This is not an academic history, not a collection of facts and documents, but it is the living testimony of an ordinary participant in the events.
The interview below was recorded in April 2023 in a small town of the Lugansk People’s Republic, which became part of it following the events of 2014–2015. The interlocutor is an ordinary woman from Lugansk Region — a mother of two sons and wife of a soldier (specifically, a volunteer from Russia who joined the people’s militia long before the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation). At the same time, she was an active participant in the events of the “Russian Spring,” a humanitarian worker who assisted various military units both before. She continues her work during the special operation.
This is her perspective on the historical whirlwind whose epicenter she found herself in. The experience of a hard post‑Soviet life and how it evolved amid that whirlwind. The personal trauma of tragic losses and her answers to the difficult questions that war brings.
This is not an academic history, not a collection of facts and documents, but It is the living testimony of an ordinary participant in the events — often erased by official narratives. That is why capturing such testimonies now — while the hot phase of the war has not yet ended — is doubly important.
— S., please introduce yourself briefly. How old are you, where are you from?
— I was born here, in the town of K., I’m already 36. We always lived here, never planned to leave — because we have a household, cats and dogs. We never once thought of moving away.
— How do you earn a living? What have you been doing in recent years?
— I’m a cynologist — I’ve always trained dogs. I worked as a licensed specialist until war began in 2014. I was directly involved in the Russian Spring from the very beginning, since March 1. We organized rallies, we were there. I was in a people’s militia. I had a German shepherd that was trained as a patrol dog — I trained it myself. With that dog and other volunteers, we patrolled the town. I remember they once brought “Banderites” by bus here, one of the locals brought them.
— Can I ask about the pre‑Maidan days? Was there hostility from other parts of Ukraine then?
— Hostility always existed from Western Ukraine. Other parts — center, south — everywhere else was fine. So, there was no hostility with them. We traveled with the dog to shows. We went to Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev. I have friends everywhere, and we still stay in touch. There was never any hostility, never. Western parts — Chernovtsy, Zhitomyr, etc. — yes, that was different. My friend traveled there, met a guy; he told her where it was okay to speak Russian, and where it was better to stay silent, pretend you can’t speak. The hostility was that intense. But the rest of Ukraine was never hostile — the people just didn’t care. Everyone lived their own lives. There, life had always been somewhat better than here.
— Life was better in the West? I heard the opposite — that it is more rural, while this region is more industrially developed, more money here… Donbass was richer, more developed.
— No… industrially developed, yes — but when? In the times of the Soviet Union? After that, the industry was destroyed. Ukraine destroyed everything here. Mines even began closing down. Just imagine — mines! Around 2002 they started shutting them down. Then the “Orange Revolution” with Yushchenko happened. Donbass began to live again when Yanukovich came to power — wages and pensions were raised then.
— He was himself from Donbass, wasn’t he?
— Yes, yes, he was from Donetsk. That’s when Donbass truly revived. Roads were built in cities. We all know what Donetsk looked like. Yanukovich rebuilt it — because it was his home city.
— And when Maidan began, how did you view all that?
— We laughed at it all.
— You laughed?
— Well, you watch TV, see people jumping like monkeys, so let them jump. Many of ours got “SMS messages” inviting to join it — everyone got them.
— Do you SMS inviting to Maidan to earn money?
— They paid 300 hryvnias a day [according to the current exchange rate $8] for taking part in Maidan. Everyone received such SMS, and many of ours went there. They provided the participants with tea and cookies. Sometimes weird ones — people behaved strangely after eating them. Many of ours were there.
— So young people from Donbass just went to make money and hang out in Kiev, so to say?
— Yes, why not go to Kiev… a bus picks you up, you will get food and drinks, they brought you there and then back.
— Indeed, who would say no! And fighting oligarchs, for justice… This was also attractive. Right?
— Here, we never felt like, “We need the EU.” Russia mattered more — it was only about 70 km away, and people went there to earn a living. But calmly. Nobody paid much attention to that Maidan. We didn’t even believe the war would happen. Who believed in it? When they showed tanks [when Ukraine began introducing punitive forces into Donbass] — the reaction was like, “Tanks? What are you talking about? What war?”
— When people began shooting on Maidan? Burning tires, battling Berkut?
— Still, nobody believed. I didn’t pay much attention to any of it. I saw it on TV, but I was busy — working, then training dogs in the evening, then sleeping, then work again. Until Slavyansk happened…
— Events in Slavyansk started in March 2014, right?
— Yes, it was late March. Tanks entered Slavyansk, then Girkin [one of the major leaders of DPR militia in summer 2014, who used his authority to withdraw troops and to surrender half of the DPR’s territory to the Ukrainian military without a fight – translator’s note] came in. Slovyansk fought. I remember the Karachun hill…
— Wait — first there were rallies, right? Protests, seizures of regional administrations in Lugansk and Donetsk.
