From ‚Democracy Deficit‘ to Mid-Range Authoritarianism in Zelenskiy’s Maidan Ukraine: Recent Devolutions

Introduction

Western media recently discovered to its ‘shock’ that Ukraine’s Maidan regime is something less than a democracy, though this should have been common knowledge and part of our discourse for years. Yet years ago I conjectured that Ukraine could overtake Russia in the level of its democracy deficit and creeping authoritarianization (https://gordonhahn.com/2021/12/03/is-zelenskiys-ukraine-on-the-path-of-putins-russia/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMAHFRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHjtbqlLMzNXvfkUCQLVlQRZlZbRLF9GjL42gvwSjkebXZOPsIeaI4Lu01aDZ_aem_XrT0avnRJAeuPkFgdkFOpA). Moreover, for years prior to that I documented Ukraine’s grave republicanism deficit, despite the Western majority’s firm conviction or propaganda ploy that Ukraine represented the next ‘beacon of democracy’ following in the footsteps of such dimmed beacons as Saakashvili’s Georgia, Iraq, post- Mossadeq Iran, post-Taliban Afghanistan and others past and present brought to us by way of color revolutions (https://gordonhahn.com/2015/08/05/americas-ukraine-policy-and-maidan-ukraines-war-crimes/; https://gordonhahn.com/2015/11/05/europes-new-terrorist-threat/; https://gordonhahn.com/2019/04/29/ukrainian-spring-or-maidan-constitutional-crisis/; https://gordonhahn.com/2020/04/07/report-the-new-terrorist-threat-ukrainian-ultra-nationalist-and-neo-fascist-terrorism-at-home-and-abroad/https://gordonhahn.com/2015/07/22/right-sector-and-the-impotence-of-ukraines-weimar-maidan-regime/; https://gordonhahn.com/2015/03/15/everyday-neo-fascism-in-ukraine/; https://gordonhahn.com/2018/10/18/report-post-soviet-language-wars-in-comparative-and-geopolitical-perspective-parts-1-and-2-complete/; and https://gordonhahn.com/2015/06/21/one-day-in-the-life-of-ukrainian-democracy/).

Today, there are few remnants of Ukraine’s nascent and long troubled post-Soviet republicanism. Ukraine is following the global trend of authoritarianization. The NATO-Russia Ukrainian War has extinguished almost all that remained of republican governance after the Maidan regime was established in 2014 and declared an anti-terrorist operation (ATO) against Donbass rebels without attempting to negotiate. But the handwriting was on the wall when the first act taken by the new regime was a ban on the Russian language, lifted under international pressure. Still, under the ATO regime, Maidan Ukraine’s army bombed ethnic Russians and Russophone civilians across the Donbass and organized terrorist pogroms in Odessa and Mariupol. It soon began to quash Russian language rights on a more incremental basis.

With Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s defeat of President Petro Poroshenko in the 2019 presidential election, the Maidan regime moved against political opponents, banning opposition parties and all independent media, and allowed neofascist and ultranationalist elements inside and outside the state apparatus to repress political opponents, Russophile elements, and other dissidents through violence, torture, and assassinations. Since the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’ (SVO), all these forms of repression and authoritarianism have intensified with abandon in Ukraine. It is not for nothing that Kiev mayor Vitaliy Klitschko recently repeated yet again his accusations against Zelenskiy‘s authoritarianism (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2025/05/31/7514968/). This article demonstrates the extent to which Ukraine has backslid on republican rule into its form of authoritarian rule marketed as ‘democracy’ to Western and other publics.

Repression of the Opposition and Dissidents

The Zelenskiy has been brutally aggressive in targeting opposition figures and average citizens who oppose the war and/or his rule, using harsh war time laws to charge them with treason and other crimes. Zelensky imposed sanctions on Kostya Bondarenko, the author of his biography and a noted Ukrainian political expert, several prominent Ukrainian bloggers and journalists and his former adviser Oleksiy Arestovych for their criticism of his failed war gamble and authoritarian rule. All have fled to the West to avoid being jailed on trumped up charges, as was done to other prominent Ukrainian political experts, journalists & bloggers (www.facebook.com/100000596862745/posts/pfbid0o5GfG8RiQeJiieKNx73vxbPiMR2eR5BPABDsb5jjzX3PSdfxVt7dg4vWX5GU65ddl/).

More recently, Zelenskiy’s Maidan regime has made ample use of lawfare to squeeze and imprison critics and opponents even within his own party, Servants of the People (Slugy Naroda) when they speak out against mismanagement of the war and his corruption. Oleksandr Dubinskiy, elected to the Ukrainian Parliament as a member of the Servants of the People party, was arrested in November 2023 and charged with treason. Imprisoned now for nearly two years without trial and having declared his intention to run for the presidency some day, Dubinskiy frequently posts videos and comments on the Internet critical of Zelenskiy’s corruption and use of the war for his political ends and calling for Zelenskiy’s impeachment.

