Written by Nikolaus von Twickel
Summary
As the coronavirus crisis continues, there is mounting evidence that the “People’s Republics” are preparing massive industrial reorganization whilst they are going through the worst economic crisis of their short existence. Hopes about the opening of new crossing points were dashed, but in a sign that the sides are trying to implement last year’s “Normandy Summit” demands, the President of the International Red Cross visited Luhansk and Donetsk.
Reports about Alchevsk factory standing still
Reports in early November said that the Alchevsk Metals Factory, the biggest industrial plant in the “LNR” had stopped working altogether. In an interview with the Novosti Donbassa news site, Pavlo Lysianskyi of the Eastern Human Rights Group, a Ukrainian NGO, said that the reason was that the factory could no longer pay wages.
Musa Magomedov, a Ukrainian MP and longtime director of the Avdiivka Coking Factory, said on 6 November that the AMK had functioned only partially for a long time and that daily output has fallen from 6,000 tons before 2014 to just 500 tons. Magomedov warned that the factory’s closure could mean the death knell to Alchevsk, a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants. According to official “LNR” media, the AMK employed more than 13,000 workers in 2018.
According to Lysianskyi, the plant, commonly known by its Russian acronym AMK, was “nationalized” by the “LNR” in April. Officially, AMK has been run by Vneshtorgservis, the secretive holding which in 2017 took control of many industrial assets in the “People’s Republics” and has been linked to fugitive Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko.
Vneshtorgservis has been dogged by accumulated debts of more than 360 million euros for some time (see our Annual Report 2019, p 8). The situation has not improved in 2020, when staff at practically all of its plants suffered massive wage arrears, according to unofficial information.
Fate of “Vneshtorgservis” unclear
In early May, the Luhansk separatists announced the creation of a new holding company called “Energia Donbassa” which would include Vneshtorgservis plants. “Prime Minister” Igor Kozlov said in an interview at the time that the new firm would unite assets from the coal, metals and energy sectors. Little has been heard of this since, and separatist-controlled media continued to call the Alchevsk factory “Branch Number 12” of Vneshtorgservis, eg on 17 September. On 19 October the “LNR” government discussed the prolongation of foreign transaction permits for Branch 12, according to minutes published on the official website.
However, on 7 July, the site of “DNR” leader Denis Pushilin mentioned one Denis Yepifanov as the acting CEO of Energia Donbassa. According to previous publications, Yepifanov is an advisor to “DNR” Prime Minister Alexander Ananchenko, himself a former Vneshtorgservis adviser (seen Newsletter 55).
Russia recruits miners, coal output falls
The situation continues to be dire also in the coal industry. According to Lysianskyi from the Eastern Human Rights Group, the “LNR” alone closed 22 unprofitable mines this spring, and grouped the remaining ones in a state-run company called Vostokugol – whose CEO Vladimir Shatokhin died on 17 November presumably of COVID-19 (see below).
Moreover, the ownership change meant that outstanding wages won’t be paid because the new holding argues it is not responsible for the previous owner’s debt. Two miners’ strikes this spring ended only after strike leaders were arrested by the State Security “Ministry” and some of the outstanding wages were paid. Lysianskiy wrote in a 15 November Facebook post that Russian recruiters are luring desperate miners to work in Russian coalmines.
In a sign that coal output is bound to fall drastically this year, the “DNR” stopped releasing production figures. The last time they were published was in May, when the official DAN news site reported that 2 million tons of coal were produced in the first four months of 2020 – without saying that this was 1 million tons less than in the same period of 2019.
Experts also warn that the “People’s Republics” have no money to keep the mines in good shape, making accidents more likely. On 17 November a fire broke out in the Skochinsky mine in Donetsk, killing four miners. The pit with 2,300 workers had only reopened in late October after 10 months closure because of “worn out equipment”.
Luhansk blogger gives up
In a sign of a tightened secrecy, the anonymous blogger “Lugansk Inside” said on 6 November that he will discontinue his blog for “personal security reasons.” The pro-Russian blog with more than 15,000 followers on the Vkontakte social network and another 10,800 on Telegram had been a key source of information about the notoriously secretive “LNR” and was e.g. vital for spreading news of the miners’ strikes this spring – which prompted authorities to block Vkontakte in the “LNR” (see Newsletter 77).
On average 15 daily COVID-deaths in “DNR”
The Donetsk “People’s Republic” reported 103 COVID-related deaths and 885 new infections with the coronavirus in the week up to 22 November – almost 15 deaths per day and 915 since the pandemic began. In the previous two weeks, those figures were 125 deaths/1,164 infections and 109 deaths/922 infections respectively. The deadliest week remained the one ending on November 1 with 130 deaths and 930 infections.
Separatist officials have admitted that real infection numbers are much higher because of a lack of testing capacities. The “DNR” health “ministry” began to report daily test numbers and positive rates on 4 November – those rates grew from under 20 to a staggering 45 per cent on 15 November – any rate above 5 per cent is considered an indicator of too little testing. Positive rates fell again to 11.4 and 7.2 per cent on 21 and 22 November as the number of tests rose to 1302 and 755 respectively. Yet in a sign of severe test shortages, the ministry continued to report additional daily cases diagnosed without tests but merely based on patients’ symptoms, a practice which began on 5 November.
