Greetings from Novorossiya: Eyewitness to the War in Ukraine

4. THE SEPARATISTS’ FIRST CAPITAL

“VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH, WE are a small provincial town in the Donetsk region that is under attack from fascists and imperialists of all kinds and nationalities. They kill our brothers and hurt our citizens. They carry on military actions against our people. Therefore I would like to turn to you, Vladimir Vladimirovich: I ask you to consider, as soon as possible, bringing in a peaceful military contingent that would protect peace-loving residents of the Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions from the aggression of Right Sector and the National Guard. They represent nothing but death. They want to turn us into slaves, they don’t talk to us but simply kill us.” Thus states the “people’s mayor” of Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, during the press conference on April 20, 2014. On that day there had been a shooting at one of the militants’ checkpoints. The supposed attacker was the Right Sector.

I arrive in Donetsk in mid-April in the morning. From there I try to go further—to Slovyansk. You can buy tickets without any problems. The train is almost empty. There are a few people in the car: a married couple traveling to Dnipropetrovsk, three other journalists—two Belarussians and one Pole—and Maya, a forty-year-old supporter of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

“The train is not stopping in Slovyansk. The station is closed. The nearest stop is Krasnyi Lyman,” explains the conductor. He asks us if we want to go. Do we have an alternative? After all, it is easier to reach Slovyansk from Krasnyi Lyman than from Donetsk. This is important for the journalists. And it is easier to reach Kramatorsk where Maya is headed. From time to time Maya joins the conversation to tell us about the successes of the “volunteers,” whom she is enthusiastically cheering on.

“Not bad. They have taken the side of the nation,” she says, commenting on the news that part of a Ukrainian landing force has joined the separatists. Maya has no doubts that Donbas should become part of Russia. “This is our future,” she declares.

After three hours we get off the train in Krasnyi Lyman. We walk a few steps away when we hear the conductor shouting: “Things have changed, we are going to Slovyansk after all! Come back!”

We occupy the same seats again and drag on for one more hour. The entire trip from Donetsk to Slovyansk took four hours. The day before an express train had gotten there in an hour.

Slovyansk, with its population of slightly more than one hundred thousand residents, is a perfectly stereotypical post-Soviet city. It is ugly, gloomy, and totally uninteresting. What may make it distinctive are the nearby salt lakes that tourists seeking relaxation used to visit. Another distinguishing feature is Sviatohirsk with its Russian Orthodox monastery. It was made famous by Viktor Yanukovych who would go there to pray.

“When everything is peaceful, you have to go there. This is a wonderful place, but you only show the worst,” one of the residents encourages the journalists.

“We will definitely go,” I reply together with the other reporters, but it is very unlikely that we will go back to Slovyansk soon after all these events.

The city’s main public space, October Revolution Square, combines everything that represents the post-Soviet ideological mishmash. What stands out first is the Lenin monument. It isn’t as impressive as the monuments in other large cities. Lenin in Kharkiv is proud, with his chest stuck out and his arm stretched forward. Monumental, placed on a high pedestal with his head raised, he looks inspired. He convinces you that such a leader should be followed to the other end of the world. Lenin from Slovyansk is so… unsure. Nothing about him resembles an intellectual or revolutionary. He stands there in his flat cap and buttoned-up coat. He has one hand in his pocket. In the other hand he holds a piece of paper. He appears completely unremarkable. There is an Orthodox church on his right. Its golden cupolas are shining. It gives the impression of being the newest building on this square. There is the City Council behind Lenin—a huge modernist grey concrete lump, like so many others in the former Soviet Union.

The square is surrounded by places to eat and drink, shops, and banks. This concrete space is lightly garnished by a little bit of green and benches. Each bench has a small plaque attached with the information that it was sponsored by Deputy Oleksiy Azarov, the prime minister’s son. Thanks to Oleksiy the residents can also enjoy wireless internet. Of course, before you get connected, a window pops up and you know whom you should thank for this technological marvel. The icing on the cake is a brightly painted rooster in a glass coop standing on the square. On Independence Day in 2013 in Kiev this rooster represented the city during the rooster parade. Evidently, the city authorities liked it so much they decided to keep it. Now it proudly presents itself on the main square.

When I arrive in Slovyansk, I notice that a slight change has entered its usually monotonous life. The entrance to the City Council building is surrounded by sandbag barricades. A few “greens” are wandering around. Next to them a banner is hanging: “Popular Mobilization of Donbas.” The Ukrainian flag has disappeared from the edifice, replaced by the Russian. Only the flag of the Donetsk Region has stayed in place: a rising sun symbolizing Eastern Ukraine, black water standing for coal, and the Azov Sea in which sunbeams are reflected.

Barricades of sand, tires, and wood appeared on the nearby streets. Banners were hung on them: “Junta, get lost,” “Power to the people” and “We are against fascist occupation of Donbas.” The barricades were placed at the police station, the Security Service of Ukraine building on Marx Street where “greens” had their headquarters, and around the city. At each barricade people coming and going had their documents and car trunks checked.

“Chechen, the journalists have arrived!” a masked man at one of the checkpoints is shouting. He is calling the people who are standing on the side of the bridge. “Chechen” is approaching the car I’m in with two other media employees.

“Poland? You are our enemies,” says Chechen adjusting his rifle. After this not so nice introduction he lets us go free.

A group of residents has gathered at the nearby playground near the City Council. They are listening to the conversations between the journalists and the “volunteers,” trying to comprehend what is happening here. Armored personnel carriers with Russian flags arouse their confidence and admiration.

“Sir, could you pick up my kid? We’ll take a picture,” the child’s mother asks a guy in a balaclava holding a grenade launcher. He is sitting on one of the vehicles. He lifts the boy up, puts him on the carrier, and takes his hand. Somewhere else a “green” gives a rifle to a kid and they both pose for a picture, smiling.

You may get the impression that for the residents the separatists are some kind of traveling circus that has stopped in their city today. The separatists themselves help to create such an image: in the parking lot behind the City Council they are racing like crazy in their APCs. This show has attracted the most attention among the residents. Finally, one of the vehicles breaks down and the spectators leave the lot.

“We thank you boys!” says an elderly woman with tears in her eyes, when she sees the Russian flag. After posing for pictures, a few snapshots, and some chatting, people can go back to their daily routines. Although some people have gone home, social life in October Revolution Square is thriving. Every now and then somebody drinks beer from a large plastic bottle. Children are having fun on the playground. People are conversing as in the past, only the subject has changed. Now all of them are talking about the war. However, it is not clear who is fighting whom. With time—thanks to the Russian media—the narrative about a civil war will prevail. Donbas is fighting the rest of Ukraine.

On April 13 Afghanistan war veteran Vyacheslav Ponomarev informed the people who gathered on October Revolution Square that Slovyansk mayor Neli Shtepa had fled. That is why he decided to make the city his responsibility and proclaimed himself the “people’s mayor.” Soon it is clear that Shtepa didn’t go too far. She was arrested by the new “authorities.” Ponomarev claims there was no arrest, and that he simply offered Shtepa his “protection.” On April 15 the Ukrainian government initiated proceedings against Mayor Shtepa for supporting the separatists during their first attacks on the state buildings. Supposedly, the separatists stole twenty automatic rifles and four hundred pistols from the police station. At that time Shtepa was arguing that it had been local “volunteers” who did the raid.

“These are not some newcomers from Western Ukraine, but our own Donetsk boys,” she was telling the crowd gathered in front of the police station. She was also in support of the referendum on the independence of the two Donbas republics.

In an interview for Rossiyskaya Gazieta meaningfully entitled “Obama, you should shut up,” Ponomarev explained Shtepa’s arrest in his characteristic style. “We decided to protect her, so she wouldn’t be kidnapped. However, her house is outside the city and we can’t leave our people there. So it was simpler to bring her here. She has good conditions—a toilet and shower. A hairdresser visits her and she is fed by her family. She has warm clothing. Everything is OK.” The problem with Ponomarev’s hospitality is that you can’t decline these “good conditions.” Even to take a short walk.

With time, the number of such “guests” will grow. A week after Shtepa’s arrest a journalist from Vice News, Simon Ostrovsky, was detained.

“This is not journalism,” Ponomarev was scolding Ostrovsky’s colleagues, when at the press conference they asked him about his whereabouts. Ponomarev’s press secretary, Stella Khorosheva, accused Ostrovsky of spying for Right Sector. In the interview mentioned above, Ponomarev explained the case more bluntly: “We need hostages. We need a bargaining card, you understand.” Ostrovsky was released after four days. A day earlier the US State Department asked Russia to pressure the separatists and help free an American citizen. However, there was no information on whether the journalist was swapped with somebody or released without a “trade.”

In the course of many interviews the Vice News reporter affirmed that he had been beaten, his eyes covered and his hands tied. Later on, he was able to move freely in the areas where he was held. He seems to have seen other detainees there. Some were released quickly, others had to stay longer. Ostrovsky spent only four days at Ponomarev’s, but there were people who stayed there for several weeks. Unfortunately, they couldn’t count on such attention from the foreign journalists. The priority for these journalists was Ostrovsky. About the others only individual persons were sporadically asking timid questions.

The number of arrested quickly reached double digits. At the end of April the Ukrainian side issued a statement that in Slovyansk itself there were about forty hostages. At the press conferences, the “people’s mayor” replied that they had quite a lot of hostages. Ponomarev regularly “invited” journalists, either for a short talk or for hours. Occasionally, they were searched. Their equipment was returned, but bulletproof vests and helmets—not always. In the majority of cases it was all about threats. After one conversation of this kind, an American journalist left at once and she wanted never to come back to the city. “I am persona non grata there,” she wrote from Kiev on Facebook.

