The cardboard protests, whose participants supported Mykhailo Fedorov, ended with an attempt to use them as the foundation for the former defense minister’s new political project. Political analyst Oleksandr Chernenko wrote about this, analyzing the beginning of the new political season.
According to him, Fedorov himself brought the rallies to an end by releasing a campaign video address.
"Paradoxically, it was Fedorov himself who ended the protests. The politician whom the protesters were defending found time to record a campaign address, but did not find time to go out to the people. The participants in the Maidan emphasized that they were for Fedorov and against politics, elections, and speculation. But Fedorov stated the opposite: he was for elections," Chernenko wrote.
The expert emphasized that after Fedorov’s video address, the organizers of the Maidan were forced to distance themselves from the politician and wind down the protest.
"The organizers of the Maidan quickly realized that Mikhail was no longer going in the same direction as them — he had received the political springboard he wanted. And the statement about elections came as an utter surprise: people were still standing outside the Verkhovna Rada and demanding ‘Fedorov — to the Ministry of Defense!’, while he was already campaigning for elections and preparing for a political tour of the United States. Under such conditions, the protest became pointless — and they wound it down," the expert wrote.
In the expert’s view, Fedorov managed to use the protests to launch his own political career.
"The former defense minister managed to appropriate the protest’s political capital, but not to take responsibility for the protest itself. People felt that they had been used: they came out against injustice, but nearly became extras in yet another political project," Chernenko concluded.
As previously reported, Mykhailo Fedorov released a video in which he named holding elections as one of his political demands. Maidan organizer Dmytro Koziatynskyi stated that the demand for elections was "so ridiculous that I cannot imagine how anyone can even think about it now." Fedorov’s adviser Serhii Sternenko also rejected the idea of holding elections during the war: "Elections are unacceptable in any form while the full-scale aggression continues. This will tear the country apart from within," he wrote.