Tycoons and Oligarchs: Russia,
Ukraine, NATO and the Warring Elites
It was 23 February 2022. By then, the Ukrainian elite knew that Russia’s military attack was imminent. Wealthy tycoons and politicians, including Secretary of National Security Council Oleksiy Danilov, already made accommodations to make sure their military-age sons would be out of the country. The only thing left was to prepare government agencies for war. There “was a huge meeting of Ukrainian tycoons with President Zelensky” and his cabinet on February 23, commented Taras Berezovets, a Ukrainian analyst and television host. “They all declared their readiness to” stand with the regime and therefore mobilize the rest of the population to fight for their cause. The Ukrainian elite was prepared to defend its interests at any cost, as did its allies from NATO and opponents in Moscow.
A year has passed since irreversible decisions were made. Hundreds of thousands of homes are destroyed, and tens of thousands of people lost their lives, but the warring parties are further than ever from ending this senseless hell. “Toward beautiful future, I am starting my way,” goes a popular Soviet song, making a painful reminder to the listener of the contrast between past expectations and present reality in the post-Soviet space. Once bonded together under the roof of the Soviet Union, representing the scientific and manufacturing core of the world’s second industrial power, with aspirations to overtake the capitalist West economically and in the space race, the people of Ukraine and Russia are now fighting each other in the most destructive conflict to hit Europe since the Second World War.
Every catastrophe has material preconditions, and the war in Ukraine is no exception. What motivates the Ukrainian elite to fight is something Russia had to learn the hard way, as its regime-change operation failed dramatically and metamorphosed into a full-scale war, with a front line over 1000 kilometers in length. While mobilizing the population and arming it with weapons and nationalistic opium, “Ukraine’s oligarchs have put aside both their differences with the government of Volodymyr Zelensky and any lingering pro-Russian sentiment to close ranks with the authorities in Kyiv,” reported Forbes on February 24.
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