Insight from Donetsk. Myths and Reality about Life under Occupation Today

In May 2024, the InfoSapiens research agency conducted a sociological survey commissioned by the National Platform for Resilience and Unity.

One of the questions concerned the readiness of Ukrainians to interact with different social groups. It turned out that only 23 per cent of respondents were ready or rather ready to interact with residents of the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 72 per cent were not ready or rather not ready. Only with Russians Ukrainians were less ready to interact.

Even with the residents of Belarus, the social distance of Ukrainians was shorter – 27 per cent were ready to interact, 69 per cent were not – than with Ukrainian citizens who have been living under occupation since 2014.

Maria loves Ukraine but cannot leave her sick mother in Donetsk. The old woman wants to die in her own home and refuses to move. Maria has a daughter in Kyiv, whom she periodically visits for a week or two. In recent years, of course, less often. We met in a café on Khreshchatyk Street the day before she was to leave for the occupied Donetsk region. She had a long way to go: Poland, Belarus, Russia, and occupied Donetsk. I start with a question that has been causing a lot of controversy in Ukraine lately, Serhiy Garmash, the OstroV editor-in-chief, writes.

– Do Ukrainians who left the occupation really come back to Donetsk?

– They do, but mostly to resolve issues with real estate that Russia may nationalise, and then they go back. However, to do this, they have to go through hell in Sheremetievo, get a Russian passport, and many have to sue for months if their property is unexpectedly seized.

– Do they seize only housing that is not paid for?

– Not necessarily. One of my friends left three apartments. She paid for them all this time. Now she decided to sell them, returned, and found out they were all seized. It turned out that someone had written a denunciation that no one was living in them. A commission came, and the neighbours signed it. She’s been suing for nine months now, staying in Donetsk.

Or what they (the occupation authorities. – auth.) did: when you arrive, you must register the apartment in the Russian State Register. To do this, you get a Russian passport – by the way, it’s a quick process, I did it in just a week – go to the Russian State Register offices, and it turns out that someone else, some relative, took part in the privatisation. Not even registered, but simply involved in the privatisation or purchase!

You have to personally bring all family members who are registered or have a share. Not only do they have to be there in person, they also have to have Russian passports. Proxy notices are no longer accepted, even from Russian embassies abroad. Only a person must be present. And it is impossible to gather everyone.

It turns out that you can register your part of the property under Russian law, but you still can’t sell the apartment, because no one will buy your part of it. Everyone wants to have the whole apartment, not a part of it.

And this is the situation of one in three people, apparently. So some people, especially the elderly, are forced to live there. And then they settle down, receive a Russian pension and stay – not everyone dares to just up and leave their home for rented accommodation in a foreign city.

– So not everyone who comes there stays?

– I think there are not many cases in Donetsk. At least I don’t know of any such cases. Perhaps people are returning to Mariupol because it was recently occupied, and people who did not have time to settle in Ukraine have been lured by the promise of compensation for destroyed housing and new apartments. In Volnovakha, I hear people are returning. But in Donetsk, I don’t know anyone who has come specifically to stay. Too much time has passed.

– And do they really compensate? Do they give you new housing?

– For a few, to show on TV. The majority do not. And the housing there is of very low quality. This time I was travelling with a woman who was returning from Mariupol to Africa, where she now lives with her family. She complained that instead of the three apartments they had, they were given one, but it had single-glazed windows. Not double or triple, but one pane. And our winters are cold.

– My source in Luhansk says that people are indeed returning there, but because there is no more shooting and a lot of things are being built and repaired in the city. In Donetsk, as far as I understand, the situation is different.

– Yes, I travelled through Luhansk and was impressed by the quality of the roads there. They are doing something there. In Donetsk, the picture is completely different. If you come to Donetsk now, you won’t recognise it. It is… there is such a capacious Ukrainian word for it – zanedbany (abandoned), buried in rubbish. Mountains of rubbish! This has never happened before. Rats run free!

