On the 28 of April 2014, the militiamen of Aleksey Mozgovoy gained complete control over the town of Stanitsa Luhanska. Even the headquarters of Mozgovoy were located in Stanitsa at the time, in a touristic camping ground on the banks of the river Siverskiy Donets locally known as “Dubrava”. In this series of articles, I attempt to reconstruct the events of these days. Doing so, I rely on my own recollection‑‑I was in town the entire time‑‑as well as the testimony of other Stanitsa inhabitants. The allegedly spontaneous demonstration, in which about 1000 local residents participated, began with the discussion of a problem that was very real for the local population; the free passage across the Russian border.
The thing is that many people in Stanitsa earned their income over the past years by growing vegetables in their garden plots in specially equipped greenhouses. The main market to sell this produce had been for many years the city of Luhansk, situated just 14 kilometres from Stanitsa. However, to the misfortune of Stanitsa vegetable growers, one of the mayors of the Oblast capital restricted the places where selling vegetables was permitted. This led many vegetable growers to readjust their vending strategy to border towns in Russia. With a permit of the local council it was easy to pass the sanitary controls on the border and sell their produce for the Russian market.
The stricter border controls that began in spring 2014 in connection with the beginning military operations of Russian-backed separatist militias caused the inhabitants of the border region genuine economic harm. This was aggravated by enterprising citizens of the neighbouring country who quickly learned to make use of the situation by buying out the entire production from local vegetable growers, for a much lower price.
Another conflict emerged in the rayon administration, that split in two factions because of the dubious circumstances under which the then acting president, Aleksandr Turchinov, appointed the controversial candidate Dmitri Vinnik as the head of the administration. To be more precise, the heads of neighbouring rayons did not acknowledge the new leadership of the rayon. No need to mention that Vinnik did not go to the demonstration on April 28. But the chairman of the rayon council Vladimir Belous and the deputy head of the rayon administration Mikhail Bolgov attempted to address the crowd.
Belous was not allowed to speak by Mozgovoy’s fighters, whose goals were quite remote from the cross-border trade or other interests of the local population. They were interested in preparing the grounds for the so called referendum on May 11. The demonstration was conducted by Valeriy Lopin and his associates, who later “distinguished themselves” by storming the post of the border guard in Stanitsa-Luhanska. The demonstration went on for another 40 minutes, after which the participants moved on to the building of the rayon administration, where Aleksey Mozgovoy advised Dmitri Vinnik to submit his resignation letter and Mikhail Bolgov to become the “People’s Head of Rayon Administration.” After that there were discussions in the administration building how the rayon administration should support the so called referendum that was set for May 11.This I was told by sources well known to me.
As these discussions were going on inside, the Ukrainian flag was lowered on the awning of the building and the Russian tricolour was raised in its place. According to the current head of the Rayon Administration, Yuriy Zolkin, in the moment when Mozgovoy’s militiamen lowered the Ukrainian flag, there were no more than 60 people in the square and they were unarmed. In the same area were 150 policemen. They did not interfere in the lowering of the state flag and the replacement of the head of administration, although today they constantly underscore what zealous patriots they were (that is the small number of police officers who didn’t break lines and joined the separatists or simply left the rayon).
The situation in town and all over Luhansk Oblast quickly deteriorated on May 2, after the events in Odessa. Among people with pro-Russian leanings lots of urban legends quickly spread about the looming monstrous cruelties at the hands of Banderovites, who would kill people just for speaking Russian. Another argument made use of the events on the Maidan that had just ended. The supporters of a “Russian Spring” coined a simple formula understandable for everyone: If they can do it, why shouldn’t we? They there are citizens and we here are what, cattle??!
Add the geographical location of Stanitsa and the rest of the Donbass: The practical and long lasting relations to Russia were somewhat more useful than the abstract “European values” that no one really understood and that would come with the danger of a future disruption of relations with Russia. Taking these factors into account, most local residents gladly supported the legends about blood-thirsty Banderites. Along with this, the men of then “People’s Governor” of Luhansk Oblast, Valeriy Bolotov, regularly gathered all the state servants in the Rayon Culture House, where they were given instructions concerning the upcoming “referendum” and the future activities of state funded structures under the aegis of the “republic”.
No wonder then that the infamous “referendum” was a landslide, if not with an overwhelming but still with a high turnout. The event was a somewhat surrealistic journey to the past. There was an atmosphere like on a Soviet may-day celebration. People went to the polling stations with their entire families practically holding each other’s hands. The euphoria quickly evaporated though as soon as the anti-terrorist operation started and the first casualties were reported. This, unfortunately, was to be expected because the militias operated from within residential areas, using civilians as their cover.
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