On April 21 the media received information that three foreign journalists from Italy and Belarus were detained in Slovyansk. Although they were soon released, the authorities in Slovyansk decided to grab the opportunity.

“Give us your passports. We have to register you, so we will know that you have really been here. Otherwise, we won’t be able to help if somebody disappears,” says Khorosheva to a group of journalists. You can’t attend a press conference without registration, so you lose the only chance to talk to the self-proclaimed authorities.

As it very soon turned out, this was not about security. “We will check what you publish. We are observing the foreign media and we have come to the conclusion that many of you are lying. We are warning you. Those who will keep doing this will be forced to leave the city. That’s why we have written down your information and we will check up on you,” announces city counselor Viera Kubrechenko. Then she picked up a box and walked around the room to collect money from the journalists for the families of victims fighting the “Kiev junta.”

“You are supporting the fascists,” she growled at the Western journalists who refused to contribute. Only the Russians dropped money in the box.

“We have martial law and conditions are harsh,” explains Khorosheva. This argument justifies all the restrictions and repressions. That’s why the curfew from midnight to six in the morning was imposed. Anyone who is in the streets at this time can be detained. The new authorities thus gain a few hours to act with impunity, without film and photo cameras.

“We are expecting an attack,” warns Ponomarev. Actually, he does this every day. “According to our intelligence, today it is even more probable,” he reassures us.

The theater director Pavel Yurov and his colleague Denys Hryshchuk ended up in the Slovyansk cellars, too. On April 25 they came to Slovyansk for just a few hours. They had return tickets for Donetsk. Supposedly, the militants found Ukrainian national symbols in their belongings, so Pavel’s and Denys’s plans got a bit complicated. Instead of going home in the evening, they stayed till June. Letters from Ukrainian and Russian cultural figures didn’t help. When I asked Ponomarev what happened to them, he assured me that everything was fine and that he would provide more information after contacting their parents. Yurov’s relatives got in touch with the self-proclaimed mayor several times but didn’t find out anything from him: neither where Pavel and Denys were held, nor why they had been detained, nor when they would be released.

The hostages’ relatives had good reasons to be afraid. Right after “people’s authorities” appeared in Slovyansk and nearby Horlivka, a local politician from the Batkivshchyna Party, Volodymyr Rybak, went missing. On April 22 his tortured body was found in the river northeast from Slovyansk. His stomach was ripped open. The body of the second person found next to him could not be identified. Witnesses claim that they were tortured in the occupied Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) building in Slovyansk.

The SSU officers tried to detain a suspect in Rybak’s murder case. They went to Horlivka, but it was they who were detained. A group of armed men grabbed their weapons and took them to Slovyansk. Soon after their pictures were published. They are sitting tied to chairs without their pants. Their eyes are covered with bloody bandages. Their passports, IDs, badges, a pistol, and other documents are displayed on the desk. Ponomarev announced that he was ready to swap them for the “people’s governor” of the Donetsk region, Pavel Gubarev, who at night on March 6 was detained in his apartment by the special SSU unit Alfa.

As luck would have it, at the same time the pictures of the tortured officers appeared on the internet, a press conference was going on with the arrested observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) military mission. They had better luck.

The observers were detained on April 25 near Slovyansk, because they had not informed the “people’s authorities” that they entered the territory controlled by separatists. What is more, it was to their disadvantage that they were wearing civilian clothes, not uniforms. “These are NATO spies,” says Ponomarev. He repeats this accusation many times and is not bothered that one of the observers is an envoy from Sweden, not a member of the Alliance.

The observers are brought to the press conference in pairs, escorted by “volunteers” with rifles. The observers look well. They don’t exhibit any signs of beating, they are not filthy. They don’t even look tired. Ponomarev sits among the seven observers and an interpreter. He begins the conference. He doesn’t speak abusively, as he did earlier. There are no accusations of spying. He gives the floor to the observers. Initially, the chief of the OSCE mission, Colonel Axel Schneider, looks a little scared. Perhaps he thought that only Russian journalists would show up. It turns out, however, that the majority are representatives of European and American media.

“We are not prisoners of war, but only mayor Ponomarev’s guests,” says Schneider, and the “mayor’s” face brightens up with his characteristic mischievous smile. “We are treated in the best possible way, given the circumstances,” asserts the mission chief. Like other “guests,” the OSCE observers have no idea when they will be able to go home.

During the conference two Russian journalists, both women, showed off. Taking turns they asked the same questions, but in different forms. They wanted the observers to confess that they were spies. They were disappointed that they didn’t gather any sensational information.

