in most cases they end up in opposition groups. The more closed the power is for new politicians (usually young and vigorous) and pressure groups (quite often, those that grow rapidly and aggressively), the more the latter will accumulate in the opposition niche. This considerably strengthens opposition groups.
Third, the opposition always has a larger arsenal of tools available for the struggle for public support. The government is bound by reality, the imperfection of its own institutions in particular. Each government's failure immediately has certain consequences that are visible and tangible. The opposition, on the other hand, has a wide scope for creativity, although they can solve most problems only in theory. Even if the opposition comes up with absurd solutions, society will not feel any real consequences.
Like it or not, democratic countries are destined to have the opposition gain power from time to time, no matter how exceptionally effective and brilliantly honest the ruling group is.
This does not need to be resisted, it just needs to be accepted, especially by governing political elites. In principle, this thesis seems trivial and clear, but in practice, especially in immature democracies, when you get into power, the temptation to change the natural course of political process becomes too strong.
On the opposition mindset of Ukrainian society
Since Ukrainian society has a rather limited experience of its own statehood in the realm of history, it has not yet reached the level of development typical for Western civil societies. Nevertheless, Ukrainian society is undoubtedly democratic and pluralistic in its core.
Recent history has shown quite clearly that neither Ukrainian society, nor political elites (and even oligarchic elites) tolerate authoritarianism and monopoly on truth. They neither idolise power, nor fear it. What is most relevant, that Ukrainian society has one more critical feature – the ability to actively defend their own views and beliefs.
All these factors form the a priori critical attitude to the government as a political institution within Ukrainian society. And if the representatives of the government are completed with low competence, make serious blunders in their work, while being too involved in corruption schemes, the degree of discontent begins to skyrocket, becoming a powerful political protest that is impossible to stop.
Volodymyr Zelensky's present political team was moving in this same direction, though not as fast as its forerunners. Critical sentiment against it began to rise long before the outbreak of the war. The main reasons were accusations of corruption against its key members.
Some opposition forces also tried to promote the theme of exceptionally poor competence of this political actor, but this trend did not go mainstream. Despite great failures, the current political team also had great achievements, especially in the areas of infrastructure projects and digitalisation.
Most of these achievements were reduced to zero, quite unfairly, after the outbreak of the russian aggression by a rather ambiguous thesis – the government had not been working on what was actually most important.
We cannot agree that it was not necessary to engage in infrastructure modernisation or digitalisation projects, but as a matter of fact, the government had obviously not paid sufficient attention and allocated resources to strengthening the country's defence capabilities.
Today, there is a popular claim that if the Ukrainian government had spent most of its efforts on preparing for the war instead of building highways, its course would have been much less tragic. This context will probably remain forever.
Over the course of the war, Zelensky's team has already distinguished itself with both significant achievements and serious miscalculations. The achievements of the president's team, notably in the international arena, are no doubt outstanding. However, the specifics of Ukrainian society (like any other) is that its attention is much more focused on the mistakes rather than on the achievements of the authorities.
The situation was significantly aggravated for the current political team by the fact that they found themselves in the situations that are extremely painfully and negatively accepted by the society in the circumstance of war. First of all, it is about possible ties with the enemy and accusations of plundering public funds in such a hard time, when it seems that even the greediest corrupt officials should have put aside their odious business and helped the war effort.
In this situation, it is important to pay attention to certain hidden public attitudes and opinions that were identified through qualitative and quantitative research methods carried out within the framework of the Mind Intelligence project. We deliberately avoid citing concrete indicators, since it is impossible to cover the entire territory of Ukraine in the current circumstance; but we draw attention to the most relevant facts and trends that are happening now.
First, their results show that Ukrainian society has a rather differentiated approach to assessing the merits of the state in the war with russia. The vast majority of Ukrainians associate military victories with the high professionalism of the Armed Forces and, above all, their commanding officers, not the government as a whole, let alone Zelensky's team. Reports of constant quarrels between the president's milieu and the Army Command only reinforce such sentiment.
It is hard to completely agree with this opinion, as military and financial assistance from international partners is one of the crucial factors that, among other things, ensure victories at the battlefront. The achievements of the Zelensky team in consolidating the efforts of Ukraine's partners to support Ukraine cannot and should not be denied. However, society sees the situation from this perspective.
