KRAMATORSK, Ukraine -- For 30-year old Oleksiy, April 15 wasn't a good day. He was one of 300 or so Russian-backed militants from Kramatorsk who attempted to take over the Ukrainian military airfield in Donetsk Oblast's Kramatorsk.
But Ukraine’s army repelled them, in one of the first — and Ukrainians hope not the last — battlefield victories since April 6, when Kremlin-supported and heavily armed insurgents started taking over key government buildings and installations throughout Ukraine’s most populous oblast.
But contrary to Russian media reports that 11 people were killed, the Ukrainian military operation left only three wounded — including Oleksiy, who refused to give his full name. He was lucky to get away with a grazed hip when Ukrainian officers shot him. Two others weren’t so lucky and were hospitalized with more serious gunshot wounds. They are expected to live, however.
“Our guys only had three machine guns with them, and they weren’t the first to shoot. The soldiers started shooting at us when we just tried to enter the base,” said Oleksiy, who sounded surprised that he couldn’t enter a Ukrainian military base with a machine gun. His side got off some gunshots, but all missed their targets.
However, the crowd was ready for more violent attacks: They prepared dozens of Molotov cocktails, but never used them — just left them there, near the airfield gates.
The military airfield near Kramatorsk, a city of some 250,000 people, has been out of use for years.
However, when pro-Russian separatist protests escalated in Donetsk Oblast over the weekend, the old airfield sparkled suspicion among the local protesters. They expected the Ukrainian army to put it to use to bring troops to suppress the uprising, so they kept watch over it since April 12 and tried to gain entry on April 15 — which turned out to be a poor decision.
Their entry, Oleksiy says, was innocent.
“We knew that there was the Ukrainian army there, and we only wanted to find out why,” he says.
The Ukrainian military’s version of events is that the airfield signaled that the armed, pro-Rusisan men were trying to take it over, so they sent helicopers with soldiers to the base.
Outraged by the Ukrainian shooting and takeover, pro-Russian protesters set up barricades of tires near the airfield gates. As they did so, a group of Ukrainian soldiers lying in the grass on the top of a hill behind the gates watched with guns in their hands, ready to shoot.
More people from Kramatorsk arrived to the airfield but hesitated to come close and preferred to watch from across the field, from the relative safety of a local pet cemetery.
State Security Service deputy head Gen. Vasiliy Krutov, who is in charge of anti-terrorist operation in the east, arrived at the airfield and attempted to talk to the protesters.
“We want to find out who was shooting and why,” he said, but the crowd surrounded him and shouted insults.
Soon the protesters started to push Krutov and a fight started between the angry crowd and those protecting the general.
“I do feel a threat from Ukrainian army. They think that we in the east are not people at all. They can crush us,” said 46-year-old Viktoria Alekseyeva.
Like many other protesters, Alekseyeva volunterily pulls out her passport the minute she is asked a question – to prove she is indeed a local citizen, not a provocateur sent from Russia.
And like most of the protesters, she wants federalization of the east and a referendum that she hopes will end up in the region becoming part of Russia.
“The plant I work at in Kramatorsk gets all of its orders from Russia, and none from Europe. When Kyiv started spoiling relations with Russia the number of orders decreased,” Alekseyeva says, explaining her reasons.
She doesn’t believe that there are any Russian military or special police forces in Ukraine’s east, because “Russians are our brothers.”
Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from the project www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action.The content in this article may not necessarily reflect the views of the Danish government, NIRAS and BBC Action Media.
