"Fear and expectation": What is life like in Donetsk almost a year after the Russian invasion

Vladimir Putin started a war against Ukraine allegedly with the aim of protecting the people of Donbas. Ukraine believes that the return of this region together with Crimea and other occupied territories is the only condition for peace with Moscow. In the vicinity of Donetsk, near Bakhmut, Soledar, Avdiyivka, the bloodiest battles took place between the Ukrainian forces and the Russian army.

However, little is known about what is happening in Donetsk itself.

Ukrainian and international journalists do not have access to the so-called "DNR" (the occupied region was given this name after the announcement of its illegal annexation to Russia). Due to the war, most of its former residents, whose relatives remained on the other side of the front, cannot reach Donetsk.

At the end of September last year, Moscow, violating the norms of international law, held so-called referendums on the conquered territories and declared them part of the Russian Federation.

Essentially, what the authorities of the unrecognized republics had been striving for all eight years happened, and many residents of "LNR" and "DNR" considered it a chance to improve their lives. But have the long-awaited changes come to Donetsk? How does the city live almost a year after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine?

BBC News Ukraine talked about it with the residents of Donetsk, who have not left the city since 2014. For security reasons, we do not mention their real names.

 

"Military base of Russia"

 

"Fear and expectation are what are written on the faces," says Anatolij, a pensioner who has lived in Donetsk all his life with his children and grandson.

He describes already familiar images of the city - plywood in the central street, stopped construction, which "is no longer overgrown with bushes, but with trees", empty streets, different people on the streets.

They even speak differently, he adds, explaining that there are many visitors in the city. These are people who moved to Donetsk from towns and villages in the

There are mostly older people and women on the streets, few young people, mostly girls.

The young men are hiding from the mobilization announced by the authorities of the "republic" on the eve of the Russian invasion. The BBC reported that the men were taken directly from the streets and from businesses. Without adequate preparation and weapons, they were sent to the battlefield. Anatolij said that from the mine where he worked, 420 people were taken to the front, and that more than 40 died.

Unlike the previous "pre-July" years, when the war in most areas of Donetsk had long since become invisible, the city was once again occupied by the army.

"There is no city. This is a Russian military base. Many camouflaged people. Many cars with the letter Z," says Anatolij.

 

"We no longer pay attention to Bach"

 

The noticeable return of war to Donetsk is one of the biggest changes in the life of the city in the last year.

The shelling returned not only to the outskirts, but also to the center of the city. Many say that this kind of destruction and such frequency of attacks on the central streets did not happen in 2014 and 2015 either.

Valentina lives 200 meters from Pushkin Boulevard, which in recent years has been at the center of Donetsk's cultural and social life. The neighborhoods within one kilometer of the boulevard were considered the safest and most prestigious, and apartments here cost accordingly.

A few weeks ago, a missile fell just 100 meters from Valentina's house, next to the delicatessen where she goes to get groceries every day.

The woman says that she hears explosions of varying intensity almost every day. Some of them are far away - Valentina clearly says that the explosions in Avdijevka can be heard well in her neighborhood.

 

"We don't pay attention to the strikes on these remote places, we're already used to them," says Valentina.

But sometimes the explosions sound very close, so that the house where he lives on the second floor "trembles". On such days, she does not leave the house, she

According to Valentina, shelling of the center has been frequent since the beginning of December. She says that two lines are targeted the most - in the direction of the southern bus station and on the other side of the central Artemova Street - in the direction of the Donbas Arena.

 

Local Telegram channels and Russian mass media regularly publish photos and videos of the consequences of shelling in different areas of Donetsk.

The largest of them took place on March 14 last year near the Donetsk regional administration (the self-proclaimed city authorities reported 20 dead, but it is impossible to verify this information from independent sources). On June 13, representatives of the "DPR" announced a massive shelling of Donetsk, during which some were wounded in the Višnjevski maternity hospital.

On October 16, the city administration building was heavily damaged due to nighttime shelling. On December 6, according to the Russian mass media, during the shelling in the center of Donetsk, seven people were killed, among them the "Deputy DNR" Marija Pirogova.

