Have 263 Members of Parliament Forgotten Why Russia Attacked Ukraine?
Yuriy Butusov reveals.
It seems that 263 members of Ukraine’s parliament have forgotten the root causes of Russia’s aggression — and why we are still fighting this war.
In 2013, the people rose up on Maidan in protest after the government canceled the EU Association Agreement. One of the EU’s core demands was the creation of independent anti-corruption institutions — NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau) and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office). The call for EU integration became a symbol of Ukraine’s fight for independence from Russia.
Several dozen people were shot and killed in the center of Kyiv to change the pro-Russian regime.
In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the midst of the bloody battle for Debaltseve in the winter of 2015, NABU and SAPO were established — because without these institutions, Ukraine could not move forward with EU integration. Ukraine succeeded in signing the Association Agreement with the European Union, and that agreement remains a cornerstone of our pro-European course.
Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died during the ATO-JFO years to make that change possible.
In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion and openly declared its goal: to replace Ukraine’s leadership with a pro-Russian regime — to kill the EU agreement and install a Moscow-backed ruler.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in this war — and people continue to die every day. They are dying for freedom, for statehood, for the European choice.
And now — in the middle of that war — 263 MPs in the Verkhovna Rada, including members of the openly pro-Russian party OPZZh (created by traitor Viktor Medvedchuk), which has always opposed EU integration, have voted to limit the powers of NABU and SAPO.
In other words — they voted to undermine the anti-corruption reform that is a core pillar of Ukraine’s EU Association Agreement.
They were joined by MPs from the Servant of the People party, three from European Solidarity, one from Holos, the entire Batkivshchyna faction under Yulia Tymoshenko, the entire “Dovira” group controlled by oligarch Andriy Verevskyi, and all of “Za Maybutnye” backed by oligarch Ihor Palytsia.
So the question must be asked: Whose side are these 263 on in this war?
Do they understand the consequences of sabotaging Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union?
If this law goes into effect, those 263 MPs will go down in history alongside the lawmakers who voted for Yanukovych’s infamous “dictatorship laws” on January 16, 2014.
And the consequences – for the law and for those who backed it – will be the same.
Let us hope reason prevails. That this law never comes into force. That our commitments to the European Union are not erased.
No ink can cancel blood. We cannot forget why this terrible war began.
