In the cities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, there are practically no mayors left who were elected in the 2010 local elections. In the summer and fall of 2014, they were replaced by those who, in the spring, shouted at pro-Russian rallies, "And in the open field, there's a Grad system, Putin and Stalingrad are behind us."
But the “city fathers” disappeared from their territories in different ways.
Some were initially given the opportunity to maneuver according to the "both sides" principle, and then advised to leave amicably out of respect for their age and past accomplishments. This happened, for example, to Donetsk Mayor Alexander Lukyanchenko.
After the first manifestations of separatist rebellion, someone voluntarily resigned from office, like the mayor of Makeyevka, Alexander Maltsev.
Some had to endure humiliation in captivity at the hands of militants and be released after paying a two-million ruble tribute, like the mayor of Horlivka, Yevhen Klep.
Some disappeared quietly, without drawing attention to their modest persona, like, for example, Valeriy Oleynik, a protégé of the fugitive Yanukovych in his native Yenakiyeve.
Who replaced them and now controls the territories occupied by local militants and Russian mercenaries?
Donetsk: The mayor drives around the city in a Toyota with license plates D0001НР.
Long-time mayor Oleksandr Lukyanchenko has been replaced in the mining capital by his former subordinate, Igor Martynov, former director of the Donetsk City Council's Shcherbakov Park of Culture and Recreation.
He is a well-known party defector in Donetsk. He was initially elected as a city council member for Natalia Vitrenko's PSPU, then for the Party of Regions.
Igor Martynov
Martynov has interests in the restaurant business. According to Donetskaya Pravda, Martynov is one of the owners of the "Family Club" establishment in Shcherbakov Park. He is also associated with the recently opened Yellow shopping center in Donetsk and the "Stargorod" restaurant. After Russian mercenaries settled in the city, "Stargorod" was one of the first to "decide" to provide free meals to those in need.
Martynov promised all sorts of things in his role as "mayor": the exchange of Ukrainian passports for DPR passports is about to begin, "a million roses will bloom on our land this summer," "Ukraine will soon envy the residents of the DPR in terms of their standard of living and treatment of people."
The impostor mayor of Donetsk drives a Japanese Toyota Camry with a police light on the roof and the telltale license plate D0001NR.
Following an avalanche of criticism directed at him on websites, Martynov introduced a memo for his subordinates on how to write about representatives of the DPR on social media, and in news reports, he required them to use the following syntactic constructions: "Thanks to the head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, and under the supervision of the head of the Donetsk administration, Igor Martynov."
At the same time, he openly speaks about financial infusions from Russia. "Since Ukraine stopped allocating funds for the municipality's needs, Moscow has been providing the missing funds," the self-proclaimed mayor said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Horlivka: Bezler's godfather is in power, and officials are studying the DPR constitution at meetings
Four years ago, the current acting mayor of Horlivka, Oleg Gubanov, headed the city's political organization, "Strong Ukraine," led by Serhiy Tigipko.
Under its banner, he brought more than ten deputies to the city council. At the same time, the "Strong Ukrainians" backed the non-partisan mayoral candidate, Yevhen Klep. And, as time has shown, they were right.
The young mayor began to repay the support with positions. It was Gubanov, in 2012, as head of the Prostor municipal enterprise, who appointed the now-famous Igor Bezler (aka Bes) as his deputy, head of the funeral service. It would later emerge that they were godfathers.
Oleg Gubanov
And it was Gubanov, as a city council member, who did not miss a single pro-Russian rally in Horlivka this spring.
He became city council secretary in July, after Klep had already been appointed. At a closed session, which failed to reach a quorum and into which the machine gunners refused to allow a single journalist, he said.
The day before, a local militant had forced acting secretary Yuriy Vasilenko to his knees and beaten him in his office. At the session, Vasilenko had petitioned his colleagues to elect Gubanov, but the next day he left Horlivka and never returned.
Now, Gubanov holds staff meetings every Tuesday, where officials study the DPR constitution, accuse the Ukrainian army of shelling the city, and announce that students from the Horlivka Institute of Foreign Languages, renowned throughout Ukraine, will be able to receive Russian-style diplomas.
It's worth noting that two years ago, Gubanov saw his son off to the army, serving in the 25th Dnipropetrovsk Airborne Brigade. Previously, he headed the security service for Hero of Ukraine, MP of several convocations, and former owner of the Stirol concern, Mykola Yankovsky.
Yenakiyeve: Bonuses are awarded in accordance with Ukrainian law, but TV channels are shut down according to DPR decrees.
This small mining town became famous throughout Ukraine as Viktor Yanukovych's birthplace. It's no surprise that the mayor's office was headed at various times by either his friends, like the late Sergei Rukhadze, or personally appointed by him, like Valeriy Oleynik.
Oleynik held his position longer than any other mayor in the region after armed saboteurs appeared in the city. Either Yanukovych personally protected him from "outsiders" all this time, or the mayor, who personally visited one of the Abwehr militant commanders, was pleasing everyone with his open flirtations with the separatists.
For these very reasons, his detention by the militants of the Horlivka Bes resembled a staged hoax. Oleynik was taken to an unknown location and never reappeared in the city, nor were there any concerns about his fate.
Local journalists speculated that Valery Oleynik might have been needed as a doctor by Bes's militants, as he had been a practicing surgeon for a long time. He was taken to Horlivka to operate on a fighter and then released.
