Kyiv resumed shelling of Lugansk in response to high turnout on November 2
As you know, Donbass does not drive empty. Back in May, the people there went to their referendum to live in a new way. After which Kyiv, where the president came to power and also promised life in a new way, sent troops to Donbass to force Lugansk and Donetsk to give up their dream. But, as we know, it didn’t work out.
And now, the elections of the heads of the DPR and LPR and their people's councils... Despite everything, they took place and legitimized the new order. Since November 2, Donbass, Ukraine, and Russia have been living in a new political reality generated by these elections.
What happened last weekend?
Firstly, Donbass showed the rest of Ukraine what elections should and can be like. Against the backdrop of a catastrophically low turnout in the elections on October 26, when the Central Election Commission barely scraped together a turnout of 52 percent, and in half of the regions even less turned out to vote, in Donetsk and Lugansk there were queues several blocks long in front of polling stations. People stood for hours in the cold to get into the coveted booth and check a box there. The turnout in Lugansk was so overwhelming that the local Central Election Commission extended the voting time so that everyone could have time. As a result, the polling stations closed after midnight.
Secondly, the elections were held in one round and the favorites, Zakharchenko and Plotnitsky, won. Luhansk and Donetsk politicians were smart enough to postpone their ambitions until more appropriate times. As I already wrote, the main intrigue of the past elections was not “who”, but “how many”. And the reality exceeded all expectations. And, most importantly, international observers noted the high turnout in their reports. And there were three dozen of them in the LPR alone.
Thirdly, such a convincing turnout left no room for Kyiv’s propaganda maneuver. The mass expression of will was impossible to ignore; the “picture” spoke for itself. Therefore, the Ukrainian authorities had to come up with ridiculous explanations on the fly for such high civic activity. The range of fables ranged from giving each voter 50 kg of potatoes to exchanging votes for social cards of the people's republics. But the undoubted hit was the explanation from the SBU, according to which elderly people in the Donbass were driven to the polling stations by machine gunners and zombified with “communist music” mixed with “populist slogans.”
Despite the obvious absurdity, these explanations fell on the soil fertilized by many years of Donbassophobia. After all, the average Kiev office worker is firmly convinced that in Donetsk and Lugansk there live “slaves” and “cattle” who vote for a “bottle of vodka.” Only for some reason the Chernovetskys are elected not in the Donbass, but in Kyiv.
And although the elections in Donbass, as expected, were not recognized by the EU, and the United States threatened Russia with new sanctions for their recognition, the reaction of the patrons of official Kyiv looked like a dog barking after a departing caravan. The main thing has already happened. The DPR and LPR received legitimate power and it is this power, and not someone else, that will represent Donbass in all international negotiations.
It seems that Kyiv also understands this. It is no coincidence that immediately after the elections, Poroshenko revoked the previously adopted law on the special status of certain regions of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions. However, in Lugansk and Donetsk they said that they would live without this status, and the law itself never came into force, being legally void.
They are already thinking about building long-term economic relations with Russia and predicting in the near future an increase in the number of regions that will follow their example and hold similar referendums.
Well, the full-scale hostilities that resumed on Tuesday can be considered a real response of the Kyiv leadership to the will of the residents of the mining region. Messages from the Lugansk region were again sent in the “summer” format of combat reports. Stanitsa is burning, there are battles near the village of Frunze, Alchevsk and Stakhanov are being shelled. In Zimogorye, shells hit residential buildings on the outskirts. Oktyabrskaya, Nekrasov, Volodarsky streets were damaged. There are wounded. Artillery strikes also hit the neighboring village of Rodakovo.
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