Nikolai Karpitsky. Russian Myths about the Residents of Donbas. Why does Putin’s Empire need Lies?

Source: PostPravda.info 17.12.2025
URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/propaganda/narratives-about-the-residents-of-donbas/

The Russian imperial mindset reproduces aggressive myths about the residents of Donbas, which Kremlin propaganda has shaped into a holistic system of narratives used to justify the war against Ukraine. These narratives continue to circulate in the public consciousness even without the direct involvement of propaganda and are already influencing the decisions of people not only in Russia but also beyond its borders. Exclusively for PostPravda.Info, Nikolai Karpitsky commented on the most widespread of these myths, drawing on his own observations of life in Donbas.

 

Whom did the residents of Donbas support after the victory of the Maidan in 2014?

Myth. After the victory of the Maidan in 2014, the residents of Donbas opposed the authorities in Kyiv and called for Russia’s help.

Premise of the myth. Pro-Russian rallies took place in Donetsk.

Commentary. Despite provocations and violence from pro-Russian supporters, mass demonstrations for the unity of Ukraine were held in Donetsk in parallel with the pro-Russian rallies in the spring of 2014. On March 5, 2014, between 5,000 and 15,000 people gathered in Donetsk’s central square under Ukrainian flags “in defense of Ukraine’s unity.” There were provocations and attacks on demonstrators. On March 13, 2014, between 500 and 1,000 people took part in a pro-Ukraine rally in the center of Donetsk. The rally ended in bloody violence from pro-Russian activists. On April 17, 2014, between 3,000 and 5,000 people gathered for a rally called “With Prayer for Ukraine” in Donetsk’s Victoria Park, which passed relatively peacefully.

Most of Donbas’s churches also spoke out in favor of Ukraine’s unity. On February 25, 2014, the Interfaith Council of Churches of Donetsk and Donetsk Region launched an interfaith prayer marathon titled “For Peace, Love, and the Integrity of Ukraine.” Every day in the center of Donetsk, collective prayers were held with the participation of representatives of Orthodox Church, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam. The marathon continued until August 2014, when a series of arrests of participants forced them to leave the square.

Myth. The residents of Donbas voted for independence from Ukraine in the 2014 referendum.

Premise of the myth. On April 7, 2014, pro-Russian militants in Donetsk proclaimed the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”, and on May 11, 2014, they organized a “referendum” in support of their decision. It seems many people took part in the referendum, but the actual number of voters cannot be verified.

Commentary. The “referendum” organized by pro-Russian militants was both illegal – since it had no legal basis – and illegitimate – since there was no civic consensus regarding its conduct. A genuine referendum presupposes prior public discussion, which in this case was completely absent. Therefore, in terms of its organization, it was not a referendum but rather a public opinion poll. Moreover, many participants did not understand what exactly they were voting for, each person interpreting the question in their own way. Participation in this event created only the illusion of having influence over the situation – a result of a psychological defense mechanism against fear of the future. For many, this was the only reason to come to the so-called “referendum.”

Who is responsible for terrorizing the residents of Donbas?

Myth. After the victory of the Maidan in 2014, the new authorities in Kyiv began repressions against the residents of Donbas, which led to the struggle for separation from Ukraine.

Premise of the myth. Propagandistic disinformation spread in the media that was never confirmed.

Commentary. There are no recorded cases of ideologically motivated torture or killings of Donbas residents committed by supporters of Ukraine’s unity, whereas numerous examples exist of such acts committed by pro-Russian forces.

The first act of large-scale ideological violence occurred on March 13, 2014, when participants of a pro-Russian rally attacked demonstrators advocating for Ukraine’s unity, injuring several dozen people and killing a 22-year-old man, Dmytro Chernyavsky. On May 24, 2014, militants destroyed the prayer marathon tent, and one of its participants – Serhii Kosyak, pastor of the Donetsk Evangelical Church Assembly of God – was temporarily detained and beaten. On July 4, 2014, the pro-Russian group known as the “Russian Orthodox Army” captured another participant of the marathon, Father Tykhon Kulbaka, a Greek Catholic priest. Suffering from diabetes and deprived of medication, Father Tykhon spent 12 days in captivity, was tortured, and survived only by miracle. On June 8, 2014, in Sloviansk, pro-Russian militants under the command of Igor Girkin (Strelkov) abducted, brutally tortured, and executed four members of the Pentecostal church Transfiguration of the Jesus: two deacons – Viktor Bradarsky and Volodymyr Velychko – and two sons of the church’s pastor – Ruvym and Albert Pavenko. On August 8, 2014, pastor and prayer marathon participant Oleksandr Khomchenko was kidnapped and tortured for four days. His health never recovered, and he died on February 14, 2018. There are many more such detailed cases, though far from all of them were ever reported in the media.

Myth. Ukraine shelled the residents of Donbas for eight years.

Premise of the myth. Stories from Donbas residents claiming that Ukraine shelled them.

Commentary. The pro-Russian forces in Donbas could conduct hostilities only with full supply and technical support from Russia, and it was precisely this factor that caused the fighting to continue. At the same time, there are two main reasons why, before the full-scale invasion, artillery exchanges along the front line often resulted in shells hitting residential areas – including instances of “friendly fire.” First, during such exchanges, both sides actively maneuvered to avoid return fire and often fired “preemptively” in order to cover presumed enemy positions. Second, both sides used artillery shells and multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) missiles that had exceeded their service life, which frequently led to deviations from the calculated trajectory and unpredictable impacts. Many eyewitness accounts are based on arbitrary generalizations – when all shelling is attributed to the side that the witness does not support.

In addition to accidental destruction, there were also deliberate provocations carried out by pro-Russian armed groups to maintain a certain level of combat activity, since their material support depended on it.

Ukraine, for its part, introduced a special legal regime for the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) zone, which defined rules of service and legal guarantees for military personnel. Russia, however, did not establish a comparable legal framework: payments for participation in combat were issued as bonuses for “special service conditions.” Thus, pro-Russian formations had a financial incentive to maintain the intensity of hostilities – including through shelling of civilians – to provoke return fire.

The tactic of total urban destruction during assaults began to be used by the Russian side in Donbas only after the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The Ukrainian side has never employed such tactics.

Political Traditions of Donbas Residents

Myth. The majority of Donbas residents have always voted for pro-Russian parties, which proves their desire to be with Russia rather than with Ukraine.

Premise of the myth. In the October 26, 2014 parliamentary elections, the Opposition Bloc – considered pro-Russian – won 38.9% of the vote in Donetsk Oblast. In second place was Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc with 18.2%, and in third – the Communist Party of Ukraine with 10.2%. In single-member districts of Donetsk Oblast, former members of the Party of Regions, considered pro-Russian, often won. In the July 21, 2019 parliamentary elections, the Opposition Platform – For Life, also regarded as pro-Russian, won 41.77% of the vote.

Commentary. These elections did not reflect pro-Russian sentiments, but rather a desire for compromise with Russia – so that people would not have to fear war and could freely visit relatives in the occupied territories. Residents of Donetsk Oblast generally accepted the local political discourse they were familiar with and, within that framework, chose those who in their view held a moderate position. This reflected a utopian dream of restoring a borderless space, as it had been in the Soviet Union. The full-scale invasion has shown many residents of Donbas the utopian nature of their dream of an “open” common space.

The Identity of Donbas Residents and the Influence of Russian Ideology

Myth. The residents of Donbas want to be part of Russia because they consider themselves Russians.

Premise of the myth. This myth was created by Russian propaganda based on the arbitrary generalization of individual attitudes.

Commentary. Historically, local identity has prevailed in Donbas – people tend to identify with their native village or community rather than with a nation. Soviet ideology imposed identification with an artificial collective identity – that of the “Soviet people.” What remains of it today is merely nostalgia for a shared, borderless space where friends and relatives once lived. Just as the dominance of communist beliefs in the Soviet period did not change the identity of Donbas residents, the spread of pro-Russian sentiment also could not transform it or create any genuine Russian or Russian-state identity.

Many Donbas residents still maintain a local identity and evaluate both Ukraine and Russia from the standpoint of what each can offer them. Under the influence of powerful Russian propaganda, some of the population supports Russia – but since the invasion, the number of such people has decreased. Their orientation is more ideological than national: they still do not perceive themselves as Russians. At the same time, the war in Donbas has accelerated the development of Ukrainian civic identity, while volunteerism and the emergence of internally displaced persons have strengthened it and fostered connections between regions.

Thus, there is no ethnic division in Donbas – all are united by local identity, which is becoming the foundation for a new Ukrainian civic community.

Myth. The residents of Donbas are oppressed for Russian language.

Premise of the myth. This is purely Russian propaganda, entirely disconnected from reality.

Commentary. For the majority of Donbas residents, language has never been a marker of identity – neither local nor Ukrainian. They see no problems related to language, they perfectly understand Ukrainian, and in everyday life they speak Russian or surzhyk (a mixed Ukrainian-Russian spoken language). Although not everyone can write in standard Ukrainian, this is primarily an educational issue, which is being addressed: young people in Donbas now know Ukrainian much better than the older generation. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the importance of the Ukrainian language has grown, and it is increasingly used in communication.

Myth. The residents of Donbas support Russia despite powerful Ukrainian propaganda.

Premise of the myth. The residents of Donbas trust Russian television channels more than Ukrainian ones.

Commentary. Before the start of the full-scale invasion, a significant portion of Donbas residents indeed trusted Russian TV channels – this can be explained by several factors.

First, unlike Russia, where political propaganda is centralized, Ukraine’s media space is chaotic and diverse, making it difficult for people – accustomed since Soviet times to a single, unified television narrative – to navigate. Russian propaganda felt more familiar to them because it resembled Soviet media rhetoric.

Second, Russia’s influence in the Ukrainian media space remained even after the war in Donbas began. Until February 2021, several Ukrainian TV channels were under the control or influence of Viktor Medvedchuk, a politician close to Putin – including 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK.

Third, Russian propaganda skillfully exploited the fact that the formation of national self-awareness in Ukraine’s regions developed unevenly. Many residents of Donbas retained nostalgia for an open, borderless space – once associated with the Soviet Union, and now projected onto Russia.

All this led to a situation in which a significant part of the Donbas population came under the influence of Russian propaganda – just as it had once been influenced by Soviet ideology. However, this ideological dependence did not change their true identity – neither during the Soviet period nor today – because the nature of identity is fundamentally different from that of ideology.

Ideology requires only external agreement with a particular position, whereas identity is a form of self-awareness. One can renounce an ideology as an externally imposed viewpoint – just as happened during the collapse of the USSR, when many former communists became democrats. But one can renounce an identity only through deep personal transformation.

Russian leaders are incapable of changing or even understanding another people’s identity. They operate on the false assumption that any Ukrainian who temporarily falls under the influence of their ideology automatically becomes a “Russian,” which supposedly grants them the right to occupy the territory where that person lives. However, despite the fact that many residents of Donetsk have indeed been influenced by Russian ideology, the majority firmly oppose the inclusion of Donbas into Russia and are outraged by any talk of “territorial exchanges” as a means to achieve a ceasefire.

Nikolai Karpitsky. The Ideological Concept of Russian Culture Amid the War: What Should We Do with It?

Source: PostPravda.info 10.12.2025
URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/freedom-of-speech-en/ideological-concept-of-russian-culture/

The editor-in-chief of PostPravda.Info, Petr Kashuvara, asked me to address a difficult question: how should we relate to Russian culture today, from the perspective of the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine? I am writing primarily for a European and American audience – Ukrainians, I suspect, need no additional explanations. They already understand everything. This is not an easy subject to write about. I grew up in Siberia and for many years contributed to Russian culture through my philosophical work. Now I have consciously chosen the side of Ukraine. As I began drafting this article, news arrived of a missile strike on a residential building in Ternopil: around a hundred wounded, thirty-three killed, six of them children. At such a moment, it is difficult to reason calmly – but I will try nonetheless.

The Ukrainian Position on Russian Culture in Light of the War

After all the crimes Russia has committed, any representation of it – in sports, science, or culture – is unacceptable to Ukrainians. In the context of a war of annihilation, no other attitude could have emerged. A different question, however, is how Europeans, who continue to live normal and peaceful lives, should relate to Russian culture. History has known many states that waged wars of extermination and committed monstrous crimes, yet we do not reject the cultures of those societies.

Cultural creativity requires freedom, and the Russian state has, throughout its history, remained in conflict with culture, compelling creative people to serve state ideology. At best, one was offered a choice between obscurity in poverty and state recognition; at worst, between freedom and the Gulag. As a result, many tried to adapt to the authorities, sacrificing both creative freedom and personal conviction. In this way, culture became ideologically mobilized – transformed into an instrument of war.

One can draw the following analogy. Every person is a unique individual, yet if Russia drafts him into an army sent to kill Ukrainians, he will be regarded as an enemy. Since Russia is waging an ideological war and has mobilized Russian culture for that purpose, attitudes toward that culture in Ukraine will likewise be hostile.
 

Soviet Culture as an Instrument of Ideological War

Even in peacetime the Soviet Union lived in a state of ideological war, and school education was fully subordinated to its aims. Teachers expected from us not so much an understanding of the artistic design as the ability to extract the “correct” ideological subtext: to explain what views a character expresses and what position the author takes. Today the ideological concept has changed – instead of Soviet culture we now have Russian culture – but the essence remains the same. Russia uses this concept as ideological weaponry in the war against Ukraine. In turn, Ukrainians reject Russian culture, and this is a fact of the logic of a war for survival. However, I see a path in destroying this ideological weapon itself through the deconstruction of the concept of culture.

Culture is a space for the creative self-realization of the individual based on the highest values. A society in which everything is regulated only by social norms unrelated to cultural values is the society of our closest relatives in the animal world – chimpanzees. If we live only in accordance with social instincts, we will return to a primitive state.

