Turmoil in Ukraine
Behind the Masks in Ukraine, Many Faces of Rebellion
By C. J. CHIVERS and NOAH SNEIDER
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Pro-Russian militiamen in the backyard of their base in Slovyansk, in eastern Ukraine, last week.
A deeper look at the rebels in Ukraine offers a murky picture of their
aims, motivations and connections. They appear to be Ukrainians, but
they have deep ties to and affinity for Russia.
SLOVYANSK,
Ukraine — The rebel leader spread a topographic map in front of a
closed grocery store here as a Ukrainian military helicopter flew past a
nearby hill. Ukrainian troops had just seized positions along a river,
about a mile and a half away. The commander thought they might advance.
He
issued orders with the authority of a man who had seen many battles.
“Go down to the bridge and set up the snipers,” the leader, who gave
only a first name, Yuri, said to a former Ukrainian paratrooper, who
jogged away.
Yuri
commands the 12th Company, part of the self-proclaimed People’s Militia
of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a previously unknown and often masked
rebel force that since early April has seized government buildings in
eastern Ukraine and, until Saturday, held prisoner a team of European
military observers it accused of being NATO spies.
Behind the Masks of Pro-Russian Militants in Ukraine
Credit Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Yuri,
who appears to be in his mid-50s, is in many ways an ordinary eastern
Ukrainian of his generation. A military veteran, he survived the Soviet
collapse to own a small construction business in Druzhkovka, about 15
miles south of here.
But
his rebel stature has a particular root: He is also a former Soviet
special forces commander who served in Afghanistan, a background that
could make him both authentically local and a capable Kremlin proxy.
In
this war, clouded by competing claims on both sides, one persistent
mystery has been the identity and affiliations of the militiamen, who
have pressed the confrontation between Russia and the West into its
latest bitter phase.
Moscow says they are Ukrainians and not part of the Russian armed forces, as the so-called green men in Crimea turned out to be.
Western officials and the Ukrainian government insist that Russians have led, organized and equipped the fighters.
A
deeper look at the 12th Company — during more than a week of visiting
its checkpoints, interviewing its fighters and observing them in action
against a Ukrainian military advance here on Friday — shows that in its
case neither portrayal captures the full story.
The
rebels of the 12th Company appear to be Ukrainians but, like many in
the region, have deep ties to and affinity for Russia. They are veterans
of the Soviet, Ukrainian or Russian Armies, and some have families on
the other side of the border. Theirs is a tangled mix of identities and
loyalties.
Further
complicating the picture, while the fighters share a passionate
distrust of Ukraine’s government and the Western powers that support it,
they disagree among themselves about their ultimate goals. They argue
about whether Ukraine should redistribute power via greater
federalization or whether the region should be annexed by Russia, and
they harbor different views about which side might claim Kiev, the
capital, and even about where the border of a divided Ukraine might lie.
Yuri
speaks with ambivalence about the possibility of Russian annexation,
even as Russia’s tri-colored flag fluttered beside the porch where he
directed his troops.
He
says he participated in the seizure of Ukraine’s intelligence service
building in Donetsk on April 7 and led the capture of this city’s police
building five days later, twin operations that helped establish the
militia’s foothold. Videos and photographs of the second attack confirm
his story.
Throughout
the week, as Ukrainian soldiers sometimes pressed closer, he chuckled
at the claims by officials in Kiev and the West that his operations had
been guided by Russian military intelligence officers.
There is no Russian master, he said. “We have no Muscovites here,” he said. “I have experience enough.”
That
experience, he and his fighters say, includes four years as a Soviet
small-unit commander in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the 1980s.
The
119 fighters he said he leads, who appear to range in age from their
20s to their 50s, all speak of prior service in Soviet or Ukrainian
infantry, airborne, special forces or air-defense units.
One,
Kostya, served in the post-Soviet Russian Army, where he was a
paratrooper. But he too claimed Ukrainian citizenship, which he said he
received two years ago after moving to the Donetsk region in 1997 to
live near his mother.
Two
others said they were from outside eastern Ukraine, one from Odessa, in
the south, and the other from Dnipropetrovsk, in the center.
For
now, the 12th Company forms part of the front lines in Slovyansk, where
its fighters stand at barricades facing the Ukrainian military, with
whom the militia has clashed several times.
The company’s members wear masks on patrols, which crisscross the city around the clock.
They
show signs of discipline, including organizing rotating watches at
checkpoints, frequently cleaning their weapons and abstaining from
alcohol.
And they claim to have a sprawling network of informers who warn them of Ukrainian military actions as they begin.
RUSSIA
Kiev
UKRAINE
Izyum
DETAIL
UKRAINE
Dnieper
River
MOLDOVA
ROMANIA
Odessa
Slovyansk
Black
Sea
Kramatorsk
Druzhkivka
Luhansk
RUSSIA
Horlivka
Donetsk
25 Miles
All
spoke of disgust with the interim authorities in Kiev, who came to
power after chasing President Viktor F. Yanukovych from office in
February.