One of the latest strikes came a day after a Russian rocket destroyed a high-rise building in Dnieper, killing 46 people. Donetsk "mayor" Aleksij Kulemzin reported that missiles hit a supermarket and a pharmacy in the Kalinjin district of the city, killing at least two people.

Representatives of the unrecognized "DPR" blame the Armed Forces of Ukraine for all these shellings, the head of the self-proclaimed "republic" Denis Pushilin is asking the Russian Federation for additional military aid, and Russian propagandists are calling for new strikes.

 

Thus, after the shelling on December 6, the Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security published a photo of the affected houses and a map showing that the direction of the shelling was opposite to the location of the Ukrainian soldiers.

Some commentators note that the shelling of Donetsk often occurs immediately after Russian missile attacks on Ukraine, in which many civilians were killed. They say that the pro-Russian authorities of the "republic" are trying to show that innocent people are dying in them too.

However, there is no reliable evidence of who is shelling Donetsk and from where. The only thing that remains unequivocal is the fact that since the war launched by

At the same time, from February 2022, the OSCE observation mission, which could officially record the directions from which the attacks are coming, left the occupied territories.

 

"We heat water in a pot - that's how we bathe"

When asked how life has changed in Donetsk, all BBC interlocutors give a similar answer: "It's not life, it's survival." The biggest problems are water and heating, rapidly rising prices and a lack of doctors.

The water supply began to deteriorate in Donetsk immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the summer, strict water supply schedules appeared in all neighborhoods of the city. There is water once every three days and only for a few hours.

It is of such poor quality that it can only be used for flushing toilets, says Anatolij.

 

"That's how we bathe - we heat it up in a pot, dilute it and at least somehow wash away the dirt. And a month ago, we mostly carried technical water from the reservoir of the boiler house 500 meters from us," says Anatolij.

Sometimes technical water is brought by a water truck, and the family buys drinking water at kiosks, but it is a huge purchase, says Anatolij.

Far from the center, the water situation is even worse. Irina, a resident of Donetsk's Kirovsky district, shares life lessons for collecting water.

"When washing with the washing machine, I drain the water into the tub and then use it as technical water, the supply is enough for several days," says Irina.

The critical water situation in the Donetsk region began in 2014, when the infrastructure of the Siversky Donets - Donbass canal, which supplied the entire region, ended partly in the territory controlled by Kyiv, and partly in the ztv. "L/DNR". At the beginning of intense fighting on February 24, pumping and filter stations were damaged by shelling. The water supply in some cities, such as Avdijevka, has completely stopped, and in others it has been greatly reduced.

In addition to the lack of water, residents of Donetsk also complain about the lack of doctors. Medical workers were the category of Donetsk residents who mostly stayed after 2014. It was one of the few sought-after professions in the "DPR" that provided stable work and income.

Now, as the interviewees of the BBC say, they cannot find a doctor, most of them are busy treating wounded soldiers, and other specialists are waiting for several months.

As Irina says, she has not been able to put a crown on her tooth for two months. At the dentist's office, it was explained to her that there was only one dental technician left in the city and that she would have to wait a long time.

An even bigger disappointment and, apparently, a direct consequence of the illegal "annexation" to the Russian Federation, was the increase in the prices of products and utilities.

Since January of this year, "DPR" has increased tariffs for communal services. The authorities explained this by the large gap between tariffs in the "DNR" and other regions of Russia - they are trying to gradually equalize them. Thus, the prices of water, gas and heating in Donetsk were two to two and a half times lower than, for example, in Rostov.

According to Irina, the prices of some products have already reached the Russian level, and the quality has become even worse.

"Only our salaries and pensions are not Russian," complains Irina.

 

"In five days in Ukraine"

 

The empty streets of Donetsk, which are mentioned by all the interviewees of the BBC, testify not only to the fact that the residents of Donetsk do not leave their homes if possible, but also to the fact that many have left the city.

There is no accurate data on the number of people who left the "DNR" territory after February 24. The border service of the FSB of Russia announced in June that since February 18, two million people have entered the Russian Federation from the territory of Ukraine, and half of them are residents of the "Republic of Donbas".

