In Donetsk, on the eve of the main international event of this season - the meetings of the "Norman Four" - amazing things are happening in a sense. Amazing first of all for Kiev, and more precisely for the new Ukrainian authorities. Despite the fact that the leaders of the Donbass republics do not officially participate in these negotiations at the highest level, in the DPR, at least, they decided to seriously prepare for them.
In the republic, it seems, they played their own chess game, which a priori excludes a number of Kiev’s aggressive intentions towards the population of Donbass. First, the People’s Council, unexpectedly for many (even in the republics themselves, few knew about it beforehand) adopted a law on the state border of the DPR. According to the document, officially the borders of the republic coincide with the borders of the Donetsk region at the beginning of 2014.
Secondly, the authorities came up with the initiative to recognize at the legal level Russian as the only state language. There is still time to pass this law until December 9, when the Norman meeting is planned. Let us dwell on each of these (in a sense impudent) steps in more detail.
Let's start from the border. Now DNR units control less than half of the former Donetsk region. On the other side of the front line there were such Donbass cities as Slavyansk, Artyomovsk, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Dzerzhinsk, Konstantinovka, Volnovakha, Krasnoarmeysk and others. Given that the Donbass is an industrial region, all these settlements are surrounded by impressive infrastructure, mines and factories.
In addition to a purely territorial strategy, a very important psychological factor works in the context of this law. Many of those who in the midst of the “Russian spring” took up arms in 2014 to counter the radical nationalists who came to power come from exactly the currently occupied Ukrainian armed forces. Many left their homes, parents, brothers, sisters and children. Yes, the Donbass leader Alexander Zakharchenko, who died as a result of the terrorist attack, constantly stated that Donetsk stands for peace, but after the victory. And in the understanding of victory, first of all, the exit of the DPR units was included at least on the borders of the region.
Now the theses of the first chapter are actually documented, and the law, as they say, has no retroactive effect. It turns out that if any further agreements on the Donbass are brought into line with the DPR law (and it turns out that the republic simply does not consider other options), then in order to end the war Kiev will have to withdraw its units from the Donetsk region in principle.
Considering again that the Donbass politicians do not accept the presence in the zone of the separation of forces of Ukrainian power structures, the Ukrainian authorities (if they again want peace) need to abandon their claims to the Donbass completely.
Thus, Donetsk, in fact, set its own rules of the game for comedian Zelensky, who will represent Ukraine at the Norman meeting. It is simply impossible to ignore these new legislative realities. Russia, in turn, which has always supported the people of Donbass, will certainly also take into account the legislative initiatives of the DPR. It is possible that Kiev will be urged not to ignore them. In what form is another question. It is possible that Moscow will not be dismissive of the law on the borders of the DPR. For me personally, this is obvious.
We now turn to the status of the Russian language in Donetsk, which the head of the republic Denis Pushilin proposed to make the only state language. In my opinion, this is the best vaccine against Ukrainian-nationalist rabies, which, of course, is feared by the inhabitants of Donbass. Considering that the authorities of Nezalezhnaya conduct an openly repressive policy regarding the Russian language, despite the fact that the majority of the country's inhabitants still speak it, the adoption of such a law in the DPR will in some way insure its status from possible aggressive proposals of Kiev in the negotiation process .
Let me remind you that for many in the Donbass resistance, it was precisely the language that became one of the key factors that determined the position with respect to the so-called Kiev elite, which came to power as a result of the events of February 2014. I assure you that for a significant part of the Donbass "separatists" Yanukovych and his corrupt environment were just as unpleasant as for those who stood on the "Euromaidan". In this sense, there were no contradictions between today's military opponents from the very beginning. But the other ideological filling of the "peaceful protest" - the breakdown of close ties with Russia, the rejection of the Soviet past and, finally, the oppression of the Russian language - was fundamentally unacceptable to the Donbass. And the language, I repeat, played far from the last role here.
It is also very important to understand: these two legislative initiatives are an absolutely unambiguous signal to all the cheers who have been screaming incessantly about the "discharge of Donbass" for the past few months, since trying to dissipate forces at the front. Thus, the Donbass once again declared to the whole world that it would decide its fate. And he sees her within very definite boundaries, in which they speak a very definite language.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.