— Yes. Why did it all start? Because when Poroshenko was elected, he began removing our leaders — heads of administrations, governors, heads of local departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, across all structures. And the people began to rise — why should we dance to someone else’s tune?
— So people protested?
— Yes, protests started. Our Russian Spring rally was on March 1.
— When I entered LPR, I saw a large banner: “April 14 — Day of Ukrainian Aggression.” Why April 14?
— Because that’s when Lugansk was shelled, I think, the first time.
— So some weapon was used around April.
— Lugansk was shelled — in April. We had a loan at the bank, and when events started unfolding, we decided to close it, just in case. I remember we went to Lugansk to close it — office was in the center near the regional administration — and that same day they hit the administration building.
— So the referendum came later?
— The referendum was in May.
— Was shelling already regular by then?
— Not here, it was in Slavyansk. And regarding the referendum: Kharkov Region rose first, declared itself the Kharkov People’s Republic. Then it was the Donetsk People’s Republic, and then our region. Many people came to vote. We stood in queues.
— So, it was a real expression of the people’s will?
— Yes, many people. Everyone believed we would join Russia, like Crimea…
— That’s important. Crimea happened first, and people thought the same would happen here? Correct?
— Yes. The elderly believed that would happen just that easy. We who understood the situation a bit better knew it was more complicated. How did Crimea become part of Russia? Because it was an autonomous republic within Ukraine. For Donbass to join Russia, it first needed autonomy — that’s what we were asking for. If Ukraine had just given Donbass autonomy back then, maybe nothing would’ve happened. Just autonomy, and then, by referendum, it could’ve joined another country. That was the plan. But no one gave Donbass autonomy.
— That must have seemed strange—Maidan victory, and then uprisings in the southeast. Instead of negotiating, force was used.
— At first it wasn’t military force — it was a message, “Shut your mouth. We’re changing the government to ours, and you sit quietly like you always did.”
— And later regular shelling began, right?
— Shelling began in Slavyansk a bit later. I don’t remember details specifically. My friend lived there, I only know about the fighting later. She lived in a basement
— That was during the combats to defend Slavyansk?
— Slavyansk, yes. When they fortified there. Girkin-Strelkov was with his guys. And the Ukrainian militants were there too. They did horrible things — tied a woman whose son joined the people’s militia to a tank and dragged her until she died. A ten-year-old girl was raped, killed, then used to cover a booby-trapped grenade.
— Was that Ukrainian nationalist battalions or regular army?
— Most likely nationalist guard.
— And here, in K., were there any combats?
— Only in the outskirts, no fighting in the town itself. A rocket hit once. Nearby, into a pavilion. And another hit a house, killed a woman. On July 31, they fired a rocket at a checkpoint at 4 AM, the explosion rocked the ground. Before that, a checkpoint in Antratsyt was hit a week earlier. But overall, no destruction in the town. In Miusinsk, where heavy fighting were underway, a few houses were destroyed. Fighting was intense there, but not much damage. They (the people’s militia) pushed them (Ukrainian punitive forces) into the fields, fought there.
(cc)Aleksandr Sirota
— About the militia. Was it a mass movement — joining the people’s militia?
— Here’s how it was. We had a people’s militia. A checkpoint was set up, we took shifts, reported every morning. I was at the main checkpoint here. In other words, we came and were on duty.
— What kind of people were in the first wave of militia?
— Mostly locals. The first wave started with our guys gathering. There was a big meeting in Antratsyt. Russian Cossacks came. Everyone with a valid military ID got a weapon and was sent for training in Perevalsk. Kozitsyn had a training ground there. I was a dog trainer there, we had a club affiliated with the Cossacks. They trained those who got weapons. It was quite a mass movement.
— Did you participate directly? As a fighter?
— Not as a fighter. At first, they taught me to shoot, even handle a sniper rifle. But when major events started, they kicked all the girls out — “no place for women in war.” So we cooked, delivered food, collected gear, medical supplies.
— Let’s recap. At first, it was very hard for the people’s militia, then help came from Russia.
— It came almost immediately. Weapons were brought to Slavyansk, then they started capturing trophies.
— What was the attitude toward the Minsk agreements?
— Who here believed in them? No one. When our guys were advancing, the last big thing was Debaltsevo. If they had pushed then, maybe all of Ukraine would be under Putin now. But they didn’t let them, signed the Minsk agreements. And what did these Minsk agreements give us? How many of our guys died because of them? Our guys were forbidden to shell, but those [the Ukrainian militants] didn’t care, and our guys weren’t even allowed to respond. And it depended on where you were and how lucky you were. Somewhere, they just waved at each other to show that “we took the positions.” But somewhere, snipers would shooting from hiding.
