THE BLOG JOURNAL POSTS WILL MOSTLY BE BASED ON OPINIONS OF INTELLECTUALS & ANALYSTS FROM POLITICAL, MILITARY, CIVIL SOCIETY, DIPLOMATIC, AND EDUCATIONISTS CIRCLES. THE BLOG WILL BE POSTED ON RECENT IMPORTANT EVENTS HAVING IMPACTS ON WORLD AT LARGE ON SOCIAL, DEFENSE, ECONOMY, FINANCE, AND POLITICAL SUBJECTS.
The
Russian-backed blitz that seemed imminent hasn’t materialized. One reason:
confusion about what Moscow and the rebels really want.
DONETSK, Ukraine — The military commandant in
this embattled city, Andrei Shpigel, was having an emotional discussion with
officers and soldiers of his “DPR Army” on the veranda of a local restaurant.
They were talking about the future of their self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s
Republic. Would it eventually become a peaceful region of Ukraine, or be
annexed by Russia, or stay an independent but unrecognized separatist
territory? For Shpigel and perhaps 15,000 other rebel
soldiers controlling this part of eastern Ukraine, a return of Kiev’s legal and
military authority over their “republic” would mean potential prison terms and
even worse: “mass physical elimination,” they agreed, nodding at each other.
The commandant told The Daily Beast that DPR forces would never allow their
self-proclaimed republic to reunite with Ukraine. And yet, the struggle for
quasi-independence appears to have lost momentum. “Whatever happened to the
Russian ‘blitz’ that everybody was predicting a month ago?” I asked the
soldiers. Then, Kremlin-backed rebel forces launched a violent offensive on
Ukrainian positions in Maryinka, a village outside Donetsk city. It seemed that
the clashes were going to escalate through the summer, much as they had done
last year. As the soldiers tell the story, there was a
bureaucratic and administrative problem. “That blitz has never happened because
our DPR Army did not support the idea of the Maryinka operation, the attack was
conducted by the DPR interior ministry,” Shpigel explained to The Daily Beast.
Reaching out for a piece of paper and a pen, the commandant drew a simple
optical illusion of cylinders that could be curved or square depending on the
angle: “There are at least three truths,” he said: “One in Russia, one in Ukraine and one in the DPR— but there is only one reality.” In their ideal reality, the Donetsk
separatists would keep all their weapons and power, receive financial support
from Russia and do business with the Ukraine. But in the real reality people
living in rebel-controlled territories are suffering for lack of medicine,
waiting months expecting Moscow to pay their pensions and salaries and even to
deliver groceries and consumer goods. A commander named Mamai chimes in: “Putin’s man, administrator Vladislav Surkov, is here right now cleaning up the
upper circles around Zakharchenko,” he says, referring to the supposed leader
of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko.
“Today two
of our guys with guns can enter any minister’s office and decide politics in
our people’s republic.”
But the rebel commanders insisted it’s not
just a matter of Moscow making decisions for DPR. Shpigel suggested, “The
Kremlin’s power has at least three heads, liberals from Yeltsin’s family,
Putin’s men and Putin himself.” A 24-year-old soldier named Vladimir put in a
word: “What politicians are you talking about? Today two of our guys with guns
can enter any minister’s office and decide politics in our people’s republic,”
he said. In spite of the divided opinions and
controversial tensions among rebels, Russia has supplied food, gas, clothes and
other goods to Donbas residents. On July 16, a caravan of over 30 trucks with
“Humanitarian Help from Russian Federation” written on their sides arrived in
Donetsk; on Thursday, 100 more trucks loaded with over one thousand tons of goods
reached the border with the rebel controlled territories. A special investigative report by the Russian RBK
agency described the complicated subterfuge by which Russian money
flowed the Eastern Ukraine through South Ossetia, a breakaway Georgian republic
that, unlike DPR, had accounts in Russian banks. Was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s
strategy to back the breakaway republics, while expecting Ukraine to pay the
pensions and other bills? If so, he miscalculated. Ukraine stopped paying
salaries and pensions to the breakaway republics last summer and today the
economy, political scandals and internal conflicts have become the Kremlin’s
headache. To provide pensions for over one million retired people in the
breakaway territory, Russia had to take a part of the money from its own
budget. In interviews with the Daily Beast, residents of Horlivka, Snizhnoye,
Rassypnoye, Grabovo complained about tiny pensions of about $25 to $30 a month. There is also a dramatic shortage of medicine
and speculators bringing medicine from Russia or Ukraine sell it at prices
local pensioners can’t afford. Enrique Menendez, a participant in the
Responsible Citizens volunteer movement, , told The Daily Beast that many
babies born in Donetsk are premature and neede special medicines, but “at the
moment there are only four boxes of medicine for premature babies left in all
of Donetsk, while we need at least ten boxes.” Patients with diabetes cannot
buy insulin inside DPR. A recent United Nations report noted that 8,000 HIV
patients have been left without medicine. Russian officials, including Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov, have pointed out again and again that Russia does not have the
money to feed Donbas and that the breakaway territories were Ukraine’s
responsibility. So, who would supply medicine to millions of
people in rebel republics of Luhansk and Donetsk? Donbas should not expect much
from Russia on that front, either. Its pharmaceutical market depends on for
foreign producers who demand payment from dwindingly supplies of foreign
currency. In fact, Russia does not have money left to
feed itself: on Wednesday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev,admitted that there
was no money left in Russia’s budget to support 94 so-called crisis cities
dependent on single industries; about 19 million Russians live in these
one-factory towns, now, without support programs. Maybe the Kremlin should have thought a year
ago whether Russia was prosperous enough for a foreign policy that leaves
neighboring areas expecting support from Moscow. “Very soon crowds of angry Russians will
blame the Kremlin for annexing Crimea and backing Donbas while Russia itself ia
desperate and hungry,” Timur Olevsky of Rain TV told The Daily Beast. “Under
new regulations, Russian law enforcement will have a right to shoot at
protesters,” he suggested.
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