They
bristled at any suggestion that their seizure of government buildings
was wrong. Pro-Western protesters in Kiev have held government buildings
and the city’s main square since last fall, they said.
“Why
did America support those acts, but is in opposition to ours?” said
Maksim, the young former paratrooper who organized Yuri’s snipers by the
bridge. “These are the contradictions of the West.”
Maksim,
like many others, speaks of what he sees as unbreakable cultural,
economic and religious ties to Russia and his ideal of a greater Slavic
world, which he says is threatened from outside.
The
threats, the fighters said, were made clear by a parliamentary proposal
in February by the interim authorities in Kiev that would have stripped
Russian of its status as an official language in eastern Ukraine. The
proposal was vetoed by the interim president, but in the fighters’ view
the episode signaled an official cultural assault.
“That was a turning point,” said Maksim, adjusting a knife tucked against his chest in a black vest.
Several fighters shook their heads at the idea that they had been paid by Russia, by oligarchs or by anybody else.
“This is not a job,” said one fighter, Dmitry. “It is a service.”
Moreover,
if Russia’s intelligence services had been helping them, they said,
they would have new weapons, not the dated arms visible at their
checkpoints and stored in the base where they sleep. During the fighting
on Friday, two of the fighters carried hunting shotguns, and the
heaviest visible weapon was a sole rocket-propelled grenade.
Much
of their stock was identical to the weapons seen in the hands of
Ukrainian soldiers and Interior Ministry special forces troops at
government positions outside the city. These included 9-millimeter
Makarov pistols, Kalashnikov assault rifles and a few Dragunov sniper
rifles, RPK light machine guns and portable antitank rockets, including
some with production stamps from the 1980s and early 1990s.
Ukraine Crisis in Map
Many
of the weapons show signs of long service. One, an RPG-7 launcher,
looked clean and fresh. The fighters said it had been purchased from
Ukrainian soldiers for $2,000, along with 12 high-explosive projectiles.
Militia
members said their weapons had either been taken from seized police
buildings and a column of captured Ukrainian armored vehicles, or bought
from corrupt Ukrainian soldiers.
There
was no clear Russian link in the 12th Company’s arsenal, but it was not
possible to confirm the rebels’ descriptions of the sources of their
money and equipment.
There were, however, indicators of local support.
One afternoon, a crowd labored to build a barricade and a bunker beside a bridge over a canal to the city’s west.
At
the 12th Company’s main base, the home of Tanya and her husband, Lev,
residents visited to donate food: homemade pastries, slabs of salted
pork fat, a vat of borscht, bags of fresh green onions, jars of pickled
vegetables and fruits.
“To the guys in Kiev, we are separatists and terrorists,” Yuri said. “But to the people here, we are defenders and protectors.”
Tanya,
60, who offered to feed the rebels after her son joined them last
month, has assumed the role of company cook. She keeps the table behind
the house stacked with food and admonishes the men to eat more whenever
they leave bowls of borscht unfinished.
The couple’s garage has become a barracks; a shed is now an armory. Camouflage hangs on lines strung from cherry trees.
The
militia claims to have mostly good relations with the local police, who
have done little to stop them. Many police officers still patrol in
rebel territory, accepting the militia’s authority while directing
traffic or investigating accidents.
Where
these militiamen and their backers are trying to steer Ukraine remains a
matter of dispute even among the men wearing masks.
In
the 12th Company, some hope the eastern provinces can establish
autonomy within a federalized Ukraine. Others speak of dividing the
nation in two, with much of it joining Russia.
Asked whether Ukraine should remain one nation, Sergey, a veteran of the Soviet air-defense service, said, “Sure, why not?”
“No, no, no,” interjected Dmitry, a younger fighter. “What kind of united Ukraine could there be?”
Later,
another fighter, Aleksey, agreed. “In western Ukraine, they showed
their faces: Nazis, fascist,” he said. “They destroyed monuments to
Lenin, attacked our history. Living on one land with them is senseless
for us.”
Then
came the matter of details, where might a new border be, and which side
should keep Kiev. “Let Kiev remain there in the west,” said Sanya, a
huge man with a shaved head who carried a Dragunov sniper rifle. “It’s
not a problem in principle.”
“No, all the way to Kiev!” Dmitry said.
Alexey proposed a border along the Dnieper, the river that runs through Kiev.
“Fine, along the Dnieper,” Dmitry said. “Left bank is theirs, right bank is ours.”
Whatever the final shape, Yuri said later, Ukraine’s interim government must allow a vote or face civil war.
“Either a sea of blood and corpses, or a referendum,” he said. “There is no third way.”
Ukraine Presses Pro-Russia Militants After Fighting Spreads to a Port City
By ALISON SMALE and ANDREW E. KRAMER
Even as European military observers held as suspected NATO spies were
released Saturday, Russia cited bloody street violence in Odessa as
proof that Ukraine could no longer protect its citizens.
copy http://www.nytimes.com
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