“It’s war of past and future,” says the 26-year-old head of the customs house in Odessa, Ukraine. “A war against corruption, war against this old way of thinking, war against Soviet heritage, and war for a modern Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s local elections featured dozens of candidates who legally changed their names to run as Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters. But behind the antics, and the excitement over the arrest of a man in a Chewbacca costume in Odessa, is some murky “political technology” that would do Emperor Palpatine proud, says one Ukrainian journalist.