Eastern Europe is far
away, and since Cold War disappeared from the monitors with the Soviet Union
collapse, the other political news captured the tabloids titles. It looks like
the aggressive politics of the modern Russia draws back the worried attention
to this region.
While there were
multiple warning signs that something is not right under “permanent” ruling of
the Russian president Vladimir Putin, like spikes of homophobic propaganda,
Pussy Riot conviction, stopping Russian kids’ adoption abroad, the general
public was not prepared for the totally illegal aggressive campaigns against
the closest neighbor – Ukraine. Using the opportunity of the temporary power
vacuum, when Ukrainians were fighting with too corrupt government, Russian “silent”
troops without identification captured Crimea. Then, when they realized they
need a land road to Crimea, Russian troops and hired guns started their way to
the Eastern Ukraine occupation, capturing part of two eastern provinces.
Ukraine is not part of
NATO. Several years ago, Ukraine transferred all its nuclear weapon to Russia
in exchange for written guarantees of its borders and sovereignty. Obviously, Russia
never intended to keep its promises, and used the moment to grab some land with
no hesitation.
In spite of the poor
state of the Ukrainian army, which was totally unprepared for war with a strong
experienced enemy, the military operation in the Eastern Europe was not so
smooth for Moscow. More than 2,000 failed Russian soldiers and worldwide
economic sanctions forced Putin to freeze its operations, trying to apply
political sleazy tactics to reach its goals, while not falling into the deeper
economic crisis.
And what is even more
depressing, 86% of the Russian population supports the government in all its
steps and rhetoric. They applaud when Russian tanks move into Russia. They
agree when government claims that it is Americans who created the conflict and
shut down the passenger plane from Malaysian Airlines. They offer uniform
support to the government, when government officials promise to capture the
neighboring countries in two weeks, and send nuclear missiles to the USA, if
the “unfriendly” sanctions will not be removed. In the press, no one says “Americans”
anymore, just “Pindoses”, which means something like homosexual perverts and
idiots.
But, Russia is far away,
and you may not care much. You may stop investing into Russian market as it
goes straight South anyway. You may stop drinking Russian Vodka, and totally
forget about the war. But you cannot forget, if you live there.
I would like to offer
a fresh post in Washington Post, about what happens with the citizens of the
occupied territories, who were not been able to flee from the region for different
personal reasons.
An Orwellian nightmare for pro-Ukrainians in rebel-held east
Khutor and Nika move briskly on the sidewalk, but not fast
enough to draw attention. They have tried to memorize the “wrong streets” — the
ones where they know the pro-Russian rebels who seized this city now regularly
stand guard in camouflage, AK-47s poised. But sometimes the two of them get it
wrong. Like now.
A muscular dirty-blond bearing a studied look of
intimidation and an arm patch with the banner of the so-called New Russia
clutches his weapon firmly as they pass. Khutor, 42, and Nika, 33, lower their
heads. They cease talking. In a place where even a trip to the supermarket has
become a ritual of stress, the couple tightens their grips on their bags of
groceries, as if pointing them out. See? Just ran out for some milk and bread.
Thanks now. Got to go.
In this metropolis that had a prewar population of almost a
million, but where the city center now feels like an Orwellian ghost town of
propaganda posters and armed patrols, perhaps no one feels more alone than
those who still harbor pro-Ukrainian sentiments. Since the separatists took
total control here, human rights and Ukrainian activists say, an untold number
of loyalists have been extorted, abducted, tortured and, allegedly, executed.
Many have left in search of sanctuaries farther west. But a small number of
them — like Khutor and Nika — are riding out the storm.
And they want the others — the ones who, like them, are
perhaps too afraid to speak up publicly — to know they are not as alone as they
might think. Three blocks later, the couple feel brave enough to take a short
detour and point out a piece of Khutor’s handiwork on the wall of an old
apartment building. He spray-painted it weeks ago, he said, before he was
detained and tortured. It was meant to be a message to the others.
A blue-and-yellow trident. The symbol of Ukraine.
It is now hardly visible. Someone aligned with the new
pro-Russian masters in Donetsk tried to blot it out with black paint. But you
can still see its outline.
“They try to cover us up,” said Khutor, a nickname he
assumed to hide his identity after his arrest by the Donetsk People’s Republic,
the rebel outfit that now rules here. Khutor’s wife, going by the name Nika, nodded
in agreement as he pointed to his heart and said, “But Ukraine is still here.”
Small acts of
sedition
Until recently, Donetsk was almost impassable, rocked by
constant shelling and gunfire. The fighting has subsided since Kiev and the
rebels agreed to a tenuous truce that began Sept. 5, and both sides have
started to pull back heavy artillery in recent days. But it is less a full
cease-fire than a de-escalation, and city authorities on Wednesday reported the
sounds of continued artillery volleys. Meanwhile, Kiev is suing for peace,
offering a deal to the rebels that would grant them broad powers of self-rule
in the occupied east and could find pro-Ukrainians here living in New Russia in
all but name. Rebel leaders said Wednesday that they planned to hold elections
Nov. 2 for a new legislature that would rule the region.
