Many blogs, tweets, articles draw parallels between Ukraine today and Poland in the early 90's. In 1990 the two countries had the same level of prosperity . “Today, only 24 years later, Poland is three times more prosperous than Ukraine”. Blah-blah-blah…

All this writing is supposed to reveal the success story of our neighbour and encourage Ukraine to head in the same direction. Well, there’s a sort of truth in all that, but “devil’s in details” as we all know. And here are the “details”.

First of all, Poland and Ukraine are extremely different countries, mainly because of private property. In USSR private property did not exist as an element of economic life at all. Poland was in th opposite situation. The Poles had no experience of kolkhozs (collective farms) even in the Soviet era. In Ukraine. “Kolhosps” were in every village, and that has a tremenduous psychological impact on people. Before that, in 1932-33, was the Holodomor.

These things would have been hard to change even after the Soviet Union collapsed. It was a history of two countries considered “slightly” different, that had both been under the Russian (Soviet style) dictatorship.

What could have been changed is the GRADE OF the OPENESS to the world. Poland has enjoyed visa-free travel regime from the very beginning of its post-soviet era. Ukraine — vice versa: country always was under the Iron Curtain of Schengen Agreement all this time.

It wasn’t too bad until 2005 as Ukrainians enjoyed tolerably easy access regime to the nearest western countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Everything changed in May 2005 when the officialy enlarged Schengen zone emerged along Ukraine’s western frontier. This was just 6 months after the November-December 2004 —the period of the Orange Revolution. where ukrainians were extremely clear about their european aspirations.

Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian society encountered the enlargement of the Schengen Area with mixed feelings. These were exactly the details hiding the devil.

The pro-European western part of Ukraine and Kyiv were perplexed by the fact that they would now need a visa for a simple weekend tour to Krakow. That would entail extra costs and extra time.

Eastern Ukraine was covertly gloating: “So, you wanted to go to Europe? And what did Europe say? That you will have visa regime even with Poland? Congrats, LOL.”

This reaction, quite natural in the then circumstances, and gloating over the bitterly disappointing outcome of the Orange Revolution stirred confusion and frustration in Western Ukraine.

That flowed into radicalized political preferences in that part of the country.

In the same time Victor Yanukovych electorate bucked up. Which resulted in his successful reapperance in 2009.

These sentiments went largely overlooked by the West, both on the supranational and domestic levels. Partly, this was caused by the inferiority complex Ukrainians have with regard to other nations (Russians a while ago, Europeans today). As a result, they lack critical thinking of the EU in Ukraine.

At least they did until February 10, 2014, when I noticed a new website http://fuckeu.in.ua/.

It should have come up a while ago. The EU excused itself from the internal Ukrainian political stage. And that neglect of the processes in a neighbor country of 46 million was a huge mistake. Schengen enlargement partly shaped Ukrainian political landscape. And the EU did not notice that role. Perhaps, it planned to do so. I don’t know. What I know is consequences.

A right-wing party began to rise in 2005. It was Svoboda led by Oleh Tiahnybok, oriented at the frustrated western-Ukrainian electorate. He had been hardly known before the Orange Revolution. Subsequent frustrating emergence of the Iron Curtain in May 2005 changed that (Even in 2013, Brussels’ move to issue three-day visas to journalists going to the European Parliament sessions on Ukraine showed where exactly the EU sees Ukraine’s place, but that’s another story).

Similarly, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions was defeated in 2004, some of oligarchs’ were hiding somewhere on the islands. But Schengen enlargement gave them a second chance, which they didn’t waste, as we all see now.

I don’t underestimate huge mistakes made by Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko back then. They resulted in what we have today. But let’s face it — a dance takes two dancers. And with the EU’s present stance, it’s not just hard — it’s next to impossible to stand against Putinism.

Now, we are facing the outcome of the irresponsible and stupid European politics. Bloodshed in Kyiv — EU responsible for that too. Winning a geopolitical game with an opponent like Putin without the most serious engagement on the part of the EU is impossible. That’s exactly as Doug Saunders stated in his recent article: “By leaving Ukraine out of the club for too long, Europe may have triggered an explosion”. What’s more, you cannot tell that war is over when your enemy has not finished it. And the EU is naïve enough to believe that the cold war is over. However, it’s hardly surprising given the traditional way of seeing things by the West in the FSU.