Second, the society distinguishes quite clearly between the performance of Volodymyr Zelensky and his staff. The bulk of citizens positively rate the activities of the President, but are very critical of key figures from his entourage. The latter are indeed regularly involved in annoying incidents, have very suspicious backgrounds and often declare inappropriate things, revealing their low expertise.
The presidential team drags the level of his public support down, but he does not have any other.
The fault in this situation falls definitely on Zelensky himself. The problem, however, is not that dubious people have joined his team (every political team faces this issue), but that he has not done enough to clean them up or at least justify them.
The president simply ignores most of the incidents involving members of his team, hoping that the public will simply forget about them after the war. This is his fatal mistake. The case of Petro Poroshenko's presidency shows that society will remember.
The most striking thing is that instead of purging his inner circle of the most compromised persons, Zelensky decided to take responsibility for them, making it clear that they are members of his team. The effects of this policy are predictable. Since there is such a strong and close relationship between the president and his entourage, it should be understood that Zelensky is "in the know" about the key corrupt practices, in which members of his team are involved. It is this way the society will understand it, and it will be hard to blame him for inadequate assessment of the situation.
Third, a significant part of the society sincerely supports and welcomes the President's efforts during the war, but this does not mean they would entrust the current political team with the task of rebuilding the country. To put it simply: there are plenty of citizens in society who believe that Zelensky cannot be replaced in times of war (and under such conditions he has their heartfelt support), but he will not be capable of organising a quick and efficient recovery of the state, which requires managing enormous financial flows.
Indeed, charisma, energy and communication skills allowed him to do what seemed impossible – to consolidate almost the entire civilised world to support Ukraine. No other Ukrainian politician would probably have been able to accomplish this task so effectively.
Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the state is first and foremost about effective economic management and fighting corruption. The authorities should take the most efficient advantage of the available funds (which will be very limited) and suppress the desire of political and business clans to even dream of making money on such projects in a dishonest way at the very beginning. And here certain doubts arise, especially in the context of recent corruption scandals involving those individuals from the President's environment who should be in charge of these areas of public policy in the future.
Fourth, the war is undoubtedly the key factor that ensures broad support for the authorities so far. It naturally consolidates society around the government and mitigates internal contradictions. However, it should be clearly understood that the war does not eliminate anti-government attitudes, only temporarily conceals them. The vast majority of opposition politicians, oligarchs and other people of influence do not want to shake up the situation and demonstrate maximum support for the government and consolidation in the face of russian aggression.
At the same time, the desire not to interfere with the authorities during the war does not indicate that the society fervently supports the present political team. To a greater extent, it indicates the maturity of society and its political elites. After the war is over, this restriction will be lifted with opposition sentiment coming out of the shadows again. And it may turn out that they have become even more radical.
Fifth, the government has de facto monopolised the media sphere, which somewhat distorts the real picture of public sentiment, even if it was not its deliberate intention. Media managers that are loyal to the authorities do a priori generate and will generate a flow of exclusively comfortable and pleasant information for them. It actually does not show any opposition moods, or at least public dissatisfaction with certain situations.
Pro-government media managers, while playing along with the authorities, intentionally or unintentionally, ignore very important topics that are quite painful and vulnerable for the society. However, even in the conditions of war, citizens expect answers and explanations on many issues, especially those related to corruption. Their silence in the media sphere allows to hide public discontent, but it does not disappear. As soon as the media sphere returns to its normal state of being, that is objectivity and pluralism of opinions, this idyll will vanish and it will turn out that the society has very serious claims to the government.
Apart from the above factors that determine the opposition sentiment in the society, there is one more very important factor that strengthens these trends: the closure of the authorities for new political actors. There are already plenty of these, and much more will be after the war. It is not only about new politicians and new pressure groups, but also about completely new persons who previously did not have as much weight as they have now.
These are primarily members of the military, civilian volunteer movement and regional elites, as well as representatives of Western political elites and business circles. All of them have significantly strengthened their positions in Ukraine during the war. That new interest groups and new social groups with dynamically growing importance and role seek to expand their political influence in the country is an absolutely natural process, which will be accompanied by their desire to get into the top bodies of power (or their agents – in the normal sense of the word).
