24.08.2015. www.delfi.lv, www.lsm.lv
– How can it happen?! Something like that! Now, in the 21st century?!! – A young woman, my acquaintance, would not calm down.
– My mom! She was coming from Donetsk to visit me! And she just had done everything properly; she bought a ticket to a share taxi at Krytiy Market (trustful, “official” transporters are based there). Why? What for? How did they dare to shoot at peaceful people? What kind of humans are they?! What’s going on there?!!
She just kept asking questions to me as the “person coming from that place”. What could I answer her? Only:
– Yes, now it’s like that. Such things happen quite often there. They are monsters.
And I was trying to turn her attention to something positive in order to stop her psychical suffering:
– The main thing is that your mother and all the others in that taxi survived.
My acquaintance left Donetsk during the first wave of immigrants, and even while contacting her mother who was staying there, reading information about the situation in the City, she still could not imagine the whole scale of the ongoing lawlessness in the occupied territories. Having calmed down, she told me that her mother was going to visit her.
To explain the difficulties on her way, I have to go into smaller detail. As there is no direct transport communication with Donetsk at the moment because of military activities and because the railway station has been ruined (it is not just the matter of destruction caused by shells fired at the building; during the period of the “new City Administration”, all the metal construction elements have been cut off for recasting), Konstantynovka is the final point reached by trains (in the northern direction, Mariupol – in the southern direction). People living in the free part of our country, call the train “Kiev – Konstantynovka” as “Kiev – War”. So the most difficult part of the route – to get from the War to Ukrainian Konstantynovka, the peaceful territory. In case one is going from Donetsk in the southern direction – to Mariupol, having left Donetsk, just in some twenty minutes it is possible to cross the border of the area of “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”), and one can feel relieved. But in case one has to get to a train to Konstantynovka (in the northern direction), it is the matter of a couple of hours’ travel along the territory of “DPR”, passing not only the ruined during the warfare bridges, roads, buildings, but also a great number of “DPR’s” military post sentries.
It is easier to pass these post sentries by bus, since the route transportation means are subject to a lesser control than private vehicles. So the mother of my acquaintance had done everything properly: she had bought a ticket to a share taxi (transportation by large buses are not allowed now), and on the particular day, together with the other passengers, including some children and elderly persons, she started her trip expecting to cover as quickly as possible the difficult and unpleasant part of the route till the sentry post of Mayorskiy (the already Ukrainian one). She did not succeed…
While on highway, the taxi driver passed a car with “DPR” combatants. They “did not like” that. They caught the minibus, pulled the driver out of it for “working things out”, and then a burst of a sub-machinegun fire at the lower part of the minibus followed, obviously making the driver understand that he was not welcome on the road.
Everybody stayed alive. But imagine yourself in the place of those people! And what if one’s heart is not strong enough? And what if…
Imagine yourself in the place of the daughter waiting for her mother.
– How can it happen, something like that? – she exclaimed again and again.
– It can, something like that happens there, and quite often.
– What kind of humans are there?
How could I answer to her question? Who are they – “DPR” combatants?
There is no simple answer to the question. In order to understand who these people are, it is necessary to return to the very beginning, when all that just started.
And all that started according to the scenario written by the Party of Regions which, having failed in Kiev Maidan, then tried literally to “bite off” Donbas rightfully belonging to it (of course, from the view of the Party of Regions). And the local authorities played that scenario very precisely – they turned the Region in a separatist area, which, in reality had never (!) been such. In one of my letters, I have already described the beginning of all that (see my second letter), I have found still more detailed description in the article “Donetsk Separatism: Everything Is Quite Simple”. Its author indicates that “a well developed and considered scheme (with the participation of Donbas political elite members acting in the interests of Russia) is implemented in Donetsk with the aim to split Ukraine and establish, on the basis of the eastern areas, a kind of enclave similar to those in Abkhazia and Ossetia”.
I appreciate this author’s work, and I witness its truthfulness as the one who has personally observed the events. Everything happened right as it is described. The City Administration took advantage of people’s need, their low-level education, the developed by the Party of Regions parasitism habit, unemployment and misery in small towns and villages of the Region, and they involved also local criminals. It should be mentioned that 1/6 of all the penitentiary institutions of Ukraine are located in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions. Most of former prisoners cannot integrate themselves in community. So the “directors” of the “DPR” project used them: initially as the “Titushki” (young men acting as agents provocateurs) and as the combatants of the Right Sector who had seemingly arrived with the aim to intimidate and beat those Ukrainian patriots who disagreed with the separatist ideas, next – for adding to the ranks of the “DPR’s” army. Now it consists by nearly 80% of the former convicts.
