“For Russia to send in troops is, of course, the desired scenario”
Over the past year, the DPR army has strengthened significantly, built a chain of command and is provided with weapons. The Minsk agreements are not capitulation, but a forced reduction in the activity of hostilities. Donbass still advocates the introduction of Russian troops into the region. This was stated by one of the initiators of the uprising in Donetsk Pavel Gubarev in an interview with a columnist “PolitNavigator” to Valentin Filippov.
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Valentin Filippov: We welcome Pavel Gubarev, the people's governor, to our improvised studio. A year and a half has passed almost since we learned your name. Tell me, Pavel, what is your status today?
Who are you today in the DPR? How involved are you in nation-building? Well, in war, of course...
Pavel Gubarev: My activities are focused on several areas. The first direction is ideology. The ideology of Novorossiya, the ideology of democracy, the Russian World. What everyone talks about so much, and what there is so little specificity about. Here we are dealing with specifics. We collaborate with many outstanding intellectuals. For these reasons I wrote a book. It is called “Torch of New Russia”. There, in addition to the fact that we describe the events as they happened, from the beginning of the Russian Spring until October, before the elections of the legitimate government, we also give a very powerful ideological message. What is the banner of New Russia, what sacred symbols are contained in it. And ending with what kind of economic and social structure is desirable for us. Actually, this is the formulation of what is worth dying for in the war for Novorossiya.
The second area of activity is practical. This is participation in lawmaking. The fact is that I managed to get my Saratniks into the People’s Council, both through the “Free Donbass” movement and through the “Donetsk Republic” movement. That is, this is a fairly large number of deputies, about a quarter. With whom we cooperate, and to whom we give our bills for development. Which correspond to our ideas.
We do not have a majority in the Council, but, nevertheless, we try and often succeed in pushing through our decisions.
The next work is work on monitoring and recording war crimes. A public group has been created that does this, and we have been systematically engaged in this work for several months now. We have formed a staff of very cool specialists, this is a new direction in military forensics. It turned out that the task of military criminology was never to determine from which side the artillery strike was delivered. And today we are inventing this technique in Donbass. This is very important work.
This is the work we are focused on.
And we continue to act.
Valentin Filippov: How do your organizations, and specifically you, feel about the Minsk Agreements?
This is victory? Is this surrender? Or are we simply buying time to strengthen statehood and strengthen the army? What's happening?
Or are these some kind of political games that do not directly concern the DPR and take place somewhere very high up?
Strongly at the top...
Pavel Gubarev: It’s very difficult to call the Minsk process a victory. But, in essence, it is not a surrender either. For Donbass, the Minsk process is just a reduction in the activity of hostilities. Not their complete cessation, as is being declared, but only a reduction in combat activity. On the fronts. Reducing the number of shellings. Reducing the number of civilian casualties.
But then there was the day when eight multi-story buildings were destroyed. Now multiply by 365 days. And within a year, even with the Minsk process, the city of Donetsk will turn into ruins. Therefore, it is very difficult to call it a victory.
But we don’t consider it a defeat either.
We understand that Russia is in a position where we can make the appropriate decision, which we so desire, in the spring of last year and still desire, to quickly resolve this conflict... For Russia to send in troops is, of course, the desired scenario. But we objectively see and understand that Russia is not ready for it.
We understand the objective reasons behind this decision. And we take it calmly. Even though it hurts us.
Of course, when we lose human lives every day and infrastructure is destroyed, of course, this is sad.
Valentin Filippov: In the Minsk agreements, Donbass is part of Ukraine. Doesn’t this conflict with DPR legislation?
Pavel Gubarev: No, well, if of course according to the formal letter.... It says about individual regions of the region, but we have declared an independent republic, and also as part of the former regions. Of course, by all formal characteristics they come into conflict. There is nothing to hide here. But the formalized ideal structure is legal, but there is real politics. Today we are hostages of realpolitik. Which put us all in a situation where we - ORDILOSOS - “separate areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk region with a special status”…. And these same Minsk agreements, this wording appears there - but from a formal point of view it is completely incorrect. But today we are playing realpolitik, and we must proceed from it first of all.
I am a historian by training, for me this is an objective historical process. For me it is subjective only in that this is my Motherland, and everything happens here, and everything concerns us directly.
Valentin Filippov: The armed forces of the republic - are they now strengthening? Is there some kind of trend? I don’t ask you to tell me the numbers, how many there really are today. But is there a tendency towards strengthening the army, towards the fact that it might be given more decisive, more global tasks than the capture of Debaltsevo?
Pavel Gubarev: I understand the question. Well, I think that this question can be correctly posed to the head of the republic, his press service, the Minister of Defense, and they will give an official correct answer to it. As for me, I will have to refer to the fact that this is a state secret, of course there are some data and ideas, but of course I will not disclose them. As for what can be said, today the armed formation that has been created is, of course, a more combat-ready force, something of a people’s militia of the spring-summer 2014 model. An order of magnitude more well armed, trained, equipped with a rigid vertical command
Valentin Filippov: You are comparing with the summer of 'XNUMX. Are you ready to make a comparison with January-February of the fifteenth year?
