Ukraine Sure Doesn't Look Like a Democracy Anymore | Opinion

Many thousands have died needlessly in the unnecessary, unwinnable, and increasingly unaffordable war in Ukraine. The financial assistance and energy subsidies the war has cost Europe and the United States totals more than the annual GDP of Maryland. This at a time when America's own national debt is already 120 percent of our GDP. These costs might have been worth paying if Ukraine were a democracy, but it is not.

Democracies do not ban opposition parties. The fact that so many such parties ever existed says something about the level of opposition faced by the Ukrainian nationalist government that came to power after the 2014 revolution. Then in May of 2022, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law formally banning all these parties. President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law. The list included the Opposition Platform for Life, which had held fully 10 percent of the seats in parliament. Among the 11 banned parties are the Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Progressive Socialist Party of the Ukraine, the Union of Left Forces, and the Communist Party of Ukraine.

Democracies do not ban elections, but Ukraine has put the democratic process itself on hold since declaring martial law in 2022. This hiatus was supposed to be temporary, but it has been repeatedly extended, most recently in July 2023. As a result of that vote in the Ukrainian parliament, where all opposition parties have been removed, the parliamentary elections scheduled for last month were canceled. Presidential elections were scheduled for March 2024, but under current rules they too will not be held, and Zelensky has stated that "now is not the time for elections."

Democracies do not censor the media. In February 2022, the Ukrainian government ordered the nine largest television networks in Ukraine to combine their news operations into a single, state-controlled news program called "Telemarathon." In April 2022 the National Security Council ordered three independent television channels associated with Zelensky's predecessor taken off the air. In December 2022, Zelensky signed a law which gave the National Broadcasting Council statutory authority to regulate all print, broadcast, and digital media.

This law gave the Ukrainian government the ability to censor and shut down independent platforms such as Google. It has been harshly criticized by the European Federation of Journalists, which stated that it is incompatible with European Union membership. Ukraine's own National Union of Journalists called the law "the biggest threat to free speech in (Ukraine's) independent history." At this point there are no independent television stations broadcasting news in Ukraine. Print and digital media remain heavily censored.

Democracies to not prohibit travel. When Ukraine declared martial law, men aged 18 to 60 became subject to conscription and were therefore forbidden to leave the country. Many have nevertheless sought to avoid the war by fleeing abroad. Those apprehended by the border police are sent to military service. Those who manage to escape remain mostly in Poland and Germany. The Ukrainian government has asked the EU to forcibly return them to Ukraine, thus far without success.

Democracies do not restrict religious freedom. In December 2022, Zelensky banned the activities of all religious organizations linked to Russia. This included Ukraine's largest denomination, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which had been closely integrated with the Russian Orthodox Church for more than a thousand years. In May 2022 the church's synod of bishops, in a historic step, formally voted to sever all ties to Moscow and condemned the Russian Orthodox Church's support for the invasion of Ukraine. This was not enough for the Ukrainian government. It increased efforts to ban the Orthodox Church while organizing and promoting a new, state-controlled church.

If people wish to join this new church, they should certainly be free to do so, but the government in Kiev has been forcing congregations to switch allegiance and seizing the property of those who resist. The Ukrainian parliament is now preparing to formally outlaw the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Democracies do not seek to ban a nation's oldest and largest denomination.

Finally, we have been hesitant to focus on the far-right complexion of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Terms like "fascist" and "neo-Nazi" are in, our view, thrown about far too glibly. Yet perhaps we should have been more forthcoming for there are undeniably authoritarian overtones to the Ukrainian nationalist movement. You need not take our word for it. Simply look up Stefan Bandera or the Azov Brigade and draw your own conclusions about where nationalism ends, and racism begins.

To be fair, governments do frequently limit civil liberties in times of crisis. Our own Patriot Act probably went too far in that direction. President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for Southern sympathizers during the American Civil War, but he never canceled elections. Neither did Winston Churchill, to whom Zelensky is sometimes compared. Churchill actually lost the 1945 British election and had to watch Clement Attlee take the final victory lap for World War II.

The catalogue of authoritarian abuses is growing in Ukraine and shows little sign of slowing. Under the guidance of the West's favorite autocrat—Zelensky—it has created a state-controlled church, taken control of all television news, and banned major opposition parties. This far exceeds anything that occurred in recent American or British history. Both of those nations remained fundamentally democratic during war, even a civil war. This latest cancellation of presidential elections in Ukraine destroys any pretense that we are supporting a functioning democracy.

David H. Rundell is the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads and a former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command who spent 15 years working the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.