DONETSK, Ukraine – A camouflage jacket and a Kalashnikov. These are the two things that boost the self-confidence of 38-year-old Donetsk native Andrey Eroshenko, a Kremlin-backed separatist, as he checks the documents of a few male bus passengers in the western outskirts of Donetsk.
“Why are you leaving Donetsk?” he repeatedly asked some civilians who by the look on their faces seemed quite nervous. Eroshenko checked to see if some of the names were on his blacklist.
“This list is our first line of defense. The names written are people that are being looked for by our authorities. They will be arrested for spying and spreading classified information to the Bandera authorities in Kiev,” Eroshenko said, referring to Stepan Bandera, the 1909-1959 nationalist leader reviled by the Kremlin as a World War II Nazi sympathizer.
Eroshenko said it’s confidential how many people are included on the blacklist.
“The only thing I can say is that, at this checkpoint, some two people a day are arrested based on this list, though of course some of them slip through the controls,” he added.
On Feb. 12, an agreement was reached in Minsk, Belarus, among the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France. It is called Minsk II, after the first Minsk agreement reached in September that quickly fell apart.
The second Minsk agreement called for the release of all prisoners by both sides.
Despite the most recent exchange of prisoners, where 139 Ukrainian soldiers were swapped for 52 separatist fighters, civilians continue to be taken prisoner if they are suspected of collaborating with the Ukrainian government in Kyiv.
Eroshenko doesn’t think the Minsk II agreement will be enforced.
“The agreement is just a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean we won’t take people into custody anymore. We need to defend the ground of our republic and detain fascists,’ he said.
Kremlin-backed separatists argue, though, that they comply with some parts of the second Minsk agreement. They say they have started the process of withdrawing heavy artillery from the front line.
However, the Minsk II agreement also requires verification by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has been unable to do so.
The OSCE only noticed “movement” of artillery. But as the special monitoring mission has stated, the “movement” of heavy artillery doesn’t comply with the terms of the peace agreement.
However, Eduard Basurin, a separatist spokesman, said the Russian forces and their allies will not advance militarily. At the same time, however, he said they plan to take over all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, not just the third of the two oblasts that they currently control. Basurin said they planned to win concessions from Kyiv through negotiations.
The authorities in Kyiv said on Feb. 26 that the Ukrainian army will withdraw heavy artillery monitored by the OSCE as required by the Minsk II agreement.
Fighting has largely diminished in eastern Ukraine, but still remains. The Kyiv Post heard outgoing artillery fire from nearby the separatist stronghold of Donetsk as well as in the southeastern Novoazovsk region, close to the Ukrainian held port city of Mariupol.
As some of the agreed points in the Minsk II agreement are slowly being enforced, for Eroshenko it is clear, however, that it doesn’t create instant peace.
“How can there be peace if Ukraine is bombing us? I’m a regular fighter, but if it were up to me we’d go all the way to Kyiv. A piece of paper from Minsk can’t prevent that.”
Stefan Huijboom is a freelance Dutch journalist working in Ukraine.