Of course, in the very beginning, after the local authorities’ competent activities aimed at intimidation the citizens, there appeared “ideological” volunteers ready to oppose the Kiev “junta” and fight against it for the their wealth, promised by the Party of Regions and seemingly taken regularly away from them by Kiev (as if it was not Yanukovych – their nominee – who was ruling there). A part of those volunteers, especially during the initial stage, were paid for their “ideological position”, the other part were participating just for pleasure, enjoying the intimidation of people, organizing pogroms, beating people.
But the subsequent developments were rapid, and the situation changed soon – Russian troops entered the area, real warfare was going on, not only pogroms on local scale. And at some moment it became clear that the number of local “ideological” separatists reduced considerably – they had been either killed or injured in fighting. Even since the autumn of 2014, many young and middle-aged male invalids began to appear in the streets of the City. And it turned out that there was lack of “ideological” fighters, nobody could join the army. It was quite a problem. And it was solved in the following way, having found several sources for increasing the ranks of the “DPR” combatants:
1) For salary (in the summer of 2015, some of them were paid 15 thousand roubles plus full provision. However, combatants often complained that they had been paid a couple of months, but later on the payments were delayed or salaries cut, especially for those who had not participated directly in battles);
2) On draft notice from Enlistment Office of the “DPR” (the combatants have captured the Donetsk Region Enlistment Office with all its databases);
3) Remission of debts, credits (it mainly applies to the Russia residents who are intensively recruited both in Internet and in special points-tents of “DPR”, set up in many Russian cities);
4) “Ideological” Russians, coming to “save” the seemingly oppressed “Russian World” in Ukraine (besides, the recruiters prefer Russians with Ukrainian roots at least of some generation in order later on they have a possibility to announce that “there are no Russians there, these are your own people that are fighting”). And when these “ideological” fighters begin to ascertain that a military aggression of their own country, trivial robbery and plundering are going on here, they either agree to participate in all that, or become aware of failure of the ”idea” and return home (often being already crippled, and sometimes they stand trial by a tribunal for “violation of the contract provisions”);
5) Russian troops – Kadirov supporters who had participated even in capturing the Donetsk airport in May 2014 and proudly posed before cameras, admitting: “Yes, we are Kadirov supporters”; and the Pskov commandos whose identity has been disclosed, and the Buriats. And although Russia does not admit its involvement in the war, and, following Russia, the ex-Prime Minister Azarov who has unexpectedly intensified his activities lately, also has stated that there are no Russian troops in Donbas, nevertheless in reality they are there, and there exist very many evidences of that.
6) Convicts – in exchange for release from prison plus salary (although many convicts, even some of those having life sentence, refuse participation in the warfare on combatants’ side). One of them has quite openly stated s follows: “To get in THAT sh*t to be released?!!!” So also these people have become aware that previously, when there was Ukraine there, there existed some kind of protection and rule of the law, but now there is a state of complete lawlessness there);
7) Young men are captured in the street, in transportation means etc., in order to send them to the front line, such occasions were particularly often during the battles for Donetsk airport;
8) Use of peaceful citizens who were “guilty” in front of “DPR”, for doing work necessary for the army, for example, digging trenches, removing ruins and transporting bodies from the battle ground, etc.
And there are also “peaceful” citizens – “ideological” fighters without sub-machineguns in their hands there. To my mind, they are even more frightful than the armed combatants because, having allowed to “zombie” themselves, being gullible or having some private interests, they have yielded to the unlawful propaganda of the Party of Regions and Russian television, it was them who were actively participating in separatists’ meetings, representing the “voice of people”. It was them who were blaming the “Kiev junta”, demanding arrival of, first, the criminal ex-President Yanukovych (“Vitya, come, we are waiting for you”), and, next, the President of the aggressor country (“Putin, come and save us”). It was them who were assisting in holding the pseudo-referendum and pseudo-election, creating crowd scene there. It was them who were tearing away and treading Ukrainian flags and teaching their children how to do it. It was them who were participating in the infamous “parades of prisoners of war” and throwing stones at them. It was them who were participating in beating the captives in basements of “DPR”. In some areas, the “DPR” combatants implement the following practice: after torturing a captive, “peaceful citizens” are invited to the final stage of interrogation in order they have a possibility to unleash their anger on the captive. And what is the most terrible thing – there are such people who agree to participate.
So, this is the answer to the question asked by my acquaintance: “What kind of humans are they?”
And these people will live next to us in at some time liberated Ukrainian Donetsk.
That is a real humanitarian catastrophe!
Veronica
This article is the fourth in the series “Letters from Donetsk”, within which some Donetsk resident (her real name is not disclosed because of security considerations) shares her on-scene views on the military conflict ongoing in Ukraine.