The protest signs in Kyiv yesterday said everything: “My father did not die for this.”

When Ukrainians took to the streets 11 years ago in Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution, they had simple demands: a country where one would want to live. A place where everyone is treated equally under the law and justice is not an empty word.

Yesterday, in 72 hours, Ukraine’s government destroyed those hopes by dismantling what took a decade to build.

The rushed adoption hidden in another law, the dirty tactics pressuring MPs, the ongoing investigations against Zelenskyy’s inner circle, the flimsy accusations against Ukraine’s anti-corruption organs invoking old traffic accidents, leave no mistake: this legal theater was a planned assault on the system of checks and balances created since Euromaidan.

The significance of this system for Ukraine is profound. Since Aristotle’s time, dividing power into legislative, executive, and judiciary has separated democratic governance from monarchy. In Ukraine, it was largely theater—and each revolution rose against increasing authoritarianism.

NABU and SAPO, whatever their flaws, were the first real separation of power in Ukraine. They could be improved, made more effective. But gutting their independence isn’t about effectiveness—it’s about destroying Ukraine’s capacity to check those in power and resist authoritarianism.

This is what’s happening now. The young people who flooded Ukrainian cities in protest are defending republicanism against monarchy. This desire sets Ukrainians apart from Russia and Belarus—the promise of European integration sealed with the blood of Euromaidan protesters who died for freedom.

This promise of functioning democracy, the best guarantee of dignified life, drove Ukraine since 2014 to reject the Russian path where personal freedom gets discarded and authority worshipped. It drives Ukrainians defending their land against the Russian invasion.

That promise had concrete stakes. NABU independence was the condition for visa-free travel, EU candidacy talks, and every step toward European integration. Those foundations just crumbled.

Ukrainians on the frontline didn’t die for Zelenskyy’s power to concentrate authority and enrich himself. They died for their families, for a future where their children wouldn’t choose between dignity and survival.

Power is intoxicating. It is a bitter irony that Zelenskyy became the villain from his own TV show—the corrupt president enjoying the impunity he once campaigned against.

He signed the law with record speed, buried the attack in photo-ops, ignored thousand-strong protests in his evening address.

Since today, a second front has opened in Ukraine—between those preserving Ukraine’s democratic future and those sacrificing it for personal protection. This fight determines whether Ukraine’s victory over Russia means anything, or whether we become the corrupt autocracy we once fought to escape.

Zelenskyy can still reverse course—withdraw his signature, restore what was broken. But each day this law stands, Ukraine moves closer to becoming the country it once fought to escape.

The choice between republic and monarchy remains his to make.

History is watching.