Ivan Popelnyuk
Position: Head of the Youth Council of the faction “United Russia” in Belgorod Regional Duma, a federal trainer for the development of student self-government
I come from a village where there are not even street names, everyone knows each other. And the local government is more about local self-government. Or complacency. The head of the village is a feudal prince, whose power is almost unlimited and uncontrollable. And this is where he can govern according to his opinion. The Meeting – Why?? Any decision will be twisted in favor of the people concerned. And you don’t want to spoil your life, because it is a matter of one day to be fired from your job. But it is almost impossible to find a job. So a man is left with a difficult choice: to go against his will and stay without livelihood, or to coexist with the regime and have a small but stable income.
The government instructed business and its structures to provide all possible assistance, not forgetting to establish quotas of “kindness,” so that some businesses had no choice but to forcibly collect those very “donations,” otherwise the shortfall could complicate their work. But, unfortunately, there is the other side of the coin. There is no smoke without fire. If our society, which is beginning to be called civil society, responded fully, there would be no need for such “exclusive” measures.
The state drives people with disabilities into dens of apartments (if any), deliberately isolating them from society. And these are Russian citizens who have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as the healthy. And the value of human capital in such people is sometimes higher than in many others.
Speaking of Ukraine, we should clearly distinguish between Ukraine as represented by its leadership and its people. I live 20 kilometers from Ukraine, and 80 from their second capital – Kharkov, I often go there and know the situation from the inside. They now look enviously at Russia, understanding that their time of destruction must be stopped, too. It is time to get down to business, to create a state, and not just dissolve it into scraps. The eastern part of Ukraine is very loyal to Russia, and people in the western part of the country understand that they cannot run away from Poland.
