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

Apart from supporting these units, Kolomoyskiy is in charge of other activities. Taking advantage of his eccentric image, the oligarch offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for delivering “a Muscovite”—a “green man” captured on Ukrainian territory. The money is paid by his PrywatBank. The vice governor explains that this is not about people but about illegal arms. There are also cash rewards for any kind of weapons. These rewards are higher than the market price of an ordinary automatic rifle. Since the separatists started to rob arms warehouses, you can find guns everywhere and get them without any problems. A stack of dollars is presumed to persuade chance owners to part with military equipment. “If some people are willing to pay for war, we will pay for peace,” says Filatov.

From Donetsk to Dnipropetrovsk, I was going by train. My journey lasted more or less two hours. However, I had the sensation that I had crossed hundreds of kilometers only to find myself in a different country. I don’t know if I can find anything in common between these two cities. This demonstrates, according to Filatov, that “Novorossiya” is just an invention of the Russian Federation. Each of the eight regions that supposedly belong to it is completely different. If you can compare Dnipropetrovsk to any other Ukrainian city, it would be to Odessa, both ethnically and economically. “That’s why a repetition of events from Odessa, and never from Luhansk, was possible here,” Filatov explains.

Although the separatists made themselves at home in only two of the eight regions in southeastern Ukraine, Russia and its supporters have not changed their rhetoric. Commenting on Ukrainian events, Vladimir Putin would refer in his speeches to the entire territory. Then he would talk directly about Novorossiya, demonstrating thereby how little he cares about Ukrainian statehood.

It is worth remembering that Ukraine has been “divided” from the moment of its independence. Intellectuals were arguing about how many Ukraines actually exist, about a common history and language. Politicians were happy to stir up these discussions, because taking over “the largest Ukraine” makes electoral victory possible. It was particularly visible during the presidential elections when the fiercest battles were fought between the “representatives” of western and eastern Ukraine. When they wanted to provoke especially stormy discussions, they would bring up some question of language and history. These were the causes of protests, clashes, and assaults. It was always a perfect pretext to avoid a discussion about the oligarchs, for example.

The Kiev Maidan tried to go beyond this usual pattern. It has been stressed many times that some of its participants were Russian speakers. Nobody on the stage needed to point this out. It was enough to walk around a bit on that Kiev square to hear Russian. All this was destroyed. The question of language returned like a boomerang and is another weapon used to fight Ukraine. One of the first attempted parliamentary actions after Yanukovych’s flight was to cancel a controversial language law according to which some regions could apply for recognition of a second official language. This law, which had been adopted by the politicians from the Party of Regions in June 2012, stirred up some outrage in Ukraine. There was concern that it might lead to a total displacement of Ukrainian from the regions in which Russian was predominant.

It is mid-April 2014. I am standing in front of the occupied Regional Administration Building in Donetsk. It is not the first time that somebody is trying to convince me that Russian-speaking citizens are discriminated against locally. One man has just told me how the Parliament tried to cancel the regional language. “It proves that we are discriminated against here,” he claims. To him it doesn’t matter that the law voted for by the Party of Regions is still in force, since the acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, has not signed its cancellation.

The federalists were thereby also joined by those to whom “federalization” meant equal language rights for the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine. Occasionally, this led to absurd situations. In some pro-Russian demonstrations, a crowd with Russian flags would be shouting: “Russia, Russia, Russia,” while a large number of participants only wanted Kiev “not to discriminate against” Russian speakers. “I don’t want to be in Russia at all,” a woman in the crowd tries to convince me.

The essential problem that both sides—pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian—are struggling with is, first of all, the passivity and deep distrust felt by the Donbas residents. Those who go out and shout and sporadically get involved in some activity (from voluntary work to military actions) are just a tiny sliver of the six and a half million regional residents.

These sentiments were depicted by the Donbas writer Olexij Chupa in his book The Homeless of Donbas . When a homeless man who cannot cope with his life is asked what he believes in, he replies: “I only believe in a Kalashnikov. With it you can solve all the problems of government and society… . My own problems I’ll handle on my own.” Many residents of Donbas I have talked to convey the same message. Fortunately, it is just talk. Later on, they all go back to their everyday life and try to make both ends meet. Even the war doesn’t move them emotionally. If necessary, they don’t hesitate. They pack up their things and leave. They abandon their cities, towns, and villages to their fate. Their complaining begins during their wandering. “What can I do? I’m not interested in politics. I just want peace,” I hear in Mariupol from Taras, a refugee from Donetsk. If need be, he will pack up again and go somewhere else. What he hopes for most, however, is that his city will finally be peaceful and that he will be able to forget and go about his own business. One of the protagonists from Chupa’s book says: “It is not in the style of Donbas residents to define themselves as people of a particular nationality. They have other concerns, expectations, and therefore, other needs.” People have complained forever, and not only here. They have had reasons to do so. Oligarchization, corruption, and failing industry made their lives miserable. According to Chupa’s protagonist, people in Donbas describe themselves mainly by their occupations. They are electricians, plumbers, or drivers.

I met Larissa and Vasily in a suburban train, called an elektrichka . Larissa speaks surzhyk , a mix of Ukrainian and Russian. There are different versions of it. In her case, Ukrainian is dominant.

“I told her to stop talking like that, because it only causes problems,” says her husband, Vasily, in Russian.

“Once I was talking to somebody in front of the church and a woman shouted at me that I was a Banderite,” she laughs.

We traveled together most of the way, so I learned the entire history of their family since the tsarist era. They were talking like crazy, and I was thinking about current events, so I just pretended to listen. Finally, we came back to modern times. “Ukraine? No, I have nothing against it. It is important that they pay out our pensions and that there is peace,” asserts Vasily. However, if the Russian border suddenly moved two hundred kilometers, they wouldn’t pay any attention. Well, unless the new authorities stopped paying the welfare benefits or lowered their amount. Then they would get mad and sling mud at the new government while sitting in the kitchen. For the time being, Kiev is paying every penny, so they don’t worry.

For some a call for integration with Russia awakened nostalgia for the old days, when all the factories were working, a shared poverty didn’t arouse anger, and food was always to be found one way or another.