“We don’t care who starts the war – Poroshenko or those who overthrow him”
What will Alexander Zakharchenko talk about with the residents of Ukraine during upcoming "straight line"? Is Mihomaydan being monitored in Donetsk? What is the situation at the front, how is the DPR economy recovering?
About this columnist of PolitNavigator Valentin Filippov said the adviser to the head of the Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Kazakov.
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Valentin Filippov: Alexander, hello! Inhumane medical “reform” has been adopted in Ukraine. Aren't you afraid of a huge influx of former fellow citizens into the DPR? It turns out that the republics of Donbass are the only socially responsible territory in the post-Ukrainian space.
Alexander Kazakov: We take this possibility into account in our plans. We, too, are not without problems, but we have clear priorities. For all basic, common, and most serious diseases, medicine should be free. Achieving this is incredibly difficult - not only because it is a large budget expenditure, but also because people are people. Most of those who work in medical institutions and are treated there are from the former Ukraine. Instincts continue to kick in. Specifically, people come with money.
Valentin Filippov: And some don’t mind having money.
Alexander Kazakov: There are those who hint. And there are the smartest ones, and they caught one doctor in the act. Now he is already serving. And not in the medical battalion. Okay, on the front line. They say he fights well. It’s strange how many people were sent to the front for corruption; almost all of them fight normally. They're normal people. But the man is weak.
They caught him in the act, and he said, no, I don’t take bribes.
To him - so here’s the money, you took it.
“Yes,” he says. - But that was after the operation. This is gratitude. Now, if I had taken it before the operation, it would have been a bribe.
Valentin Filippov:And he's right.
Alexander Kazakov: But now he is serving.
In this sense, many of our colleagues from Russia envy us. We are just building a rule-of-law state, but in Russia there is a rule-of-law state. In Russia you cannot be sent to the front. But here, we know 100%, we won’t go to court. There are pieces of paper, evidence, lawyers. A man goes to serve his Motherland.
Back to the beginning. We have problems. But for the vast majority of us, healthcare is free. There are free services and some paid ones, which are definitely faster. Sometimes it's better. But even our paid services are not comparable in price to what is now in Ukraine.
We have a humanitarian program designed for our compatriots. For residents of the DPR who are now in temporarily occupied territories. And one of the five areas is medicine. There are diseases for which we provide assistance free of charge and without waiting lists, this is oncology, first of all. This is childbirth. And some other serious things related to life.
We also pay benefits to veterans of the Great Patriotic War who live on the other side. They don't get paid there, but we pay them. We have lists. Their children come with powers of attorney; the veterans are now 90 years old, or their children come with the veterans. And their children are already 60 years old.
So they turn.
We have provisions and budgeting. We provide medical services free of charge.
We even receive some negativity from local residents, they say, we sit here and endure it, we are being shelled by dill from their cities. And not only do they not engage in sabotage, but they also come.
Valentin Filippov: The fact is that, as I understand it, the DPR leadership does not support sabotage.
Alexander Kazakov: In general, yes.
Valentin Filippov:Is it because we are afraid of being accused of terrorism, or is it the realization that our people are there too?
Alexander Kazakov: This is the understanding that a civil war is much more difficult and has more distant consequences than an international war. And, taking into account these future consequences, and those prospects, including for children, there is a desire to preserve some remnants of honor and conscience. Just to make it easier for our children to later establish a dialogue with another part of our people.
Valentin Filippov: Regarding another part of our people. Alexander Zakharchenko is going to draw a straight line. Is this a direct line with the entire territory of Ukraine, or only with the Donetsk region?
Alexander Kazakov: For the first time, this straight line is drawn simultaneously. Previously, Zakharchenko drew direct lines either with regions of Ukraine or with residents of the Donetsk People's Republic. Or the last one was with the residents of the DPR both on this and on the other side of the front line.
