Russian soldiers are still in Luhansk, Buzzfeed News reports, but aren’t doing much to make the rebel state a reality.
A guard at the entrance to the headquarters of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic.
Max Seddon / BuzzFeed
LUHANSK, Ukraine — The only other customers at the Weeping Willow, one of two working restaurants in this war-ravaged city near the Russian border, were wearing camouflage and discussing Love Actually as the movie's soundtrack played on a CD that periodically skipped. They asked us to join them.
"We're Russian military servicemen," they said, by way of introduction.
The six men had been in Luhansk for about a month, said one, who gave his name as Maxim. When they first came to the Weeping Willow, it had no electricity and no kitchen, and they drank lukewarm bottles of beer in the dark. Maxim said they had come to Luhansk to "train the local population," without elaborating.
"No one sent us here. We're volunteers," Maxim said. "They gave us an order: who wants to go volunteer? And we put our hands up like this," he said, meekly raising his hand in mock compliance. "We're on a business trip."
Moscow casts a long shadow in Ukraine's eastern provinces, where rebels have carved out two separatist pro-Russian rump states. A massive Russian counter-offensive in late summer routed Ukraine's military just as it seemed on the verge of victory. Ukraine was forced to conclude a ceasefire that essentially formalized a frozen conflict zone and conferred semi-legal status on the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The open presence of Russian active duty soldiers — who spoke to reporters from BuzzFeed News and the Financial Times on Saturday, weeks after combat operations had ceased — indicates that Moscow still has a tight rein on security, though the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that its soldiers were ever even there.
Luhansk is half-deserted after a months-long siege by the Ukrainian military this summer. Nearly every store is closed. Some buildings are missing most of their windows. Others are missing walls and roofs. Others have been completely reduced to rubble. The eternal flame at the World War II memorial has gone out.
It's hard to see how this depressed industrial city, which had a pre-war population of 600,000, will recover without Russia's help. Rebels are keen to use the ceasefire to build the foundations for a future state and have set elections for Nov. 2. But they have no way of independently securing enough water or electricity to sustain the city. Moscow is providing all of the republic's gas and most of its food and medical supplies. There is no clear way forward for the region's industrial- and mining-based economy, which slowed to a standstill as the war intensified. Kiev considers the rebel governments "terrorist organizations" and has told residents to flee to territory it controls.
The Kremlin denies that it has ever been a party to the Ukrainian conflict or that it has any intention of annexing Donetsk and Luhansk, as it did Crimea. But rebel leaders say that months of war with Kiev has made reintegration into Ukraine impossible.
"We're prepared to live as an independent country because we are waiting and know that sooner or later [Russian annexation] will happen," Igor Plotnitsky, the republic's highest official, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. "It cannot not happen. Parents always recognize their children."
Igor Plotnitsky, the leader of the Luhansk People's Republic, says that Russia will inevitably annex rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. "Parents always acknowledge their children."
Max Seddon / BuzzFeed
Luhansk is the poorer cousin of the two "people's republics," and the more obscure. Rebels in Donetsk were poster children for Vladimir Putin's pan-Russian revanchism: mercenaries and mercurial ex-Russian secret service officers led the republic's military, while "political technologists" with ties to Kremlin circles ran its government.
On the other hand, day-to-day policy in the Luhansk People's Republic headquarters, a dingy Soviet neo-classical government building with faulty plumbing and sandbags at its windows, is largely the domain of a motley band of locals. Stanislav Vinokurov, the deputy speaker of parliament, was previously a personal trainer and English teacher in the central Chinese city of Yuncheng, despite having a less than fit frame and only rudimentary English.
David Katz, a 22-year-old law student, was unloading aid from a Russian truck convoy in August when rebels asked him if he had legal qualifications. A few days later, he found himself in charge of ensuring that the republic's laws comply with international norms.
Katz is still studying for his master's at the local university, whose rebel administrators have abandoned the teaching of Ukrainian law while they wait for the republic's own legal system to take shape. "Nothing is ratified yet," he said. "But we're not trying to agree things with other [states]. We're doing what our republic needs."
