Sergey Chub: Nobody has expected a disaster of such scale
By Alexey Stukalo
Sergey Chub, Lugansk public activist:
Nobody has expected a disaster of such scale. They thought and wanted to make it better, and it turned out very badly. Saakashvili and his advisers were there at the very beginning of this war in Donbass, they tried to help. Then he said in an interview to "Ukraine" broadcasting company, "Guys, put your country in order, and the Crimea will not want to get separated from you".
But nobody does it – the same corruption, the same cops and everything as before. Metastases are already developing, and they will go further after the Crimea and Donbass. These worms will eat Ukraine, it has already been eaten up. If someone thinks that we will unhook this pro-Russian Crimea and Donbass and begin to live happily in the European family, nothing of the kind will happen. These is nonsense! All this public and politicians from Kiev present everything in the wrong light, half of these "rebels" are simply a marked radical social protest. Ask any of them, "Why did you take the weapon?", and the answer will be, "I took the weapon against oligarchs and lawlessness." They were simply aimed at the split of the country by the Russian intelligence services.
The situation is terrible there. I temporarily live in the Ukrainian territory now, on the front line, but I regularly visit Pervomaisk. Hundreds of people stand in lines to buy bread. They are given a quarter of the loaf, as in Auschwitz or Buchenwald! If pensioners are cut off financing, there will be starving in the winter.
For example, my parents were registered in Severodonetsk in September, and nobody gave them pension because there is no money in the country. They try to compensate lack of money with the help of more capacious regions. Donbass with miner's pensions up to 10 thousand hryvnias consumes too many resources that are absent in Ukraine now. But what are old men to blame for? They have earned pension in Ukraine. If you live in Australia or in Russia, or in Thailand, Ukraine has to pay you pension. Is it true?
Fighters will not allow any revolution though women start walking in some cities, but these sluggish started even in the spring. Then people came to military offices, said that they did not need any fighters. But after that, men were threatened with machine guns, driven to cellars, beaten, and explained that they should not revolt. They dispersed all the rest by shooting in the air from machine guns. These terrorists do not tolerate any conflicts...
Revolt … Suppose, there are from 200 to 500 armed fighters in my town, they will destroy this revolt completely within several hours. And if the only hope is that the local population will revolt, I am not sure that someone will do it in my destroyed city. Pervomaisk suffered most of all, there is little that has remained there. There are hardly 5 thousand old men and disabled people in the private sector from 40 thousand of the population. What are they capable of?
The locals secretly hate fighters. When the referendum was discussed in the spring, everything was seen through rose-color glasses – according to the Crimean scenario, Donetsk and Lugansk regions (or republics) will become part of Russia, Russian pensions, Soviet Union… But it became clear in the summer that Russia will not accept Donbass. And there is no hope even for the Transnistrian or Abkhazian scenario, everything is developing in a much worse way.
Imagine a retired old man aged 60 in the occupied territory – he cannot move or get some documents for health reasons, after all, there is no transport to move out. Fighters dug up all roads, and military men at check points do not let people from either side. Only if you run trough the fields on foot.
There was at least some communication in Transnistria and Abkhazia, and people could leave. We are now coming to the North Korean option when there is an iron curtain, embargo, and people should eat grass. And it is when there are several million Ukrainian citizens in the territory occupied by terrorists, and not all of them went to the referendum and voted for separation. Not all of them are rebels.
And now average civilians are starved by their own government.