Preparations for the overthrow of Petro Poroshenko are in full swing in Kiev. The listless political campaign that made no headway around the theme of early parliamentary elections for the last six months, has congealed into "Azov" Nazi demonstrations, while trade unions are unhappy with the sudden fall in living standards.
The explosion of Alyona Pritula's car, killing journalist Pavel Sheremet, triggered a media campaign reporting that the police were "illegally watching" him....
The attack on the Cross Procession for Peace, organized by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, could provoke Nazi-led street riots. Two sections of the Cross Procession are headed to Kiev from different directions - from the Svyatogorsky Monastery in the East and the Pochaevsky Monastery from the West.
Opponents of the Kiev government believe the Cross Procession could gather up to 1,5 million on the streets of Kiev. Even if this figure is exaggerated, dozens or even hundreds of thousands of Orthodox anti-fasсists agitating against war are the legal political alternative to the regime that tried to avoid its appearance by prohibiting the tame Communist Party of Ukraine, shutting down the opposition mass media and expanding repression against active anti-fascists.
Poroshenko still can try to use the Orthodox card by supporting peace initiatives, using the Cross Procession as a cover against the radicals and trying to oppose them to the rest of society. But the nationalist radicals can't allow their organized alternative to appear in the official political space.
Attempts to protect the Cross Procession with the help of national security will lead to a split, since many police supported the Nazis previously, and after two years of purges have become a majority. Moreover, clashes between the Nazis and national security (possibly with the use of weapons) will weaken the regime. It doesn't matter who wins in this confrontation, the regime will lose because it needs both sides.
Finally, it is possible that Poroshenko's attempt to defend the "Moscow popes" from the "patriots" will be used as proof of his "treason". After that, the anti-Orthodox anger of the Nazi street will be easy to channel towards the President.
Petro Poroshenko is hated by the people because their living standards are falling, by the Nazis because he is a tycoon and the son of a Jew, by his oligarch colleagues because he still controls what is left of the country's financial resources.
Just two years after "presidential elections" his rating oscillates between two and five percent. The next Ukrainian president may not be elected, not to mention that Ukraine will not be able to count on international legitimization of the next "people's hero", who removes the "bloody tyrant".
The overthrow of Poroshenko will signal the transfer of Ukraine's collapse from the latent phase, when Ukraine's regions are trying to ignore Kiev, to the active one.
P.S. At the time of publishing it became known that the Interior Ministry had blocked the Cross Procession from entering Kiev.
The author is President of the Center for Systems Analysis and Forecasting. Formerly a prominent Ukrainian diplomat and political analyst, he was forced into emigration by the Maidan putsch Originally appeared at RIA Novosti. Translated by Olga Beskrovnova
Comment: More news on the Cross Procession from Voices from Russia: