Source: Postimees.ee 06.10.2025
There is a widespread political myth, as if the residents of Donbas long for Russia. This is a dangerous myth: for the Kremlin it is a justification for invasion, for Western countries it is a reason to talk about «territorial exchange». But does this myth have a basis, Sloviansk resident Nikolai Karpitsky asks.
The residents of the Donetsk region are primarily characterized by a local, that is, regional identity, but a common Ukrainian identity is also emerging increasingly quickly. There is no Russian identity there: no one longs for Russia simply because they consider themselves Russian. There have indeed been pro-Russian moods and partly they persist, but these can be explained by other reasons.
«This is my land, regardless of who holds power here»
The formation of national identity is always a long process. Before the war, local identity was dominant in eastern Ukraine. A friend from Avdiivka told me after their town was shelled in 2015: «This is my land, regardless of who holds power here, Ukrainian or Russian.» Many considered it most important to be part of their town or district. Ukraine remained abstract to them: they traveled little within the country and watched almost no Ukrainian TV channels. What mattered to them was the «open space» of the former USSR, where their relatives and friends lived. It was precisely this local identity that Russian propaganda presented as Russian identity and used in 2014 to justify its incursion into eastern Ukraine.
According to one myth, the residents of eastern Ukraine were harassed because they wanted to speak Russian. In reality, language was not a fundamental issue before the war: people communicated in the mixed Russian-Ukrainian language, surzhyk. Everyone understood Ukrainian, and difficulties with the literary norm were rather a consequence of educational problems, which are now being successfully resolved. Today the younger generation in Donbas knows Ukrainian much better than the older generation did.
Soviet nostalgia and Russia's influence
Local political forces exploited the nostalgia for the «open space» and relied on regional identity. It is telling that Viktor Yanukovych's party bore the name Party of Regions. In confrontation with Kyiv they shaped a discourse that outwardly resembled a pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian attitude. Yet this did not mean that the residents were striving toward Russia by supporting such politicians. They were simply looking for a force that was closest to their local identity. People tacitly adopted the local political discourse, but not the political ideas of the pro-Russian parties.
Ordinary elderly residents of Donbas, who grew up in the Soviet Union, find it difficult to accept borders. Out of habit, they do not watch Ukrainian but Russian TV channels. Even so, a Russian identity does not form in them. Above all, they feel like locals and evaluate what Ukraine and Russia can offer them from that point of view. The effectiveness of propaganda plays a big role. Ukrainian propaganda is chaotic, it lacks a unified center and monopoly, and in most cases it does not reach such a Donbas resident, who becomes an easy prey for centralized and systematic Russian propaganda.
That is why the most absurd myths spread among people with little education. Some are convinced that it is not the Russian but the Ukrainian army that is shelling their towns. Others, who have lost their homes, dream that when Russia comes they will get a job and a new apartment in Donetsk. Yet these people do not form a separate social group. The majority of Donbas residents did not support the so-called pro-Russian parties out of longing for Russia, but in the hope of their ability to «reach an agreement» with both Kyiv and Moscow. People just wanted to make their lives easier, for example, to visit relatives on both sides of the front line, but most of those who voted in the last elections for the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life by no means want to go to Russia and categorically reject the idea of «giving up land in return for peace.»
The so-called referendums organized by pro-Russian forces in 2014 in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions cannot be considered an expression of the people's will not only because they were legally void, but also because they took place without any public debate. The high turnout is explained by something else: people could not yet imagine the scale of the future war and repressions, but they felt afraid of what the future might bring. Participation in such a simulation of a referendum created the illusion of influencing the situation and became a psychological defense against helplessness. Many convinced themselves that they were not voting for secession from Ukraine, but only for the financial independence of the region, so as not to give everything away to Kyiv. At least this is how some residents explained their participation in the referendum to me.
The formation of Ukrainian identity in conditions of war
Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine accelerated the formation of a Ukrainian identity among the residents of Donbas largely thanks to their interaction with volunteers from all over the country. In 2016 I lived in a Baptist church on the outskirts of Avdiivka near the abandoned Donetsk airport for a month. Volunteers from Volyn, Christians, who delivered food to frontline villages, came to us. One of them asked me about the local youth: «How do we help them? They only hear pro-Russian propaganda and do not know how Ukraine lives.» I answered: «Do not try to persuade them, just invite them to Lutsk.» In this way the young people of Avdiivka could see with their own eyes that Ukraine is a normal European country. Over ten years, the views of many Donbas residents have changed significantly under the influence of such interaction. Whereas earlier many were critical of Ukraine, now they remain critical of the authorities but not of Ukraine, because they consider themselves part of Ukraine as well. Their attitude toward Russia has also changed.
The experience of shelling is fundamentally different in Kyiv and in Donbas. In the capital city, after seeing a warning on social media, people have a few minutes to decide whether to hide in the bathroom, go down to a shelter, or ignore the signal. In Donbas there is no time to react. Here a person gets used to living in constant danger. During shooting many continue their activities or observe what is happening with surprising calm. Gradually, the realization comes: an entire state is working to kill you, and you can only hope that the next strike will not hit you. Some cannot accept this realization and still believe that it is their own who are shooting, but most understand: it is Russia that brings death.
The fundamental contradiction of the aggressor's policy and its inability to understand Ukraine
In eastern Ukraine the situation is fundamentally different from the Baltic states, where Russian communities live separately and clash with the language barrier and foreign cultural stereotypes. In Ukraine there is no ethnic problem: society is not ethnically divided, and in the ten years I have lived here, no one has ever asked me about my nationality. Despite Russian propaganda, the Russian-speaking residents of Donbas do not consider language a problem: everyone understands Ukrainian and communicates calmly in surzhyk, and most are completely fine with that.
Putin can indeed speculate about linguistic and ethnic contradictions in the Baltic states. In the case of Ukraine he unfortunately had to invent a myth, as if the rights of Russian-speakers were being restricted there. And he did find support, though minimal. Yet the reasons do not lie in language or ethnicity, but in ideology: part of the residents, the so-called vatniks, perceive the «Russian world» as a substitute for the Soviet communist system.
The main contradiction is that Soviet ideology was internationalist, but the current Russian power uses its tools to carry out an overtly chauvinistic, essentially Nazi policy. This fundamental contradiction of Russian policy determines its future defeat, despite the fact that at present it is better mobilized for waging a war of attrition than Ukraine and other European countries.
