You're reading: Fear reigns on both sides in Donetsk Oblast’s Dzerzhinsk

DZERZHINSK, Ukraine - Controlled by Ukrainian forces, but hoping for the return of Kremlin-backed insurgents, residents of Novgorodskoye live in an atmosphere of fear.

Pro-Russian residents of this Donetsk Oblast suburb of Dzerzhinsk are afraid to speak out because of the Ukrainian army walking the streets here. Pro-Ukrainian locals fear retribution from their neighbors and insurgents if they recapture the city of 40,000 people that the Kremlin-backed forces controlled between May and July.

This paralyzing limbo is partly due to local authorities, who failed to take an explicitly pro-Ukrainian position, and a city government that is still dominated by pro-Russian Party of Regions representatives.

A separatist underground has become a problem for many cities in Ukrainian-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Russian Orthodox priests lambast Ukraine in their sermons, and teachers whisper in children’s ears at schools.

Many people who support the insurgents stay quiet, but look forward to welcoming them back, according to a local volunteer who helps the army here. She spoke to the Kyiv Post on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution. The Russian-backed forces will take retribution on volunteers and pro-Ukrainian residents if they regain power, the volunteer said.

Pro-Russian sentiment dominates Dzerzhinsk because it is a small impoverished mining city without a highly educated population, the volunteer said.

Mykola Lenko, mayor of the Novgorodskoye suburb, told the Kyiv Post that he himself was not free to publicly express his views.

“Nobody will tell you about the objective situation,” he said. “Everyone is afraid of voicing their opinions. We are located in a gray buffer zone. Who can guarantee that we won’t be surrendered?” he asked, referring to the possibility that the Ukrainian government will just give up on the Donbas.

He also said that the Oct. 26 parliamentary election was basically ignored by locals because they were afraid of voting and because they “lost faith in everything.”

Most residents seem disillusioned and distrustful and are scared to give their names to journalists, even when they agree to talk. Nina, a 60-year old pensioner, said that there was no point in voting in either separatist or Ukrainian elections. “Everything has been decided for us,” she said.

Another pensioner, Ivan, 55, said that both sides were interested in profiteering from the war. “Whether you vote or not, money decides everything,” he said.

Irina, 35, a street market vendor, said the situation had deteriorated after the Ukrainian army entered the city because constant shelling began.

The local political scene is still dominated by former President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and has remained intact through insurgent rule and the post-separatist period. It’s based on fraud and manipulation, the volunteer said.

She said that she had voted for the ultra-nationalist Right Sector, but her ballot was not taken into account, since during the final count there were zero votes for the party in her polling station.

Irina Zavgorodnyaya, former secretary of the local district’s elections commission, said in October that she and other dissenting members of the Party of Regions-dominated commission had been illegally removed from it to assist vote-rigging. She also said that she had been threatened by anonymous callers. A video published on YouTube on Oct. 28 purportedly shows ballots intended for ballot stuffing in favor of Igor Shkirya, a Party of Regions candidate.

Critics have also accused the Opposition Bloc, the political heir of the Party of Regions comprised of the same people, and President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc of conspiring against other parties and jointly engineering electoral fraud.

The Central Elections Commission, the Party of Regions and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc did not respond to requests for comment sent by the Kyiv Post, but both parties had previously denied the existence of such agreements.

At the helm of the city is a real political survivor, Mayor Volodymyr Sleptsov, who has served under all governments, starting from 1998. He had initially supported Yanukovych, then governor of Donetsk Oblast, and switched allegiance to Viktor Yushchenko when he became president on the wave of 2004 Orange Revolution.

He later switched back to Yanukovych as president in 2010. When the pro-Russian insurgency began in April, Sleptsov supported an initiative to hold a referendum on autonomy or independence from Ukraine.

Sleptsov, who pledged loyalty to Ukraine after the recapture of the city, did not respond to requests for comment.

 Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].