These two quasi-states, Luhansk and Donetsk, are at the core of the war in Ukraine. They broke away from Ukraine in 2014 and have been bombarded by NATO nations and Ukraine militias ever since.
On Tuesday, 20 December 2022, Vladimir Putin held substantial meetings with the acting head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Mr. Leonid Pasechnik and with the interim leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Denis Pushilin.
President Putin and acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Denis Pushilin. Kremlin Photo, 20 December 2022. Photo is cropped. Verification/Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
These two quasi-states, Luhansk and Donestsk, are at the core of the war in Ukraine. The two regions of Donbass, being primarily ethnic Russians and once part of that country, broke away from Ukraine in 2014 and have endured the wrath of the American forces in Ukraine and Ukraine itself although most Ukrainians in polls have said ‘let them go’.
The situation with Luhansk and Donetsk is a lot like Crimea, also a former region of Russia, now, since 2014, back in Russia at the people’s choice. The people left Ukraine and went back to Russia, lock, stock and barrel as the saying goes.
Crimea, like the ethnic Russians in Donbass have a peculiar history, marred with violence and manipulation.
According to Mark Kramer, Harvard University director of Cold War studies, “Crimea was part of Russia from 1783, when the Tsarist Empire annexed it a decade after defeating Ottoman forces in the Battle of Kozludzha, until 1954, when the Soviet government transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). The transfer was announced in the Soviet press in late February 1954, eight days after the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution authorizing the move on 19 February. The text of the resolution and some anodyne excerpts from the proceedings of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet meeting on 19 February were published along with the very brief announcement. Nothing else about the transfer was disclosed at the time, and no further information was made available during the remainder of the Soviet era.”
That very brief history brings the story of this region to the current day as the broken apart Soviet Union continues to fall into place, 30 years after the Soviet collapse and the NATO malfeasance that led to war for the benefit of NATO’s corporate military industrial backers.
Denis Pushilin tells President Putin that all of the explosive shells tearing apart the civilians and their homes, schools, hospitals and infrastructure in Donetsk are NATO ordnance fired from NATO weapons.
President Putin listens to acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Mr. Denis Pushilin. Kremlin Photo, 20 December 2022. Photo is cropped. Verification/Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
“Donetsk is helped by the city of Moscow,” explained Mr. Pushilin according to the Kremlin translator and the video recording’s transcript, translated from Russian.
“This entails the drilling of wells, this is the delivery of water tanks, and this happens in a daily format, because water losses persist. When it seems that the system has been filled, the boiler room seems to be working, and then the water leakage, the [system] automatically shuts down, the water does not have time to flow,” continued Mr, Pushilin.
“Therefore, the issues are not yet closed everywhere, but this is at a constant job, even taking into account the shelling, taking into account the fact that boiler houses are sometimes de-energized directly, but nevertheless we try to keep everyone warm. But so far, not everywhere this works, that is, boiler houses are knocked out,” he said.
“A separate situation [exists] in Mariupol. There, the situation with heat is a little more complicated, a little simpler: there is no shelling, but nevertheless there is a lot of destruction. There was a decision with modular boiler houses, that is, to close the issue with block-modular boiler houses. And, in principle, the situation is now, if not completely resolved, then as much as possible in the current conditions, closed,” explained Mr. Pushilin to President Putin.
“All sides in the Ukraine War, and there are more than four dozen players taking benefit from this fiasco, are either harming or even killing civilians,” explains Alona Adomovich, a humanitarian worker running women’s shelters and birthing clinics in Ukraine and director of The RINJ Foundation for that region.
President Putin and acting head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Mr.Leonid Ivanovich. Kremlin Photo, 20 December 2022. Photo is cropped. Verification/Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin opened the evening session last night with Leonid Ivanovich, saying, “it is no secret that the situation in the Luhansk People’s Republic remains very complex, and above all the key issue is the issue of security and people’s safety.”
President Putin listens to the acting head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Mr. Leonid Ivanovich. Kremlin Photo, 20 December 2022. Photo is cropped. Verification/Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective-Magazine
Mr. Ivanovich explained to the Russian President some complicated industrial issues related to the coal industry. Some of the mines and mining operations are state-owned and operated and others are privately owned and operated.
Mr. Ivanovich explained that many of the mines which were not profitable because of low yield or high cost were already shutdown in a republic-wide effort to build productivity and efficiency.
The Luhansk interim leader talked about the dilemma over decisions to privatize or enhance state-ownership saying that privatization was having good outcomes in the areas where that has been accomplished.
The Russian President emphasized, “the main criterion, of course, is always the interests of people, employees, the interests of those persons who work in these enterprises. We must provide them with jobs and an appropriate level of wages, which must be paid rhythmically, without any failures. That’s what’s important,” he said.
President Putin also stressed to the Luhansk interim leader that “no one should, and no one will be allowed, to impose their decisions on you. If you need subsidies for a while for maintaining these businesses, we will do it. This is not the money that Russia will resent. No, that’s not a question at all. The question is gaining economic efficiency and jobs.”