In the more densely populated neighborhoods ringing this
city, some of the hundreds of thousands of residents who fled Donetsk are
trickling back in. There are slightly more people on the streets, more lights
in the windows of the drab-colored apartment blocks. But infrastructure here is
heavily damaged, and most residents still have running water for only three
hours a day. There are rolling blackouts. Schools remain closed. Hospitals are
short-staffed. Factories are shuttered. And the center of town — dotted with
patrols by the Donetsk People’s Republic, boarded-up businesses and a host of
billboards espousing rebel slogans — feels eerily abandoned.
Nevertheless, a few pro-Ukrainians here are still risking
their safety in little acts of sedition. Spray-painting a wall. Planting a
Ukrainian flag sticker at a bus stop.
“They disappear quickly,” said Khutor, who used to work at
an advertising firm that went bust with the war. “But someone might see them
and realize it wasn’t there the day before. They’ll know that some of us are
still here.”
Even those still loyal to Kiev in this city concede that a
great number of their neighbors and (former) friends are supporting the
pro-Russian uprising. Even more Donetsk residents are simply pragmatic,
prepared to back the guys with the biggest guns if that means an end to the
fighting.
But they have all effectively found themselves living in a
police state. For pro-Ukrainians, it is one where their views can mean
terrifying trips to “the basement,” the makeshift detention centers for
suspected spies.
For them, this is now life behind enemy lines.
“These people have had six months to leave the city,” said
Konstyantyn Savinov, head of community services for the city of Donetsk. “But
some of them are still hidden. Should they still be here? It is not up to me to
decide.”
‘They torture you’
“Shush,” Khutor whispers as he welcomes a foreign journalist
into the office of the firm where he once worked. It closed, like so many
others, because of the fighting. He and Nika moved in last month, after
shelling became unbearable in the neighborhood around their apartment. But in
the abandoned office space next door, a pro-Russian family is now squatting.
“No English,” he said. “They can hear.”
Inside, they have piled up vegetables, water and canned
goods. They’ve turned an underground storage space into an impromptu bomb
shelter. In the center of the room, they have rigged a makeshift pillar to prop
up a segment of ceiling damaged by a mortar round. On a shelf, they keep a
Ukrainian trident plaque and the now-folded Ukrainian flag that once was draped
proudly over the balcony of their apartment. Although unrest began in earnest
in March, they didn’t take it down until June, when pro-Russian separatists
extended their control over the city.
The dingy office is now their sanctuary, the place where
they spend the majority of their time. All but a handful of their pro-Ukrainian
friends have fled Donetsk. At least one, Khutor said, saw his business seized
by the separatists and had to pay a bribe before being allowed to depart with
his family.
They are getting out for good reason, as Khutor can attest.
Over the summer, he said, he was riding his bike near his apartment block when
a DPR patrol stopped him. Its members accused him of being a spotter for the
Ukrainian military, which was shelling rebel positions nearby. They put a bag
over his head, he said, then pistol-whipped him before taking him to the
basement of an abandoned motel.
He pauses, as tears well in between manic laughs. “They
don’t just beat you,” he hissed through a tormented smile. “They torture you.”
He was held for two weeks, he said. His face was so beaten
that he’s now missing teeth. He was suspended upside down by a rope, he said.
After some of the other men being held apparently confessed, Khutor said, they
were executed. Their bodies, he added, were put on display for other prisoners
to see.
If Khutor was guilty, it was of a far lesser crime. Bullets
and bombs were not his style. Instead, he had joined a friend in what he calls
a “graffiti war,” in which the two of them would spray-paint buildings with
pro-Ukrainian symbols. This he would not tell his captors, and ultimately he
was released.
Khutor and Nika have stayed in Donetsk because of elderly
parents who refuse to leave. As the city has grown more dangerous for
pro-Ukrainians, Khutor has stopped spray-painting buildings. But both of them
still covertly leave little calling cards — small stickers of the Ukrainian
flag — where they can. They have cut off most personal contact. Instead, they
communicate with like-minded people though social media. In public, they keep
to themselves. No chatting with strangers. “You don’t know who they are,” Nika
said.
When they do engage in niceties — say, while standing in
line at one of the handful of ATMs still working in the city — they have
learned to fake it.
“Most people in Donetsk will not talk about politics openly
now,” Khutor said. “But if they do, you train yourself to agree. ‘Yes, of
course, the Ukrainian government is fascist! Yes, of course, they must be
beaten!’ You tell them what they want to hear.
“But inside, we are Ukrainians,” he said. “That will never
change.”
Author: Anthony Faiola
