Written by Nikolaus von Twickel<\/p>\n
Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n The \u201cPeople\u2019s Republics\u201d reacted both reserved and incoherent to the Ukrainian presidential election. Separatist leaders continued to demonize Ukraine and stress their future with Russia.<\/p>\n Zelenskiy a no-show in separatist media<\/strong><\/p>\n Separatist-controlled media in both \u201cPeople\u2019s Republics\u201d reported very little about the first round of Ukraine\u2019s presidential election. Five days after the March 31 vote, the \u201cDNR\u201d official website had not mentioned the winner, Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a single time<\/a>. The official DAN news site has not mentioned Zelenskiy since February 1<\/a> and ran just a single story on election day<\/a>, in which the separatist \u201cPeople\u2019s Militia\u201d claimed that the Ukrainian military was attempting to prevent opponents of President Petro Poroshenko from voting, an allegation that was never proven.<\/p>\n The official \u201cLNR\u201d news site Luhansk Information Center (LITs) ran a similar story<\/a> (\u201cPoroshenko ordered military commanders to take control of elections in the Joint Forces Operation Zone\u201d) but the outlet regularly mentioned Zelenskiy and other candidates. However, its election coverage<\/a> consisted mainly of quoting foreign separatist sympathizers as saying that the Ukrainian elections are undemocratic and\/or falsified.<\/p>\n A report in the Donetsk-based separatist-controlled \u201cUnion\u201d TV Channel suggested<\/a> that the elections were the \u201cdirtiest elections in Ukrainian history\u201d, lacked fairness and that its results were questionable. Overall, \u201cDNR\u201d propaganda focused on Poroshenko, culminating<\/a> in the installation of a massive \u201cOrder of Judas\u201d monument on April 2 outside Donetsk that was modelled on a 1709 sculpture, with which Tsar Peter I denounced Ukrainian Cossack leader Ivan Mazepa as a traitor.<\/p>\n None of the separatist reports explained, why the falsifications, for which they blamed either the government or its western backers, might result in such a poor result for Poroshenko. \u201cLNR\u201d leader Leonid Pasechnik was also incoherent when he declared on March 25 that the elections are \u201ca farce\u201d that must not be recognized, but reiterated<\/a> at the same time that he was ready for a dialogue with the new president.<\/p>\n However, \u201cDNR\u201d spokesman Eduard Basurin said on Russian TV<\/a> that dialogue with Zelenskiy was not possible because of the showman\u2019s open support for government forces fighting in Donbass. And Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin said in an April 3 interview<\/a> that the elections won\u2019t bring improvement because Ukraine remained under foreign (ie Western) dominance. The only way forward is \u201cto return the Republic to Russia as a full family member,\u201d Pushilin told Russia\u2019s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.<\/p>\n Kremlin official resigns<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, there was fresh speculation about a possible weakening of the role of Vladislav Surkov, the top Kremlin official responsible for eastern Ukraine. According to Russian media reports, Oleg Govorun, who headed the Kremlin directorate that reports to Surkov, handed in his resignation and has been replaced by his deputy, Alexei Filatov. And staff at the Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation has been reduced from almost 30 to 10, the RBC news site reported<\/a>. RBC also reported that Surkov\u2019s office in the Presidential Administration has been moved from a staircase with powerful officials to one with mid-ranking ones. \u201cThis might be a bad sign\u201d the report quoted an unnamed former administration official.<\/p>\n Speculation that Surkov\u2019s influence was waning because the Kremlin was unhappy with developments in Donbass peaked last spring, when President Vladimir Putin waited three months after his re-election before reappointing Surkov. In October, reports surfaced about a downsizing of Govorun\u2019s directorate (see Newsletter 46<\/a>).<\/p>\n However, there were no immediate signs of policy changes in the \u201cPeople\u2019s Republics\u201d, both of which recently embarked on policies closely associated with Surkov, who for many years oversaw the Kremlin\u2019s youth policies. After initiating a Youth Parliament and a Public (or Civic) Chamber, the \u201cDNR\u201d on April 5 announced that it had founded<\/a> a new military-patriotic youth movement called \u201cMolodaya Gvardia\u201d (Young Guard). A movement with the same name forms the youth wing of Vladimir Putin\u2019s United Russia party.<\/p>\n Pasechnik PR offensive<\/strong><\/p>\n In Luhansk, separatist leader Leonid Pasechnik surprised with a minor PR offensive. In early March, he launched a Twitter account<\/a>, which one month and 26 Tweets later had about one thousand followers. On March 25 Pasechnik held a call-in-show for residents of Ukraine, in which the slightly uncomfortable looking<\/a> \u201cLNR\u201d-leader answered (presumably well-prepared) questions read out by a moderator. Only two questions were filed via video, both by students from Luhansk proper and not from government-controlled areas.<\/p>\n Such \u201cdirect lines\u201d were held frequently by Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko, who modelled them on Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s much larger annual TV show. The new PR policy in Luhansk coincided with reports<\/a> that the editor in chief of the official separatist TV station was sacked and replaced with an activist from Crimea.<\/p>\n Pasechnik, a career intelligence officer who in 2014 defected from the Ukrainian SBU to the \u201cLNR\u201d, where he became \u201cState Security\u201d Minister, has previously not appeared much in public, unlike his predecessor Igor Plotnitsky, whom he ousted in a coup in late 2017.<\/p>\n On March 21, Pasechnik and his Donetsk colleague Pushilin signed a memorandum<\/a> about merging the state railway companies in both \u201cPeople\u2019s Republics\u201d. Pasechnik called<\/a> the signing \u201canother important step towards closer cooperation between the brotherly republics\u201d. However, it was not clear when and if the merger will take place.<\/p>\n Despite promises to lift tariffs and even creating a customs union, cooperation between both separatist entities is developing extremely slow, even after the removal of leaders Plotnitsky (Luhansk) and Zakharchenko (who was killed last summer), who were said to have little like for each other (see Newsletter 32<\/a>).<\/p>\n Pastor arrested during service<\/strong><\/p>\n The \u201cLNR\u201d continued its crackdown against religious groups not belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church. State Security Ministry officials in separatist-controlled Sverdlovsk detained a Protestant Priest during a Sunday church service on March 24, according to<\/a> fellow priest Serhiy Kosyak. The \u201cLNR\u201d has in the past raided services of Baptists in Luhansk (see Newsletter 40<\/a>). Both People\u2019s Republics force minority religious groups to register with authorities and no protestant church has so far managed to receive registration, according to Kosyak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Nikolaus von Twickel Summary The \u201cPeople\u2019s Republics\u201d reacted both reserved and incoherent to the Ukrainian presidential election. Separatist leaders continued to demonize Ukraine and stress their future with Russia. Zelenskiy a no-show in separatist media Separatist-controlled media in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[244,245],"tags":[243],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1738,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1737\/revisions\/1738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civicmonitoring.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}