As in the case of the SSU officers, Ponomarev announced that he would trade the observers for separatists arrested by the Ukrainian side. Nevertheless, he was not going to discuss this with the “Kiev junta.” The observers were to be rescued by diplomats from their own countries. Unfortunately, the process stalled and they were released only after eight days, when Putin’s envoy, Vladimir Lukin, arrived in Slovyansk.

The separatist authorities live in constant fear of spies and saboteurs. To confirm that their fears are justified, every now and then they catch some “saboteurs,” and it’s even better if they belong to Right Sector.

On April 20 the journalists were informed that there had been shooting at one of the separatists’ checkpoints near Bilbasivka village, less than twenty kilometers west of Slovyansk. Three local men were killed. When I arrived at the spot with other journalists, I saw two cars burned to the ground. What caught my attention were the license plates, which miraculously were not even touched by the fire and that looked brand new. The number of different kinds of shells indicated that serious shooting had taken place, but the bullet traces were hard to find. The whole situation seemed extremely fishy.

However, during the morning press conference the “people’s authorities” decided not to keep the journalists in suspense. They brought all the spoils that supposedly had been found in a bag near the cars when one of the nationalists fled the scene of the shooting. Three printouts from Google Maps showing the neighborhood, a train ticket, a driver’s license, a car registration, three bullets, and the red-and-black visiting card of Dmytro Yarosh, the Right Sector leader, are displayed on the table. The phone number on the card, as a matter of fact, does not work, all the journalists know that the organization uses a different e-mail address, and the other side of the card is in English. A photo of the visiting card immediately appears on the internet and in the coming days will become one of the most popular memes. “Look, here is their medallion. I couldn’t make it myself,” says Ponomarev, after having realized that the visiting card was an embarrassment. The metal medallion with the inscription “Right Sector” hangs on a blue-and-yellow ribbon. “You have no reason to distrust me. I am always honest with you,” he addresses the skeptical journalists.

All these items, in fact, can fit into a shoulder bag, supposedly lost by one of the fleeing nationalists. But what about the MG3 machine gun in perfect condition that is also sitting on the table? With a tripod, it weighs at least twenty-seven kilograms. How can you flee with this? This question remains unanswered.

This event took place on Easter Sunday, the same day Kiev was promising not to take any military action. Nevertheless, the self-proclaimed authorities and the Russian media presented the incident as breaking the promise. On top of everything, all three shooting victims were Slovyansk residents. The youngest was to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday in two months, the oldest was fifty-seven. Pictures of the victims appeared the same day. They were placed on the City Council building and on the Lenin monument. Each picture was signed: “People’s hero.” Red roses were laid. Several people are standing near the monument in a group. A few women are crying.

“We feed Ukraine, we work hard, and they murder us. How can it be?” says one of them.

Funeral celebrations took place two days later. People were gathering on the main square in front of the Orthodox church, altogether perhaps two or three hundred people. More had been expected.

Three buses pull over in front of the church with a coffin in each of them and a picture on each windshield. When the coffins were taken out, the crowd stood there in silence. Finally, a woman shouted: “Glory!”

“Glory, glory, glory!” responded the crowd. There are more and more slogans directed against nationalism. Then it’s time to focus on the media.

“On this occasion, we would like to ask the media to present the truth,” an elderly man is shouting through a megaphone.

“Truth, truth, truth,” the crowd is responding. Some discussions begin and the conclusion is that foreign media are not needed. Of course, with the exception of the Russian media that are doing a great job, according to the separatists’ sympathizers. It is only the Ukrainian media that are even worse than the foreign ones.

“Look, what they are saying there. These are pure lies,” a man standing in front of the church tries to convince me.

Stella Khorosheva, Ponomarev’s press secretary, is usually the first representative of the “people’s authorities” that journalists meet. She is forty-eight. When I see her for the first time she is wearing a grey jacket, a white blouse, and jeans. She has grey hair and glasses. Her phone is ringing all the time and she never silences it. She writes poetry and lives in Italy. She supports Forza Italia and Silvio Berlusconi. She came to Slovyansk only when the Russian Spring had already taken Crimea. She still has a lot of connections in Italy, so she tries to stir up public opinion there. She sometimes boasts about her articles on Facebook. At each press conference she moves around the room, darting and talking. She seems very chaotic. You realize very quickly that you shouldn’t ask this person any questions because she is always the last to know anything.

After the morning press conference with Ponomarev, together with other journalists who have just met the “mayor” I go to the barricade near the SSU building. “Greens” want to show off another Ukrainian nationalist who was captured. He supposedly has a list of colleagues’ phone numbers.

“Call and talk to them,” one of the “greens” encourages him. When the nationalist (from Right Sector, of course) stammers, a man in uniform prompts him about what to say. Another whispers to the Russian journalist and asks her to make the nationalist’s statement more precise.

But before the show begins Khorosheva turns up. She looks for something.

