Inside the 'Donetsk People's Republic': balaclavas, Stalin flags and razorwire.
It is part Soviet theme park, part wacky anti-western wonderland. Stuck to the barricades outside the "Donetsk People's Republic" are several caricatures of Barack Obama. There is Obama as Hitler, complete with moustache. There is Obama, Bonaparte and the Führer, and the words: "They all thought their nations were superior." And there is Obama as a monkey (the monkey-Obama, visible on Friday, had disappeared by Saturday).
Further inside, past a serpentine wall of tyres, activist Vitaly Akulov stood beneath a flag of Stalin. The Soviet leader had a Kalashnikov. Wasn't he responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens? "Without a tough tsar who uses harsh methods you can't build an imperium," Akulov observed. Other banners read: "Fuck EU and USA", "Donbass with Russia" and "Russians should be together!"
Two weeks ago pro-Kremlin separatists seized Donetsk's regional administration building. They have been there ever since, transforming the 11-storey block overlooking the green Pushkin boulevard into an improvised youth hostel and counter-revolutionary HQ. They are a bizarre group, including teenagers in balaclavas, some just 15 or 16, and bearded men in military jackets. But if Vladimir Putin has his way they will soon become the east's new "government".
On Thursday, Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the EU hammered out a deal in Geneva to de-escalate the six-month-old Ukraine crisis. It was agreed that all illegal groups would end their occupation of official buildings and give up their weapons. Some 48 hours later, however, the separatists who have grabbed a string of municipal premises across the Donbass region, with the capital in Donetsk, had not budged.
"Of course we're not leaving," said Alexey Kirolov, a 24-year-old activist, munching his breakfast in the "republic's" pop-up ground-floor cafeteria. A table was laid out with sandwiches – salami and pork fat – biscuits, tea and coffee. Donated bottles of pickled gherkins were piled up nearby. But what about Geneva? "Russia signed a bit of paper. Everybody knows they didn't mean it," Kirolov said. "Putin's not going to give up on us. We're his people."
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine-abroad/the-guardian-ukraine-sees-balaclavas-and-razorwire-inside-the-donetsk-peoples-republic-344297.html
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