In June, a Ukrainian court found political oppositionist, Anatoliy Shariy, guilty of state treason and sentenced him in absentia to 15 years in prison and confiscation of his YouTube channel. Shariy is a former presidential candidate, has his own political party now banned in Ukraine, and is a popular Ukrainian blogger with more than three million subscribers to his YouTube Channel. He posts videos on YouTube and commentary on Telegram very critical of Zelensky and his government. Shariy does this from Spain where he is was granted political asylum and lives in self-imposed exile for fear of his life if he should reside in Ukraine (https://x.com/i_katchanovski/status/1930459932500857072?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ). As reported by Ottawa University Professor Ivan Katchanovski – a native Ukrainian -- Zelensky imposed sanctions in May against Ukrainian blogger, Rostioslav Shaposhnikov, who gained political asylum in the US as well as American citizenship. The sanctions were in response to Shaposhnikov’s videos criticizing Zelenskiy and his corrupt authoritarianism (www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=24211191915150700&id=100000596862745&mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=Z0gqR3GdrmMNQwAl).

Moreover, opposition figures have been assassinated by the Ukrainian special services. For example, in late May of this year, Ukrainian opposition politician and lawyer Andriy Portnov, long a Zelenskiy critic, was assassinated in Spain. He was a leading intellectual among anti-Maidan elements in Ukraine political spectrum and the source of leaked but reliable information garnered through contacts he maintained inside the Maidan regime (https://ctrana.one/news/485346-andrej-portnov-ubit-v-ispanii.html; https://ctrana.one/news/485354-chto-dumajut-blizkie-portnova-o-eho-ubijstve.html; and https://ctrana.one/news/485379-ubijstvo-portnova-v-ispanii-novye-podrobnosti-smerti-ukrainskoho-jurista.html).

Repression of war opponents or simply those favoring negotiations with the Kremlin to end the war – a position now held by a majority of Ukrainians -- at home is rampant. For example, Rada deputy Yevgenii Shevchenko was suddenly charged with treason immediately after he called for such negotiations in the wake of Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections having promised throughout his campaign to negotiate an end to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. A week later Shevchenko was charged with treason and now awaits trial under arrest (https://ctrana.one/news/486617-nardepu-shevchenko-dali-eshche-odno-podozrenie-v-hosizmene.html).

In a similar case, Artem Dmytruk, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, was arrested on similarly trumped up charges and subjected, in his own words, “to torture and persecution by Zelensky, while other colleagues who share my position are imprisoned.” He recently appealed to Predsident Trump to consider an alternative to Zelensky for the negotiation process (https://x.com/dmytruk__artem/status/1896996288471970161?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ). Last year Chilean-American independent blogger Gonzalo Lira was murdered in prison after a second arrest and brutal torture, as exposed by Dubinskiy in court and other sources. Ironically, these sorts of things have occurred less frequently in Russia than in Ukraine since the SVO began in February 2022.

Human Rights Watch has examined some 2,000 sentences handed down under Zelenskiy’s law on collaborationism and found that many should not have been investigated no less tried and convicted if matters proceeded according to international legal standards. Many of the improperly tried and convicted merely continued to serve in their state posts after Russian troops occupied their region, including state health, police, educational and firefighting personnel were so charged and convicted. Ukraine also has exchanged some of its citizens found guilty of collaborationism for Russian-held Ukrainian prisoners of war (https://t.me/stranaua/198508).

State Media Monopoly

Before Putin’s SMO, Zelenskiy had closed three opposition television stations and otherwise forced other media out of business. After the war began, Zelenskiy had all remaining independent media closed down, and a centralized media ‘marathon’ was established on state television propagandizing the war, criticizing war and regime critics, expressing Russophobia and even anti-Semitic ideas, and offering inordinate broadcast time to ultra-nationalists and neofascist parties and groups (note Azov media appearances: https://gordonhahn.com/2025/07/21/ukrainian-neofascism-war-time-developments-part-1-azovs-expansion/). State television ignores the regime’s violence and at times celebrates it. Thus, Anatoliy Shariy posted a video on Twitter/X showing Ukrainian state run television anchors, “curated by President Zelensky’s office,” according to Shariy, laughing on air about Portnov’s murder and joking about Shariy’s “tears” over this crime. They also seemed to warn Shariy himself, saying he should “get ready” (https://x.com/anatoliisharii/status/1925246580212334883?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ).

