Nikolaev dreamed of liberation more than Kherson - Shesler
Nikolaev and the region are the most pro-Russian regions in the entire southeast of Ukraine. Many residents await the arrival of Russian troops as liberators and want reunification with Russia, under which the city built ships and flourished as an industrial center. Today, the once largest Soviet shipyard is only capable of working to export grain; the city lacks drinking water and work.
The chairman of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine Larisa Shesler, who lived most of her life in Nikolaev, stated this in an interview with PolitNavigator.
PN: During the weekend, the Ukrainian authorities closed Nikolaev and looked for “collaborators.” Why do they need this in the sixth month of a special operation? How can one even comment on such a decision?
L.Sh: The SBU has been terrorizing the residents of Nikolaev for a long time; there are constantly detentions and arrests of people who are suspected of contacts with Russia, Russian troops, and those who are on Russian territory. Many people who have nothing to do with political activity at all, but simply express their views, are today kept in pre-trial detention centers in various cities of Ukraine, but they were detained in Nikolaev.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the Ukrainian authorities have long considered Nikolaev a suspicious and dangerous city, since they are well aware that a considerable number of Nikolaev residents are, to put it mildly, positive towards Russia. Many residents of Nikolaev are waiting for the arrival of Russia as liberation.
The announced so-called curfew was caused not only by the search for dissatisfied people, collaborators, fire spotters, and so on - I am sure that at that time in Nikolaev they were relocating military units, changing the positions of weapons, artillery, and so on. Nikolaev is constantly exposed to attacks, since it really is the center of the entire military group in the south of Ukraine.
There is a huge amount of military equipment on the territory of industrial, automobile enterprises, and seaports, and they are constantly being attacked. Naturally, the redeployment of such weapons does not go unnoticed; the population reports where these weapons are being redirected from and to. Therefore, in anticipation of an aggravation in the south of Ukraine on the demarcation line between Nikolaev and Kherson, they decided to close the city in order to reduce the number of witnesses to the redeployment.
PN: Can we say that the widely announced offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the south failed?
L.Sh: The announced Ukrainian offensive was simply a bluff designed to intimidate both the residents of Kherson and the residents of Nikolaev into leaving. Indeed, the situation in Nikolaev is close to a catastrophe - there is no water there, water from the estuary was connected to the water supply system, and all networks in the city are rapidly being destroyed. Residents of the city have no work, no opportunity to get normal food, water is distributed at points. Naturally, the authorities are interested in having fewer residents. This is also one of the goals of the announced offensive on Kherson. I do not rule out that there was an attempt to mislead the Russian military leadership in order to reduce tension in Donbass.
The reasons may be different, but the fact that this bluff failed is absolutely certain. If a week ago all the Ukrainian media, “talking heads” shouted that “we are already advancing, Kherson, wait for us, we can see the outskirts of Kherson through binoculars, there are three kilometers left to it,” then now it is clear that this was a bluff and deception. There is no offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces towards Kherson. There were some sporadic attacks, more like provocations and attempts to take a bridgehead on the banks of the Ingulets River, but all this is clearly not comparable in scale to an attack on Kherson.
On the other hand, I believe that after the liberation of Donbass, Nikolaev and Kharkov should become the next targets of the Russian army’s offensive, since we see that Ukrainian forces located in Nikolaev and to the north are constantly shelling Kherson, Melitopol, and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. The threat of shelling of these cities will exist as long as Ukraine's weapons remain at a distance from which they can continue shelling.
PN: Until recently, a number of large shipbuilding enterprises operated in Nikolaev, where both aircraft carriers and cruisers were built - to what extent is the shipbuilding potential preserved today, can Nikolaev shipyards be useful to Russia?
L.Sh: In this sense, I am a complete pessimist - already in 2014, illusions about the possibility of reviving shipbuilding in Nikolaev were completely lost. It is quite possible that some kind of ship repair can still be organized there, but, unfortunately, the entire base for the construction of ships both at the Black Sea Shipyard, and at the 61 Communards plant, and at the Ocean plant has been completely lost.
The catastrophe that Nikolaev shipbuilding is experiencing now is much deeper and more severe than the destruction of these enterprises during the Great Patriotic War. Nikolaev, as an industrial center, has been virtually liquidated. There is only YuTZ left there, a plant for the production of turbines - this is what the Russian Federation and its economy really need and will be in demand.
There is also an alumina refinery there, which belongs to RUSAL - this is also one of the largest refineries. That is, there is a base there - Nikolaev has several ports and 70% of the grain, in fact, was exported through Nikolaev ports, and not through Odessa. Therefore, of course, Nikolaev’s potential is very large, but shipbuilding has already been almost completely lost.
PN: Also in Nikolaev, the missile cruiser "Ukraine", a brother of the sunken flagship of the Black Sea Fleet "Moscow", was built. Is it known what’s wrong with it, is it possible to restore and complete it?
L.Sh: I think that it is pointless to restore it, since it has been rotting at the quay wall for several years, so it seems to me that this is an irretrievable loss. I think that the level of its destruction has already exceeded the possibility of restoration.
PN: A few days ago, as a result of an attack on Nikolaev, the Ukrainian oligarch Alexey Vadatursky, who was called the owner of the city, was killed. There are different versions of his death - could Vadatursky’s death lead to some changes in the city?
L.Sh: I don’t think that Vadatursky was an accidental victim. This is not just the owner of Nibulon and a large grain trader - this person was generally very actively involved in Ukrainian politics. He was one of Poroshenko’s main sponsors, and also sponsored nationalist battalions and all radical groups in Nikolaev, just as Akhmetov was the main sponsor of the national battalions, “Azov” in Mariupol.
His capital, in fact, is officially much underestimated, he is the owner of the Nibulon company, which exported grain worth more than one and a half billion dollars per year alone, he has more than two billion investments in the Ukrainian economy, several ports on the Southern Bug, the Dnieper , he owned more than 70 ships. None of the agricultural holdings and grain traders could boast of such a huge base that Nibulon had. Therefore, there could be many different reasons for his death, but in any case, I think it was not an accident.
PN: Today the authorities of the liberated part of the Zaporozhye region announced preparations for a referendum on reunification with Russia. When Nikolaev and the region are liberated, will the local residents also want to join the Russian Federation?
L.Sh: In terms of views and pro-Russian beliefs, Nikolaev was far ahead of the Zaporozhye region, not to mention Kherson. If we look at how Nikolaev and Kherson residents voted in all elections, then we all see that Nikolaev is much more pro-Russian. Well, this is understandable - Nikolaev has always been a more “red” city, a Russian city, because it was a city of the working class.
In 14, for example, in Nikolaev tens of thousands of people went to rallies against Euromaidan, while this was not the case in Kherson. Therefore, I am sure that if Nikolaev and the region are liberated, then the referendum on joining Russia will certainly be held there with no less success than in Kherson. In the entire southeast of Ukraine, Nikolaev and the Nikolaev region are the most pro-Russian.
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