— How were those eight years? From Russia, it looked like this: intense phase in 2014–2015, then the Minsk agreements, a stable front, occasional artillery duels. But looking closer, there were serious escalations, Ukrainian attempts to advance.
— No attempts to advance, but there was treachery. Like sneaking into a trench at night and slaughtering everyone. That happened a lot, but no one talks about it. They came, asked for a cigarette and then shot everyone.
— So Ukrainian fighters came to the people’s militia positions asking for a smoke?
— Yes, depends on the posts. My husband was near Schastye. The Seversky Donets River flows there. They were on one side, our guys are on the other. He said they’d wave, put down rifles, go swimming. Nothing special.
But a friend of mine was at another position. There, it was different — at night, they snuck into the trench and cut them all throats while they were sleeping. That was probably in 2017. In other words, the Minsk agreements were in full effect, and there was no fighting. No one believed something like Russia’s special military operation would happen. Everyone just sat on their positions, nothing special was observed.
— What was the atmosphere in the republic all those years? How did you feel?
— Life went on. Normal life. The war was quickly forgotten, especially here where there was little shelling.
— How did you identify yourself? As Russia, or something else?
— As Russia, of course.
— So you considered yourselves an unofficial part of the country?
— Yes. How else? So many married Russians here. (Smiles.) Well, I myself am married to a Russian, he is from Tyumen.
— He came here from Tyumen? A volunteer?
— Yes, a volunteer, he defended at Donetsk Airport. I was a volunteer, we met online, he came a month later. Nine years together now. Everything here was already Russian. No one repaired anything before, no culture. When it became clear we were under Russia’s wing — people started changing. Yes, there’s still scumbags, but things got better than under Ukraine. Mines closed, jobs scarce, but life went on.
— What about informal ties? It is clear that the state is a system, it is authority. But how about ordinary Russians? Did you visit Russia, did Russians come here?
— No, not many come here, of course. Those engaged in humanitarian actions were often here, yes. Aid came to the city, and it stayed here. I had one experience. This was before I met Yura, they [the All-Russian Parents’ Resistance (ARPR) organization sent humanitarian aid, which Yuri Popov regularly delivered — Rossa Primavera News Agency] found me themselves. I also contacted the guys in St. Petersburg, and we collected a large truckload of aid for the people’s militia, for the people. And this was before May 9. We sent the truck. I went to the administration and said, “This is the situation, I need an escort because there may be saboteurs running around or something else.” Well, something went wrong, the truck was supposed to arrive late, but it just got lost, disappeared somewhere. There were many cases like this.
— Were you preparing for a such large-scale war like this? Or didn’t think it possible?
— We weren’t prepared for war at all. We live for today, and we lived for today back then. How could we prepare for war when we didn’t even have a basement in our house, for example? During the active shelling phase, when there was heavy firing, we sat in a pit in the garage. We drove the car into the bushes, hid it under the branches, and hid in the garage pit ourselves.
— When was that, now or back in 2014?
— Long ago, now we don’t hide. If you hide now, you’ll get buried with the garage. Back then… My sister would come from work, shelling starts. I ran to deliver food — we helped the hospital, hospice, shelters with food, we had our own milk. Ukraine cut supplies, the hospice called, begged for help. People fled, left their elders literally at doorsteps. And then we got a call from the hospice, they asked us to help them, provide food for, say, seven people. I already had thirty people like that. So every day I brought milk to the hospice. And you walk along, you hear a shot, yeah, it flew by, whistled, so it won’t land nearby, you keep walking. Something like that.
— What was that transition from a peaceful life to one where things fly and explode around you like? Was it psychologically difficult, or did you get used to it quickly?
— You get used to it quickly. We weren’t afraid. We didn’t understand what a shell was. Once, when the shelling started intensely, my mom said, “Run to the pit.” We ran, cats and dogs behind us. One cat didn’t come. I went back thinking, “Quick, quick!” I came back and grabbed her — and then something flew overhead, whistling. I thought that it is over for me. But a rocket hit a nearby house, you could see it from the horizon, I saw it in the sky.
Once in our neighborhood, a shell hit a house, killed all the dogs in the kennel, nothing was left of them. The blast wave threw a man into a pit, he nearly drowned in water. Another shell hit a house on the next street but didn’t explode. The sappers came, removed it, fenced it off — and by evening, the shell had disappeared. Someone took it away.
— A question about “the other side,” about the rest of Ukraine. Following all this, I was shocked by how much hate some Ukrainian activists showed toward Russians, residents of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions. I remember a child crushed by a tank in Kramatorsk, a missile hitting a square in Lugansk killing people, the Ukrainian activists left comments: “Serves them right,” “The Colorado female had her legs torn off,” “Cotton was wound around the tank tracks”, which is about the killed child. That level of inhumanity… And how they celebrated when Russian planes crashed, forests burned, anything bad happened. