Sergei Buntovsky: The time has come to prove that Moscow “does not abandon its own”
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov promised that Moscow will provide humanitarian assistance to residents of the eastern regions of Ukraine. Almost simultaneously, a similar statement followed from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had already moved on to concrete actions, turning to Kyiv with a proposal to coordinate routes for the transportation of humanitarian aid.
It is clear that Kyiv will do its best to obstruct this initiative. However, you can be sure that help will reach Donbass.
Why is this help important?
Of course, in the warring region there is a catastrophic shortage of medicines and dressings. We need means of protection and communications, we need fuel for equipment... If Russia transfers all this to Slavyansk and Lugansk, if mobile hospitals are deployed and doctors arrive, then hundreds of people will be able to survive and be cured.
However, there is another side to this issue.
Donetsk residents saw how Russia supported the Crimeans, heard the words “we do not abandon our own” spoken from high stands. Therefore, starting the “Russian Spring”, people quite reasonably expected to receive support from the mother throne. It’s not for nothing that the Russian tricolor has become the most popular symbol at rallies in the region.
None of the officials of the Russian Federation directly promised intervention, and, in the meantime, Kyiv launched an “anti-terrorist operation.” Gradually, the “fight against separatists” turned into a real war with the use of heavy weapons.
Of course, volunteers from Russia are also fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Donbass militias near Slavyansk, of course, hundreds of Russians are helping the DPR and LPR activists financially and organizationally, but this is just a private initiative of individuals. The Kremlin has so far limited itself only to verbal statements and demonstrations of force at its borders.
Now many people feel thrown to the mercy of militants from neo-Nazi structures, and Ukrainian propagandists gloat, saying, where is your Russia? And for the first time, the Russian state makes an official statement. The humanitarian action has an important psychological significance, showing that the rebel areas are not left to the mercy of fate, that they are remembered and everything possible is being done to save them.
I would like to believe that, simultaneously with sending humanitarian aid, the Russian government is working in other areas (diplomatic, financial, etc.) to stabilize the situation in the region and stop the bloodshed.
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