According to the data of the UN Refugee Agency, as of October last year, 2.8 million people from Ukraine entered Russia. But this figure takes into account all those who crossed the border of Ukraine from the Russian Federation. So this does not say much about how many Ukrainians actually remained on the territory of Russia.

Among them are many people who went abroad via Russia or returned to Ukraine. Tamara, who left Makievka near Donetsk in October last year and, having traveled several thousand kilometers, came to her daughter in Poltava, could also be included in this statistic.

Travels from "DNR" to Ukraine turned into a real test, even during the pandemic. The leadership of the self-proclaimed republics practically banned entry through checkpoints from Ukraine. And those who were supposed to reach the territory controlled by Kiev traveled through Russia, crossing the "borders" twice - first between the "DNR" and the Russian Federation in Rostov Oblast, and then between the Russian Federation and Ukraine - in Kharkiv or Sumy.

 

Tamara went to see her daughter in Poltava twice.

"I didn't realize my luck," she jokes.

Now her journey has tripled. She left Makievka on the morning of October 10 and took a bus to Moscow. An acquaintance ordered her a ticket from Moscow to Riga on an international Ecolines flight. Leaving Moscow on October 11 at five in the evening, she passed two customs at night and was in the capital of Latvia at noon the next day.

 

She left Riga in the evening of October 12 and, passing through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, was in Ukraine in the afternoon of October 14.

"That's it, after five days in Ukraine," concludes Tamara.

She adds that she crossed all borders with a Ukrainian passport. The trip cost her about 7,000 Ukrainian hryvnias.

Dozens of Telegram channels where operators offer their services, and users actively discuss all the nuances of leaving the uncontrolled territory, testify to the fact that there is a great demand for leaving the DNR, both to Ukraine and to Europe.

A direct minibus ride to Europe or through Europe to Ukraine will cost from 200 to 400 euros. Many offer travel without a foreign passport or assistance to citizens subject to mobilization. On February 19, five days before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the "republics" announced a general mobilization and banned men aged 18 to 55 from leaving the territory.

 

Everything stopped in anticipation

 

"The farce called 'referendum' has not changed anything. The annexation happened back in 2014 and now nothing is new," says Anatolij.

Unlike the Ukrainian cities occupied after February 24, Donetsk has been under Russian occupation for almost nine years.

Aggressive Russification, which the residents of Melitopol, Mariupol and Kherson saw in the spring of 2022, has been happening in the occupied Donbas for a long time.

Since the creation of puppet people's republics in 2014, Russia has consistently destroyed everything related to Ukraine, from changing the currency to issuing Russian passports, from repression of dissidents to the complete isolation of this territory from Ukraine.

Those who did not support the decision of the pseudo-referendum in 2014 left in the first years of the occupation. And among the residents of Donetsk, who have maintained a pro-Ukrainian position for years, fear prevails.

Ukraine is firmly of the opinion that the war will end only after the return of all occupied territories and exit to the borders in 1991. However, the Government does not say much about how the reintegration of the liberated regions will take place.

The mood in Donetsk is strikingly different from the way Kherson awaited the arrival of the Armed Forces and celebrated its liberation in early November.

 

"Uncertainty is complete, everything is at a standstill, there is almost no hope," says Anatolij.

However, former residents of Donetsk on the other side of the front are optimistic. The return of Kherson has awakened the hope of many migrants from Donbass and Crimea who left their homes many years ago. Many spoke for the first time about what the liberation of their hometowns, occupied since 2014, would look like.

"For the first time since 2015, I believed that I would see the liberation of Donetsk," says university teacher Tatjana, who lives in Buča.

At the beginning of the Russian invasion in March, she and her family fled the war for the second time.

Tatjana, like many of the immigrants from the "first wave", will not return to Donetsk - in eight and a half years she built a life from scratch in a new city, found a job and a place to live. But he promises to come to his hometown on the first train "to hug those who have been waiting."

“I know the people who are there now. I know what they are waiting for," she says.