A working-class Ukrainian saw protest for EU association as serving oligarchs.

Evidence

On November 21, some people began protesting on the square. As they ate, some of the customers asked Artem, “Why aren’t you going?” and he responded, “I have to work, serving people like you!” But really, the answer was more complicated. He thought that these protests were not really for him. … Artem was certainly no fan of Yanukovych, but as he saw it, a small group of Western-facing students and NGO employees were agitating for the government to take on a more explicitly neoliberal structure. For Artem, that association agreement was something that would help rich people, not regular Ukrainians. It would mean destroying even more of the threadbare welfare state left in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Moreover, it seemed that opposition parties—just as bad as the president with just as many oligarchical ties—were trying to use the small demonstration to push their own agendas. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 463

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on who benefits from EU association agreements in post-Soviet space. — connects to: Ukraine’s anti-Maidan movement was more working-class than the pro-EU protests — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 519; Maidan protesters were older, richer, Ukrainian-speaking, and surprisingly authoritarian in outlook — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 525

Broader Connections

• Maidan protesters were older, richer, Ukrainian-speaking, and surprisingly authoritarian in outlook #qualifies (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 525
• Ukraine’s anti-Maidan movement was more working-class than the pro-EU protests #qualifies (0.78) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 519