Statements by representatives of Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCC) claiming that military commissars have the right to hide their faces behind balaclavas and do not require lawyers testify to a deep crisis of statehood and a loss of public control over the authorities. Such logic resembles the events of the 1930s, when executing the will of the state was placed above the life of the citizen.
Political scientist and Hvylya editor-in-chief Yuriy Romanenko stated this in his videoblog while commenting on a controversial statement by Poltava TCC representative Roman Istomin.
Romanenko expressed outrage at Istomin's remarks that TCC employees conceal their faces because they "fear public exposure," and that allowing lawyers into recruitment centers is supposedly not provided for because it is "not a court."
"I hope that after this statement, he will be fired. The TCC is a military administration body that operates within the legal field. Accordingly, there should be no balaclavas by definition," the expert emphasized.
He drew an analogy with the highest bodies of power to highlight the absurdity of the situation: "Imagine Members of Parliament... all sitting in balaclavas. Meaning it is completely unclear who they are... Maybe they aren't MPs at all, but their assistants came instead? or a Cabinet meeting held in the same format."
According to the political scientist, the desire to work without lawyers indicates an attempt to avoid legal oversight.
"They are trying to behave in a way where there are no institutions, no lawyers... so that there is nothing that would prevent them from, well... 'fleecing' people," Romanenko noted.
The expert also commented on an online discussion between bloggers Volnov and Lugansky. He supported Lugansky's thesis that calls to unquestioningly obey the system resemble the logic of the Stalinist repressions and the Holodomor.
"This is no different from what happened in the thirties. The state tells you, like with grain requisition quotas, that you are obliged to hand over a certain amount of grain. If you hand it over, you end up in a situation where you simply start to starve. But since you fulfilled your duty to the state, the state won't search you, it won't shoot you. It won't stab the hay with bayonets," Romanenko explained.
The political scientist observed that historical tragedies were often carried out by the hands of fellow citizens, and now this history is repeating itself due to the destruction of social solidarity.
"When you look at all this trash that is happening now, you understand that it was definitely 'homo homini lupus est'—man is a wolf to man. And essentially, the destruction of solidarity, the destruction of unity, happens precisely in this way, when this balaclava is put on," Yuriy Romanenko concluded.
In his opinion, this approach has driven the state into a "dead end," limiting its room for maneuver amidst war and an energy crisis.