And this time, as stated in the announcement of the direct line, they were told that it was his position to speak with both the residents of the DPR and the residents of Ukraine. As I understand it, he has a desire, through himself, to begin to sew together some connections that, in my opinion, are all broken. If only because the same person answers questions from both sides, if only for this reason.
We have expectations that some of the questions that will be asked from Ukraine... after all, three years have passed, a lot of time, will not be exactly the same as they were on previous direct lines. Still, in Ukraine there is already an idea of how we live here...
Valentin Filippov: Well, how do you live here? You live here “under occupation”...
Alexander Kazakov: (Laughing) Yes, okay... Well, this is bullshit, most people don’t believe it... Well, there won’t be questions “Do you have food in stores?” Well, because open the Internet, how many videos are there... our prices are lower than in Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: Interest in you drops to some extent. People have lost faith that Donbass will come to liberate them, say, to Odessa, right? And there’s this Odessa resident sitting there: well, Donbass, well, they’re shelling it, they’re not shelling it, they’ll come to an agreement with it, they won’t come to an agreement, it’s so far away... If at the beginning there were hopes, in ’14, in ’15...
Well, let’s say Russia defends its version of sending in a contingent to protect OSCE observers - not on the border, but along the demarcation line. But this will generally postpone forever the possibility of promotion?
Alexander Kazakov: I don't agree. Firstly, there is very great interest in the Donbass republics, but it may have changed the vector of this interest. Yes, they don’t ask: “When will you free us?” As Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kherson, Zaporozhye asked. Although Mariupol, Severodonetsk, Lisichansk still ask “When?”
Valentin Filippov: So they promised - they said - “We’ll leave for half an hour.”
Alexander Kazakov: Yes, but while we were moving away, they put a concrete wall between us. Now we need to break through it. But from the distant cities that I named, the South-East and the Center, Kyiv and there, offhand, Chernivtsi, Vinnitsa... these are those whom I know from correspondence with people. There is a different interest there, oddly enough. People are starting to think about a post-Poroshenko, post-Bandera Ukraine. People begin to suspect that somewhere in the near future this whole crap that has been tormenting them for more than three years will collapse, and they begin to think about what will happen after.
And it is precisely in this vector that interest in the Donbass republics and in Zakharchenko personally again became high, but also more targeted. And the questions that he is asked are completely different: “And if you are with us, will you do this or that?” If we take the same medicine, “You have a small republic there, and you are trying to make free medicine. And ours is huge. We have 35 million people there, plus or minus, and a poor country, completely in debt. What will you do with us?” Those. The questions are completely different, very pragmatic questions.
Valentin Filippov: Well yes.
Alexander Kazakov: And when Prilepin once spoke out... dill decided that he was joking, but he wasn’t joking... and yes, Zakharchenko ended up in the top five most popular Ukrainian leaders. I understand that Poroshenko wanted to devour this survey and threw it out: “What did you slip this to me here?” But this is a fact, and it is beginning to be perceived as an alternative, because post-Poroshenko and post-Bandera Ukraine is a Ukraine where new leaders should appear. Tell me three new leaders from the other side?
Valentin Filippov: Please: Oleinik, Azarov and journalist Kot.
Alexander Kazakov: And Yanukovych (ha ha).
Valentin Filippov: Yanukovych first of all (ha ha).
Alexander Kazakov: Yanukovych and Nayem, yes.
Valentin Filippov: And Poroshenko is their finance minister.
Alexander Kazakov: No, better than industry. He has already decided on the financial component and now he needs to restore the industrial component of his small empire...
Therefore, oddly enough, expectations from this direct line are quite high, and especially on the Ukrainian side. Questions are coming from Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: They now have Mikhomaidan and many more honest guys who came from the front specially.
Alexander Kazakov: Honest punishers who came from the front.
Valentin Filippov: There is an opinion that Poroshenko will try to distract attention from the protests in Kyiv by escalating in the Donbass. Is tension rising on the fronts?
