The most unpredictable Ukrainian politics in the entire post-Soviet space left its main sensation, like a cherry on the Kiev political cake, at the end of the year.
During the more than five-hour press marathon "30 Questions for the President of Ukraine", with which he marked half of his presidential term, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported a mega-sensation: a coup d'etat is brewing in the country.
The President even named its exact date - December 1.
According to the head of the Ukrainian state, he received audio recordings of negotiations between certain representatives of Russia and Ukraine, planning to remove him from power on the first day of winter.
According to him, the unnamed conspirators intend to draw the main Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov into this story and spend a lump sum of one billion to overthrow the president.
Moreover, one billion dollars, not hryvnia.
What will be the role of the richest man in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky did not specify.
It also remains unclear whether this billion is really for the president's head, is it not a virtual billion and who, to whom and how will pay it.
Will it be Rinat Akhmetov, who will fork out and become a sponsor of the elimination of the head of state?
After all, it also maintains TV channels and the Shakhtar football club, which plays in European competitions.
Be that as it may, the news that a coup is being prepared in Ukraine blew up the information space, brought down the shares of the largest Ukrainian companies on the London Stock Exchange and caused an avalanche of comments that multiply every day describing scenarios for the overthrow of the president.
Among others, a version appeared that the country was being prepared for the introduction of martial law, which Vladimir Zelensky himself could agree to.
Washington, where Vladimir Zelensky visited this summer, also reacted.
“I am concerned,” said US President Joe Biden, making it clear that he is aware and is closely monitoring the situation.
And then, as they say, it started.
It was decided to urgently discuss the topic of the Ukrainian coup at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Riga in the presence of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who went on a tour of Europe.
Against this background, American commentators, who most likely first learned about the existence of Rinat Akhmetov, but who knew exactly who Vladimir Putin was, vied with each other about the fact that the Russian president was actually going to overthrow Vladimir Zelensky on December 1.
Who else?
The refutation of Rinat Akhmetov himself, who called the report about his alleged participation in the coup d'etat a lie, did not in the least calm the passions in Kiev.
Acting and retired politicians, diplomats, public figures, journalists these days got a unique opportunity to remind about themselves and speculate on a fascinating topic that is winning for their own PR: “I and the coup” (option: “The coup and me”).
After Volodymyr Zelensky's press conference, members of his team and political associates made every effort to ensure that interest in the topic of the upcoming Ukrainian coup would not fade away until December 1 and, moreover, would persist for a long time, if, waking up on December 2, the country discovers that its president is all also Zelensky, and not someone else.
After all, in the end, the date of the coup can be shifted by providing new details, naming new names, passwords, turnouts (Rinat Akhmetov alone is somehow not enough) and maintaining tension in society and the interest of Western allies and sponsors as much as necessary.
Just what is the version of the planned murder of journalist Yuri Butusov, who recently demonstrated on social networks how to shoot from a howitzer at civilians in Donbass, and now he must become a kind of sacred victim capable of provoking a national uprising.
As it turns out, there are two main alternative versions of how Volodymyr Zelensky’s rule can end ahead of schedule, which do not allow concluding what kind of Ukrainian coup it is.
According to one version, the coup will have an internal nature - it is based on a conflict between various competing groups of the Ukrainian political and business elite.
That is, on the one hand, there is the president and those who are already built into his vertical structure that was built in two and a half years (“collective Zelensky”), on the other hand, there are those who are not built into it or have fallen out of it (“collective Akhmetov ").
And this "collective Akhmetov" with a conditional billion dollars in his pocket (a beautiful figure illustrating that there are serious people behind it) is supposedly preparing to shake the "collective Zelensky" in order to bring down the current vertical in one way or another, which many in the country are unhappy with (rating Vladimir Zelensky has dropped from the original 70% to 20% today).
The second version assumes that the coup in Ukraine will be the result of external interference (guess which country). That is, it is a new modernized version of the theme of the “hand of Moscow”, which opens up new facets to the Ukrainian audience every day. Speaking this week about the upcoming coup, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba eventually slipped into his usual theme of a hybrid war against Ukraine and the impending Russian invasion of the country - "an offensive operation that will be accompanied by actions to destabilize the situation within our state." And all this, let's not forget, should happen on December 1!
Meanwhile, the story about the coup in Ukraine, which surfaced in a matter of months after the magnificent celebration of the 30th anniversary of the independent Ukrainian state, makes you think again about where this state is in development, how its power is arranged and the mechanisms of its change.
In the modern world, dozens of coups have taken place and are still taking place, but for the most part all of them are satellites of the states of the Afro-Asian world (in Europe, the times of the "black colonels" in Greece and the Franco dictatorship in Spain are long gone).
So, speaking about a coup, admitting its very possibility, Volodymyr Zelenskyy thereby refutes himself, taking into account his many times repeated mantra that “Ukraine is Europe”.
No, it turns out that no Ukraine is Europe, but Asia or Africa in terms of its political culture.
However, how realistic is this in relation to Ukraine?
The success of any coup depends on whether people in uniform are ready to support it: the army, special services, security forces, how decisive and consolidated they will be.
Will they be able to quickly take the country with iron gloves or steel hands with velvet gloves?
The experience of the Third World (Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia) shows: in certain states, the army at a certain moment can enter the scene in order to become the guarantor of the stability of the state, which the civil administration has failed to control.
She does not always succeed.
A good example is the failed military coup in Turkey.
In the post-Soviet space last year, the topic of a military coup in Armenia was quickly blown away, and in neighboring Azerbaijan, in the troubled times of the early 1990s, almost three decades ago, I remember that Colonel Suret Huseynov tried to carry out his failed coup.
However, are there “people in uniform” in Ukraine who will take responsibility for running the country, and who will command them - is it really Rinat Akhmetov?
An unexpected combination.
The theme of the Ukrainian coup every day looks more and more operetta, pop, replete with numerous inconsistencies and absurdities.
No, real revolutions in the world are not done like that.
This is some kind of Ukrainian oversight.
But then why all this, except for the continuation of the information war with Russia?
In order to shout "The country is in danger!"
I just want to understand what he did for Ukraine and for what she can still value him.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.