Written by Nikolaus von Twickel
Summary
The latest ceasefire was holding better than initially expected, but that did not stop the separatists heaping accusations against Ukraine. The numbers of coronavirus infections remained high in the “DNR”, but the separatists blamed infection levels in Ukraine for their unwillingness to open their checkpoints with government-controlled areas, causing more and more civilians to be trapped in no-mans-land. The separatist also hardly mentioned the anti-government protests in Belarus.
Ceasefire holding better
On 10 August, the Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said that it recorded no ceasefire violations between 7 and 9 August – three consecutive days and an unprecedented situation since the Minsk Package of Measures was agreed in 2015. On 10 August, the Mission recorded just a single explosion in the Donetsk region and no violations in the Luhansk region, meaning that in the latter region it recorded no ceasefire violations for six days in a row. On 11 August, the Mission recorded five violations and on 12 August, the OSCE observers again recorded no violations at all.
On 13 August, the Mission recorded 36 ceasefire violations in the Donetsk region and 34 in the Luhansk region, but said that most of them were live fire exercises held by the separatist armed formations relatively far behind the front line. On 16 August “LNR” leader Leonid Pasechnik claimed that a separatist fighter had been killed by a Ukrainian sniper the night before. However, the government troops said that they recorded no ceasefire violations at all that day.
The ceasefire, which was brokered by the Trilateral Contact Group consisting of Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE, had a rough start on 27 July, when the sides accused each other of numerous violations. However, the violence quickly declined significantly compared to the period before the truce began. The OSCE said that it recorded a total of 256 violations between 27 July and 9 August, a fraction of the 8,094 violations recorded in the two weeks before.
Ukraine and the separatists did, however, accuse each other of violating the truce without shooting – by carrying out works to improve military positions, which they argued is banned under the agreement. “DNR” leader Denis Pushilin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) as the ceasefire’s control mechanism, when he claimed that the Ukrainian side does not answer calls.
Pandemic getting worse
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic showed no signs of going away, especially in the Donetsk “People’s Republic”, which on 14 and 15 August reported 42 and 27 new cases in the past 24 hours respectively, bringing the overall number of cases to 2,084, including 117 deaths. The Luhansk separatists on 15 August reported 630 cases, including 15 deaths.
According to numbers communicated by the respective health “ministries”, the DNR recorded 143 new cases and 4 deaths in the 7 days up to 14 August and 163 new cases and 8 deaths in the week before. The (smaller) “LNR” recorded 7 cases and no deaths in the week up to 14 August. The exact number of cases in the week before is not known because the Luhansk separatists did not report any new figures between 23 July and 6 August.
Based on an estimated population of 2.5 million, the “DNR” had 0.9 cases per day and 100,000 inhabitants in the first and 0.8 cases per day and 100,000 in the second week – minuscule in comparison to Ukraine’s 23 and Russia’s 24. This is somewhat surprising, given that both “DNR” and “LNR” were late to introduce quarantine restrictions and have highly aged populations. Ukraine has alleged that the “People’s Republics” are underreporting coronavirus cases, an accusation that the separatist have denied.
“DNR” leader Pushilin said on 15 August, that the situation was “stable” and that there is no reason to expect another surge in infections. However, the relatively high number of deaths as a fraction of infections in the “DNR” – 5.6 per cent – might be a sign that the situation is more serious than the official numbers suggest. In Russia, that figure is just 1.7 per cent, in Ukraine 2.1 per cent.
The Donetsk Health “Ministry” ostensibly mentions the number of cases among “arrivers from Ukraine” (government-controlled areas) in its daily reports – what looks like an attempt to blame Ukraine, although the “ministry’s” numbers clearly show that the number of arrivals is relatively small compared to the overall case numbers.
COVID19-numbers in the neigbouring government-controlled areas, which are thought to have similar-sized populations, also remained lower, despite recent rises. As of 15 August, the Donetsk region reported a total of 1.074 infections and 14 deaths, while the Luhansk region recorded 179 cases and one death.
Travel restrictions leave people stranded in no-mans-land
Meanwhile, severe restrictions for people wanting to travel to government-controlled areas remained in the “DNR”. The separatists have argued that the level of infections in Ukraine is too high to reopen its de-facto border with government-controlled areas – while the borders with Russia, where infection rates are by no means lower, remained open.
The separatists in the “DNR” have opened just one of four crossing points, but only Mondays and Fridays – allowing entry only to people previously approved by a special committee and letting out only people with registration in the rest of Ukraine. Those who are let in through this “humanitarian corridor” wait some ten hours to pass three checkpoints, only to undergo a mandatory two-week observation in a local hospital – after which they need to spend another two weeks in self-isolation at home, according to a report published by Radio Svoboda on 12 August.
These restrictions are causing a growing number of people to get trapped between the checkpoints – having passed government checkpoints but being refused entry to the “DNR”. With no money to return, many elderly people are forced to spend weeks in makeshift shelters in mined territory under the eyes of armed formations, according to a 10 August report by the Ukrainian Novosti Donbassa website.