The incumbent political team has chosen the worst possible tactics. It has virtually monopolised access to power. Three people in the government exert full control on the manpower policy in the country. While personnel replacements are reduced to the rotation of the same individuals or to pulling up people from their own environment. The entrance for others is completely blocked. No new political force or special interest group has a chance to reach power.
Such a situation results in that the absolute majority of new persons seeking power are forced to look for ways to achieve it through the development of opposition projects. They will certainly find themselves in this segment and will strive to remove Zelensky's team from office after the end of the war. This is undoubtedly a fairly powerful force that will institutionally strengthen the opposition.
We can generally state that opposition sentiment will dominate in Ukraine after the war and the opposition community will favour its representatives' bids to compete for power. Many influential people will no doubt notice these opportunities and try to employ them.
The collapse of the traditional configuration of the Ukrainian opposition
The configuration of opposition, to which Ukraine has become accustomed in recent years, has been completely dismantled as a result of the war. Key opposition figures have lost their positions.
The pro-Russian phalanx of Ukrainian politics has no chance of recovery.
The key group that was ideologically opposed to Zelensky's team, the Opposition Platform for Life (OPZZh), has now turned out to be its informal tactical ally.
Of note at once, when speaking about the opposition of the OPZZh, we do not take into account tactical cooperation of some of its members with the Office of the President (OP), namely in business affairs, which certainly took place before the war. As for the strategy, before the war, the OPZZh was radically opposed to the pro-European course of the current political team and their unwillingness to compromise with the kremlin (again, it is about the strategic political direction of the Zelensky team, not the views of particular members of the president's entourage).
Part of the former Opposition Platform for Life has always had only pragmatic interests and ended up in this bloc only because it was an opportunity to get into parliament to pursue their own interests. After the launch of the russian aggression, members of this camp, apparently, honestly sided with the authorities. This will not save them from political retribution for the past, but we can hope that they did not work for the enemy at least during the war.
The other part of the bloc has always been ideological and operational agents of the russian federation. Some of them fled the country, others began to cooperate with the authorities, wanting to avoid responsibility (it is not about political, but criminal responsibility at this point). No doubt, the OP has the levers that help to keep this part of the former OPZZh under control, especially the ones associated with Viktor Medvedchuk. This approach seems absolutely rational and reasonable during the war, although it is unacceptable for many citizens.
Internal conflicts in the OPZZh finally destroyed the only relatively powerful open pro-russian group. The political forces that have evolved from its remains, including the Platform for Life and Peace and the Restoration of Ukraine, will seek new niches (99% of them can be predicted to build their political ideology around Ukraine's neutrality), trying to pass themselves off as a constructive opposition. Although if in 2014–2021 they succeeded in such a trick, now the political elites who left the Party of Regions are very likely to go into political oblivion forever.
Generally, not just the remnants of the OPZZh, but any other pro-russian group has no prospects either. This is not because their electoral base will shrink to a minimum, but also because their main sponsor will change its strategy. It makes no sense for the rf to invest in the doomed political projects (and such will be every actor that tries to promote the "russian world" in Ukraine). Support for mass political movements will be replaced by support for specific individuals.
In this regard, russian political agents should be sought then in the most pro-European political projects or directly in the government.
Rather vague prospects has a political group from the other end of Ukraine's political phalanx, European Solidarity, which has been moving towards a major opposition force of national democratic orientation (though, with pronounced nationalist elements) in recent years. Now it plays a rather important role and is the only alternative for the incumbent ruling team.
New projects, however, will emerge in this segment after the war, being too difficult for the ES to compete with them. Despite the fact that Poroshenko is a very experienced politician whose presidency has certainly left a positive mark in the history of Ukraine, corruption scandals and rather dubious partnerships with odious individuals will significantly worsen the chances of the ES to compete with new and untainted political groups in this segment.
Poroshenko is currently looking for options on how to stay in the premier league of Ukrainian politics after the war, including actively trying to establish contact with the military community. He tries to achieve this through the support of civil volunteer movements that help the army. Moreover, his information wing is actively working to popularise concrete military figures.
