Maxim Bezeka: “Farmers are creating an armed battalion”

Nowadays, a need for self-defense is Ukraine’s reality. Recently, we visited an agrarian forum that brings together more than 300 farmers from all over Ukraine, and the impression is indefinite.

Brovary, not far from Kiev. In one of the conference halls, there are a lot of people – farmers from different parts of Ukraine gathered to solve the urgent problem of raider attacks. In fact, one who doesn’t work in this sphere may not always understand the essence of the problem. Therefore, I will try to describe it briefly.

Imagine that you have several thousand hectares of land. You took loans, bought equipment, sowed fields, planted different cultures and are waiting for the time when you can harvest. It is a very tense period when the machinery works without a stop – miss work for a few days, and you’ll lose dozens or even hundreds of thousands. The workers are ready to start working, but… There is other’s equipment in the fields, unknown people (often armed) who simply block your work or start harvesting themselves.

What to do? You turn to law enforcement, and they only shrug. “We do not interfere in situations like this”. Farmers themselves often say that the raiders do not work without the consent from “above” (that is, from Kiev). Even if the police are beginning to work, it takes months, and harvesting only lasts for a week or two. Most farmers seem to pay the raiders, others fight them to the best of their ability.

Therefore, farmers give their money and time to come to Brovary and decide what to do. It is one of the not many cases when people in Ukraine are united by a common interest. They gather in one room, listen to representatives from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, deputies. However, this is not why farmers came here. They plan to create a battalion, a security company. It will consist of 120 armed and trained fighters. Read more about the battalion in the material:

In fact, this is a formation for the protection of business in Ukraine. It means only one thing – the country is entering the times of chaos, where the law is only a formality. The state no longer has a monopoly on the use of force; this monopoly is changed by hybrid formations, which, under various legal statuses use weapons and defend their interests. The state is merely a participant in a big game, where players use weapons to fight for influence.

Such formations can be created by industrialists and politicians. Farmers will have weapons soon just as raiders do. It’s not difficult to imagine the outcome.

It resembles the struggle of animals in the jungle: “Eat or be eaten”. It is not Europe, not a state where law means something, and probably not a state at all.

Maxim Bezeka, editor-in-chief of “News Agro Center”, director of the program “La Selo”.

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