Yes I think that the radicalization of Western Ukrainian political arena alongside reemergence of Yanukovych was directly influenced by EU’s handling of the Schengen enlargement and by the fact of that enlargement itself. No, I don’t know if that was staged or not. But I think, that it was very convenient for those who wanted reemergence of the Party of Regions and for those, who wanted radicalism of Western Ukraine. Both political trends are very convenient for Putin. But I think we should try to analyze who are the other beneficiary of Western Ukraine’s political radicalization.

I remember 2003. It was the 60th anniversary of the Volyn tragedy, a very sensitive question between the Poles and Ukrainians. And the 70th anniversary in 2013. The tension was much higher in 2013.

Could it be because of the Iron Curtain along the San River and because the Poles can easily come to visit their Ukrainian friends, while Ukrainians should prove that they are not HIV-positive African elephants to come to Poland to hang out with friends? In 2003 we had a chance to easily escape a conversation about it by saying something like “Oh, man, there were many things between our nations, fuck that. Let’s grab another beer and have fun…”. In 2013 , it’s not working. It simply did not work.

Schengen enlargement proved to be very good instrument to work an angle in Ukraine-Poland relationship. My question is simple: “Are there any other beneficiary except Putin behind that working of the barrier between Ukraine and Poland ?”

Below are some key facts on the matter. They are obscure because there is little official information from the Ukrainian government.

Travelling abroad statistics

When speaking about travelling abroad there are two types of countries for Ukrainian citizens. One includes countries where Ukrainians should have international passports to travel. Another one includes those where Ukrainians can travel with their internal passports. The latter are Russia and Belarus, where no international passports are required for Ukrainians yet. Visas are stamped only in international passports.

Almost 80% of Ukrainians have travelled abroad. Only around 45% of the population has international passports. Around 18% have used their passports at least once. Around 3% of Ukrainian citizens work abroad. Half of them are in the Russian Federation.

It means, that around 15% of ukrainian (18%-1,5%) used their foreign passports to travel but not seek work. My question to the EU is simple: Who the fuck You are afraid of? Did anybody in Europe hear anything about ukrainian villages, camping in Fontainbleau? No? Bois de Boulogne? No? Somewhere else, probably? Still no? Then, why someone else IS already IN, while we are still OUT?

Besides, yes, people who own international passports (18%) and do not use them but travel abroad (around 80%) were visiting Russia, Belarus and some other countries. That makes around 60% of the Ukrainian population.

I can confidently argue, that those 18% with their family members made such thing asEuroMaidan.

Those on the opposite side (just think about it —there has been no evidence of titushky, the thugs hired by the government to beat activists and journalists and to damage people’s property, from Western Ukraine) have probably never been to Europe. They tend to believe that UAH 200 (around EUR 20) paid NOW for what they do against EuroMaidan is better than Europe (and its values) somewhere in the future.

Can they be blamed for that logic ? Hardly. Did the EU have a chance to change that logic and create the situation where President Yanukovych had no other choice but to sign the Association Agreement? Sure. What should it have done? Cancel visas for Ukrainians.

“Poverty” of Ukrainians

Ukrainians are not very rich and officially they are poor. But, as usual, “devil’s in details”. There is probably biggest in Europe level of distrust to the banking sector. As a result, experts says there are USD40-70 billions in CASH. Yes, they are “officially poor”, those Ukrainians, three times less prosperous, than Poles, LOL.

Et voila.

Now, when we have some kind of political truce between two sides, the EU should interfere not only with expressions of “deep concern” but with visa liberalization, too. Because now, when people are being kidnapped from the streets, it has turned into a matter of personal security.

But if we go back to that Nuland’s “Fuck the EU”, we can understand her exasperation. The EU almost “created” that political situation in Ukraine. Whether deliberately or not is a different matter.

And absolutely different questions are “WHY and HOW” european politicians didn’t notice till #EuroMaidan and #Hrushevskogo eruption, that this country is boiling ? Country, which is not situated somewhere in Antarctics, no. The nearest EU’s neighbour. One of the biggest. EU has had here many employees. WHY and HOW those EU builders has rejected such an IMPORTANT stone ? Don’t they read Bible ?

It seems to me they don’t. Moreover, I’m inclined to believe they are not even read European history — if they are capable of making such a pictures.