Sources from Poroshenko's circles claim that there are currently no specific projects of political cooperation with the military. Only a strong desire. The biggest ambition of the former president is a political alliance with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhny, but the latter currently refrains from contacts with politicians.
Poroshenko, however, communicates and has good relations with the servicemen (including members of Valeriy Zaluzhny's entourage), who, notwithstanding the war that continues, begin to somewhat think over their future career.
It should be generally noted that Western views on military careers have been recently gaining popularity among the Ukrainian military (which is undoubtedly a consequence of their close contacts with colleagues from the Western world).
In Soviet times and in the post-Soviet space, military service was seen mainly as a lifelong stamp (both in good and bad senses of the word). Having finished his service, a person in most cases retires. He has no prospects in politics. In Western countries, on the contrary, military service is a very good start and background for developing a career in the expert community, politics and civil service. This approach seems to be much more useful.
However, Poroshenko wants a political alliance with the military more than the military themselves (except for some people from this community who want to use the EU for their own political careers). That they use Poroshenko's aid in some issues does not mean they have agreed for close cooperation with him and promised anything. As for now, the military accept any help.
Sources in the EU say that there are discussions within the party (or rather, certain factions of the party) on various possible scenarios of cooperation with the military at the general strategic level.
One of the key ideas is to give the military a significant quota of seats in the party list (30 to 50%).
The question remains whether the military will be invited on individual terms (i.e. representing only themselves) or whether Poroshenko will be able to form a genuine political alliance with them as a powerful socio-political group. This issue will be resolved after the end of the war, but the first option seems much more realistic than the second.
Yuliya Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna ('Fatherland') party which also declared its opposition to Zelensky's team before the war, has quite low chances of staying on the top of the political stardom. Batkivshchyna simply dropped out of public political life during the war. Batkivshchyna and Tymoshenko personally failed to find their niche in this period.
This is partly due to objective factors. The party does not have significant resources. Its access to the media sphere is blocked as well. Members of this political unit are, in fact, quite active, trying to help in various projects. At least some of them are rather important and useful, although their scale is naturally not conformable to the activities of larger political groups.
Persons associated with this party claim: Yuliya Tymoshenko is aware that she is losing the fight for her place in the sun after the war. However, she is trying to find a new party strategy. Several options are being considered: the party of the countryside, the party of small and medium business, the party of reconstruction of the state. At the same time, Batkivshchyna has no chance to become a powerful opposition force that can champion for power in any configuration.
What the new configuration of the Ukrainian opposition will be like
After the war, the opposition niche in Ukraine will be quite wide. Many politicians will try to occupy key positions there in order to gain power in a period of historical achievements, large-scale projects and, of course, large public procurement. So far, it is quite hard to farecast which specific political projects will gain popularity, though crystallising of the basis for the new configuration of the Ukrainian opposition can already be seen.
Forecasts that political groups associated with the military could become the key opposition force to Zelensky's team after the war are not probable. Representatives of this community are quite critical of the very concept of "opposition."
Some of them believe that members of the military have to be present in power permanently, because Ukraine will always be in danger of new acts of aggression from the russian federation. Moreover, they are now dominated by the conviction that a person from the military community should be the next president of the country.
It is also quite clear that the military does not want to be a political opposition to the current government. They expect that the political elites and general society would conclude that certain sectors of public administration should come under the control of the army. This should happen naturally and without conflict. In doing this, they count on elections to strengthen their political positions.
In other words, the political and military elites must eventually come to some kind of compromise in the distribution of power and influence in the country. They will not be in opposition to each other, but rather partners. Representatives of military circles in power will be engaged in strengthening the state's defence capabilities, while traditional political elites will focus on rebuilding the state. In this regard, the military community is unlikely to become a massive source of movements after the war.
From our point of view, Zelensky's team should expect the emergence of such movements, first of all, among regional political elites. Representatives of the latter have experienced problems in communication with the current ruling team most of all. Relations between the centre and the regions have always been quite complicated, and they deteriorated further during the war, although this is not visible in public.
In some cases, some personal grievances played a key role in this; but the most common reason, of course, is that the central government does not respond quickly and effectively enough to the challenges of the regions, from the standpoint of members of regional governments.
