Paweł Pieniążek - Greetings from Novorossiya - Eyewitness to the War in Ukraine

But before the show begins Khorosheva turns up. She looks for something.

“Excuse me, what is Ponomarev going to do at twelve? Unfortunately, I have not heard what he was saying at the conference,” she says at last, turning to one of the journalists. She finds out that the self-proclaimed mayor is about to meet with the special observation mission of the OSCE. Then she tries to enter the space between the barricades. One of the “greens,” however, stops her.

“What are you looking for here?” he asks.

“I am Ponomarev’s press secretary and I have to get there,” she points toward the SSU.

“I am sorry, but you can’t pass,” the armed man says to end the conversation, and Khorosheva walks away toward the City Council.

At the same moment a question I had been asking myself since my arrival in Slovyansk came back to me: Who is in charge here? Who exercises control over whom? The City Council over “greens”? Or perhaps “greens” over the City Council?

Right after my arrival in the city I addressed this question to Anatoly Khmelovy, a former parliamentary deputy and presently the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

“‘Greens’ do not control the City Council, nor does the City Council control ‘greens,’” Khmelovy told me. I notice very quickly that it wasn’t a truthful answer. The City Council totally defers to Ponomarev. Undoubtedly the majority of its members believe in the legitimacy of his actions. If someone was of a different opinion, he would keep it to himself, because his career could come to an end very quickly. Here nobody has ever heard about brave people who would oppose the “people’s power.”

“Please, have a look, everything is working fine,” the mayor kept boasting about the order in the city.

Black hoodie with the ribbon of Saint George attached, black polo shirt, black cap, and jeans—this is Ponomarev’s typical outfit. From time to time you can see him in uniform. He often covers or hides his left hand with its missing index finger. He is forty-nine, but very little is known about his past.

He is a retired soldier. He claims that during Soviet times he served in northern Russia. It is possible that he participated in special operations. As some Russian media maintain, after the fall of the Soviet Union he was selling cars to Russia and was the manager of a garment factory. The residents who don’t support his activities allege that in reality he was dealing drugs. This is a popular enough business idea in Slovyansk. That’s why in April the militants paid a call on the local Roma households. People who were unsympathetic to the mayor said that the basis for this was not racism but business. Therefore only a few Roma families met with repression. Ponomarev himself says very little about the 1990s.

“What did I do before the conflict? I was a co-owner of the soap factory,” he describes his last job. As he points out, he is a simple man, who is not afraid of any work. If need be, he is ready to fight alongside the rank-and-file militants. Was he a popular figure in Slovyansk? No. Before he proclaimed himself the “people’s mayor” hardly anybody had ever heard of him.

Although Ponomarev is the only one who can count on the support of “greens,” he doesn’t command them. He is a pawn. It is not at the City Council building that you can find all the military equipment, but at the SSU headquarters. This means that the command center is there. The journalists’ access to this facility is very limited. You can enter Marx Street only during the “presentation” of captured nationalists or for an interview with some high-ranking officials. I have managed to talk to more or less fifty-year-old Evgeny Gorbik twice.

“What did you do before the war?” one of the journalists asks him during the “presentation.”

“I was an entrepreneur,” Gorbik replies.

“In the region?”

“You might say so.”

The second time, I showed up with a Crimean photographer. Then “You might say so” got a more precise geographical location.

“You are from Crimea? I am from there, too,” Gorbik addressed my companion very cheerfully.

When on April 26 the representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic came to Slovyansk, they didn’t call on Ponomarev but instead went to the SSU. It was the first time Igor Strelkov appeared on the Donbas scene. It was his first press conference. Soon after he was interviewed by Komsomolskaya Pravda . Unlike Ponomarev, he never takes off his uniform.

Strelkov took part in the occupation of Crimea and from there he came to Slovyansk. According to him, he was persuaded by the soldiers from his unit, who for the most part were Donbas residents. But not only, he emphasizes: in his unit there are people from Crimea and other Ukrainian regions, and one-third of them don’t have Ukrainian passports at all.

According to the information published by the SSU, his real name is Igor Girkin, he is forty-four and he is an officer of the Russian intelligence agency—GRU. On the other hand, he claims to be a former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), now retired. This gets some confirmation by Ponomarev, who would say that they had known each other for a long time and that they were both pensioners.

In 1992 the first serious military operation took Girkin to Transnistria. Later on, he visited Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and other Russian regions, where, among other things, he was involved in antiterrorism actions. When he isn’t traveling, he lives in Moscow. He has been a keen reenactor. Word has it that in one of the reenactments of the battle of Grunwald he appeared as a Ruthenian knight.

His job was to unite the separatist forces. There is a lot of anarchy among the “volunteers,” claims Girkin. Before he came out of obscurity, the cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic were, in principle, functioning as separate entities.

“Coordination here is very weak. A lot of different political forces are active here,” the Communist Khmelovy explains. It is Girkin’s job to fix this, so that the “referendum” would be possible.

On April 24 some other journalists and I had an interview set with Ponomarev in the morning. At the appointed hour the security doesn’t let us into the town hall. Stella Khorosheva, his press secretary, cannot leave her house because, as she puts it, “she was stopped by the internet.”

“I am coming,” she calms us down when we call her, but after almost an hour she is still not there. We wait on a bench, resigned, understanding better with each minute that nothing will come of this.

“OK, twenty minutes more and we’re leaving,” says one of the journalists.

When for the last time we attempt to meet Ponomarev and walk toward the guards stationed in front of the City Council, we hear wild screaming. Crying at the top of her voice, an elderly woman in a reflective vest and with a broom in her hand is rushing toward the building. Incoherent sounds turn into separate words.

“Help! They are murdering us!” Tearful, she approaches the building.

“Where are all those men with weapons? Help! Why are you even here?” she shouts. “Greens” look at her with surprise, but they don’t react.

“My family has called me from a nearby village. Shooting is going on there. A few people are dead,” she sobs.

Finally the “people’s mayor” comes out in a hurry. He is accompanied by two armed men in uniform.

“She is a provocateur,” he says softly. The woman is taken to the City Council. Once again she is screaming: “they are murdering, help, do something!”

We decide to check it out. When we run to the hotel to get the equipment, we meet the press secretary, “taken away from the internet.” We try to find out something. Without any luck. It is she who asks us what is happening.