Despite the hardship, this cumbersome “corridor” into the “People’s Republic” is on average taken by 300 to 450 people, according to “DNR” officials.
In another twist, the “DNR” has not opened the “boundary” with the “LNR”. Separatist-controlled media have not reported this, put on 5 August a petition to open the border was posted on the website of Donetskaya Respublika, the “DNR” de-facto governing party. The exact reason to keep the border shut was unclear but the most likely explanation is to prevent people from entering government-controlled Ukraine via the “LNR”, whose only checkpoint in Stanytsia-Luhanska is open. “DNR” authorities are threatening violators with fines of up to 30,000 roubles and the confiscation of their vehicles, according to the anonymous Lugansk Inside Telegram channel.
Russian convoy arrives
On 30 July, the first Russian convoy since December arrived in Donetsk and Luhansk. According to separatist officials, the lorries brought medical aid, 65 tons to Donetsk and 76 tons to Luhansk. As it did with past convoys, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a protest note to Moscow for violating Ukrainian sovereignty.
Russia’s aid convoys have been mired in controversy since their beginning in 2014, because neither Ukrainian customs officers nor the OSCE Observer Mission stationed at the Russian border with Ukraine are allowed to inspect them. The hitherto monthly convoys inexplicably stopped in December 2018, only to be resumed on a weekly basis in autumn 2019. They stopped again in December 2019. Neither Russia nor the separatists have commented on the convoy’s mysterious schedule.
In what is believed to be other Russian aid, the Donetsk Construction “Ministry” on 12 August presented 19 new road cleaning vehicles. The “Ministry” did not say where they came from, but “Minister” Sergei Naumets was quoted as saying that they were part of 125 vehicles that have recently been acquired for communal authorities. Judging from past experience, it can be safely assumed that they were donated by Moscow. Last year, more than 100 new vehicles appeared in the “LNR” (see Newletter 70).
The only regular aid reaching the “People’s Republics” is from the Ukrainian offices of the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). On 13 August, those agencies sent two more convoys with a total over more than 100 tons of aid, according to the Ukrainian border guard service. The two agencies already sent at least four convoys during July (see Newsletter 78).
According to the ICRC office in Kyiv, the organization delivered some 5,000 tons of humanitarian assistance in 262 trucks to the no-controlled areas between January and July this year – less than last year, when it sent 327 trucks with a total of 6,065 tons in the same time period. The lower numbers for this year are most likely explained by the “People’s Republics” decision to close their unofficial border with Ukraine because of the coronavirus pandemic in March.
ICRC visit to detainees in Donetsk
On Sunday, the “DNR” said that the head of the ICRC delegation to Ukraine, Florence Gillette, had arrived in Donetsk for a three-day visit. The separatists said nothing about the purpose of the visit, but according to the ICRC the delegation had been invited to visit detainees. “The ICRC was invited by local structures … to visit a place of detention and meet in private with two detainees,” a spokesman said, adding that the ICRC hopes “that this development and first step will lead to growing access to detainees” held in the “DNR”.
The “People’s Republics” have so far stubbornly refused to give the ICRC access to prisoners and have only allowed Swiss OSCE Ambassador Toni Frisch to conduct such visits. The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany agreed at the Normandy Format summit in Paris in December to grant access to the ICRC and Gillette’s visit could be the first step to implement this.
Belarus
Separatist-controlled media hardly mentioned the unrest in Belarus. Unlike the separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they also sent no re-election congratulations to Alexander Lukashenko, whose future looked increasingly uncertain after one week of protests against what looked like massive vote rigging at the 9 August presidential election. “DNR” leader Pushilin mentioned Belarus only when he criticized the arrest of Russian video blogger Semyon Pegov in Minsk, an ardent supporter of the separatists.
“LNR” ministers vanish
Meanwhile, there were signs of a fresh purge in the “LNR” leadership. Trade and Industry “Minister” Irina Derkach vanished from the “government” website (her name still appeared on the “ministry’s” site) amid unconfirmed reports that she had been detained and was being questioned by investigators. According to the anonymous “Lugansk Inside” blog, State Security “Ministry” officers arrested Derkach during a government meeting on 14 August.
Derkach served as “minister” only since last autumn, when she replaced now first deputy “government chairman” Yury Govtvin, who in turn had replaced another fired minister, Dmitry Bozhich (see Newsletter 56).
Also ousted according to the government website was Coal and Energy “Minister” Pavel Malgin, who has been replaced by Alexander Trofimenko, who formerly headed a mining safety watchdog. Like Derkach, Malgin was still in office according to his ministry’s site. Malgin had played a key role in ending two miners strikes this spring (see Newsletter 75). According to the Ukrainian Eastern Human Rights Group, Malgin and a number of regional officials were ousted after financial audits conducted by Russian officials. The group also speculated that Malgin was not loyal enough to Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin’s top official overseeing the People’s Republics” since the beginning of the year.