Some contradictions have resulted in nearly public conflicts, but the vast majority of regional political elites still try to avoid open debates with the central authorities in order not to destabilise the situation.
They do not reveal their dissatisfaction with the centre's work and will keep the appearance of their loyalty until the end of the war. But after the war ends, a lot of things will come out into the open.
It should be noted that given rather difficult relations with the centre, regional elites were able to establish very close ties with one another. They solve many issues through direct communication with colleagues from other regions of the country, bypassing the central government. It is no secret that today mayors of the largest cities have established sincere friendly relations among each other.
All these factors lead to consolidation and integration of the regional political elites’ sphere. From this very sphere one or more political projects will emerge to be the real and very strong opposition after the war.
But for all that, based on many talks with representatives of local governments, we can argue that they will be in opposition less to directly Zelensky's team (though this will also be the case), than to the overly centralised model of public administration in Ukraine.
The war has shown quite clearly that there is a list of important tasks that will be much more effectively addressed at the level of local self-government or province state administrations than at the central government level.
Pro-European political groups will be quite influential players in the opposition field. However, it should be noted quite clearly that this means not the political projects declaring pro-European slogans, but those that will be supported by the European Union.
Most Ukrainian experts and politicians are not fully aware that integration into the EU means not only economic integration, but also a significant increase in the influence of European political and business groups in the country. The EU has a set of supranational (and transnational) pressure groups that rapidly penetrate the politics of the new members of the European community. They have their own ideological and pragmatic interests.
In relation to third partners this class of politicians relies on using the network of non-governmental social organisations and instruments of influencing specific government agencies. Instead, when a state becomes a full member of the EU, quite close integration occurs at the political level.
It is highly likely that powerful national parties will appear in Ukraine under the umbrella of pan-European parties. For them, the opposition niche is often more comfortable (this is to a greater extent a feature of the political culture of Western democracies).
Anyway, based on the experience of other EU countries, we can predict that the Ukrainian ruling team will face such a phenomenon. It will be quite positive for the state as a whole. The European-style opposition is a very effective tool for controlling the performance of the authorities.
Political projects that will be funded and promoted with the support of oligarchs will try to occupy a certain part of the opposition niche. The latter have no choice other than actively trying to get into power. Most of them will simply not be able to preserve their business conglomerates without the help of the state.
Ukraine is, unfortunately, dominated by a rather populist approach to the role of such business conglomerates. Thus, their emergence and development were accompanied by a set of problems for the state. However, they are the basis of the national economy, which should be approached very carefully.
It is especially important that despite all their shortcomings oligarchial business conglomerates are the only effective lobbyists of the national producer’s interests.
There is no secret that this efficiency is actually built on their close integration with the government. In this regard, getting such political projects to the parliament will not be a drama, but provided that their influence will have certain limits.
This thesis will provoke mass rejection, but it reflects the objective reality. The point is that Ukraine's active integration in the international economy will lead to powerful international transnational corporations coming to the country. Believing that they will keep off the government and will not interfere in Ukraine's policy-making is the result of either excessive naivety, or absolute lack of awareness of how such corporations operate in other developing countries.
In this regard, the Ukrainian authorities will either have to completely seal themselves off from the influence of big business (both oligarchs and MNCs), or maintain a delicate equilibrium. The first option seems absolutely unrealistic, so it is worth looking for effective solutions within the second approach.
As of now, it is difficult to predict, in which specific political projects Ukrainian oligarchs will invest. Now each of them has several favourites around which to build promising projects. After the end of the war, they will also certainly try to attract some quite popular personalities to their teams.
It is highly likely that oligarchial political projects will be anti-government only because such an environment gives them more chances to get into parliament. Such movements will promote a beautiful alternative course for the state to gain electoral support, rather than wage a real political struggle with Zelensky's team. Once in parliament, these actors will certainly seek formal or informal cooperation with the government.
After the war, Ukraine will have a completely different configuration of political opposition. There is already confidence that it will be much more constructive and effective than the previous model. This should contribute to the Ukrainian government in becoming more competent and effective, which, in fact, is the essence of the opposition in democratic countries.
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