“DNR” authorities also continued to report high number of pneumonia cases, most of which are also thought to be COVID-19 cases. The figure for the week up to 15 November was 738.
Total cases in the “DNR” reached 9,110 by 17 November. Assuming a real population of 1.1 million, this means an infection rate of 83 per 100,000 inhabitants – far below Russia and Ukraine, where this rate had surged above 1,300 on 17 November (see Newsletter 83 for a discussion of population figures in both “DNR” and “LNR”).
While the low infection figures may well reflect both massive underreporting and the fact that the pandemic’s first wave did not turn out to be as bad as feared, the daily average death toll of 16 in the first three weeks of November is comparable to the worst-hit countries in Europe. Czechia, which has 10 million inhabitants, ten times the “DNR”, reported 200 deaths per day when the pandemic peaked there in early November.
More prominent “DNR” figures die
The “DNR” continued to report deaths of prominent figures without mentioning the causes. Thus, on 16 November, the official news site DAN said that the head of the “republican” unemployment office, Tamara Kozenko, had died aged 65. On 12 November, Dmitry Perepyolkin, a former fighter and member of “parliament” died aged 51. And on 28 October, the “parliament” said that former MP communist activist Nikolai Ragozin had died. On 1 November, the separatists had announced the death of their chief intensive care doctor Natalya Smirnova (see Newsletter 83).
The prevailing atmosphere of secrecy regarding the pandemic was also demonstrated on 9 November, when “DNR” Construction “Minister” Sergei Naumets said on TV that he had recovered after suffering from COVID-19. This was the first time a separatist official admitted an infection – yet the official news DAN news site did not report it.
“LNR” relaxes rules
The “LNR”, meanwhile, claimed a marked fall in COVID case numbers. On 22 November, the Luhansk separatists claimed they had diagnosed 1745 coronavirus infections and 133 deaths – 51 infections and 9 deaths more than one week before. In the previous two weeks, they reported 51 cases/18 deaths and 56 cases/23 deaths respectively. In the week before 1 November, they reported 131 cases and 15 deaths.
Because of the lower case numbers, the separatist “government” on 13 November relaxed restrictions on restaurants, allowing them to open until 7 pm instead of 3 pm. On 16 November it allowed restaurants to deliver food until 9 pm. The “LNR” had been hard hit by the pandemic in October, when hospitals were so crowded that patients were lying in corridors (see Newsletter 82).
There were also more deaths in the “LNR”. On 17 November, the separatists announced the death of Vladimir Shatokhin. The 52 year-old was the head of Vostokugol, the state mining company formed only this spring after the closure of unprofitable coalmines (see Newsletter 80). No cause of death was given, but the anonymous Telegram channel “Tainy Luganskoi Respubliki” said that Shatokhin died of pneumonia and had suffered from diabetes – a combination typical for COVID-19 fatalities.
The Eastern Human Rights Group NGO said on 7 November that separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik had recovered from COVID-19 after being treated for pneumonia in Russia during October. The news could not be independently confirmed, but according to Pasechnik’s official website, he made no public appearances between 1 October and 28 October. However, his office released a statement on 22 October, in which he warned that the pandemic’s second wave presents a direct threat to the “LNR”.
The “People’s Republics” are especially vulnerable to the COVID-pandemic because they have one of the most aged populations in the world. Officially, the “DNR” has more than 660,000 pensioners and the “LNR” 400,000, which together means more than one million pensioners in a population of less than 2 million (see Newsletter 73).
New crossing points do not open
The much-anticipated launch of two new checkpoints in the Luhansk region failed to happen on 10 November because the “LNR” refused to open them. The separatists explained their decision by claiming that Ukraine would allow only pedestrians crossing in Shchastia and that the location lacked proper infrastructure. Ukraine, however, said that it had opened all its checkpoints. OSCE envoy Heidi Grau, who had overseen the negotiations, said on 11 November that it had not been “possible to agree on the order of the (checkpoints’) operation and that the Trilateral Contact Group would “urgently resolve the remaining issues … as soon as possible.”
The real reasons for the non-opening remained unclear. While practically all crossing points between the “People’s Republics” and government-controlled areas remained close because of the pandemic, attempts to open new ones in Shchastia and Zolote failed in past years, apparently because of military considerations on both sides. The openings were finally agreed during the “Normandy Four” Summit of the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in December in Paris.
Red Cross President visits Luhansk and Donetsk
In another sign that work on implementing more of the summit’s demands was progressing, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, visited Luhansk and Donetsk for talks with separatist leaders in early November. No concrete results became known, but the ICRC said that he was “seeking for prospects for securing the systematic and unhindered access of the ICRC to all detainees”. Access for the Red Cross to people detained in separatist-controlled areas is one of the summit’s demands.
Separatist leaders call for mobilization of reservists
The leaders of both “People’s Republics” published decrees calling up reservists – Leonid Pasechnik (“LNR”) on 17 and Denis Pushilin (“DNR”) on 21 November. However, the decrees seemed not intended for a military mobilization but rather to screen the availability of reservists. They came just days after joint exercises of emergency service, interior and security ministry troops.
The overall security situation remained relatively calm, despite an uptick in ceasefire violations. The Monitoring Mission of the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on 16 November that it recorded 469 ceasefire violations between 2 and 15 November, compared with 238 in the previous two-week period. Before the present truce took hold on 27 July, figures close to 10,000 violations had been typical for two-week periods.