“Excuse me, what is Ponomarev going to do at twelve? Unfortunately, I have not heard what he was saying at the conference,” she says at last, turning to one of the journalists. She finds out that the self-proclaimed mayor is about to meet with the special observation mission of the OSCE. Then she tries to enter the space between the barricades. One of the “greens,” however, stops her.

“What are you looking for here?” he asks.

“I am Ponomarev’s press secretary and I have to get there,” she points toward the SSU.

“I am sorry, but you can’t pass,” the armed man says to end the conversation, and Khorosheva walks away toward the City Council.

At the same moment a question I had been asking myself since my arrival in Slovyansk came back to me: Who is in charge here? Who exercises control over whom? The City Council over “greens”? Or perhaps “greens” over the City Council?

Right after my arrival in the city I addressed this question to Anatoly Khmelovy, a former parliamentary deputy and presently the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

“‘Greens’ do not control the City Council, nor does the City Council control ‘greens,’” Khmelovy told me. I notice very quickly that it wasn’t a truthful answer. The City Council totally defers to Ponomarev. Undoubtedly the majority of its members believe in the legitimacy of his actions. If someone was of a different opinion, he would keep it to himself, because his career could come to an end very quickly. Here nobody has ever heard about brave people who would oppose the “people’s power.”

“Please, have a look, everything is working fine,” the mayor kept boasting about the order in the city.

Black hoodie with the ribbon of Saint George attached, black polo shirt, black cap, and jeans—this is Ponomarev’s typical outfit. From time to time you can see him in uniform. He often covers or hides his left hand with its missing index finger. He is forty-nine, but very little is known about his past.

He is a retired soldier. He claims that during Soviet times he served in northern Russia. It is possible that he participated in special operations. As some Russian media maintain, after the fall of the Soviet Union he was selling cars to Russia and was the manager of a garment factory. The residents who don’t support his activities allege that in reality he was dealing drugs. This is a popular enough business idea in Slovyansk. That’s why in April the militants paid a call on the local Roma households. People who were unsympathetic to the mayor said that the basis for this was not racism but business. Therefore only a few Roma families met with repression. Ponomarev himself says very little about the 1990s.

“What did I do before the conflict? I was a co-owner of the soap factory,” he describes his last job. As he points out, he is a simple man, who is not afraid of any work. If need be, he is ready to fight alongside the rank-and-file militants. Was he a popular figure in Slovyansk? No. Before he proclaimed himself the “people’s mayor” hardly anybody had ever heard of him.

Although Ponomarev is the only one who can count on the support of “greens,” he doesn’t command them. He is a pawn. It is not at the City Council building that you can find all the military equipment, but at the SSU headquarters. This means that the command center is there. The journalists’ access to this facility is very limited. You can enter Marx Street only during the “presentation” of captured nationalists or for an interview with some high-ranking officials. I have managed to talk to more or less fifty-year-old Evgeny Gorbik twice.

“What did you do before the war?” one of the journalists asks him during the “presentation.”

“I was an entrepreneur,” Gorbik replies.

“In the region?”

“You might say so.”

The second time, I showed up with a Crimean photographer. Then “You might say so” got a more precise geographical location.

“You are from Crimea? I am from there, too,” Gorbik addressed my companion very cheerfully.

When on April 26 the representatives of the Donetsk People’s Republic came to Slovyansk, they didn’t call on Ponomarev but instead went to the SSU. It was the first time Igor Strelkov appeared on the Donbas scene. It was his first press conference. Soon after he was interviewed by Komsomolskaya Pravda. Unlike Ponomarev, he never takes off his uniform.

Strelkov took part in the occupation of Crimea and from there he came to Slovyansk. According to him, he was persuaded by the soldiers from his unit, who for the most part were Donbas residents. But not only, he emphasizes: in his unit there are people from Crimea and other Ukrainian regions, and one-third of them don’t have Ukrainian passports at all.

According to the information published by the SSU, his real name is Igor Girkin, he is forty-four and he is an officer of the Russian intelligence agency—GRU. On the other hand, he claims to be a former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), now retired. This gets some confirmation by Ponomarev, who would say that they had known each other for a long time and that they were both pensioners.

In 1992 the first serious military operation took Girkin to Transnistria. Later on, he visited Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and other Russian regions, where, among other things, he was involved in antiterrorism actions. When he isn’t traveling, he lives in Moscow. He has been a keen reenactor. Word has it that in one of the reenactments of the battle of Grunwald he appeared as a Ruthenian knight.

His job was to unite the separatist forces. There is a lot of anarchy among the “volunteers,” claims Girkin. Before he came out of obscurity, the cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic were, in principle, functioning as separate entities.

“Coordination here is very weak. A lot of different political forces are active here,” the Communist Khmelovy explains. It is Girkin’s job to fix this, so that the “referendum” would be possible.

On April 24 some other journalists and I had an interview set with Ponomarev in the morning. At the appointed hour the security doesn’t let us into the town hall. Stella Khorosheva, his press secretary, cannot leave her house because, as she puts it, “she was stopped by the internet.”

