You're reading: Occupied Donbas enclaves vote with hope for peace and salaries

DONETSK, Ukraine -- To the sound of Soviet-era songs dozens of people stood inside a polling station located in a school in Donetsk's downtown early on Nov. 2, while a bigger crowd of voters was queuing to buy cheap vegetables outside.    

This was
how the residents of the rebel-controlled parts of Donetsk Oblast were electing
a prime minister and parliament of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s
Republic. Similar elections were held in neighboring Luhansk People’s Republic,
which is the southern part of Luhansk Oblast not controlled by Ukraine.
  

Over
4,000 people have been killed, according to United Nations estimates, in these two
Ukrainian regions in the past six months of the war between Russian-backed
insurgents and mercenaries and Ukrainian troops. Western governments have said
they will not recognize the illegitimate elections, while Russia, which has
supported the insurgents since the very beginning with military personnel and weapons,
is claiming that this is the solution to the bloody conflict.

The
Ukrainian Security Service opened a criminal investigation on Nov. 2
into the leadership of the rebel-occupied territories for usurpation of
authority. Kyiv brands these “republics” as terrorist organizations

The people who came to vote en
masse say they expect the new government to bring them peace and start paying
salaries and pensions, which they have not received in the rebel-controlled
areas for several months.   

“We are
waiting for them (newly elected authorities) to give us pensions. I haven’t
received mine since August,” said Raisa Tsevmat, 59, pensioner, who voted in the
insurgent stronghold Donetsk, a city surrounded on three sides by Ukrainian
forces. When speaking, Tsevmat continually glanced back at a truck loaded with
fresh cabbages parked by the polling station. On that day, voters were able to
buy a big sack of cabbages, carrots, beetroots or potatoes for just Hr 1
($0.08).  

Tsevmat
said she gave her vote to Aleksandr Zakharchenko, current prime minister of DPR
and leader of the Oplot paramilitary unit, the overwhelming favorite to win the
‘elections.’ Wearing a suit instead of his usual camouflage fatigues,
Zakharchenko came to vote at the same polling station along with his wife and a group
of Kalashnikov-armed men earlier that day.

The dozen
people the Kyiv Post spoke with said they supported Zakharchenko and the Donetsk
Republic, his political party. While Zakharchenko’s portraits were hanging on billboards
all over Donetsk city and its outskirts, his two competitors, deputy speaker of
DPR’s parliament Alexander Kofman and retired policeman Yury Sivokonenko, were
little known to anyone.

“Of
course Zakharchenko – we don’t know anyone else. It’s been only him on the TV
advertisements,” said Oksana Galych, 36, who came to the polling station in
Ilovaisk with her baby in a carriage.

Ilovaisk,
a town of 16,000 people and a key road junction, experienced one of the fiercest
battles of the war in August with hundreds of soldiers and civilians killed.
The Ukrainian army was forced to retreat when the Russian army formally invaded
the region on Aug. 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day. Most of the buildings in
Ilovaisk have war damage. School No. 14, where the Ukrainian army held its
position for weeks, is now a burnt out shell.

Kyiv Post+ is a special project covering Russia’s war against Ukraine and the aftermath of the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.

Up to 100
of Ukrainian soldiers are being held in Ilovaisk by insurgents as prisoners of war
and forced to restore ruined buildings. Residents who fled Ilovaisk have mostly
returned and are busy rebuilding their homes. They rely on the once-per-month humanitarian
food aid supplied from Russia that includes canned meat, canned fish and sugar.

There
were hundreds of people seen on the way to polling stations, and an almost
equal crowd was formed by women selling cheap vegetables by the entrance.

Galych
said that while the Russian aid wasn’t perfect, it was better than the nothing she
received from the Ukrainian government. “The Ukrainian government didn’t pay me
maternity benefits, so what the hell do we need them?!” Galych said. “We’d
better separate.”

On the
way to Ilovaisk the Kyiv Post spotted about ten of white trucks with the words
“Humanitarian aid from Russian Federation” written on them heading towards
Donetsk on the road from Russia. There was also nearly the same number of
military trucks without license plates.  

Most voters
said they had no feeling of living in Ukraine anymore. They felt themselves
rather in some separate country, which they called either Donetsk People’s
Republic or Novorossiya, a Kremlin-proposed term for the entire Ukrainian
southeast.

But some
people still were visibly confused about their current state and their future.

Marina
Selezneva, 22, who studies economics at Donetsk University, came to the polling
station in Donetsk along with her elderly grandmother. Selezneva said she
didn’t vote at the May 11 referendum that proclaimed separation of DPR from the
rest of Ukraine because she believed it was illegitimate. But now she came to
the elections saying they should determine who rules her region.

As an
owner of a Ukrainian passport, Selezneva said she still didn’t know for sure to
which country she belongs. “But after these elections, I will probably
understand this at last,” she said.

Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from www.mymedia.org.ua, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action, as well as Ukraine Media Project, managed by Internews and funded by the United States Agency for International Development.