During my school years, it seemed to me that the Soviet system instilled higher values that restrained the primitive social instincts of students. But already in the upper grades I realized I was mistaken. The Soviet system did not offer values; it offered ideological directives intended to manipulate social instincts. By the time I entered the philosophy faculty, I understood that these directives would not allow me to teach philosophy or publish my own works.

For me, philosophy is the embodiment of personal life experience addressed to what is eternal and universal. I sought this in Russian, German, Indian, Chinese, and other philosophical traditions. However, the Soviet system allowed only Marxist philosophy, effectively prohibiting any other way of thinking. Writers, artists, film directors, and scholars in the humanities experienced a similar conflict with the Soviet system. Many compromised – and in doing so killed their own talent.

When we watch brilliant films or read outstanding literary works of the Soviet era, we usually do not think about the difficult struggle that creative people waged against the norms of Soviet society in order to preserve small islands of free cultural space. Very often this struggle ended in defeat, and then authors mutilated their works, adapting them to ideological directives. Genuine cultural creativity exists in the dimension of “the personal – the universal.” The Soviet system, however, saw in culture only “socially significant” content, thereby substituting culture with its imitation in the form of an ideological construct.
 

The Ideological Concept of Russian Culture

The collapse of the Soviet Union opened for me the possibility of teaching philosophy and publishing. Censorship was banned, and access to cultural heritage was free. In those years I believed that Russia would become a normal democratic country – like Poland or Ukraine. But when, in the first parliamentary elections, a party of imperial and chauvinistic orientation won, I realized that the prospect of fascism was entirely real. When the first Russo-Chechen war began, it became clear that we had to fight with all our strength to prevent the rise of a fascist dictatorship. And when the second war began, I understood that we had lost, and that Russia no longer had a future.

In the early 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed enormous respect in society for having survived and preserved the religious tradition during the years of Soviet rule. However, I noticed that each generation of students regarded the ROC a little worse than the previous one, and within twenty years deep respect had turned into total rejection: young people increasingly saw that the Church was offering not religion but religious ideology.

Similar changes occurred in my own attitude toward Russian culture. At first, I perceived it as a space of free creativity untouched by communist ideology. I considered Russian nationalists who justified their imperial claims with the idea of a “great Russian culture” to be fringe figures. Ten years later it turned out that my understanding of culture – as existing in the dimension of “the personal – the universal” – had itself become marginal, while an ideological, imperial understanding of Russian culture had solidified in the public consciousness. Today this ideological construct has become a weapon of war against Ukraine and, in the long run, against all of European civilization.
 

Deconstructing the Concept of Russian Culture

For Ukrainians who are resisting both military and ideological aggression, any form of representation of Russia is unacceptable. But how should representatives of other European nations, who are not currently at war, relate to Russian culture? – It is obvious that any cultural programs that in one way or another represent present-day Russia as a state must be curtailed: the activities of Russian cultural centers (“Russian Houses”), the Russkiy Mir Foundation, Rossotrudnichestvo, Rosconcert, and similar institutions. But is that enough? – I believe that a consistent deconstruction of the ideological concept of Russian culture in the public consciousness is also necessary.

It is impossible to carry out such a deconstruction without losses, and this means that we will have to stop speaking about a Russian cultural tradition. However, this should in no way affect one’s personal attitude toward creators, toward the authors of cultural works. It is simply that this attitude should not depend on ideological directives or on any particular conceptualization of culture. For this, it is enough not to evaluate a writer or artist from a social or political standpoint and to stop searching in their work for the “correct” or “hostile” ideological position.

From the perspective of the Soviet school, I am committing the principal sin: I view cultural creativity in the dimension of “the personal – the universal,” without looking back at its ideological burden or its social significance. Perhaps in the conditions of the ideological war unleashed by Russia, someone might even accuse me of “desertion.” But only in this way can one avoid resembling the enemy – defeat the dragon without becoming a dragon oneself.

I do not expect a cultural creator to be a teacher of life, a moral exemplar, or a bearer of the “correct” ideological stance. Creators are people just like everyone else: with their weaknesses, prejudices, and selfishness. Their only difference is that they wage a struggle for a space of personal creativity, free from the dictates of social instincts. And not all of them manage to preserve this freedom. Many compromise with the demands of power or society, and thereby destroy their talent. Nothing can be done: such is the thorny path of all cultural creativity within society.

And since a misanthropic dictatorship has become established in Russian society, one that imposes its own understanding of “Russian culture,” it follows that this understanding must be abandoned – including for the sake of preserving the very possibility of free creativity. As for the contradictory nature of any particular figure of Russian culture – let each person decide for themselves how to relate to it.