On Universytetska Street (one of the central streets of Donetsk. – auth.) in the evening it is dark everywhere, and windows are boarded up. There is almost no life. Universitetska suffered the most from the shelling.

– Why this particular street?

– I honestly don’t know. Maybe because there were military units on Shchorsa Street (a parallel street. – auth.). I don’t know, but there were a lot of broken windows. On Artyom (the main street of the city. – auth.), further from the Children’s World, it’s also dark. It’s a terrible sight.

– What is the situation with water now?

– The situation is very bad. Well, yes, they seem to have made it possible to have water for three hours every day. It’s better than when it was once every three days. But there is no schedule as such, so it’s impossible to guess when it will be available for use. And the water quality is very poor. My neighbour recently called me particularly for this purpose, saying: come and see. She collected water, and after four days, tadpoles were literally swimming in it. I’m honest. After that, I don’t even run a bath for myself.

We have ruined all the containers that had water in them. It gives a kind of sediment that sticks to the walls so that you can’t even peel it off.

– Maybe it’s coal mine water?

– I don’t know. They say it’s water from Rostov. I know that there is also a problem with water on the outskirts of Rostov. People there complain that there is no water at all: “They took it all to Donbas”. But we don’t have it there either.

– And what about electricity? Are there any blackouts, like here?

– Again, it depends on the district. In Proletarsky and Budionivsky districts, where almost all the people have moved from Petrovsky, Kirovsky and Kyivsky districts, where there was a lot of shelling, there are rarely any power cuts, only in case of emergencies. And here are the rest: Tekstylnyk, Petrivka, Kyivsky, part of Voroshilovsky (the city centre. – auth.) – it’s dark there, and there may be no water at all. And the heating is not switched on in entire blocks of flats because only one apartment of all along a supply riser could be occupied. That’s why everyone moves to Proletarka and Budionivka.

– What about heating in the city in general?

– It also depends on the district. In Budionivsky district, the radiators are warm. But I want to say that the Russians have taken heating networks seriously. And they are doing them in earnest. They are replacing pipes very efficiently. They have been doing this for two years. However, they are replacing them, but it is our locals who are supposed to fill them in and lay asphalt. And ours… In general, when it rains or snows, we all stumble, fall, and spread dirt.

– Is it Russians who are doing the repairs?

– Yes. I even met some guys. They were from the Moscow region. They were told: It’s either mobilisation or you come there to work. They said: “We preferred to come here, why should we fight?” Well, they get very good money. About 400 thousand a month, like the military. But if, say, I wanted to work as a newly minted Russian citizen, I would be paid ten times less.

– How do they explain this?

– They don’t explain. Not at all. They know that we don’t have jobs, and it’s hard to get a job for any money at all. And it’s not just Muscovites who come. I know about brigades coming from Bashkiria, from Siberia.

– You say that not many of our people come back there. But then why are there traffic jams in Donetsk? There are video clips showing traffic jams like before 2014.

– Yes, there are a lot of cars. Just like here (on Khreshchatyk), there are a lot of cars. But where are the traffic jams? This is not in the city centre, as it used to be. It’s when you go from Makiivka to Donetsk a lot of cars are moving for some reason.

– I guess it’s safer in Makiivka, and apartments are cheaper, so everyone goes there.

– I don’t know. Chervonogvardiysky district was also badly damaged there.

– But are there more people on the streets, at least, visually? Some people buy apartments there if our people are selling.

– Many of our people buy, those from depressive cities: Horlivka, Yenakiyevo, Snizhne. They move to Donetsk. Everything is completely dead there, so they move to Donetsk. That’s why there are more people visually. But not everyone buys apartments. Many people rent or simply occupy empty housing.

Mainly Russian military people do buy. Why do they buy? Because when you have your own home, you don’t have to spend nights in barracks. That’s why they buy and bring their families with them. Firstly, it means not sleeping in barracks. Secondly, families are transported mainly from such regions of Russia where it is very sad.

