Rumors of the deal trump and Putin in Ukraine, some in Kiev speak of separating sponsored by the Russian East. For others it’s anathema.
The temperature in the Eastern part of Ukraine fell to minus 12 and continued to fall. Wednesday in the afternoon, more than 200 vehicles full of bright plastic bags, suitcases and exhausted passengers, on a dirt road in the middle of the field, awaiting their turn to pass through a checkpoint in Marinka the part of the Donetsk region, which is under the control of insurgents.
Some people waited more than eight hours, but none of them dared to get out and stretch your legs as the surrounding fields strewn with landmines. So they were among the armored vehicles and transport with Ukrainian soldiers and officers of the security service… to pass customs and be on the breakaway territories, which Russia supports.
Mine is not the only danger. Militants from the Pro-Russian side often shoot in the direction of the checkpoint in Marinka. January 25, the Ukrainian army reported three soldiers wounded in addition to the hundreds of military and civilians killed and wounded in recent months.
Checkpoint threat, the transition from the last forces continued to work, enriching smugglers and exacerbating the fury of the critics of corruption. It provided communication to a divided community. But things can change.
In a world of increasing barriers can become much worse.
Now in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to discuss the idea of building a real or virtual walls to isolate the 400 km-long front line, which occupied half of the Donbass.
Maybe it’s real, maybe not — the cost of a strong wall is huge, but the location of the new landmines and the establishment of closed checkpoints will cost relatively inexpensive. However, the idea infuriating Eugene Vilinskaya, Deputy Governor of the Donetsk region. Almost three-year war has claimed the lives of more than 10 thousand people. More than two million residents of Donbass have lost their homes, and the war continues to kill dozens of people every month.
In the city of Marinka some of the destroyed houses on the streets of October, Lenin and Shevchenko was renovated, but in one of the new Windows got a sniper’s bullet. “The impression is that they have been bullied,” said The Daily Beast the head of city administration Alexander Teslya.
On Friday, the OSCE mission warned of a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe in the conflict-affected areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions. After a firefight between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed militants failed water treatment plant, and hundreds of thousands of people were left without water in the winter cold.
What does it mean to leave half the population behind the wall, under the control of Moscow-backed separatists?
“We don’t even need to build a wall, neutral territory along the line of contact is mined”, — said Tesla to The Daily Beast and sighed deeply.
“This wall is built against the old ladies, someone’s mothers and children? This is not the border between California and Mexico, is the families who are part of the same people — only idiots could come to a head!” — he resents.
Vilensky told The Daily Beast that any barrier in the Donbass will be worse than wall of Donald trump. Today’s comparison comes to mind of many Ukrainians.
No matter, they are under the control of militants or Kiev, but all of the nearly four million people on the territory of Donetsk — citizens of Ukraine. To separate the Donbass officially, on paper, to isolate thousands of Pro-Russian citizens from the Pro-Western side — it would mean to betray those who have always been loyal to Ukraine, to abandon them, said Wilinski.
“Moscow intends to implement Chechen scenario of total fear in the victims of terror by Pro-Kremlin society, told The Daily Beast the Deputy Governor. But I’m sure we could gradually bring the rebel regions in Ukraine.”
A leading supporter of the plan to isolate terrorist Donetsk and Lugansk national republics, Vice-speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Oksana Rawfoodist strongly opposed to soft reintegration of the breakaway territories. She recently presented a draft law that the Parliament supports the party “Samopomich”, which was mainly popular in the Western regions of Ukraine. Raw foodists is pushing for the adoption of the new law and insists that the Ukrainian oligarchs, billionaires hailing mostly from the Eastern regions must stop supporting separatists.
Most notable among these megasetter figures, according to raw foodists, is Rinat Akhmetov, a billionaire who continues to earn on the production of coal in the terrorist so-called republics and conducts trade with Russia and Ukraine.
“We need to isolate the territory occupied by our eternal enemy of Russia, both in economic and political terms, according to the law; we must build a virtual wall to create a customs boundary along the line of contact and control all transportation and goods,” said Rawfoodist The Daily Beast.
A number of international organizations, including Global Rights Compliance, criticized the law raw foodists, because it may be a shared position, for example, to cancel all documents such as birth certificates, death and marriage issued by the “occupation authorities”.
“In our view, the bill causes concern, and is largely violates Ukraine’s obligations under international law”, — reported in his commentary Global Rights Compliance. Refusal to accept documents of militants, they say, violates the international Covenant on civil and political rights and the European Convention on human rights.
But the Deputy speaker insisted that it is time for such a law.
“Look, Putin and trump underestimate each other, think they can outwit each other, but this is impossible, and, in the end, in the near future, they will clash”, — predicts Rawfoodist in an interview with The Daily Beast.
“This day will be the point, when you begin to form a new global order of insecurity, and the world can’t do without Ukraine, a constant target for Russia.”
Raw foodists suggested that the line designed to stop Russia, should be held in the Donbass. “We know Moscow better than any other country in the world, it is here that the world can stop Russia”.
