What is happening on the ground in east Ukraine?
Tensions have increased after Russian-backed separatists opened fire across the line of control with Ukrainian forces, hitting a nursery school and injuring three people. The west says Moscow may be seeking a pretext to openly intervene in the fighting in defence of the separatist territories that it controls. Russia has amassed a force of nearly 150,000 soldiers in the border regions near Ukraine, and the US has warned that an invasion could be “imminent”.
What are the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics?
The two territories are run by separatist governments widely seen as Russian proxy states inside Ukraine. Since 2014, they have been in conflict with Kyiv, which refers to them as “temporarily occupied territories”, similar to Crimea. They have received military and financial backing from Moscow since they declared their existence after the Ukrainian revolution in 2014.
The two regions cover an area of about 6,500 sq miles and were primarily known before the war for their heavy industry and coal mining. Donetsk, the largest city, previously had an international airport and hosted matches during the Uefa Euro 2012 championship. The fighting has destroyed the airport and left the territories mostly cut off from the rest of Ukraine in a dire economic state. The borders with Russia remain open.
What are their relationship to Moscow?
Officially, Moscow sees the two states as part of Ukraine and has not recognised their independence, but it has dealings with the leaderships of the self-declared states. Unofficially, the two regions are seen as fully controlled by Moscow, with a leadership installed by the Kremlin, Russian subsidies propping up the economy, and Russia’s military providing protection and arms.
Why haven’t they already been absorbed into Russia?
Russia has flirted with the idea of recognising the independence of the two regions from Ukraine. But it has stopped short of that or annexing the territories for several reasons.
Firstly, they provide Moscow with important leverage in its battle with Kyiv. Russia wants the territories reinserted into Ukraine, but with their leaders having a veto on major foreign policy decisions, such as entry into Nato. If Russia recognises their independence or annexes the territories, then that plan, along with the Minsk ceasefire deal signed in 2015, will collapse.
Secondly, many Russians don’t feel a strong affinity for the region. While ordinary Russians view Crimea as an important part of their cultural history and the Russian Black Sea fleet is based there, there is little that ties ordinary Russians to east Ukraine.
Nonetheless, Russia has given out hundreds of thousands of passports in the area and helped integrate its economy with Russia’s, making it more likely the frontlines will remain static in the future.
Who are the people there?
Leaked documents suggest there are just under 3 million people remaining in the territories, 38% of whom are pensioners. That’s less than half of the pre-war population. Anecdotal evidence has shown that many of the people who remain are those who strongly opposed the 2014 revolution that toppled the former Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych (his hometown is in the separatist-controlled regions) and those who are too poor or were unable to leave when fighting broke out. Public opposition in the territories is virtually non-existent.
It has become extremely difficult for independent journalists to go to the region, first because of restrictions by the local authorities, and second because of the difficulty of reaching the territories via Ukraine. Earlier this year, a Ukrainian journalist returning to Donetsk for the first time since July 2014 wrote: “Now I feel like a tourist here, the heroine of a fantastic story that flew in a time machine into the past, and when I returned, I found that everything had changed beyond recognition.”
How many troops are there?
It is not clear how large a force is present in the two territories. Ukraine has claimed that there are “35,000 military personnel and 481 battle tanks, 914 armoured combat vehicles, 720 artillery systems, 202 multiple launch rocket systems on the uncontrolled territories of Donbass”. According to Rochan Consulting, however, those numbers could be “overestimated”.