“I am coming,” she calms us down when we call her, but after almost an hour she is still not there. We wait on a bench, resigned, understanding better with each minute that nothing will come of this.

“OK, twenty minutes more and we’re leaving,” says one of the journalists.

When for the last time we attempt to meet Ponomarev and walk toward the guards stationed in front of the City Council, we hear wild screaming. Crying at the top of her voice, an elderly woman in a reflective vest and with a broom in her hand is rushing toward the building. Incoherent sounds turn into separate words.

“Help! They are murdering us!” Tearful, she approaches the building.

“Where are all those men with weapons? Help! Why are you even here?” she shouts. “Greens” look at her with surprise, but they don’t react.

“My family has called me from a nearby village. Shooting is going on there. A few people are dead,” she sobs.

Finally the “people’s mayor” comes out in a hurry. He is accompanied by two armed men in uniform.

“She is a provocateur,” he says softly. The woman is taken to the City Council. Once again she is screaming: “they are murdering, help, do something!”

We decide to check it out. When we run to the hotel to get the equipment, we meet the press secretary, “taken away from the internet.” We try to find out something. Without any luck. It is she who asks us what is happening.

We are going Khrestishche village, north from Slovyansk. Already from several hundred meters away you can see huge clouds of smoke, black as tar. The separatists burned down their checkpoints when they saw Ukrainian forces approaching. Burning tires created a circle of fire. With every gust of wind you can feel waves of heat. When I cross the wall of smoke, I see what has scared the separatists. APCs are approaching from the north. There are about ten of them, some have Ukrainian flags. Some are taking the road, others are moving toward us through the fields. They are accompanied by special units and snipers. Helicopters are flying over our heads. This is not the only checkpoint that is in flames today.

“The antiterrorist operation may have started in earnest,” I tell my colleague.

Slowly, we approach the APCs. We show our documents to a man in uniform. He explains that they are a special forces unit.

“How long do we have to wait for you? We have been dragging along like this for half an hour,” he says with a smile, as if all this were a media event.

The APCs are slowly approaching the burning barricade. There is a car coming from the direction of Slovyansk. The soldiers are waving their hands, telling the driver to stop. He must have been spooked, so he is lurching left and right. Finally, a warning shot is fired.

“Halt,” shouts one of the soldiers.

The car stops and a man gets out slowly, with his hands up. The soldiers tell him to lie on the ground and they search him. He is clean, so they let him go.

In the end the APCs and the soldiers pass by the checkpoint. There is nobody there. Suddenly and out of nowhere an elderly man appears on a bike. He stands next to the burning barricades as if nothing has happened.

“What do you want?” asks a startled soldier.

“I want to get there, home,” he points westward.

“So go!” The soldier gives in.

Panic has broken out in the city. Just a few hours ago people were walking around and now the streets are completely deserted. Everyone is afraid that the Ukrainian forces will enter the city and regular combat will begin. There are no pedestrians. The city is patrolled by “greens” with rifles and grenade launchers. The shops closed in the blink of an eye. There is nobody near the SSU building. The separatists’ APCs patrol the neighborhood until nightfall.

When I come back to the checkpoint a few hours later, the Ukrainian soldiers are gone, and the checkpoint has been taken back by the separatists again. The former simply disappeared without any struggle. A “green” is trying to convince me that Right Sector has been here. He claims they are ready to fight off an attack, although they only have old rifles, a few grenades, and some Molotov cocktails. They are probably the ones who took to their heels when they saw Ukrainian forces moving toward them. They are safe now, so they can show off how fearsome they are. Their men have noticed that the Ukrainian forces withdrew toward Izium in the Kharkiv region. The headquarters of the antiterrorist operation is located there.

“Probably about a hundred Spetsnaz troops have stayed in the forest,” a “green” says.

Why did the Ukrainian forces leave their positions? As always, nobody knows. On this very day quite a few contradictory explanations emerged in regard to the events that had taken place northeast of Slovyansk. First came the leaks from the military sources. Supposedly, it was the threat of Russian intervention that halted the operation. Also on this day Russia began to hold its military exercises near the Ukrainian border (claimed to have been planned a long time before). Then, Viktoria Siumar, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, announced that stage one of the operation had just ended. Now the next stage was on its way—the siege of the city.

That was the first “active phase” of the antiterrorist operation announced by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council. After the Russian annexation of Crimea and the total lack of any opposition to the progress of the Russian Spring, Kiev desperately needed some sort of success. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s declarations that “the reaction will be very severe” were not taken seriously any more. He was dubbed the “Facebook minister,” because, as was commonly believed, he was active only there. The phrase “The Interior Minister has made information available on his Facebook page”—like the expression “The European Union is concerned about the situation beyond its eastern border”—became objects of ridicule.

It is necessary to demonstrate that the Ukrainian side controls the “rebellious” regions, even if it is a pure PR strategy. Ukrainian officials have made serious declarations. On April 13, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov proclaimed that the Ukrainian state wouldn’t remain passive about events in eastern Ukraine. “We have done everything to avoid casualties, but we are ready to resist all attempts at invasion, destabilization and terrorist activities with weapons in our hands. The NSDC has made the decision to launch a large-scale antiterrorist operation using the Ukrainian armed forces. We will not let Russia repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern Ukrainian regions,” declared Turchynov. Two days later he announced that the operation had begun in earnest. “On Tuesday morning the antiterrorist operation began in the northern part of the Donetsk region. It will be carried out gradually, responsibly and in a balanced manner, because its goal is to protect Ukrainian citizens,” he stated. One of the strangest of military operations had officially begun.

The first attempts to recapture Kramatorsk and Slovyansk ended in humiliating defeats for the Ukrainian forces, although the shooting was rather sparse. On April 16 near Kramatorsk six Ukrainian infantry fighting vehicles appeared. Their job was to retake the city. However, city residents showed up, got in their way, surrounded the vehicles, and didn’t let them pass. As a precaution, they blockaded the road with a marshrutka, a private minibus. Standing by the vehicles, dozens of people are trying to convince the soldiers not to “shoot at their own.” This is absolutely sufficient for the soldiers to abandon their plans. According to the Defense Ministry, “representatives of Russian subversive and terrorist groups” instigating the local population were spotted among the blockaders.

It is interesting that initially the ministry claimed that no such an incident had ever taken place, and photos and videos were just “fakes.” But they could no longer be called a lie after a plethora of pictures and videos appeared in the media and on the internet. The Defense Ministry then admitted that the IFVs were from Kramatorsk and belonged to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“As a result of the siege extremists took over the vehicles and the convoy moved towards Slovyansk. At 3 p.m. the convoy approached one of the administrative buildings in the center of Slovyansk. Armed people in military uniforms are nearby, but they have nothing to do with the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” you could read on the Ministry’s Facebook page. But what happened to the soldiers? Nobody knows. The separatists were boasting that they had joined them, but judging by the fact that no Russian media managed to interview them, this was just wishful thinking. It is known, however, that the vehicles ended up in the separatists’ hands without any struggle.

While the confusion about the personnel carriers was going on, in Donetsk some armed militants from Oplot, a pro-Russian organization founded in Kharkiv, took over the City Council. Its employees were evacuated. Moments later in Yenakiieve, the birth place of Yanukovych, pro-Russian demonstrators captured the City Council, too, and detained its officials inside. Skirmishes broke out in Mariupol, when militants attacked a Ukrainian military unit. One person was killed and a dozen were wounded. In the end, the Ukrainian forces managed to hold on, but at that point the city was under the separatists’ control. According to Oleksandr Zakharchenko, a member of Oplot, the purpose of taking the buildings was to force the government in Kiev to organize a referendum about the status of the Donetsk region.

To save face, the Ukrainian authorities carried out the so-called stage one of the antiterrorist operation, which they considered a success. Getting Ukrainian checkpoints closer to Slovyansk was to be its accomplishment.

At the same time, Ukrainian forces were supposed to retake Sviatohirsk from the separatists, although when I had gone there two days earlier, the Ukrainian flag was there but not a single armed person. There was no published information that “ownership” had changed hands. So whom did the Ukrainian troops fight? Probably nobody. Kiev had joined the propaganda war started by the Kremlin. Without blinking an eye many Ukrainian journalists decided to give up accuracy for “righteousness.” The group who believes that “you can only win by telling the truth” is in the minority even today and has no impact on Ukrainian media accounts.

Fighting against Kremlin propaganda is a daunting task, if you consider the means, expertise, and structures at Russia’s disposal. In Ukraine the media represent the interests of their wealthy owners, but now the state has an exceptional opportunity to fit information to its needs. Ukrainian journalists soon lost the opportunity to visit the separatist-controlled territories, so they had to rely mainly on reports published by state organs that very often were simply false.

The Security Service of Ukraine announced that the separatists’ checkpoint on the road to Kharkiv had been captured. I decided to check this out. When I arrived I noticed that nothing had changed: separatists with rifles were controlling the traffic. When I approach them to find out what has happened here, I meet with the nervous reaction of a man in a Berkut uniform and police helmet. As I learned later, his nickname was “Lynx.” The same name was visible on his license plate of his car. Supposedly, Lynx served in the Ukrainian special forces.

“Who are you?!”

“A journalist from Poland,” I reply.

“Who sent you? Do you have a press pass?”

“What press pass?”

“From the SSU.”

In response I shook my head. Before I even uttered that such a thing didn’t exist, I heard:

“Sit here and don’t move. We saw how you presented the events on the Maidan. We don’t trust you.” He walked to our car with two photographers and a taxi driver inside. Meanwhile, I sat down next to two other armed “berkuts.” They were not eager to talk.

“You have my permission. You can do interviews and take pictures,” said Lynx when he realized that there was nothing interesting in the car. Once again I tried to find out something more about the allegedly captured post.

“Did any clashes take place here?”

“Two days ago, only not here, but a few kilometers away.” Lynx is talking about burning checkpoints near Khrestishche. “Today some Ukrainian personnel carriers were nearby, but they left. There was no fighting.”

Similarly incomprehensible events took place at the TV tower located between Slovyansk and Kramatorsk. The tower was, at least symbolically, a critical point in the information war between the two parties. The militants were disconnecting Ukrainian stations, and Ukrainians were disconnecting Russian stations. The tower would change hands, but without serious clashes. After disconnecting the opponents’ TV, soldiers would simply go away.

At last the Ukrainian forces began the blockade of Slovyansk. Checkpoints of the Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry forces were placed mainly north and west of the city. Journalists went there immediately, just to see whether it was true.

We have arrived at a checkpoint north of Slovyansk. National Guard troops, including snipers, police, and the armored carriers are stationed there. We are about to leave, when one of the policemen shouts, “Move over!”

A man dressed in black is walking toward the checkpoint. He is wearing a bulletproof vest and a strap across his shoulders. From the distance you cannot see what is attached to it. “It’s a machine gun,” claims one of the policemen and instantly the atmosphere gets tense. What was hardly visible, too, was the press ID, partially covered by his shoulder strap. It soon turned out that he was a journalist from Russian LifeNews who had decided to “pay a call” to the police.

“Please, stop!” shouts the uniformed man. The journalist keeps walking. After the next warning he stops and… kneels down. The officers approach him and check his documents. When it becomes clear that there was no gun attached to his strap but just a regular bag, they let him stand up and he goes free.

Together with the other journalists who had been inspected at that checkpoint I wondered what was the purpose of this incident. The explanation came a few hours later when LifeNews broadcast some footage shot by a cameraman who oddly enough had been standing a few hundred meters away from the checkpoint, recording the whole event. The viewers learned that the journalist had been forced to the ground to be denigrated, and threatened with a weapon, although “he was not doing anything illegal.” Indeed, the footage was edited in such a way that it looked like the “Kiev junta” officers were harassing the journalist only because he was Russian.

The blockade began on April 24, and the way it was carried out was rather peculiar. When I arrived in the city a week or so before the blockade, the situation was more peaceful, but there were no trains going through Slovyansk. Once the blockade began, they were running again. It turned out that, before the blockade, they had not been running because the separatists blocked the tracks. What for? Perhaps they were afraid that Ukrainian soldiers would be redeployed along this route.

Actually, life in “blockaded” Slovyansk didn’t change. All the shops were supplied as before and there were no problems with ATM machines and banks. In the restaurants you could order any meal from the menu. If someone didn’t have to leave the city, he wouldn’t even notice that something had changed. Even “greens” were less visible in the streets—either they were staying in their bases or they were dispersed on the outskirts. The only difference is the increased air traffic over the city. Leaflets are dropped from the helicopters. The residents are informed about the antiterrorist operation and warned not to aid “terrorists.”

“I wouldn’t touch them. People say they are contaminated,” one resident tells me, when I pick up a leaflet that has landed in a tree. It is a popular rumor spread by separatists that this is the way the Ukrainian forces want to finish off the locals. The militants eagerly shoot at the helicopters, occasionally bringing them down or damaging them.

The checkpoints of the Ukrainian forces blockading the city look very serious. They are not just some concrete blocks piled up at random and guarded by poorly armed men. There are armored personnel carriers, National Guard, and police units. They are all in defensive fighting positions. Every now and then the helicopters land, bringing provisions. But instead of actually blockading the city, they simply control the passersby. Anybody can move in and out of Slovyansk without any problems.

Slovyansk is a strategically important location, because it offers the easiest passage to the Kharkiv region. When Ukrainians deployed their forces there, the militants captured new sites in other parts of Donbas. In April and June in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions they took control in Alchevsk, Amvrosiivka, Antratsit, Artemivsk, Avdiivka, Druzhkivka, Dzerzhinsk, Khartsyzk, Komsomolsky, Kostiantynivka, Krasnoarmiysk, Krasnodon, Krasnyi Luch, Lysychansk, Makiivka, Mariupol, Novoazovsk, Pervomaysk, Rodinsky, Severodonetsk, Siversk, Stakhanov, Stanytsia Luhanska, Starobesheve, Sverdlovsk, and Zdhanov. In the majority of cases the cities and towns were captured without any fighting. Control over the Ukrainian-Russian border was given up, too, and this very abandonment will turn out to be the biggest tactical mistake of the Ukrainians.