Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Lucian Kim: Ukraine’s zombie revolution
Pro-Russian activists wave a Russian flag in eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
DONETSK, Ukraine—I met Roman Lyagin, the self-proclaimed election commissioner of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, two days before the separatists’ May 11 referendum. Lyagin was showing a French TV crew around his office, located on the second floor of a building seized by pro-Russian demonstrators, barricaded behind sandbags and barbed wire. Patiently and deliberately, the young man reeled off the number of polling stations and local election commissions, quoted the United Nations Charter, and explained that the referendum wasn’t about independence at all, but simply the Donetsk people’s assertion of their right to self-determination.