This is how one critical Ukrainian Telegram channel describes Ukraine’s media universe today: “(T)he government is testing the limits of what is acceptable, testing the stability of institutions. The war itself is an argument for silence. At the same time, the media buzz around drone attacks and missile strikes is growing. Zelensky's official appeals are regularly based on the "unity against the enemy" scheme, labeling any internal conflicts as undesirable, divisive, and "non-military." The telethon system has become a monopolized platform where internal criticism is replaced by statements from officials or moderate comments controlled by structures of influence. Alternative voices are either marginalized or zeroed out”(https://t.me/rezident_ua/26917).

Repression of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The formerly Russian Orthodox Church-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has been subject to far greater persecution since Putin’s SMO began in 2022. Although there are certainly some individual UOC priests sympathetic to Russia and even its war effort, this is not the leadership’s or institution’s policy. Metropolitan Onuphriy condemned the February 2022 SVO’s invasion and cut the UOC’s ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Nevertheless, Mr. Zelenskiy pushed through a law in August 2024 that banned any churches affiliated with Russia, and law enforcement has ignored the UOC’s repeal of ties to the ROC (https://canopyforum.org/2024/02/16/ukraines-religious-persecution/). Moreover, those arrested have not been proven to have taken any actions in support of Russia. Yet Metropolitan Onuphriy, and more than hundreds of UOC members and priests have been publicly beaten, arrested or placed under house arrest along with parishioners by SBU-affiliated ultranationalist groups, and over one hundred have been charged with collaboration, though, as HRW notes, the collaboration charge is loosely applied (https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/03/ukraine-church-dilemma?lang=en). Numerous UOC churches have been closed down or confiscated along with other church property, including buildings and land, often by force using neofascist thugs to initiate the seizure before properties are transferred to the newly state-created Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) (https://canopyforum.org/2024/02/16/ukraines-religious-persecution/; www.jpti.ch/post/ongoing-and-systematic-persecution-of-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church-uoc; www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIr5HyRwE0&t=1s; and https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1933415022480257264).

Even a pro-Ukrainian writer publishing at the influential U.S. think tank, the Center for Security and International Studies, has acknowledged:

The (August 2024) law gave Ukrainian religious organizations nine months to sever ties with governing centers in Russia, meaning the first legal applications to liquidate organizations that failed to comply—including UOC parishes and monasteries—will be filed at the end of May and the first court rulings will be made around the middle of summer.

However, there have already been cases of churches and other UOC property being forcibly seized by OCU communities. The most high-profile case took place in October 2024 in the city of Cherkasy. Metropolitan Feodosiy (Snigirev) of Cherkasy, who holds pro-Russian views, had continued to pray for Patriarch Kirill during liturgies, which angered some local residents. They seized the UOC St. Michael’s Cathedral to hand it over to the OCU. Dozens of people were injured in the ensuing mass brawl. The police did not intervene, and local authorities supported the transfer of the cathedral to the OCU. …

(T)he overall scale of the UOC, collaborators are a very small part of the UOC clergy and congregation. Most of the criminal cases were opened into the incitement of religious hatred and justification of Russian aggression. Several UOC bishops have chosen to leave for Russia. One UOC clergyman who had been sentenced in Ukraine to five years in prison “for denying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine” was subsequently included in a prisoner exchange. But it also happens the other way around: a UOC priest serving in the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region was sentenced to fourteen years in prison by a Russian court for spying for Ukraine.

….But the overwhelming majority of parishioners and ordinary priests of the UOC are citizens of Ukraine like everyone else. Priests’ sons are also dying at the front. Some clergy members have been called up to fight themselves. There are also those who have found themselves under occupation but continue to pray for Ukraine. (https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2025/03/ukraine-church-dilemma?lang=en).

The Decay of Republican Governance

The one area where republicanism has survived is within the Maidan elite and its governmental processes, but much of the essence of republican procedure has disappeared. Last year the Rada was forced to vote on U.S. investment fund and minerals deal without being allowed to view the three documents signed by the country’s Economics Minister constituting the deal. A secret protocol remained off limits, and Zelenskiy seemed to issue a threat against any parliamentary deputies considering a vote against the bill to ratify the deal, noting: “if some among the parliamentarians will not vote, I think that this will be a problem exclusively for those people” (https://t.me/rezident_ua/26040). Moreover, Zelenskiy called upon the U.S. to refuse visas to Ukrainian parliamentary deputies who vote against the deal (https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2025/05/3/7510412/). Thus, Zelenskiy was asking the U.S. government to interfere in Ukrainian politics against the interests of democracy and Madian regime political opponents.