Alexander Kazakov: We have signs of an exacerbation, but they are quite standard and obvious. Well, for example, daytime shelling. On Friday at four o'clock in the afternoon the whole city heard shelling, and from heavy guns. Those. in the center of Donetsk, this has not happened for a very long time. This is a clear sign of an exacerbation.
Then we heard everything, an answer from our side. And we adhere to all these Minsk parameters quite strictly, so if our army begins to respond, then this means that it is very, very hot. Those. This is already an extreme case.
This is what is happening from Friday until today. And we have the three hundredth peaceful again, we have schools again, we have homes again - and not only where we are used to, where the front line is just nearby, where you can shout to each other behind the waste heap - but also in those places where there is a sufficiently large distance, everything is the same there.
Well, saboteurs. I don’t mean the DRGs, which operate in the rear, but the front-line saboteurs, who have also become very active. We can’t talk about snipers, because this is our everyday life, sniper and artillery duels are everyday life, but saboteurs, yes, they have really become more active.
And another sign of aggravation is a lot of foreign speech in radio interceptions. Mostly English, but not only.
Valentin Filippov: That is, the “peacekeepers” have already caught up, as I understand it?
Alexander Kazakov: Yeah, only their helmets are a different color.
Valentin Filippov: Apparently they expect some kind of response from you regarding the promotion after all.
Alexander Kazakov: Yes, perhaps this is a provocation. But look, here we must proceed from ordinary, understandable political logic. If Poroshenko is really being driven into a corner, and the pressure on him is becoming more and more tangible and objective. They surround him with red flags. And at a certain moment, even if we assume that he does not fall into hysterics, but even based on rational considerations, at a certain moment he will have only one move left. He will have to announce...
Valentin Filippov: Martial law, war?
Alexander Kazakov: Yes, it is difficult and long. He was already late, he should have passed the law on the so-called reintegration of Donbass earlier, he would have at least received the powers of commander of the National Guard, and now Avakov also has the National Guard. That is, Avakov’s people actually stand on Grushevsky on both sides - both the terbats and the National Guard obey him equally.
It's just an offensive. He will need any provocation on the front line, which will lead to a large number of casualties, to a very brutal picture in non-stop mode, burning tanks, killed people, and then yes... he always knows that this is his reserve trump card. Even despite the dialogue with the Americans.
But the funny thing is that here we are sitting here, knowing about this... we don’t give a damn about everything that happens there, for one simple reason. If those who are against Poroshenko win, they will also start a war - so what difference does it make to us sooner or later?
The only thing that can somehow make the situation easier for us in a military sense is if such a confrontation actually begins in Kyiv that paralyzes the center. This is possible, different forces can do this. Now, if this leads to paralysis of power in Kyiv, then yes, then we, in principle, know how the Armed Forces of Ukraine will behave, we know how the punitive battalions will behave, then we will more or less have some optimism.
And now we don’t care who starts a war against us - Poroshenko or those who overthrow him. A matter of time and weather. Because right now it is useless to fight with us.
Valentin Filippov: Well, they don’t need the result, they need the process...
What happens to economy of the DPR? If, for example, the front somehow settles down and this line of contact becomes cemented, should we expect a sharp economic growth?
Alexander Kazakov: Let's agree on terms. What is "sharply"? In terms of global growth, 7-8-9% annual GDP growth in China is dramatic. Because the whole world lives in the period from 1 to 2%. For us it is radically higher, but we do not deceive ourselves or others. We know that our starting point was zero. We have high growth rates, but I say again that we are not deceiving ourselves and are not selling others on, like Ukraine, which says that they have wow there - but from what point do we count?
But our growth rates indicate that the economy is recovering steadily. There is no dizziness from success, but, let’s say, the fact that we launched the Yuzovsky Metallurgical Plant is, of course, a flagship of the economy, and lately I have taken every opportunity to talk about it.
This is a small interlude that is both sad and victorious. The plant took a very long time to start up, more than a year. And before, its owner was a Russian company, the Mechel company. And she left the plant back in 2012, and it remained there. And the Mechel company left the plant badly - it did not mothball it, but stupidly abandoned it, so there was much more internal destruction than there could have been.
