Anti-government protesters in Ukraine calling for the government to step down are working from a playbook, following to the letter a manual for regime change through popular revolutions, said RT political analyst and columnist, Nebojsa Malic.

RT:Is there any chance of a compromise between the government and the opposition at this point?

Nebojsa Malic: The opposition has said that it doesn’t want any compromise, that it is not interested in anything short of a regime change. But the thing we have to keep in mind is that this is being played straight out of a playbook. This is following a script and the opposition’s activities are generally geared to create as much unrest and show as possible.

But there is very little substance behind both their demands and their posturing.

We have evidence today that repeated reports of an incoming crackdown failed to materialize, not because there was supposed to be any sort of crackdown, but because that’s how they keep the people wound up.

This is a cultural clash, not economic or political

RT:We've been hearing calls from the opposition for the president to step down. Are the protests in your opinion only about EU Integration?

NM: I think there is more than just the EU integration. Obviously these people do not really care about what’s in the trade deal, otherwise they would have tried to come up with better numbers or any numbers at all. What they are trying to do is that they are trying to hold what they perceive as Ukraine’s drift back into what western media calls a ‘resurrected Soviet Union’. This is a cultural clash more than an economic or a political one. This is a clash between people who believe in the perception of the west, such as Europe or the US, and the people who are trying to make their future based on actual numbers, based on actual work, based on the necessity to feed their families and live their lives every day.

RT:You previously stated that the crisis in Ukraine could have been pre-planned. If that's so - then planned by whom and for what?

NM: Pre-planned is perhaps a misnomer. There’ve been reports that one of the people organizing Mr Klitschko’s party (Udar) is actually a Serbian activist who helped to organize the 2000 revolution (in Serbia), which was coordinated by the NAD (National Endowment for Democracy) and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

They are working out of a playbook. There is a manual for regime change through popular revolutions and it is being followed to the letter. The sort of people, who are on the payroll of the western organizations and governments, and they are just doing their jobs.

I have reports today of western celebrities getting involved and endorsing the (Ukrainian) opposition. Again, this is a proof that all this is about posturing. What does George Clooney know about economics of Ukraine? Nothing. But he is George Clooney and that is what the opposition is running with.

I wouldn’t point any fingers or name any names, because I am not in a position to have that information, but when you consider who is funding, which organization and for how long, what sort of individuals are involved and where they have been spotted before and since – you will have a pretty good idea of who might be behind this.

RT:There are not just pro-EU protesters, many others are against that deal. Will this lead to the deepening of already existing divisions within Ukraine?

NM: I wouldn’t rule it out. There are serious historical, cultural and even religious rifts on the Ukrainian territory that have been simmering under the surface. First, the Russian Empire and then the Soviet regime, which kept a lid on nationalism, but then found it in different circumstances, similar to what happened in Yugoslavia. But I’m not sure.

There is a cultural struggle across the west as well, just not this pronounced, not this endemic. And on one side are the people who are trying to join this globalist transnational union of governments, where there will be no nationalism but where there will be a supra-nationalist bureaucracy regulating everything for the greater good of it all.

And then there are people who want their national states to run whichever way they decide, but they want the choice to remain theirs. And I think this is the issue in Ukraine as much as in France, UK and the US.