I personally watched how Donbass, controlled by the so-called separatists, felt involved in the electoral process in Ukraine. The level of this involvement was simply pathologically low — below the baseboard, frankly. It was possible to judge him (this level) by the number of cars and people who, on the day of the decisive vote for the Kiev throne, crossed the line of demarcation between the DPR and Ukraine through special checkpoints.
If in the first round - at the end of March - I watched this process at the checkpoint in Gorlovka and Yelenovka, then this time I went to the south of the separatist republic to the “Gnutovo” transition to make the observational experiment as clean as possible. The fact is that the Russian channels do not show Russian channels there, and Donetsk channels hardly break through, that is, people due to technical circumstances are forced to watch Ukrainian TV, which means to reproach them with becoming conditional anti-Kiev zombie propaganda, absolutely not seems possible. Their behavior was not formed under the influence of Moscow top talk shows, but exclusively from everyday sensations.
So: the human flow that was formed on the day of the decisive vote from the DPR to Ukraine was abnormally passive. That is, for example, instead of a queue of conditional 150 cars, I saw a traffic jam, which to the maximum consisted of five or six vehicles. By the standards of even the most transparent border (and in the south of the DPR, it is definitely not that, after all, the Mariupol direction is perceived as potentially dangerous and the vigilance is increased here) to call it a language turn does not turn.
And to say that those few inhabitants of Donbass were going to the polling stations that day would be an unfair exaggeration. My spontaneous survey showed: in fact, almost 90% of them went to the cemetery to visit relatives, as it was Palm Sunday - the day when people traditionally come to their graves to relatives. That is, if to summarize all my observational experience, the conclusion is obvious: Donbass totally ignored the current Ukrainian presidential election.
The next question is: has it become quieter on the front line, where thousands of Donbass soldiers sit in the trenches, guarding the borders of their young republics? There have been no cardinal changes, local clashes with the use of light small arms are still the front-line routine. Heavy artillery shelling was quietly statistically slightly, but did not stop in principle.
As for Zelensky, people in the trenches do not harbor any illusions - he is not the person who has the competence to end, stop the war, or at least put the fighting into a real, not a declared pause.
Everyone in Donbass understands that the election battle was not a struggle of Ukrainian candidates, but rather was a competition of two parties, and not local, but frankly foreign-overseas. Poroshenko was perceived as the creator of the American Democrats, and Zelensky was perceived as a candidate from the Trump Republican team. The difference between them is extremely conditional and frozen at the level of tactical, but not at all strategic interests. Here, in the Donbass, they are closely following the international agenda and remember well, in particular, the Syrian lesson.
Initially perceived by the public as loyal to Russia and Russian politics, Trump, for example, taking the presidency, one of the first decisions sanctioned a “Tomahawk” strike on Syria and Bashar al-Assad’s positions. Let me remind you that under his predecessor Obama, this possibility itself was sometimes discussed for months and was never realized. Trump beat on Syria "Tomahawk" more than once, and, in fact, with him, the US military expansion into the Middle East region has become completely open. Let me remind you that when Obama was not like this. So, taking Trump’s team as doves of the world is at least a naive mistake, military pressure on various fronts only increased steadily.
Returning to the candidate Trump Zelensky, it is also important to recall one of his main sponsors - Kolomoisky. Against its background, the detachment of the victorious Ukrainian candidate from outspoken nationalist scumbags seems, to put it mildly, conditional. Donbass well remembers that one of the most odious battalions, Dnipro-1 and Dnipro-2, was created and sponsored by the very Kolomoisky. It was these militants five years ago, on May 11, during a referendum in the Donetsk region (in fact, about the independence of the DPR), a crowd of civilians in Krasnoarmeisk was practically shot at the camera - this was one of the first unconditionally bloody events in the history of Donbas republics. And behind him was the puppeteer of the current winning candidate.
So, summing up, I repeat: about Zelensky here, in the Donbass - both in the rear and on the front line - absolutely no illusions feed. The only thing the guys from the southern best were joking: if Zelensky leaves for a new job, then what will become of the comic show "Quarter 95"? This program, they jittered, was really fun to watch. And now what remains? "Inter" and "1 + 1". Not this, not this ...
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.