Generally the western story of when the war started in Donbass focuses on Igor Strelkov. It doesn’t help that he himself supported this interpretation, famously claiming that ‘it was I who pulled the trigger of war’. But is it not natural for a military adventurist to overplay his own individual significance? In fact, many more actors were involved. The story continues on from part 1, and ends with the appearance of Strelkov.
On the 19th of March, the SBU arrested a leader of the organization ‘Donetsk Republic’, Andrey Purgin. He was accused of separatism.
The March-April 2014 OSCE special report on human rights in Ukraine described increased polarization between simultaneous maidan and anti-maidan protests in eastern and southern Ukraine. They also noticed a tendency to link political beliefs with ethnicity.
From the 23rd of February to the 17th of March, Crimea first refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new Kiev government, declared independence and requested to join Russia. On March 18, Russia formally incorporated Crimea. Pro-Russian activists in the Donbass region and elsewhere hoped that Russia could follow the same scenario in their regions of Ukraine.
On March 14, a fight in Kharkov between anti-maidan and pro-maidan activists from the proto-Azov movement took the lives of 2 anti-maidan protestors. Organizations that would soon become Azov, such as Patriot of Ukraine headed by Andrei Biletsky, had long been based in Kharkov and supported by local pro-western oligarch Arsen Avakov.
On the 6th of April 2014 pro-Russian separatist activists took control of the regional administration buildings in Donetsk and Kharkov regions, and of the SBU building in Lugansk region.
On the 7th of April post-maidan president Oleksandr Turchinov announced the creation of an anti-crisis headquarters in response to the seizure of control of regional administrations in Kharkov, Donetsk and Lugansk regions and the proclamation of the DNR and LNR. He stated ‘we will conduct anti-terrorist operations against all those who have taken weapons into their hands’.
On the same day, the DNR declared its independence. The statement was made by Vladimir Makovich, a previously-fringe political activist who rose to prominence in the 2014 anti-maidan protests. By this point, he was the speaker of the DNR people’s council. A Kharkov People’s Republic was declared in Kharkov by separatists in the regional administration building.
On the 8th of April, pro-maidan forces in Kharkov retook control of the regional administration and arrested dozens of separatists. Maidan leader Arsen Avakov, long-time Kharkov oligarch, post-maidan interior minister and creator of Azov stated that not a single shot was fired in the retaking of the building, but that 70 separatists were arrested, admitting that none of them were Russian citizens, and that all were from the Kharkov region.
In the following months (proto) Azov and the SBU would arrest, fight and disappear many separatists in the Kharkov city and region, and mysterious terroristic explosions would continue in the region for years.
On the same day, the Ukrainian government adopted a new law punishing separatism and any statements advocating separatism with 15 years in prison.
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