In 1992 the first serious military operation took Girkin to Transnistria. Later on, he visited Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and other Russian regions, where, among other things, he was involved in antiterrorism actions. When he isn’t traveling, he lives in Moscow. He has been a keen reenactor. Word has it that in one of the reenactments of the battle of Grunwald he appeared as a Ruthenian knight.
His job was to unite the separatist forces. There is a lot of anarchy among the “volunteers,” claims Girkin. Before he came out of obscurity, the cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic were, in principle, functioning as separate entities.
“Coordination here is very weak. A lot of different political forces are active here,” the Communist Khmelovy explains. It is Girkin’s job to fix this, so that the “referendum” would be possible.
On April 24 some other journalists and I had an interview set with Ponomarev in the morning. At the appointed hour the security doesn’t let us into the town hall. Stella Khorosheva, his press secretary, cannot leave her house because, as she puts it, “she was stopped by the internet.”
“I am coming,” she calms us down when we call her, but after almost an hour she is still not there. We wait on a bench, resigned, understanding better with each minute that nothing will come of this.
“OK, twenty minutes more and we’re leaving,” says one of the journalists.
When for the last time we attempt to meet Ponomarev and walk toward the guards stationed in front of the City Council, we hear wild screaming. Crying at the top of her voice, an elderly woman in a reflective vest and with a broom in her hand is rushing toward the building. Incoherent sounds turn into separate words.
“Help! They are murdering us!” Tearful, she approaches the building.
“Where are all those men with weapons? Help! Why are you even here?” she shouts. “Greens” look at her with surprise, but they don’t react.
“My family has called me from a nearby village. Shooting is going on there. A few people are dead,” she sobs.
Finally the “people’s mayor” comes out in a hurry. He is accompanied by two armed men in uniform.
“She is a provocateur,” he says softly. The woman is taken to the City Council. Once again she is screaming: “they are murdering, help, do something!”
We decide to check it out. When we run to the hotel to get the equipment, we meet the press secretary, “taken away from the internet.” We try to find out something. Without any luck. It is she who asks us what is happening.
We are going Khrestishche village, north from Slovyansk. Already from several hundred meters away you can see huge clouds of smoke, black as tar. The separatists burned down their checkpoints when they saw Ukrainian forces approaching. Burning tires created a circle of fire. With every gust of wind you can feel waves of heat. When I cross the wall of smoke, I see what has scared the separatists. APCs are approaching from the north. There are about ten of them, some have Ukrainian flags. Some are taking the road, others are moving toward us through the fields. They are accompanied by special units and snipers. Helicopters are flying over our heads. This is not the only checkpoint that is in flames today.
“The antiterrorist operation may have started in earnest,” I tell my colleague.
Slowly, we approach the APCs. We show our documents to a man in uniform. He explains that they are a special forces unit.
“How long do we have to wait for you? We have been dragging along like this for half an hour,” he says with a smile, as if all this were a media event.
The APCs are slowly approaching the burning barricade. There is a car coming from the direction of Slovyansk. The soldiers are waving their hands, telling the driver to stop. He must have been spooked, so he is lurching left and right. Finally, a warning shot is fired.
“Halt,” shouts one of the soldiers.
The car stops and a man gets out slowly, with his hands up. The soldiers tell him to lie on the ground and they search him. He is clean, so they let him go.
In the end the APCs and the soldiers pass by the checkpoint. There is nobody there. Suddenly and out of nowhere an elderly man appears on a bike. He stands next to the burning barricades as if nothing has happened.
“What do you want?” asks a startled soldier.
“I want to get there, home,” he points westward.
“So go!” The soldier gives in.
Panic has broken out in the city. Just a few hours ago people were walking around and now the streets are completely deserted. Everyone is afraid that the Ukrainian forces will enter the city and regular combat will begin. There are no pedestrians. The city is patrolled by “greens” with rifles and grenade launchers. The shops closed in the blink of an eye. There is nobody near the SSU building. The separatists’ APCs patrol the neighborhood until nightfall.
When I come back to the checkpoint a few hours later, the Ukrainian soldiers are gone, and the checkpoint has been taken back by the separatists again. The former simply disappeared without any struggle. A “green” is trying to convince me that Right Sector has been here. He claims they are ready to fight off an attack, although they only have old rifles, a few grenades, and some Molotov cocktails. They are probably the ones who took to their heels when they saw Ukrainian forces moving toward them. They are safe now, so they can show off how fearsome they are. Their men have noticed that the Ukrainian forces withdrew toward Izium in the Kharkiv region. The headquarters of the antiterrorist operation is located there.
“Probably about a hundred Spetsnaz troops have stayed in the forest,” a “green” says.
Why did the Ukrainian forces leave their positions? As always, nobody knows. On this very day quite a few contradictory explanations emerged in regard to the events that had taken place northeast of Slovyansk. First came the leaks from the military sources. Supposedly, it was the threat of Russian intervention that halted the operation. Also on this day Russia began to hold its military exercises near the Ukrainian border (claimed to have been planned a long time before). Then, Viktoria Siumar, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, announced that stage one of the operation had just ended. Now the next stage was on its way—the siege of the city.
That was the first “active phase” of the antiterrorist operation announced by the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council. After the Russian annexation of Crimea and the total lack of any opposition to the progress of the Russian Spring, Kiev desperately needed some sort of success. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s declarations that “the reaction will be very severe” were not taken seriously any more. He was dubbed the “Facebook minister,” because, as was commonly believed, he was active only there. The phrase “The Interior Minister has made information available on his Facebook page”—like the expression “The European Union is concerned about the situation beyond its eastern border”—became objects of ridicule.
It is necessary to demonstrate that the Ukrainian side controls the “rebellious” regions, even if it is a pure PR strategy. Ukrainian officials have made serious declarations. On April 13, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov proclaimed that the Ukrainian state wouldn’t remain passive about events in eastern Ukraine. “We have done everything to avoid casualties, but we are ready to resist all attempts at invasion, destabilization and terrorist activities with weapons in our hands. The NSDC has made the decision to launch a large-scale antiterrorist operation using the Ukrainian armed forces. We will not let Russia repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern Ukrainian regions,” declared Turchynov. Two days later he announced that the operation had begun in earnest. “On Tuesday morning the antiterrorist operation began in the northern part of the Donetsk region. It will be carried out gradually, responsibly and in a balanced manner, because its goal is to protect Ukrainian citizens,” he stated. One of the strangest of military operations had officially begun.