In possibly the first large protest against Russia's war in a separatist-controlled city, some 500 residents in Donetsk staged a rally and blocked the main Artema Street.
A local resident identified as Yevgeny said on YouTube, referring to the Kremlin-backed separatists who occupy Donetsk: “They don’t care about us at all. Nothing is being done to stop the war. The two sides have to come to terms. If the other part doesn’t want peace, then it has to be forced to.”
He said residents are now suffering the worst of all worlds — a low-intensity war with constant anxiety as residents wait for the next round of deadly random shelling. “And they call it a ceasefire. Hey guys, how can you call it a ceasefire when children are dying? ”
The protesters shouted “Stop the war!,” “Everybody go away!” and “Provide us with housing, our homes were destroyed,” according to Novaya Gazeta, one of the few remaining Russian news outlets that provide independent journalism that is critical of the Kremlin.
Some of the protester made their way into the separatist-occupied Donetsk Oblast State Administration building to demand a stop in the fighting, an eyewitness told the Kyiv Post.
While some protesters like Yevgeny demanded swift Russian-separatist military action to silence Ukrainian artillery, other protesters said they wanted the Donetsk artillery be withdrawn. The two camps agreed that shooting close to residential areas must be stopped because it draws retaliatory fire from the Ukrainian government.
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors and the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly blamed the separatists for warfare in residential areas. And fighting was intense over the weekend, killing at least two persons and wounding 10.
According to the OSCE monitoring team: “During the weekend, fighting intensified in Donetsk, with substantially more shelling observed. The level of violence in areas around the Donetsk People’s Republic-controlled Donetsk airport remains high.”
Inside the Kremlin-occupied government headquarters, no officials met the protesters.
Eventually, Kremlin-backed separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko walked outside on crutches, recovering from a shrapnel wound, and tried to calm the crowd.
“Go ahead, take any apartment in one of the newly developed residential high-rises,” he responded to people demanding peace in their neighborhoods.
It was a hollow offer because the housing lacks plumbing and electricity. The pipes would, moreover, have to come from the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kramatorsk.
Zakharchenko convinced the protesters to unblock Artema Street, but offered no hope an end to the fighting, claiming that his side was simply returning Ukrainian fire.
“Let us move into Rinat’s hotels, they are vacant anyway,” a protester said, referring to billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, who is from Donetsk.
“If you just knew how much faith we had in you. But now we are disappointed with you – you promised us peace when we voted for you last November,” a woman told Zakharchenko.
The protesters were particularly annoyed that downtown Donetsk often was a place of happy-go-lucky celebrations like an end of school year party on June 12, while their neighborhoods are in the war zone, the woman said.
The demonstrators lived in the Oktyabrskoe neighborhood on the edge of Donetsk, caught in the crossfire between the warring sides. Only some four kilometers separates the residents from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled point, the village of Pisky.
Oktyabrskoe is only three kilometers south from Donetsk’s airport, the scene of a prolonged and bitter battle throughout the past winter.
Many inhabitants of Oktyabrskoe abandoned their homes at the time of the airport fighting.
A nine-story residential building on 29 Kremlyovsky Ave. took six direct hits, some of the remaining residents said, and blamed the Ukrainian forces.
“Both sides are shooting very imprecisely,” a woman said by telephone. Even so, “the Donetsk (separatist) republic forces need to go away. We are Ukrainians here and if they weren’t here, there would be no war.”
The Kremlin-separatist forces also shoot from Azotnoe, a Donetsk neighborhood southeast of Oktyabrskoe, she said.
She had rented an apartment elsewhere in Donetsk to escape.
She was about to travel to Selidovo, a Ukrainian-controlled city 50 kilometers to the west, to collect her pension. “The army is present there, things are as they should be,” she said.
