We are inconvenient for everyone – paradoxical Ukrainians who force their state to work for them.

Recent events – the NABU investigation, Yermak's dismissal, resignations, the timely adoption of the budget (by a despicable coalition, but still), and the NABU detective being free – confirm my belief that Ukrainians have successfully built a constrained Leviathan, in the terms of Acemoglu/Robinson (authors of the book "Why Nations Fail" – Ed.).

Our country is capable enough to provide a decade-long resistance to a powerful, centralized, and well-resourced empire.

Yes, at the heart of the resistance is the immense self-sacrifice of millions of individual people, but without a capable state (which is also made up of us, Ukrainians), everything would have ended quickly, as it has in the past.

At the same time, we do not allow this sufficiently capable state to turn into a despotic Leviathan that disregards the people, does not serve them, but uses them only as a tool. During a war, this is an especially incredible achievement.

Ukraine is a unique precedent for treading this narrow corridor in such difficult geopolitical circumstances.

And I think this is an extremely unpleasant and irritating example not only for Putin and all Russians, who would gladly drown our shackled Leviathan in our own blood and tell the world – look, this is what will happen to anyone who dares to undermine our despotic-submissive model of statehood. It's an eyesore even for Russian pseudo-liberals. Especially for them.

But this also irritates China, which for millennia has been tossed between Legalism and Confucianism – two models of despotism in which there is no place for the voice of the people and the humanization of the state.

And this, I'm sure, infuriates Trump, his children, the conservative wing of the Republicans, and probably part of the American IT oligarchy, all of whom are sleeping and dreaming of the complete dismantling of democratic shackles and the privatization of the world's most powerful Leviathan.

We are terribly inconvenient for everyone – these paradoxical Ukrainians who, in extremely unfavorable conditions, have built their state in a couple of decades, revived and tamed this monster, this dragon with an exclusive right to violence, and are forcing it to work for us – crookedly, with excesses, but for us.

This is not a story that has ended, nor a success that will last forever. Maintaining this narrow corridor of balance requires constant effort and is not guaranteed, especially with such pressure from Leviathans that are not accountable to their own people.

But how cool is this. Let's appreciate it.

Original