On the evening of March 20, supporters of the murderer Serhiy Sternenko, who was sentenced to a seven-year term, organized a protest at the walls of the office of the President of Ukraine on Bankova Street, in the very center of Kiev.
Along the way, the operation gained momentum and turned into a small pogrom, which outwardly looked impressive, but in fact, no serious damage was done to the building.
Firecrackers set fire to the doors and left all sorts of graffiti on the walls - from insults against Vladimir Zelensky and Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov and ending with obscenities.
After that, they demanded the release of Sternenko and dispersed as if nothing had happened.
Elimination of the consequences of the riot of nationalists will cost $ 72 thousand, the press service of the office announced.
The amount, frankly, is not fantastic.
At first glance, the actions of the authorities seem to be a demonstration of absolute weakness.
The police did not take any action to neutralize the unbelievable thugs and, it seems, even deliberately demonstratively kept aloof, dispassionately watching what was happening.
Meanwhile, the experience of similar protest events that took place quite recently showed that she has the strength and means to cordon off the territory around the perimeter, blocking access to the Protestants inside, she is also able to use force for mass arrests.
Subsequent comments from Zelensky's entourage showed that the authorities deliberately allowed radicals into the government quarter and were quite satisfied with the results of the action.
Nationalists demonstrated their insanity and barbaric nature to the city and the world.
This looks somewhat strange, since the tradition of pogroms, arson, and seizure of buildings in which state institutions are located was formed back on the Maidan.
Since then, it has not undergone any special changes.
So the guys did not report anything new about themselves.
It can be assumed that the goal of the ruling team was somewhat different: to show the inconsistency of the radicals, their inability and unwillingness to take power into their own hands.
After all, they could well, with provocative inaction of the police, break into the office itself and smash everything there, including reaching the office of Zelensky himself.
That would be a swing!
In this case, there would be reason to say that several hundred violently demented can easily overturn the entire current system of power and send the president himself to a landfill.
But no - they banged up, stained the walls, effectively burned down the doors and calmed down on that.
No one even thought to break into the building, although this is quite a common thing.
Nationalists are really not ready to seize power, because in this case it will hang in the air.
First, the radical camp itself is split and it is absolutely impossible to achieve consensus on the question of who will take the helm due to internal disagreements.
Secondly, despite the activism and the broken brakes, the movement itself is extremely small in number and does not have electoral support.
Having toppled Zelenskiy, they will have to hold early presidential and parliamentary elections in order to legitimize their position.
In this situation, the radicals would lose on all fronts.
Well, for a snack: the West would definitely not approve of the new "Maidan", although it is not completely satisfied with Zelensky, but on the whole he is regularly working out the anti-Russian nationalist agenda himself.
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And in how the card is laid down, there is another important aspect.
It is about the interception of the nationalist ideology by the ruling team.
Zelensky and co have long and quite organically fit into the course that they inherited from Petro Poroshenko.
But they were supposed to be nationalists against their will, because they are mortally afraid of the street and its "meaninglessness and ruthlessness."
The weekend showed that they are not afraid of anything, but want to draw a line of demarcation between good and bad nationalists.
The good ones are the authorities that do not arrange pogroms and let the bad ones express their protest in the most savage ways.
Which of the two actors should the West choose to serve the anti-Russian course?
The answer is obvious.
So Zelensky's shown inability to cope with several hundred crazy thugs is a kind of signal to Washington and Brussels: they say, choose - us or them.
And do it as soon as possible, before they crushed and burned those miserable remnants of Ukrainian statehood that can only be seen under a microscope.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.