Serhii Antonov: War in Donbas Part 4

Thread as published on June 1, 2023

Serhii Antonov: War in Donbas Part 4

Continuation of my memories of the beginning of the war in Donbas in 2014.

At the beginning of April, the Kremlin moved to a new stage of the conflict - taking control of administrative buildings, completely suppressing pro-Ukrainian activists and creating falsified referendums based on the Crimean scenario.

On April 6, pro-Russian forces captured the building of the Security Service of Ukraine in Luhansk.

I was in the city center at the time and when I learned about those events, I came there to see how the situation was developing.

Everything was according to the classic scenario, which I talked about in the last thread. Many people were brought from all over the region and from Russia. Since I did not talk about my views, I managed to communicate with people who were there, including Russians. My interlocutors were from the Rostov region and said that they had come to "liberate" the territories of Donbas.

The Russian church also continued to play its role. Priests urged believers to come to pro-Russian events. In particular, there was a park opposite the building of the Security Service of Ukraine, and a church in it. Believers from this church were sent to create a "humans shield".

"humans shield" is displayed around the captured building and criminals - women and elderly people. Thus, the Ukrainian authorities did not dare to arrest the criminals and return the administrative buildings. After all, in this case, women and the elderly would suffer.

"Human shield" was used in Crimea, Donetsk and other regions where Russian agents operated. This is Putin's doctrine in the war in Donbas, which was to capture territories under the cover of women, children and the elderly. In this case, the Ukrainian authorities will either not oppose and allow the Russians to capture as much as they want. Or there will be casualties as a result of the resistance, which will allow Russian propaganda to use it. The Kremlin's cynical and criminal strategy.

The building of the Security Service of Ukraine became the headquarters of the Russians. In the basement, pro-Russian activists set up a place for holding and torturing pro-Ukrainian activists. The Russians are silent about this place. But it was there that they tortured and sometimes killed the residents of Donbas, including Russian-speaking ones.

The same thing happened in Donetsk. In the same period, the Donetsk state administration was captured, where the Russians organized the torture of dissenting residents of Donbas in the basement. Later, it turned into the Isolation concentration camp, which I will write about later.

But despite the fact that attacks and kidnappings of pro-Ukrainian activists have become more frequent, Ukrainian protests against Russia's opening of the war and for Ukraine's territorial integrity continued to take place. Yes, they became smaller due to attacks and kidnappings, but they did not stop.

The video shows one of the pro-Ukrainian rallies in Donetsk on April 17, 2014. The Kremlin, talking about the interest of Donbas, does not mention these people who were tortured, killed or forced to flee from Russian terrorists.

There are many facts about the fact that the Russians intervened in the situation in Ukraine and are involved in the seizure of administrative buildings.

One example is the seizure of the building of the Kharkiv State Administration. Then a pro-Russian rally attacked a rally in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, tore down the Ukrainian flag from a state institution and hung the Russian flag.

As it turned out, a resident of Moscow - Mika Ronkainen - hung the Russian flag on the administration. He posted a photo of this event on his social network.

This is an exception, as the FSB of Russia ordered the Russians not to publish photos and videos from these events, so that it would not be known that Russia organized it. But in this case, as in some others, the desire to be tied to famous events overcame the orders of the Russian curators.

Another famous Russian, who not only participated in the beginning of the war in Donbas, but was also one of the leaders, is the Russian Igor Strelkov, also known as Girkin. His Russian gang took over Slovyansk and nearby towns, where the first fighting between Russia and Ukraine began in 2014.

This video shows the seizure of a police station in the city of Kramatorsk on April 12, 2014. It can be seen that the local residents are against the confrontation and armed seizure of local institutions. But the Russian terrorists did not listen to them and started shooting.

It is worth explaining that even among the so-called pro-Russian protests, not everyone was in favor of joining Russia. People who succumbed to the propaganda often had different views. Some wanted the extension of the rights of local self-government of their city as part of Ukraine. Others wanted autonomy, but within Ukraine. This is the result of the propaganda of local oligarchs and officials, which I mentioned in one of the past tweets. But Russia did not pay attention it and completely took control of all the protests.

Another interesting point is the use of words that are not used in Donbas. Although most people in Donbas spoke Russian, the accent in Donbas was different from that in Moscow or St. Petersburg. I, like almost all residents of Donbas, first heard the word "parebrik" in this video and it became a meme. At the beginning, such trifles became evidence of the hidden beginning of the war in Donbas. In the future, these evidences became enough to understand that Russia started the war, but does not officially recognize it.

Despite the fact that Russia started this conflict, and Russians took a direct part in these events, Russian propaganda continued to lie that the entire Donbas wants to separate from Ukraine. Russia did (and does) a lot of fakes and manipulations.

The funniest case of those times is Maria Tsypko, who is depicted in the photos.

In these photos, she is in different roles and in different cities. Her first role was during the Revolution of Dignity. Then she introduced herself as a Kyivite who complained that Maidan participants had left a lot of garbage, and called on Yanukovych's government to ban the action.

In the spring of 2014, in various interviews, she introduced herself as a resident of Odesa, Donetsk, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Luhansk, and other cities. Each time she told different stories about herself, but all of them coincided in content only in that the Nazis came to power in Ukraine, who attack people in the city (pointing to a different city each time) and telling that people want unification with Russia .

This woman became a meme. But this is one of the many cases of creation of Russian propaganda fakes. Similar cases are recorded even now. Propagandists have actors who play the roles of residents of certain cities and tell what is written in their script.

Recently, I saw yet another lie from Russian propagandists that Ukraine is exterminating the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Donbas.

In this photo with a microphone - Temur Yuldashev from Luhansk. He, like most pro-Ukrainian activists from Donbass, was Russian-speaking. Attended a rally in Luhansk in support of the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

But pro-Russian terrorists kidnapped him in the spring of 2014 and kept him in the basement of the captured SBU building.

However, later he was released. He was lucky because some terrorists were simply killed. Although they were residents of Donbas and were Russian-speaking.

In the summer of 2014, Temur joined the Ukrainian army and fought for Ukraine against Russia. In 2014, he died in the war.

This is one of many examples of the fact that Ukraine is not divided into Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking. And that the Russians abducted or killed Russian-speakers in the war as well as Ukrainian-speakers. Because they were Ukrainians.

This reminded me of Stepan Chubenk, a 16-year-old resident of Kramatorsk who was killed by pro-Russian terrorists, whom I talked about in the previous thread. One gets the impression that they are projecting onto Ukrainians what they are doing themselves.

In the early spring of 2014, due to the seizure of administrative buildings by the Russians and attacks (and sometimes murders) on Ukrainians, the Ukrainian government announced the beginning of an anti-terrorist operation. In fact, it can be called the beginning of the hot phase of the war.

With that, I'll end this thread. I don't know if I should continue the story about further events in the following threads, because you may already know a lot of it. Besides, it takes up a lot of free time, which I don't have much.

In any case, you can ask questions, I will try to tell you about what interests you from that period.