In vain, journalists and experts vied with each other to offer their recipes for reviving and rebooting Donbas, hoping that at least the war would force the new government to come to its senses and finally get to work. In the part of Donetsk Oblast cleared of militants, the same pre-war order that had sparked the conflict was instantly restored. After a brief period of confusion, the decapitated Donetsk group is once again striving for power in areas cleared of its own militant groups. The "Donetskites," like mown down weeds, are sprouting from roots firmly embedded in the soil.
Do you know what the Ukrainian cyborg heroes are fighting for at the destroyed Donetsk airport? Do you know what they're standing for and dying for under the onslaught of pro-Russian militants? They're standing and dying for a single-member constituency. Efim Zvyagilsky, in which the 81-year-old Party of Regions deputy has already announced his candidacy. Most of the district—Yasynuvata and the Kyivsky district of Donetsk—is under militant control. Avdiivka, Pisky, and part of the Yasynuvata district are still controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Ukrainian troops hold territory that one of the sponsors and organizers of separatism in Donbas plans to use to gain a seat in the Ukrainian parliament. Zvyagilsky personally persuaded local government officials to facilitate the May 11 referendum. Zvyagilsky personally sponsored DPR groups with his own funds. Furthermore, Yefim Zvyagilsky's man, Alexander Kalyussky, serves as a minister in the "DPR government."
But for the Central Election Commission, all this is by no means a reason to deny Zvyagilsky registration. And so, an 81-year-old, frail man who can barely walk independently, struggles with his weakening fingers to cling to the parliamentary seat.
Efim Zvyagilsky
Why does he need it? Is his hatred for the country where Zvyagilsky amassed a fortune (before the war, his net worth was estimated at half a billion dollars) so strong that he intends to destroy it from within until his last breath? Donetsk, where Zvyagilsky's main assets are located, has already effectively fallen out of Ukraine, and yet Zvyagilsky himself is still unwilling to leave Ukraine alone. Apparently, in his opinion, Russia hasn't grabbed enough Ukrainian land yet. He wants to help them grab even more.
Given Zvyagilsky's connections within the separatist camp, there's no doubt that the Donetsk aksakal will somehow manage to secure the votes of voters living in the occupied territories and win the elections in his district. Just as he always has—through falsifications, transportation, and bribery. It's impossible to imagine a greater insult to the memory of fallen Ukrainian soldiers, but it seems no one in Kyiv plans to stop this blatant sacrilege.
Friends and relatives of those killed in Donbas, as well as simply concerned patriots of their country, will likely have to take lustration into their own hands again and keep an eye on Zvyagilsky outside the parliament building, preparing a particularly large, wide-mouthed trash can for him. And then, on television, they'll once again talk about "Ukrainian barbarity" and "moral decline." Of course, that's inevitable.
Of course, after Zvyagilsky's massive bulk once again compresses the springs of the chair beneath the Verkhovna Rada dome, the country's chief lustrators will tell us it's our own fault, that we should have "lustrated by voting," and so on. However, given the specifics of Zvyagilsky's semi-occupied district, the elections there will be organized in much the same way as safety regulations at his Zasyadko mine. The mine, let me remind you, holds the record for the highest number of deaths in the history of independent Ukraine.
So, hold the airport, cyborg boys. Hold Peski, Spartak, Avdiivka, Yefim Leonidovich will still need them. And you'll get certificates of gratitude and medals later. If you stay alive, of course.
Zvyagilsky, of course, is not the only such gift to a "renewed" Ukraine from the revolutionary authorities. The liberated territories of Donbas continue to be rich in candidates from the former Party of Regions. And given the fact that the number of districts has decreased, the density of second-hand crooks per square kilometer has increased significantly. For example, Sloviansk, which for two months was considered a "hero city" by the DPR militants, became an anti-hero city in Ukraine in 2014. By the fall, it emerged that hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers had given their lives so that the following candidates would compete for a parliamentary seat in Sloviansk: Sergey Belogorodsky, a member of the Donetsk Regional Council from the Party of Regions; Valentin Rybachuk, former mayor of Sloviansk and former chairman of the board of the State Mortgage Institution during the Yanukovych era; and Yuri Solod, husband of Natalia Korolevska. Admittedly, Iryna Dovgan is also running in the elections, but given her modest financial situation, her chances are slim. She won't be able to overwhelm the voters with buckwheat, which Korolevskaya is already handing out to them in abundance.
But for the first three, they're roughly the same. So it's not as if Maidan and the ATO were entirely in vain. While previously the Party of Regions simply appointed their deputies in their districts before the elections, now they're forced to compete for seats. The winner will be the one who distributes more food and colorful brochures to hungry pensioners. You don't think the residents of Slovyansk will refuse freebies and vote wisely, do you? And you're right not to. Even artillery shelling won't bring the residents of Donbas to their senses. The obvious cause-and-effect relationship between food rations during elections and mass deaths from shrapnel wounds on the streets is only apparent to those who already understood the dangers of voting for food. Those who don't see this connection even after the war will continue to trade their country for packs of Princess Nuri and then complain about life outside their apartment buildings.
Perhaps the only surprising thing about this entire phantasmagorical spectacle is the absence of Oleksiy Azarov, who was granted Slovyansk in perpetuity by the then-gentry two years ago. Considering the cynical and boorish impunity of Azarov's other party comrades, Oleksiy's presence in Slovyansk would certainly not have disturbed the local anti-Ukrainian idyll. What is Azarov Jr. compared to, say, Zvyagilsky? A rich, show-off.
Despite all this, the authorities aren't even making a proper effort to combat the traitorous guard. Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko's party is running in the districts with some truly unwinnable candidates who may be good people, but are completely ineffective politicians. It's as if the authorities are deliberately doing everything they can to minimize the possibility of "electoral lustration."
There's no need to harbor false illusions. The war that erupted in Donbas in the spring of 2014 won't end anytime soon. And even if it abates for a while, it will surely flare up again in a few years. Because all the main sponsors of the DPR, its founders and fathers, the architects of a special "Donetsk character" who, according to martial law, should have been put up against the wall, have not only gone unpunished, but haven't even been removed from power. The Donetsk feudal lords will soon get their fiefs back and will continue to plunder and incite the electorate living there against non-existent "fascists," using exactly the same method they've been using up until now. We've all had the misfortune of experiencing its effectiveness.
The war will continue because none of the causes that provoked it have been eliminated. The war will continue because, alas, we are blind and stupid.
The madhouse
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