Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1528235
separation from Ukraine through a regional referendum, after which they would of course ask Russia for help to protect the referendum. The council voted on a special appeal to Kyiv authorities, in which instead of meeting these demands, they asked for special status for the Russian language and autonomy for Donbas. This led to an assault on the regional and city council buildings. The local elites no longer wanted to protect the demoralized law enforcement officers and the previously loyal thugs protecting the council. Thus, in one day, the game of the eastern oligarchic and mafia elites of Donbas turned against them. Pro- Russian activists destroyed their power in the region, and as of today, nothing remains of it. The use of pro- Russian and pro-Soviet sympathies among the local population for their own interests backfired, and these elites became the first victims of the Russian offensive in Donbas. This situation was also, in large part, a failure for the Russians themselves, as the elimination of the regional elites' power meant the collapse of the bloodless Crimean scenario for Donbas. The lack of legal representatives in the region who could formally request Russia to deploy troops (with the support, of course, of Yanukovych, who was still in Russia) necessitated an escalation and the use of military force. This brings us to the next stage of the story. Stage III. The Russian Spring. Hybrid Invasion. The beginning of the next stage of escalation in Donbas can be traced to the start of regular armed clashes in the region in mid-spring 2014. Of course, in the Russian plan, this was not supposed to signal a significant engagement in the conflict at that point. It was meant to appear as an armed uprising by a small group of local activists (conveniently leave out the fact that the leader of these "activists" was an officer of Russian intelligence...). On April 12, 2014, a small detachment led by Igor Girkin joined a small group of local activists and took over the town of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region. Most of his group consisted of Russians who had come from Russia into Ukraine. Today, we know from Girkin himself that his group had previously been in Crimea, where their task was to take over the Crimean Autonomous Parliament. Afterward, they were transferred to Donbas with the goal, according to Girkin, of igniting the war in this region. And Girkin succeeded fully in this mission. Without his active involvement, the Kyiv authorities likely would have had enough time to gather sufficient forces to quell the already weakened rebellion in Donetsk. Girkin still denies that his actions were part of a larger Kremlin plan, claiming that he had no support from the Russian regime and acted solely on his own will, with the backing of Russian "civil society" and private businessmen (such as Kremlin-linked oligarch Malofeyev). The capture of Sloviansk, a strategically important town in Donbas, served as the trigger for mobilizing forces on both sides of the conflict. On one side, all the active pro-Russian groups across Ukraine began converging on Donbas to join what seemed like the decisive battle for Ukraine's future. On the other side, it signaled to the Kyiv authorities that the local elites had completely lost control of the situation, and there was no point in negotiating the future of Donbas with them. Girkin was already openly treating the former oligarchic elites as traitors who should be dealt with harshly if they did not voluntarily cooperate with the "new authorities". Some might ask why I keep focusing on Donetsk and the events in the Donetsk region, when this story equally concerns the second capital of Donbas, Luhansk. In reality, despite the significant differences between the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, even during the reign of the "Donetsk mafia" in this part of Ukraine, Luhansk was always treated as the poorer, younger brother of Donetsk. The latter had always been the capital of the entire Donbas, and it was there that the fate of this historic region was decided, while Luhansk was forced to follow and implement the decisions made in Donetsk. This was also the case during the 2014 crisis. The most important power center in the region was Donetsk, and it was the www.fragoutmag.com