According to the latest information, he has been in Crimea since September 2014.
They also found a replacement for him from among their own people – doctors from Yanukovych’s inner circle.
The directors, who have remained in the shadows all this time, did so skillfully and in accordance with Ukrainian law. At the City Council session on September 29, deputy Elena Chesnokova resigned early. Next on the list was Roman Khramenkov, chief physician of Yenakiyeve City Hospital No. 7.
Roman Khramenkov, the husband of Lyudmila Yanukovych's niece, is now the "mayor" of Yenakiyeve.
At the next session, the city council secretary voluntarily resigned, and the legitimate acting mayor, Khramenkov, was elected in her place. He is known in the city as "Lame" and the husband of Lyudmila Yanukovych's niece.
One of the mayor's orders, "On the Optimization of the Information Space," issued on December 10th, banned the broadcast of Ukrainian television channels and blocked certain internet sites through providers.
At the same time, complete loyalty to the DPR does not prevent him from awarding bonuses to employees of the Yenakiyevo Executive Committee in accordance with the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine
Now, half the decisions in Yenakiyeve refer to Ukrainian laws, and the other half to DPR ones. Malinovka, not Yenakiyeve!
Makeyevka: The impostor mayor is ready to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Ukrainian soldiers.
The legitimate and twice-elected mayor of Makeyevka, Alexander Maltsev, voluntarily resigned in the spring. He now resides in Crimea, where, during the reign of the now-deceased former Prime Minister of the peninsula, Vasily Dzharty, many Makeyevka officials and businessmen moved, acquiring considerable real estate there.
The self-appointed mayor of Makeyevka, Yuriy Pokintelitsa, leads the city "on behalf of the DPR government and the republic's Supreme Council." He has lived in Makeyevka for over 20 years, and in his youth, he worked in Yakutia.
At the same time, 48-year-old Pokintelytsya, as a black dan in one of the martial arts, is ready to recall his athletic youth and fight Ukrainian soldiers with his hands.
And just recently, the "mayor" of Makeyevka, Pokintelytsya, wore the Ukrainian national team's jerseys.
"If those who fight us, who want to subjugate us, come here, say, for a minute, I'll be alone in the city administration building. I'll meet them alone. And believe me, I'll meet them with dignity," he shared in an interview with Russian journalists.
According to Makeyevka residents, Pokintelitsya is not a poor man. His family owns a chain of "Malamute" pet stores in Makeyevka and Donetsk, as well as the "Northern Pearl" breeding kennel, which specializes in breeding Alaskan Malamutes and West Siberian Laikas.
In the 90s, Pokotelitsa was better known in Makeyevka by the nickname "Fix." According to journalist Denis Kazansky, he is a business partner of Party of Regions city council members Vladimir Molko and Vladimir Kudryavtsev, whose businesses won major tenders because their owners were "on good terms" with the late Dzharty.
Shakhtarsk: The entire family went to fight for the DPR.
In Shakhtyorsk, where illegal coal mining (the so-called "kopanki") flourished in peacetime, the functions of mayor and military commandant are combined by former miner Alexei Shvydky.
He is one of those who fought in Slavyansk under the leadership of the Russian saboteur Igor Strelkov and took part in the battles at Saur-Mogila.
Alexey Shvydkiy
According to local residents, there are three Shvydkov brothers in Shakhtyorsk, all involved in "republican" seizures and expropriations (one of them, whose wife was a confidant of the fugitive mayor, Alexander Naumovich, and the head of the legal department in the executive committee). The still-operating Chapayev and Shakhtyorskaya-Glubokaya mines are within their sphere of influence.
Snezhnoye: Mothers and children block the road, and the mayor drives to his wedding in a Hummer.
Life has truly improved for Sergei Godovanets, who "crowned" himself as mayor of Snezhnoye, under the DPR.
Not only does he consider himself the mayor of the city, but he also recently celebrated a lavish wedding. During the days when young mothers with children were blocking the road in Snezhnoye demanding child support payments, Godovanets and his partner were driving around the city's potholed roads in a Hummer, celebrating their wedding.
Snezhnoye's "mayor," Sergei Godovanets, celebrated his wedding in style.
Godovanets moved into the mayor's office from the store he owned in the central market before the fighting. He was appointed mayor of Snezhnoye by decree of Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, on November 11.
Recently, Godovanets has been suspected of embezzlement and illegal sale of humanitarian aid.
"I know who's spreading nonsense like this, or feeding information to people suffering from poverty about the mayor driving expensive, 'repossessed' cars and setting tables with 'humanitarian aid.' What nonsense! But I'm not going to make excuses because I don't feel guilty," the pseudo-city boss told the local press.
…Not all captured cities had anyone willing to manage infrastructure and housing and utilities. In the Amvrosievsky and Starobeshevsky districts, Yasinovataya, Torez, Zhdanovka, Dokuchayevsk, Kirovsky, and Komsomolsky, all power was concentrated in the hands of military commandants. But their tenure is short-lived, and they change almost weekly.
As a rule, all self-appointed mayors and commandants are not free to act, but merely pawns in the hands of others. They are chosen from among the locals and serve as a screen behind which hide the real masters of the situation, who hold Russian passports—the former "Party of Regions" elite and the well-known "Family."
Alexander Bilinsky, Ukrainska Pravda
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