And when the leadership of the republic decided to introduce external management and begin to restore this enterprise, they first found literally two or three people who worked there in 12. One of them, his last name was Dronov, he was then the deputy head of a workshop, just a steel foundry, such a cool guy. And for a year he personally called on old phones - to his former employees, colleagues and one person at a time, agitating: “Come... yes, I promise, the Republic really wants to launch a plant here, wants to get steel.” Under his personal word, he gathered a team.
At first there were 5 people, then 15, then 100, then there were 400, in the spring of this year 500, now there are 900. And he personally watched every nut in every workshop there. Then there were these terrible problems... the equipment was imported, and it suffered very heavy damage. Italian in particular. How can we go and...?
It was just very difficult, but we did it. Replaced Italian. The Italians, however, still don’t know who they sold it to, so let them sleep peacefully. It's still for the benefit of people. And as a result, the plant not only started up, it produced the first steel.
And I myself was also at the control of the first heat, it was on the 5th, if I’m not mistaken, on Thursday. And the next day the series began. Those. it was a control melt, it was done, and the next day the series began, and that’s it, the plant runs smoothly. And as a result, next year it can reach its capacity - this is a million tons.
This is really the flagship, the locomotive of the economy.
So this Sergei Dronov, whom I am talking about, the next day, when the episode aired, came home in the evening to his wife and two daughters and said: “I fulfilled my promise, and the Republic has steel.” He lay down and died in his sleep from a broken heart. He was 46 years old.
He had been to the doctors two months before and they saw nothing. Those. a man lived in order to do his life's work. The head presented his family with the star of the Hero of Labor posthumously; most likely, one of the workshops will be named after him. Then Zakharchenko said well at this ceremony for awarding the Hero’s star that our people work in the same way as they fight. People work to death and fight to death.
It was an interlude - I’m just telling everyone about this person so that everyone knows that we have such people.
Well, we launched Yuzovsky. There is no chance of him getting up in the near future. Those. there are no threats to its functioning, but on the contrary. Our domestic demand is very high.
But if Yuzovsky starts working in normal mode, not even at 100%, but at 50-70 percent, he will pull in a huge number of related industries. This is already happening now. I even came up with a term for it. This is a “sovereign economy”. Russia had a sovereign democracy - and this is a sovereign economy. Those. there are many more connotations here
Those. the head when he gave Timofeev (aka Tashkent) an order to launch his own food production within a year, at least from the borscht set... well, it’s done. Those. From January 1st we have everything of our own. And, accordingly, prices. When tomatoes in the store were 250, we had them for 112 rubles - half the price. And these prices are kept by the state. The same will happen for other products.
Starting in January, we are completely closing our chicken and egg market. These are our products. And the state will use market methods, but maintain the price. There is a specific order from Zakharchenko. If the enterprise is state-owned, then let it operate without profits. The main thing is to keep prices to a minimum. The enterprise operates completely on self-sufficiency, there are funds left for development (a special fund is being formed there), but it does not increase the price.
Gardens that we have already planted in vast areas. They will give the first harvest only next summer and next autumn, but they already exist, they have already been planted. We are already completely closed for vegetables.
What is the meaning of the sovereignty of this economy? Zakharchenko proceeds from simple, military logic. We, on the one hand, have Russia, which is subject to sanctions and other things, as if it were living in a war. On the other hand, it’s just a stupid blockade. And we must proceed from the fact that both borders are closed. We must feed ourselves, we must dress ourselves, and we must find ways to interact with the outside world so that, without directly violating the law, we can smuggle in everything... like Italian equipment for YuMZ.
But food and all these things should be yours. This is where we start from.
Valentin Filippov: But in Ukraine there are rumors that in Donetsk children are sent to the mines after school, and there they scratch “made in Pennsylvania” on the coal. What am I talking about? How is coal traded?
