It is hard to believe now, but one time Stanitsa Luganskaya was the quietest place in the world. It was populated by simple, hard-working people. Everyone kept their own little garden and rarely ever something happened. But Stanitsa was oriented towards Russia long before the already discussed limitation of cross-border trade was imposed. Besides the regular caravans of traders with fruit and vegetable grown in the uncounted greenhouses in Stanitsa, there are also more progressive forms of trading across the border, an industrious group of semi-legal grey-market peddlers.
In the poor hinterland, far from the rayon centres, it was not rare that people used their informal ties to the hyper-formal border guards in order to trade their meat, potatoes and just about anything that sells into the neighbouring Russian Federation. These ties were formed back in the days when the Soviet Union came apart. The first smugglers traded in fuel, which was scarce at the time. Many of them established a handsome fortune and used it for privatizing everything that could or could not be privatized. The only industries in Stanitsa Luganskaya that were not closely tied to Russia were the many illegal quarries and illegal logging that haunted the region’s environment.
Unfortunately, for all the ensuing years of Ukrainian independence, the government did not put in so much as the minimum of efforts to curb the smuggling on the border, which was by the way guarded exclusively by local border guards, many of which had inherited these posts from older family members. It is no wonder then that there was a certain cultural influence by the close contact with cross-border commuters and labour migrants from the neighbouring country, who traded their stories of a much higher standard of living in Russia.
The same image was also created by TV channels broadcasting from the near-by Russian city of Rostov. Every place has its mentality and these are shaped by its history, its neighbours and the local economy. In this, Stanitsa is no better or worse than any other place. But these factors must be taken into account when judging the local population.
This brings us back to the events of 2014. On May 25 of that year, Petro Poroshenko became Ukraine’s president. Although Stanitsa, like the rest of Lugansk Oblast, did not participate in the election, everyone was following the process and everyone harboured their own hopes for it. Those who hoped to quickly get rid of separatism took at face value the words of then still candidate Poroshenko, that the Anti-Terrorist Operation would be a quick matter. But these expectations turned out to be wrong.
The militants used the cease-fires that were announced one after another for the fortification of their positions, for setting up checkpoints and bringing in more arms. We all witnessed this and we understood that no one was about to retreat and that a real nightmare was awaiting us. Once this was also understood by the newly elected president, he stepped up the Anti-Terrorist Operation but could not bring it to the quick end he had promised. This marked the start of intense shelling from both sides. The pro-Russian militias used the cease-fires for their own goals, bringing in ever bigger weapons from Russia. Eventually they used the “Grad” multiple rocket launchers for shelling, creating a living hell.
The most shocking event for people in Stanitsa was the infamous airstrike on Ostrovskiy Street on July 2, 2014. Around 11 o’clock that day, an airplane of unknown origin flew a circle over the neighborhood and dropped a load of cluster bombs on the residential houses on Ostrovskiy Street. The attack caused 10 casualties including a five year old child. Another 11 people were injured, some of them gravely. Everyone who could rushed to the area to help in whatever way they could. By some strange coincidence among the still smoking rubble on Ostrovskiy Street, there appeared a Russian team of journalists. Their distinct accent betrayed them. Interestingly they hardly knew their way around, but exactly identified the intended target of the attack, the militant’s base at the Mostopoezd facility. The bloody details of the story were immediately spread in the internet. In Stanitsa no one could be seen smiling after the events of July 2. Even those who took what was happening as some form of surrealism, started to feel the reality of things.
The separatist forces started to redraw ever further into the direction of Lugansk, giving up two more of their bases, one in the rayon administration building, which they had ceased earlier and one in the Mostopoezd building. Their bases in the village of Nikolaveka and in railway barracks were turned into field hospitals. Because in each new place the Ukrainian artillery reached them quickly, they started a witch-hunt in Stanitsa Luganskaya.
The district had been without electricity for more than a month at this point, the mobile phone connection was down almost all of the time. Under such circumstances the pro-Russian militias had no way of finding out who leaked information about their positions. For lack of a better idea, they simply started to arrest anyone who expressed unease with the “people’s republic”. These detainees often ended up in the inhumane makeshift prison in the basement of the Lugansk Oblast Administration building. People were handed over to the “people’s investigators” also because at the time there still was no “Ministry of state security”.
On October 2 at 16:00 in Poltava Art Museum human rights defenders presented the publication "City, where the war had started" about...
On October 2 at 16:00 in Poltava Art Museum human rights defenders will present the publication "City, where the war had started" ab...
Interactive exhibition of testimonies "On the Rift" about the violation of rights of civilians during the war in Donbas was presente...
The Secretariat of the Coalition «Justice for Peace in Donbas»
04060, Kyiv, Ryzhska str., 73 G