“You are supporting the fascists,” she growled at the Western journalists who refused to contribute. Only the Russians dropped money in the box.
“We have martial law and conditions are harsh,” explains Khorosheva. This argument justifies all the restrictions and repressions. That’s why the curfew from midnight to six in the morning was imposed. Anyone who is in the streets at this time can be detained. The new authorities thus gain a few hours to act with impunity, without film and photo cameras.
“We are expecting an attack,” warns Ponomarev. Actually, he does this every day. “According to our intelligence, today it is even more probable,” he reassures us.
The theater director Pavel Yurov and his colleague Denys Hryshchuk ended up in the Slovyansk cellars, too. On April 25 they came to Slovyansk for just a few hours. They had return tickets for Donetsk. Supposedly, the militants found Ukrainian national symbols in their belongings, so Pavel’s and Denys’s plans got a bit complicated. Instead of going home in the evening, they stayed till June. Letters from Ukrainian and Russian cultural figures didn’t help. When I asked Ponomarev what happened to them, he assured me that everything was fine and that he would provide more information after contacting their parents. Yurov’s relatives got in touch with the self-proclaimed mayor several times but didn’t find out anything from him: neither where Pavel and Denys were held, nor why they had been detained, nor when they would be released.
The hostages’ relatives had good reasons to be afraid. Right after “people’s authorities” appeared in Slovyansk and nearby Horlivka, a local politician from the Batkivshchyna Party, Volodymyr Rybak, went missing. On April 22 his tortured body was found in the river northeast from Slovyansk. His stomach was ripped open. The body of the second person found next to him could not be identified. Witnesses claim that they were tortured in the occupied Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) building in Slovyansk.
The SSU officers tried to detain a suspect in Rybak’s murder case. They went to Horlivka, but it was they who were detained. A group of armed men grabbed their weapons and took them to Slovyansk. Soon after their pictures were published. They are sitting tied to chairs without their pants. Their eyes are covered with bloody bandages. Their passports, IDs, badges, a pistol, and other documents are displayed on the desk. Ponomarev announced that he was ready to swap them for the “people’s governor” of the Donetsk region, Pavel Gubarev, who at night on March 6 was detained in his apartment by the special SSU unit Alfa.
As luck would have it, at the same time the pictures of the tortured officers appeared on the internet, a press conference was going on with the arrested observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) military mission. They had better luck.
The observers were detained on April 25 near Slovyansk, because they had not informed the “people’s authorities” that they entered the territory controlled by separatists. What is more, it was to their disadvantage that they were wearing civilian clothes, not uniforms. “These are NATO spies,” says Ponomarev. He repeats this accusation many times and is not bothered that one of the observers is an envoy from Sweden, not a member of the Alliance.
The observers are brought to the press conference in pairs, escorted by “volunteers” with rifles. The observers look well. They don’t exhibit any signs of beating, they are not filthy. They don’t even look tired. Ponomarev sits among the seven observers and an interpreter. He begins the conference. He doesn’t speak abusively, as he did earlier. There are no accusations of spying. He gives the floor to the observers. Initially, the chief of the OSCE mission, Colonel Axel Schneider, looks a little scared. Perhaps he thought that only Russian journalists would show up. It turns out, however, that the majority are representatives of European and American media.
“We are not prisoners of war, but only mayor Ponomarev’s guests,” says Schneider, and the “mayor’s” face brightens up with his characteristic mischievous smile. “We are treated in the best possible way, given the circumstances,” asserts the mission chief. Like other “guests,” the OSCE observers have no idea when they will be able to go home.
During the conference two Russian journalists, both women, showed off. Taking turns they asked the same questions, but in different forms. They wanted the observers to confess that they were spies. They were disappointed that they didn’t gather any sensational information.
As in the case of the SSU officers, Ponomarev announced that he would trade the observers for separatists arrested by the Ukrainian side. Nevertheless, he was not going to discuss this with the “Kiev junta.” The observers were to be rescued by diplomats from their own countries. Unfortunately, the process stalled and they were released only after eight days, when Putin’s envoy, Vladimir Lukin, arrived in Slovyansk.
The separatist authorities live in constant fear of spies and saboteurs. To confirm that their fears are justified, every now and then they catch some “saboteurs,” and it’s even better if they belong to Right Sector.
On April 20 the journalists were informed that there had been shooting at one of the separatists’ checkpoints near Bilbasivka village, less than twenty kilometers west of Slovyansk. Three local men were killed. When I arrived at the spot with other journalists, I saw two cars burned to the ground. What caught my attention were the license plates, which miraculously were not even touched by the fire and that looked brand new. The number of different kinds of shells indicated that serious shooting had taken place, but the bullet traces were hard to find. The whole situation seemed extremely fishy.
However, during the morning press conference the “people’s authorities” decided not to keep the journalists in suspense. They brought all the spoils that supposedly had been found in a bag near the cars when one of the nationalists fled the scene of the shooting. Three printouts from Google Maps showing the neighborhood, a train ticket, a driver’s license, a car registration, three bullets, and the red-and-black visiting card of Dmytro Yarosh, the Right Sector leader, are displayed on the table. The phone number on the card, as a matter of fact, does not work, all the journalists know that the organization uses a different e-mail address, and the other side of the card is in English. A photo of the visiting card immediately appears on the internet and in the coming days will become one of the most popular memes. “Look, here is their medallion. I couldn’t make it myself,” says Ponomarev, after having realized that the visiting card was an embarrassment. The metal medallion with the inscription “Right Sector” hangs on a blue-and-yellow ribbon. “You have no reason to distrust me. I am always honest with you,” he addresses the skeptical journalists.
All these items, in fact, can fit into a shoulder bag, supposedly lost by one of the fleeing nationalists. But what about the MG3 machine gun in perfect condition that is also sitting on the table? With a tripod, it weighs at least twenty-seven kilograms. How can you flee with this? This question remains unanswered.
This event took place on Easter Sunday, the same day Kiev was promising not to take any military action. Nevertheless, the self-proclaimed authorities and the Russian media presented the incident as breaking the promise. On top of everything, all three shooting victims were Slovyansk residents. The youngest was to celebrate his twenty-fifth birthday in two months, the oldest was fifty-seven. Pictures of the victims appeared the same day. They were placed on the City Council building and on the Lenin monument. Each picture was signed: “People’s hero.” Red roses were laid. Several people are standing near the monument in a group. A few women are crying.