Alexander Kazakov: Coal is flowing normally. Considering our coal groups, everything is going well. In Kyiv they can cry as much as they want about the fact that Poland is buying our coal, but this is not for us, this is for Poland. If other countries appear, then this is not a question for us. People come to us for coal because it is good, the one they need, because we have very reasonable prices and because we have clear logistics. That's why they come to us.
Valentin Filippov: What about clear logistics? It’s not always possible to travel through Ukraine...
Alexander Kazakov: But we don’t travel through Ukraine.
Valentin Filippov: That is, it goes through the Russian Federation?
Alexander Kazakov: Well, for example.
Valentin Filippov: And Belarus...
Alexander Kazakov: Yes, they walk differently. Our world is very complex and unusual, and sometimes even very cool. I can say that, for example, here is amber, this is not the one here in Volyn, but the Baltic one from the Kaliningrad region, recently the Chinese have been intensively buying it, which has led to its very strong rise in price. They transport it by plane. Therefore, as our Minister of Revenue and Duties and Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs says: “Business will find its way.” He's like water. I won’t say that everything is fine with us, but in almost all positions there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
In our Republic, jobs are a priority goal in the economy. We understand perfectly well that in our circumstances, under the blockade, our biggest problem in the economy is unemployment.
If people work, then the budget receives funds to cover the needs of those who cannot work. These are pensioners, students...
That’s why I heard it myself when they come to the head and say:
“We have a proposal to build such and such a production facility here.”
- "Fine. What will be the cost of production of your production?
- “So and so.”
“Well, in our Republic it costs that much. How many jobs will you create?
- “Well, a hundred.”
- “Do it.” The final product – sell it here if you want, export it if you want – the main thing for me is that you pay stable wages to people.”
This is the first goal setting. And secondly... You don’t have to believe me, the dill won’t believe me for sure, some here believe, some don’t, but I don’t give a damn about that, to be honest. I have been present a thousand times as the leadership of the Republic sits, the ministers sit together with the head and discuss the same topic. How else to raise the minimum pension?
Valentin Filippov: This is a problem, really
Alexander Kazakov: But in this case, I’m not saying that this is a problem, but that this is the interest of the leadership of the Republic. Pensioners are not on a residual basis... we have a lot of them, 700 thousand. And it is not the majority of pensioners who receive the minimum pension, but a minority. The majority of us receive an average pension, and this is a lot of money. The last increase seemed to be 5%. But this is 600 million rubles. But the fact is that the leadership of the Republic is looking for funds not to invest them somewhere, but to convert income into social benefits.
I understand that there is some kind of selfish interest in this too, because this is a consumer market, people will buy... but that’s not really the point.
Valentin Filippov: People will also vote.
Alexander Kazakov: Oh, well, yes. But these conversations were going on a year ago, when there would be elections was still unknown... So this is the main problem. I understand perfectly well that in Ukraine this is not the main task of the leadership. Not jobs and pensions and social benefits.
Valentin Filippov: We understand that the winner is not the one who wins on the battlefield, but the one who creates a more sympathetic and attractive society for life.
Alexander Kazakov: Model. And from here we return to the straight line that Zakharchenko wants to draw with the Ukrainians. I am sure that there will be a lot of questions like this. What about your medicine and education? Last time there were similar questions too. Is the Ukrainian language banned in your country?
Valentin Filippov: Is the Ukrainian language banned in your country?
Alexander Kazakov: We have Ukrainian schools. We have Ukrainian classes, we have a department of Ukrainian language and literature at the national university. Our signs are in Ukrainian. How many times has it happened that guests especially say, “Oh, look, your signs are in Ukrainian. Let's film it." “Oh, why bother with you anymore. Everyone understands what is written there.” In general, everything is fine with us, not only with the Ukrainian language. Everything is fine with the Tatar and Greek languages, because most of the Greek community lives on our side, the smaller part on the other side.
Valentin Filippov: And Mariupol...