I was travelling from Moscow this spring. And behind me were Russian soldiers. And I heard them admiring how gorgeous the city of “Yenakuievo” is.

They really liked it. And a woman sitting next to me said: “Well, if you like ‘Yenakuievo’, then Donetsk will definitely seem to you like the capital of the world”.

So, yes, there are more Russians and fewer Ukrainians. Again, the Donetsk public is moving to Krasnodar, to Rostov, where they buy apartments. Mostly those whose relatives were killed at the front. After all, they are paid a huge amount of money: seven million each. That’s 70 thousand dollars. And they buy apartments in Russia and go there. Especially those from the currently depressive Kyivsky, Voroshilovsky, and Petrovsky districts.

– So the population is being replaced in a “natural” way? People are being made to feel worse off than they were before, so they leave. And for Russians, even such conditions are better than in their homeland, so they come?

– Yes, indeed, our Donetsk residents are leaving and their place is gradually being taken by Russians.

– And how do the locals feel about people from Russia?

– How can locals feel about outsiders? But, of course, no one would show this. Only in a close circle. Because you could be imprisoned for espionage. People are very afraid now. No one will investigate, no one will look for evidence. There is no law there. They will just take you away and put you in jail. That’s why outwardly, there is a neutral attitude. At least out loud, no one expresses either great love or antipathy.

– How would they treat you if they found out that you have travelled to Ukraine?

– I do not hide it. They treat me well. But my circle of friends is like this. Although everyone in my residential building knows that I’m travelling and that my circumstances are just that, otherwise I would have left a long time ago.

Of those who have stayed, many have situations where either relatives or real estate pin them down. For example, children and grandchildren are registered in the apartment. But they have long since gone abroad and will never come to get Russian passports to sell the apartment. And the elderly also can’t just leave everything they’ve acquired over the years. So they stay there, just guarding the apartments.

– And if they were offered to leave with the condition of giving up their homes in the occupation in exchange for equivalent living space in Ukraine, would many of them agree?

– Elderly people are unlikely to. Even people of my age (50-60. – auth.) would do it. But those who are older would not. I often hear old people say that they would like to, but “my husband and son are buried here, and I want to be here”. And in ten years, people have already adapted. First, the pension is higher there. And if you turn 80, you get the additional so-called presidential money, ten thousand. It’s good money.

And you know, even if prices have gone up, how much does an old person eat? So, the money remains. And that old lady has children and grandchildren who take care of her. So she’s no longer a burden, as pensioners usually are, but in the centre of life, a support for the young. So where should she go?

– And the young?

– Young people, of course. Especially normal young people don’t want to live there. But many are, say, socially disadvantaged. They feel good there, they give birth to children there, and they also receive payments for this. There are a lot of mothers with bassinets walking around the city.

– What about mobilisation now? They used to catch people right on the streets.

– Yes, they did. Nowadays, they don’t catch them like that. But they still go from apartment to apartment to find out who lives where. It’s as if they are preparing something. And they campaign a lot for contractors, promising big money.

– And the Russians who come to Donetsk, both the military and those who just buy apartments, how do they treat the locals?

– They don’t. Contact with the locals is minimal. Especially Chechens – they generally keep themselves very separate, both from us and from other Russians.

66 per cent of Ukrainians are ready or rather ready to interact with Ukrainian citizens who are ethnic Russians, while 30 per cent are not ready or rather not ready. The rest are undecided. That is, about a third of Ukrainians do not want to have any business or relations with Ukrainian citizens like them simply because they belong to a particular ethnic group. InfoSapiens

– In your subjective opinion and judging by your social circle, what percentage of people who lived in Donetsk before 2014 still live in the city today?

– I think 30 per cent are still there – at least of my friends. But my circle are mainly educated people. After all, many people in Donetsk have never left the city, and they have nothing to compare it to. They live “from the TV” and adapt to their circle. Among them, perhaps, there is a smaller percentage of those who have left.

– In your subjective opinion, what percentage of people there are still waiting for Ukraine?

– I think it’s half. Yes, 50-50! A lot of people say they would have left if it weren’t for the circumstances that kept them there. And Russia hasn’t brought anything good either! Do you know what Russia has brought? Queues! Queues everywhere! Worse than in the Soviet Union. And dirt. And fear! And drunkenness! After all, those whose relatives were killed in a “special military operation” received a lot of money for them. And people simply don’t know what to do with it. And they drink! They drink a lot!

– If you were to speak Ukrainian in Donetsk now, what would be the attitude of the people around?

– Probably, they would just look at me like I was crazy. I recently witnessed a woman speaking Ukrainian loudly at the market. Everyone just shied away from her. I don’t know why she was doing it, maybe she was just breaking bad.

– But she wasn’t handed over to the police, wasn’t beaten?

– She wasn’t. People were shying away, but they were more sympathetic. It’s only on TV that everyone loves Russia and Putin. In reality, there is no love. They just endure and keep quiet so that they don’t go to jail. Or if they have to love him at work, they love him.

Nine per cent of respondents are not ready to interact with Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Seven per cent are rather not ready. Another two per cent are undecided on this issue, which can be considered unwillingness. That is, about 18 per cent (one in five) do not want to interact with Russian-speaking Ukrainians. InfoSapience

– What about all those videos of old ladies crying with happiness to live in Russia?

– I’ll tell you how they cry. Recently, one of my friends had to get a Russian passport. They were lined up in a row, given those booklets with the constitution, and forced to sing the Russian anthem. And she said: I was standing there crying. It hurt me that I’ve lived to be so old, and they made me sing like a trained dog to get candy. And they asked her: Why are you crying? She said: Of happiness.

Or I was travelling with a woman. Her husband was dying in Luhansk, and they wouldn’t let her out of Sheremetievo. She begged, cried, and humiliated herself there, but they wouldn’t let her in! And she stayed there for four days on a mattress! And then they said to her: Tell the camera how much you love Russia, and then we’ll let you through. And she did. She said it, crying, and she said to us: Ladies if you see this, you should know that I was forced to do this. They ruined my life, they tore my family apart – I hate them. This is how these videos are made.

– Do they marinate people in Sheremetievo for so long?

– It depends on how lucky you are. But they don’t let many people through. And God forbid, if you are already elderly, and even say that you are travelling there to sell your apartment: they will not let you in. If you are of working age, they let you through. But men are abused a lot. They check everything: phones, and social media.

When I was travelling through the humanitarian corridor (on the border in the Sumy region. – auth.), they stripped me naked. I don’t know what they were hoping to find.

They humiliate people even more in Belarus. I have a Russian passport, I’m just travelling through Belarus in transit, and still, the attitude of the border guards is worse than when the Nazis were probably humiliating.

– What is working in Donetsk now? What businesses? Where do people earn money?

– There are some workshops at the DMZ (Donetsk Metallurgical Plant), and the Makiivka Coke Plant is constantly smoking. Our coking coal mines are working. And the market – sellers of pillows and blankets have probably made a fortune. Because this is what all the newcomers are buying.

– And what about food?

– Russian products are of very poor quality. It’s impossible to eat. A lot of Belarusian goods are better. The whole Caucasus is on the market. By the way, there are a lot of cars from Georgia.

– And the young people who graduate from school – do they stay in the city?

– Young people mostly want to move to Krasnodar, Moscow, or St Petersburg.

– Why not to Ukraine?

– Because they have relatives in Donetsk, and they can visit them from Krasnodar or Rostov. And from Ukraine, it is long, expensive and dangerous.

– Do people believe that Ukraine can still come back? It’s one thing to want it to, and another to think it will happen.

– They do believe. I will say this: I have not met people who are 100 per cent sure that Russia is there forever. There are, of course, crazy old ladies. But they are a minority.

The majority assume that Ukraine will return. And many want it to. Only those who are deeply involved in Russia do not want it. They are tainted, and they are, of course, afraid of Ukraine’s return. But they also assume it.