This new report on the “People’s Republics” of eastern Ukraine might help to understand the current developments in the Donetsk and Luhansk region and in Kyiv better. Please follow the newsletter on civicmonitoring.org with update on the current situation: www.civicmonitoring.org
Summary of the report:
The year 2021 brought no developments inside the “People’s Republics” that could help their reintegration into Ukraine. On the contrary, the Kremlin and their separatist proxies increased their efforts to further integrate them with Russia politically and economically. Moscow, which controls almost all levers of power in these areas, continued its policy of defacto annexation by issuing more Russian passports, holding Duma elections and bringing key industrial plants under its direct control.
Existing links with Ukraine proper were further strained by the ongoing closure of the Contact Line, which massively reduced people-topeople contacts. Furthermore, the presentation of the so-called Russian Donbas Doctrine, which openly calls for the destruction of the present Ukrainian state and the unification of Russian-speaking areas with the Russian state, introduced Russian nationalist and irredentist ideology in a scale previously unseen into the local propagandistic discourse. Separatist leaders said that the doctrine should become the ideological basis for the “People’s Republics” and “DNR” leader Pushilin has announced that parts of it will be adopted into local law in 2022.
The ever-strengthening entrenchment of two quasi-states inside Ukraine with Russian citizens, direct Russian economic and military control, relentless anti-Ukrainian propaganda and an elaborate ideology hostile to the Ukrainian state presented colossal challenges to any attempt of reintegration. The economic restructuring initiated by the Kremlin also diminishes previous hopes that the growing financial burden might prompt a Russian rethinking. Instead, Moscow has shown its determination to keep the “People’s Republics” under tight control – even if that means more migration of skilled labour to Russia at the latters’ expense.