About two million people, or half the population of the destroyed Donetsk region, living in the “black zone”, as it calls the Deputy Governor Wilinski. The residents of the breakaway Russian-backed Donetsk people’s Republic has no own independent sources of information, as chance to protest against the thousands of militants, armed with which there are tanks, artillery and jet systems of volley fire.
Donald Bowser (Bowser Donald), consultant of the UN development Program, working in Donetsk and sees similarities between Russia’s actions in Chechnya and its intentions in Ukraine. “Nevertheless, the Donbass much more than any of the post-Soviet separatist republics,” he said.
Bowser has a lot of experience with social and political problems of Ukraine, but based on what I heard from officials in the Donetsk region, he said that the hope is still there. “The Governor’s office in Kramatorsk is really fighting corruption. I believe that Velinski — an honest man,” said Bowser to The Daily Beast.
A year before the outbreak of war Wilinski ordered a survey of sociologists Rating Group, which was to show whether Ukraine is ready for European integration.
“To our surprise, we saw that 69% of the population of Donbass wanted Ukraine to unite with Russia and Belarus into a single state, and only 30% demanded independence, so the split was obvious long before the war,” he told The Daily Beast Igor Tishchenko, a researcher from the Rating Group. As emphasized by the sociologist, the same survey showed that about 90% of the population wanted Russian language became the second official language of the state.
Many consider Donald trump’s Pro-Russian President in the White house and Ukraine is now very divided in opinion about the future of Donbass.
The debate on the question of what to do with the conflict that broke out after one of the famous billionaires of the country, Victor Pinchuk, has written an opinion in The Wall Street Journal under the headline “Ukraine needs to make painful compromises for peace with Russia.”
Statement Pinchuk has been criticized, especially by war veterans and victims of the conflict. Father-in-law Pinchuk, former President Leonid Kuchma represented Ukraine in the negotiations of the trilateral contact group in Minsk. And some asked the oligarch to Express such opinion without the approval of the current President of Petro Poroshenko. Others are investigating the possibility of a transaction billionaires about the future of Donbass, not taking into account public opinion.
After the statement Trappa on “the wall” in the United States, people wonder what arrangements can be the new President of the United States with Russia, will not yield whether it is the Crimea and will not approve of the de facto division of the rest of Ukraine.
One of the members of Parliament, Mustafa Nayyem (Mustafa Nayyem), wants to send a message to the US President via The Daily Beast.
“President trump needs to understand that Ukraine for many years will remain a minefield, and that if he tries to make deals behind our backs, and there is a huge civil conflict, and when the Baltic States and Poland will understand that the United States do not support them, they will form a coalition against Russia’s aggression,” warned Nye, who firmly believes that Ukraine can regain its sovereignty.
Team Nayem together with the Ministry of foreign Affairs of Ukraine speaks out against the loss of any part of the territory of Donbass.
“We hope that trump will adhere to the Minsk agreement, we need the United States as a mediator in the integration process, which will take years.”
In Kramatorsk, officials don’t like it when decisions are taken behind their back. “We are confident that the integration will gradually begin to work, we saw how young people from the occupied Donetsk crossed the line of contact and passed a lot of kilometers to attend the concert of group “Ocean Elzy” in Mariupol; but the separatists, who are killing our soldiers must be punished”, — says Igor Stokoz, second Deputy Governor of the Donetsk region.
And Stokoz and Wilinski left his family in Kiev and moved to this region in order to change the situation in the devastated and still largely Pro-Russian part of Ukraine. But they know tough times ahead, and the reverse side of the reintegration process can be revenge and violence, as thousands of Ukrainians wanted the death of those who collaborated with Russia.
If to be optimistic, we can hope that the infernal war, which destroyed the Donbass, may provide the authorities in Donetsk, Ukrainian and foreign NGOs, volunteers and youth movements have a unique chance to turn the Donbass in free of corruption the region attractive for young people.
© AFP 2016, Volodymyr ShuvayevНа the streets of Kramatorsk after shelling
On Thursday evening the students of Kramatorsk gathered in the club of “Vilna Hata” — the newly opened hipster center with wi-fi, free books and a tea. To equip this place in the basement of the old house, the activists in Kramatorsk won a grant from USAID.
“We are excited to see everyone here, no matter what side they were during the conflict,” — said with a friendly smile, Alex SCHOTT, the owner of the club “Vilna Hata”. Today we present the new application for mobile phone that will tell you about the cultural life of our city.”
SCHOTT 24 years, he never lived in the Soviet Union, but his experience with the mentality of the old Empire will last for a whole novel. From 12 April to 5 July 2014, he witnessed the fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces in the streets of his hometown.
SCHOTT and his friends, young and creative people, full of innovative ideas that embody the hope for the establishment of a Donbass that wants to build Wilinski in Ukraine without any walls.
“We now have a unique opportunity, budget, resources, so I dream that Kramatorsk could become what West Berlin was once for East, — Velinski told The Daily Beast. — I have a dream that graduates of the three universities temporarily displaced, who are now in Kramatorsk, young professionals, remained in the Donbas and develops it”.