Pavel Gubarev: The process is progressing, and it is in the right direction. As for combat effectiveness, we must understand that this is an artillery war of the seventies and eighties. And there are not many direct clashes. That is, this cannot be called a full-fledged modern war. A full-fledged modern war can be waged by five countries in the modern world as we see it: the USA, Russia, maybe China, India and maybe a number of Middle Eastern rich states. Everything else is, in general.....
But we are waging an artillery war similar to the seventies and eighties. Armies of old formations on both sides, such post-Soviet armed colossuses, ........ I am not a military expert to comment deeply on these issues.
Valentin Filippov: What should the republics be most afraid of? Tell me, are there any attempts there, aren’t the oligarchs of our former Party of Regions trying to somehow get into Donbass and take control of everything that’s happening?
Pavel Gubarev: Well, what do you think?
Valentin Filippov: Well, maybe so, but how successful?
Pavel Gubarev: In general, there are certainly certain efforts and aspirations in this direction. And here, in general, there is nothing to hide, and this is no secret to anyone. The fact that this process is underway, and the fact that it is a very dangerous process for the republic, I think, is also understood by the leadership of the republic. It is clearly understood that a reverse counter-coup cannot be allowed.
Valentin Filippov: Maybe we can expect some kind of investment from them, after all, which is in short supply. Or……
Pavel Gubarev: We are not talking about investments. We are talking about attempts to infiltrate and continue to rob Donbass. But we are not talking about investments at all.
Valentin Filippov: Well then, I wish you that you successfully chop off these limbs that are stretching...
Pavel Gubarev: Moreover, we have attempts to politically intercept the opposition movement “Free Donbass”, into whose leadership an activist of the Donetsk “Euromaidan” made her way. Can you imagine? And, moreover, she recruited a number of political figures, infiltrated the assistants of one of the deputies and tried to take over this movement by raider. And, in general, the MGB did not keep track of this. Well, today there is a reaction. She has been put on the wanted list and the threat has been eliminated.
Valentin Filippov - In general, the Ukrainians are infiltrating as best they can, like the first president between the drops.
Pavel Gubarev: Between the drops - the exact wording))))
Valentin Filippov: Elections will be held again in the fall. Will you go to these elections? Are you going to aspire to executive power?
Pavel Gubarev: As for the executive branch, we have Alexander Zakharchenko, the head of the republic. He appoints and removes. I am a simple political soldier of Novorossiya.
That’s where they tell me, I’ll work there.
Valentin Filippov: How do you feel about Tsarev’s statement about the closure of the Novorossiya project?
Pavel Gubarev: I commented on this and said that he meant his parliament of Novorossiya, which was delegitimized by Tsarev himself. Today we saw Tsarev in the “Alternative” project.
Maybe Tsarev dissolved the parliament of Novorossiya in order to fit into the Alternative project. But these are questions for him.
I will comment on what the Novorossiya project is for me. A project is a drawing, a model, so to speak. And Novorossiya is for us a project of the state of the future.
No one wrote off Novorossiya or dumped it. She is in the hearts and minds of many people today.
And as long as these people believe in their hearts, Novorossiya will live and never die.
Valentin Filippov: Well, everyone has their own Novorossiya. We also have Novorossiya in Odessa.
Pavel Gubarev: The capital of Novorossiya, of course!
Valentin Filippov: Capital of the Novorossiysk Territory. We have a lot of memorial signs; the governor of Novorossiya met with us.
And now I remember that recently the SBU has been declaring people separatists, and there is Bessarabia in the Odessa region. So they write in the protocols not “Bessarabia”, but “so-called Bessarabia”. That is, if Novorossiya was not designated on the territory of Ukraine, then Bessarabia is there. But they write about everything “so-called”.
And I think that soon the President of Ukraine will come somewhere and say: “Hello, I am the President of the so-called Ukraine.”
Pavel Gubarev: Well, they even have a “so-called” Lviv region. She never canceled her decisions that they do not obey Kyiv and Ukraine.
You can also call the Lviv region “so-called”. And Ivano-Frankivsk.
This can be commented on in such a way that Ukraine is stagnating. And it will continue to stagnate. The Ukraine project is young, which has little historical basis for existence. But to expect that it will crumble now, before our eyes, is naive.
Valentin Filippov: The real war begins suddenly. Real collapse too. The Ukrainian project has exhausted itself from an economic point of view, this is not known yesterday or the day before yesterday. This has been a known fact for five or seven years. Another thing is that from the point of view of world history, this is just that. But a headless chicken can still run for a while.
Pavel Gubarev: And seem alive for a long time.
Valentin Filippov: When everything is over, we win, will you remain in politics? Or do you need to do something human in life?
Pavel Gubarev: I will be a human politician)))
A politician with a heart, a people's politician.
There are not many “folk” ones left. These are those who raised the people, who led them. Who said that this struggle is sacred. That it determines our destiny for centuries to come.
But the truth is.
We no longer want to live as slaves and cattle.
And today there is a struggle between two forms of social order.
A way of life in which there is exploitation, and people are slaves and cattle.
And a way of life in which people are equal in their capabilities.
The current way of life has become obsolete. He can no longer exist on planet Earth.
Therefore, we are building a new social order.
We are building a society of Justice.
This is a very long way.
Valentin Filippov: Thank you. I understand that Novorossiya is not a state, but, first of all, an idea.
Pavel Gubarev: Idea. Novorossiya is an idea.
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