DONETSK, Ukraine — The military commandant in this embattled city, Andrei Shpigel, was having an emotional discussion with officers and soldiers of his “DPR Army” on the veranda of a local restaurant. They were talking about the future of their self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Would it eventually become a peaceful region of Ukraine, or be annexed by Russia, or stay an independent but unrecognized separatist territory?
For Shpigel and perhaps 15,000 other rebel soldiers controlling this part of eastern Ukraine, a return of Kiev’s legal and military authority over their “republic” would mean potential prison terms and even worse: “mass physical elimination,” they agreed, nodding at each other. The commandant told The Daily Beast that DPR forces would never allow their self-proclaimed republic to reunite with Ukraine.
And yet, the struggle for quasi-independence appears to have lost momentum. “Whatever happened to the Russian ‘blitz’ that everybody was predicting a month ago?” I asked the soldiers. Then, Kremlin-backed rebel forces launched a violent offensive on Ukrainian positions in Maryinka, a village outside Donetsk city. It seemed that the clashes were going to escalate through the summer, much as they had done last year.
A former separatist begs for money:
Pro-Russian separatists say ammunition-truck capture staged by Kyiv:
MOSCOW. July 26 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has described as a staged show the incident with a Kamaz truck at Berezove border checkpoint.
"It is absolutely clear that this was staged by the Ukrainian special services. We did not receive any ammunition from Russia before and are not receiving any now," a source on the DPR government told Interfax.
The source assumed that Berezove border checkpoint was chosen to set up the incident as the most controlled by Kyiv.
"We don't control this checkpoint. It stands at a significant distance to the north from our territory [on the border with Russia's Rostov region]. It is controlled by Ukrainian border guards and special services. They can set up any show there," the source said.
The press service of the Ukrainian State Border Service reported earlier on Sunday that "at about 10 p.m. on July 25 officers of the State Border Service detained a Kamaz truck crammed with ammunition at Berezove checkpoint (Donetsk region)." The report says that there were two men in uniform in the vehicle that arrived at the checkpoint from the direction of Olenivka community not controlled by the Kyiv authorities. According to the press service, the border guards found out that one of the men said he was a Russian army officer in the rank of a major and the other - a militiaman.