Inside Donetsk, the separatist republic that triggered the war in Ukraine
Thu 3 Mar 2022
Alexandra Lygina is a 20-year-old student on a mission to fight Nazis.
"We can't live in the same country as the Nazis," she tells me. "We can't forgive all that we experienced through the years. How can I live in one country with those who killed my loved ones?"
It's a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine begins and Alexandra is speaking to me from her shabby apartment in the city of Donetsk, capital of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DPR).
The DPR, in Ukraine's east, split from the rest of the country eight years ago and has a so-called "people's militia" to keep Ukrainian government forces out. In the rest of Ukraine, most see it as Russian-occupied territory. Alexandra says it's an independent country that will probably one day join Russia."I feel myself Russian despite the fact that my mum is Ukrainian," she tells me. "We will never be part of Ukraine again."
Some Australians know the DPR as the rebel enclave from where MH17 was shot down in 2014, after missile system controllers mistook the passenger jet for a Ukrainian warplane.Last week the DPR became the pretext for Russia invading Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin declaring his "military operation" was to "protect people who have been bullied and subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years".
"For that, we will strive to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine and will bring to justice those who committed multiple bloody crimes against civilians, including Russian citizens," Putin said.
Almost Russian
It doesn't take long to see who the real power in the DPR is. Russian flags adorn the city centre, cars have Russian number plates, cinemas show patriotic Russian films.
Alexandra Lygina is a member of a staunchly patriotic pro-Russian youth group. She grew up in Russia but chose to move to Donetsk to attend university, where she is studying to become a diplomat. She spends her spare time delivering humanitarian aid from Russia to struggling locals.
"[The DPR] feels Russian because people speak Russian," she tells me, a week before the invasion begins. "People have Russian money, Russian documents. So we are almost Russian."She says people here are feeling reassured by the build-up of Russian troops on the border. "We have Russian passports, so Russia must protect us," she says. "And Russia is not an aggressive country because Russia doesn't want the invasion that Western media talks about."
Certainly nobody in the city's crowded open-air food market expresses any sympathy for Ukraine.
"I don't want gay prides here like they have in Kyiv," one woman says.
"Why should I run away from my territory?" asks another. "So that Nazis can live here?"
That word Nazi again.More here-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-03/inside-the-separatist-republic-that-trigg... Maybe we should let Russia have the Donbass if it will stop this war.
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