MARIUPOL, Ukraine -- Donetsk Oblast Governor Serhiy Taruta says that the people of Donbas “will feel raped” by the new law passed on Sept. 16 designed to bring self-governance to the region -- Ukraine's most populous -- where war has been raging for months.
Fighters of the volunteer Azov Battalion equated the law with treason because the law essentially gives up part of Ukraine’s territory.
“Everyone would like a road map, but the kind that we would not feel raped,” Taruta said on Sept. 16.
Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on the temporary settlement of conflict in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts on Sept. 16. President Petro Poroshenko said it was designed to bring peace for the next three years, and grant a special status and local self-governance to the territories controlled by the Russia-backed separatists. It also grants amnesty to the militants in charge, without specifying if any of their crimes in the embattled east will be punished.
But Taruta said the law raises many more questions that it answers. He says he has “some 50 of them in the list.”
He says it’s not at all clear how many regions in Donetsk Oblast will now be in Ukraine: “Are there two Donetsk regions or one?”
It’s also unclear what territory is governed by the new law. The text of the law states that it works within the territory designated as the anti-terrorist operation zone on the day the bill comes into effect, but no clearly marked borders of this territory exist.
Taruta also said that Ukraine considers the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as terrorist organizations, but the law effectively assigns them a new legal status. He said it’s not clear if and how the Russian border will be sealed off to prevent further shipment of arms and militants from Russia. It’s also unclear what laws will govern over the designated territory; who is going to enforce it and even run regular activities like education.
“There are no answers in this document,” Taruta concludes. “We don’t mind concessions, but not at any price.”
He said Poroshenko took the initiative over the law, without consulting with people on the ground. “Unfortunately, the president takes responsibility to make his own decisions,” Taruta said.
In Urzuf, some 40 kilometers of Mariupol, fighters of the Azov Battalion who are training at a former residence of fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych learned about the parliamentary vote via their tabs and TV, and were furious.
“This law is no different than most Soviet laws,” says Andriy, an Azov fighter who used to be a history professor at a university before the war. He does not mind showing his face, but refuses to give his last name. “If a law is criminal, we do not recognize it. The law that cannot defend sovereignty and defend the state, we do not recognize.”
At the same time, Andriy insists his position has nothing to do with anarchy. He says that simply the new law contradicts many other pieces of Ukraine’s legislation that, in his opinion, overrule it.
“We do not want to break laws, in fact we want a legal base of the European level,” he says.
Andriy said that the ceasefire and, in fact, the whole peace process initiated in Minsk earlier this month is “political fiction from both sides.” By “both” he means Ukraine and Russia, because he thinks that participation of Donetsk and Luhansk People Republics representatives is just window-dressing, while the presence of OSCE is naive.
In fact, he says that President Poroshenko is naive in this case as well. “Unless it’s a carefully weighed out position,” he adds. But his view of Russia’s President Putin is perfectly defined.
“Putin is basically a Stalinist… who cheats every step of the way,” Andriy says. “We must morally be ready that this war is for tens of years.”
Back in Mariupol, Taruta discussed with representatives of local government and volunteers the structure of the defense of the Azov Sea port city of 500,000 people. Clearly none of them believes in the peace process and go into the nitty-gritty of the three lines of defense that are supposed to keep this strategic city out of reach of the Kremlin-financed separatists.
Although the new law on special status of territories in Donetsk Oblast sets an early election in the designated areas on Dec. 7, Taruta says they will not take place in Mariupol, which has been expecting an attack from Russian troops for weeks.
“No, it won’t concern Mariupol. I hope we won’t lose Mariupol, and it won’t concern Mariupol,” Taruta says. He says early elections, in the form set up by the new law, are a bad idea.
“You can’t hold an election in one street in the village, but not another,” he says.
Taruta also said he talked to people “on the other side,” meaning the Donetsk People’s Republic, about the election, and discovered that there is no preparation for an election “there.”
“No laws of Ukraine govern over them, from the point of view of those in DNR,” he said.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