As the front and army are beginning to collapse and neofascist elements are diffused substantially into the latter, civilian control over the military and general rule are becoming minimal. This was evidenced by Russian top peace negotiator Vladimir Medinskii’s unchallenged assertion made to Russian journalist Vladimir Solovev that when he informed Ukraine’s top peace negotiator, former Defense Minister and now Kiev’s ambassador to Washington, Rustem Umerov, regarding threats from Ukrainians made against his family, including his children, Umerov replied: “I checked and this is definitely not (from) us. It is, most likely, our Nazis, and we have no influence on them” (www.gazeta.ru/politics/2025/05/29/21121640.shtml?ysclid=mbp2bm24vo429943580). Is Umerov lying to avoid responsibility, or does Zelenskiy’s administration have no influence over Ukraine’s neofascist? While the latter is certainly true, so too may be the latter.

Conclusion

The dissident Telegram channel ‘Resident’ sums up the current state of the Maidan regime as “autocracy in a democratic wrapper”:

In the context of a protracted war, the government in Ukraine is consistently building a new discourse — "authoritarianism under the guise of threat." Formally, we are within the framework of democratic rhetoric, but in reality the dynamics are different: external danger is used as an emotional and media shield to limit internal criticism, dismantle institutions of control and concentrate power. The last few weeks have been particularly revealing. An attempt to establish control over NABU's anti-corruption bodies/SAP caused large-scale protests and forced the government to retreat, but only after outright pressure from Western partners. The law, which strengthened the influence of the president's office on these structures, was adopted swiftly, almost silently. …. Against the background of all this, the issue of sanctions (for war-related corruption - GH) through the NSDC (National Security and Defense Council) is escalating. This tool is outside the legal field and is used pointwise against political opponents, the media, and individual business groups. Sanctions that do not go through the courts become a way to control elites and intimidate them. The defensive logic of "hybrid warfare" is used here as an excuse for the lack of procedures. Society reacts ambivalently to this. On the one hand, fatigue, a sense of hopelessness, and mobilization loyalty. On the other hand, there is growing irritation caused by new waves of corruption scandals, especially in the defense industry. The story of the arrests of officials for purchasing drones at inflated prices against the background of mobilization pressure and deaths at the front is a trigger for the erosion of trust. However, instead of talking to society, the rhetoric is threatening: any protest is automatically integrated into the picture of "enemy destabilization." Thus, the government strives for a controlled consensus, in which any internal tensions are offset by an external threat. This is a classic psychological surgery technique: building a reality where any manifestations of dissent are dangerous, unacceptable, and inappropriate. At the same time, democratic institutions are preserved, they are formally needed as external legitimation. But their functions are gradually being neutralized: through amendments to laws, personnel decisions, sanctions mechanisms and media filtering. The scenario according to which Ukraine is developing today is a model of military mobilization autocracy in a democratic wrapper. It can be stable as long as the dual scheme of an external enemy as an excuse and international money as a resource works. But the internal reality begins to stratify: between a real war and a simulacrum of institutionality, between people's expectations and their place in the system. This gap will inevitably become a political issue. And the longer it is delayed under the pretext of war, the more acute it will break out.(https://t.me/rezident_ua/26917).

More than two decades ago I described the devolution from weak republic to authoritarian rule in Russia as ‘stealth authoritarianism’ (www.rferl.org/a/1344298.html and https://www.academia.edu/52733482/Managed_Democracy_Building_Stealth_Authoritarianism_in_St_Petersburg). Mr. Putin led Russia’s transition to soft authoritarianism using a veneer of legality. Mr. Zelenskiy is using the veneer of republican rule to mask his transition to authoritarianism using the simulacrum of hollowed out, bought and sold republican institutions.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trump and the U.S. are being moved by the permanent DC bureaucracy and its congressional sycophants into a position where he will support, with the force of US armaments if not boots on the ground, an authoritarian Maidan regime infused with a healthy portion of neofascism against nuclear and global great power, Russia. That Russia was driven away from Western-style republican governance by American and Western policies, most notably NATO expansion, which reawakened Russia’s security vigilance culture that tends to oppose Western encroachment and any Russians who seem to facilitate it by supporting Westernization. Ironically, NATO expansion also has moved Ukraine towards its own, somewhat similar answer to the Western-manufactured ‘Russian threat’: Ukrainian authoritarianism and neofascism. The expansion of the neofascists’ power during the current war and the likelihood of collapse of the frontlines and army itself portends a split regime and failing state. This and Ukraine’s republican devolution may very well facilitate the neofascists’ rise to power and a chaos reminiscent of Ukraine 16^th century ‘Great Ruin.’