Alexander Kazakov: Most Greeks live in rural areas. And these are just our districts, Telmanovsky district, Staraya and Novaya Laspa. The old one, in my opinion, is on the other side, and the New one is on ours. That’s why everything is fine with the Greek language. We are building a different model of the state.
Valentin Filippov: This is what happens. Almost all graduates of DPR universities receive Russian diplomas, as far as I understand.
Alexander Kazakov: Those who want.
Valentin Filippov: Against this background, you should have an insane influx of applicants from the former Ukraine who want to study.
Alexander Kazakov: Since the first summer campaign of 2015-16, we have constantly had guys from that side, from Ukraine, and the dynamics of very sharp growth, and now we will still have a program to act on this matter. budget places... So, this year we have foreigners admitted for the first time. And from next year it is expected that it will be restored - there have always been many foreign students in Donetsk.
This year, foreign students returned to us and representatives of foreign countries constantly come to us, and we are thinking through certain logistics for them so that they do not have any troubles. We approach this very, let’s say, liberally and with understanding towards people, that’s why we have a hum. program, I think there are about 1000 people. Last year our figure was around 200 or 300, this year it’s higher.
But there is one significant difficulty here. Sometimes applicants come to us and then return back, although they can study, because they have families on the other side. If, for example, our young people go to Kyiv after school. Well, they go and go - we are neither hot nor cold. Some are going to Moscow, some to Kyiv. And, alas, the people of Kiev do not care if they come from there to study with us - problems begin there.
They showed me that even from the second year there was a statement from a girl who studied the first year, passed the exams and returned back to Kherson this summer. In the statement she wrote that once a week, either SBU officers or Right Sector officers began to come to her parents with regularity, they began to write “separatists, traitors” and so on on the fence, and, naturally, the girl went back.
This is generally very important to understand. People who come to us from Russia, and even from Ukraine, say, “It’s somehow calm here.”
Valentin Filippov: Thunder just rumbles somewhere out there...
Alexander Kazakov: If there is no cannonade and you haven’t gone to those western outskirts where the destruction is catastrophic, but in the center or in the rear areas, then “it’s so calm here, it’s so good.” Well, the most important thing is that we do not have a repressive state here, we do not carry out purges, we do not carry out total repressions against Ukrainians, Jews, Tatars, Germans, Greeks, or anyone else. This year the head went to celebrate Kurban Bayram.
Valentin Filippov: Normal holiday. We always go to the synagogue with the Armenians on this holiday.
Alexander Kazakov: Here! And he also says, “What am I doing?” and takes Metropolitan Gorlovsky with him, and the whole company went. This is the attitude towards different faiths, different peoples, this is like a litmus test, this is the attitude towards these issues.
In Ukraine they forgot about this in three years. Ukraine has always been a very open country in this sense, accepting everyone. These stories were forgotten there with the pogroms, with indigenization - when Russians, Greeks, Jews were expelled from the cities and Ukrainians were brought there from the farms. This was a hundred years ago, it’s forgotten. Ukraine in the last years of the Soviet Union was a very open country. And this also has huge potential for development. The interaction of peoples gives the very spark from which something new is born. They are stupid, they cut their own wings, idiots. Well, I feel sorry for them.
Valentin Filippov: There’s nothing to be sorry for anymore.
Alexander Kazakov: It's a pity, it's a pity.
Valentin Filippov: Well, okay Alexander. I wish you to cope with all problems, they are creative, and this makes you happy. And I hope that someday there will be Donbass integration of Ukraine.
Alexander Kazakov: If the collapse of the state, the collapse of social structures, the collapse of the transport system and other things begins there, then it is possible that columns of refugees will simply flow from there to our territory.
Valentin Filippov: Russia will get more.
Alexander Kazakov: Yes, but, say, Kherson, Zaporozhye, they will not go through Kharkov. They will go directly through us.
Valentin Filippov: Okay, have fun there.
Alexander Kazakov: Thanks for the questions. Happily.
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