34 Donbas separatists?
Just a nice civil war? No. Russia trained people as terrorists, termed them “seperatists”, send soldiers and weapons to Donbas. Learn about hybrid invasion.
Girkin, Mafia, MH17, DPR, LPR
- Pro-russian fighters in Donbas are “seperatists”
- The so-called separatists of Donbas are autonomists
- Occupiers are a “People’s Republic”
- The Donetsk “People’s Republic” has been recognized by the US
- The uprising in the Donbas was directed against Moscow (1989)
- Moscow gains control of the Donbas and twists history into its opposite
- Pro-russian fighters in Donbas are paid mercenaries trained in Moscow and russian soldiers
- Pro-russian fighters are equipped with heavy weapons from Russia
- The Occupiers are a “Kremlin’s Republic” not recognized by nobody
34.1 The short version
After an uprising in the Donbas in 1989 that threatened Moscow’s rule at its core, Moscow took revenge, brought the Donbas under violent control and twisted history against Kyiv.
Russian separatist forces in Ukraine, primarily the People’s Militias of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), were pro-Russian paramilitaries in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. They were under the overall control of the Russian Federation. They were also referred to as Russian proxy forces … Although the Russian government often denied direct involvement, evidence suggested otherwise. The separatists admitted receiving weaponry and supplies from Russia, being trained there, and having thousands of Russian citizens in their ranks.1
34.2 Resistance against Moscow
The protest of the Soviet miners in the summer of 1989 was also a referendum on Mikhail Gorbachev [^sec-donbas-separatists-6].
The qualitatively new aspect of this - temporally and spatially limited - workers’ unrest consisted of
… the scale and well-functioning coordination of the strikes
… the solidarity demonstrated by the regional population with the strikers
… the self-confident appearance of the strike committees
… the harmonious coordination between the committees and the deputies of the affected regions in the Supreme Soviet, who adopted the strike demands as their own
and used the Moscow plenum with its publicity effectively in the interests of the miners
… the unvarnished reporting in the Soviet media, in some cases with unabashed sympathy
… the moderate reaction of the state leadership to the challenge, where for the first time a violent end to the conflict was refrained from and instead a fundamental recognition of the grievances raised and a shift of the dispute to the level of arbitration commissions was introduced
… as a legislative consequence, the drafting of a special strike law with binding rules for labor disputes[^sec-donbas-separatists-7]
In other words, the insurgent Donbass region threatened the core of Moscow’s centralized totalitarian system of rule, and Moscow set to work to bring this region under control, willingly with violence and destruction. Moscow’s propaganda began to rewrite the history of the Donbas in the opposite direction: the protests were against Kyiv.
34.3 Russia’s war
That the war in Donbas was unleashed by Russia is evidenced by the chronology – Donetsk City Council, which at that moment was already controlled by the militants, started to talk about a referendum on “the fate of the Donbas” as early as March 1. Later, the seizures of administrative buildings and the beating and killing of pro-Ukrainian rally participants happened. However, the anti-terrorist operation had not been launched at that time – the Ukrainian government announced it only on April 12. Meanwhile, the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” was proclaimed on April 7, and on the same day Putin was asked to send in troops. This was done by the Russian special services’ agents and local collaborators who, with the armed support of the Russian special services, seized power in the region.
34.4 Russia invaded 2014
Novoazovsk was openly captured by the Russian forces, as well as Ilovaisk where directly Russian, and not proxy, troops were deployed. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was downed by a missile launched from a Russian Buk air defense system by a Russian crew which was sent to Donetsk region from the territory of Russia – this has been proved in court in the Netherlands, who found guilty FSB officer Igor Girkin (alias Igor Strelkov), who played a key role in the Russian annexation of Crimea, and then in the Donbas War as an organizer of militant groups in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), see Chapter 29.
34.5 Russia sent troops
What is more, Russia sent in its troops and despite the phrase “they are not there,” which is already a meme, it actually never bothered to conceal this fact. For example, the mh17-terrorist Igor Girkin, said in 2014:
“I was the one who pulled the trigger of this war,” Strelkov said in an interview published Thursday with Russia’s Zavtra newspaper, which espouses imperialist views.
“If our unit hadn’t crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out — like in Kharkiv, like in Odessa. A few dozens of people would be killed, burned, or arrested. And that would be it,”2
Even Vladimir Putin in fact confirmed this (note how “cw/wl” at DW have hidden this important confession from the German speaking audience):
We never said there were no people there who were carrying out certain tasks including in the military sphere.3 4
34.6 Russia sent weapons
Among the combatants from Russia in the separatist areas were an unknown number of cadre soldiers from the Russian armed forces and the Russian Interior Ministry. According to Nikolay Mitrokhin, 40-45 percent of the 20-25,000 combatants in August 2014 were of local origin, including conscripts … A coordination center in Rostov, Russia, prepared the Russian “volunteers” for their missions in 2014-15, trained them and distributed them to units in the Donbas. Russian professional soldiers were sent to the Donbas on “business trips” or “on vacation” … The leading officers of the siloviki in the “DNR” and “LNR” all come from Russia or are Russian citizens. Although the budget of the “siloviki” is not public, its financial maintenance is mainly covered by funds from the Russian state budget … The equipment of the armed forces in the “DNR” and “LNR” with heavy and light weapons, ammunition, spare parts, fuel and equipment comes mainly from the stocks of the Southern Military District of the Russian Federation 5.
34.7 Russia sent mafia
Abuse of authority and the intertwining of executive power with criminal self-enrichment are a systematic characteristic of rule in the Donbas (ibid.)
The mafia-like corruption and totalitarian despotism in Donbas is so bad that even the FSB officer Igor Girkin (alias Igor Strelkov) was upset about it:
34.8 Who bombed Donbas?
During the full-scale war, probably every Ukrainian has heard accusations from Russia supporters saying: “Where have you been for eight years when Ukraine bombed the Donbas?” This is one of the most disgusting, but at the same time most popular Russian manipulations, because in fact it was Russia who did all this, see Chapter 33.
Russian separatist forces in Ukraine. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_separatist_forces_in_Ukraine↩︎
Anna Dolgov (Nov. 21, 2014) Russia’s Igor Strelkov: I Am Responsible for War in Eastern Ukraine. The Moscow Times. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/11/21/russias-igor-strelkov-i-am-responsible-for-war-in-eastern-ukraine-a41598↩︎
Putin speaks his mind. Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that military personnel were active in east Ukraine, criticized Turkey’s leadership and mused on the future of Syria. He did it in front of some 1,400 journalists. (12/17/2015) Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/putin-basks-in-the-limelight-of-global-media/a-18924143↩︎
Putin: Keine Versöhnung mit der Türkei. Bei seiner Jahrespressekonferenz teilte der russische Präsident ordentlich aus: Er sehe keinen Raum für eine Einigung mit der Türkei, so Putin. Kritik übte der Kremlchef auch an der Ukraine. Auf die USA ging er aber zu. (17.12.2015). https://www.dw.com/de/putin-schlie%C3%9Ft-vers%C3%B6hnung-mit-der-t%C3%BCrkei-aus/a-18924907↩︎
Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (14.02.2022) Analyse: Die Silowiki in den “Volksrepubliken” Donezk und Luhansk: Entstehung der bewaffneten Einheiten Ukraine-Analyse Nr. 261 Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. https://www.bpb.de/themen/europa/ukraine-analysen/nr-261/346847/analyse-die-silowiki-in-den-volksrepubliken-donezk-und-luhansk-entstehung-der-bewaffneten-einheiten↩︎