In a coffee shop in Rostov-on-Don, the fifty-year-old tells about the Cossacks, with a faint smile and full of conviction that he is on the right side of history. In 1918, after the fall of the Romanovs, the former fighters of the Tsar Empire proclaimed the Don Republic, after the river that flows here. The borders between Soviet republics that formed the dividing line between Russia and Ukraine in 1991 cut right through it. “We want to take back our land,” says Okkert.
Cossacks
The Bolsheviks subjected the Cossacks to repression. Under Putin, their myth flourishes again. The loose alliance of Cossack tribes from different parts of Russia united in their struggle for the “Russian World”.
Timur Kozak, did not fight on horseback but with his Toyota.
Ⓒ photo the Telegraph
As ‘Attaman’, or chief commander, Okkert fought with the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Not on horseback with a sword, but in a Toyota Cruiser. While enjoying an orange tea and tiramisu, in a chair surrounded by portraits of African-American jazz musicians, the Don Cossack talks about his collaboration with the rebel leader Aleksandr Borodaj, who is currently a member of the Russian parliament.
The Muscovite became the first prime minister of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ in 2014. “A crisis manager,” says Okkert. The veteran, who also fought in Chechnya and Georgia, joined Borodaj’s “Union of Volunteers of the Donbas” after two war years. This veterans’ association helps comrades-in-arms with prostheses and resettlement in Russia. Now, Okkert is the local chief of staff for the brand new Duma member.
Patron
Borodaj is deputy on behalf of the Rostov province for United Russia, but presents himself as patron of the ‘People’s Republics’ of Donetsk and Lugansk. Their residents have been handed out to hundreds of thousands of Russian passports since 2019 and were driven into Russia on buses during the State Duma elections last fall to cast their votes.
Rebel leader Alexander Borodaj had the black box of MH17 in his hands.
Ⓒ photo Getty Images
“Which way you look at it, United Russia will depend on the laws that Lugansk and Donetsk need,” explains Okkert’s choice for the presidential party. But over the recognition of the separatist regions, the Dumare rebels clash with officials and oligarchs who do not want to antagonize the international community any more: “Rich cronies with their possessions in the West.”
The first move comes from the red corner. The Communist Party last week introduced a bill to recognize the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in order to recapture the industrial heart of the Soviet Union as sovereign states.
Occupied home ground
Journalist Dmitri Durnev thinks recognition of his occupied homeland by Russia is a very likely outcome of the current geopolitical battle over Ukraine. The Ukrainian comes from Donetsk, but works for a Russian newspaper. After bringing his family to safety, he was therefore one of the few Ukrainian journalists on the front line to enter separatist territory for years to come.
“People in Donetsk live by the day,” says Durnev (53) from Mariupol, the Ukrainian port city a few tens of kilometers from separatist territory. The journalist outlines a jumble of constructions with which people from the Donbas with a Russian passport register a fictitious place of residence in Russia in order to claim Russian pensions, child subsidies and health insurance.
Products and raw materials from the dilapidated industrial stronghold are transformed into a Russian jacket, because otherwise there is no market for them. Factories have been under a transport blockade on the Ukrainian side since 2017 and have been dying a painful death since they were ‘nationalized’ by the unrecognized People’s Republics.
Donbasser Sausage
The Kremlin is throwing the separatists a lifeline in the form of economic integration with Russia. For example, production certificates from the ‘People’s Republics’ have been accepted by Russian customs since late last year by a Putin ukaze for ‘humanitarian aid’. The first Donbasser Sausage is now on the market in Rostov. Companies from the separatist area are also allowed to compete for orders from the Russian government.
But because Moscow does not yet recognize the two People’s Republics, the money flows through South Ossetia, the splinter region in northern Georgia that Russia has recognized since a five-day war in 2008. South Ossetia does recognize its companion.
Recognition is therefore a logical step, but it will not go without a fight with Kiev. “Russia can only hurt Ukraine in the Donbas and Crimea,” the journalist said. “The biggest problem is that Russia has started a war against Ukraine and with it all” soft power is lost.” Since 2014, pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine have been marginalized and Russian TV channels and websites have been blocked.
Arsenal
In the Donbas, Putin says he has three weapons in his arsenal. Recognition of the republics, the placement of Russian soldiers as ‘peace helmets’ and the granting of all the benefits of a Russian passport to its holders in Eastern Ukraine. One by one, says the Donbasser. “Because what else can Putin threaten Ukraine with after that?”
The displaced journalist does not see a large-scale raid on the rest of Ukraine. “All this bluff has made it clear that Russia cannot handle a full-scale war, they can only start a small war.”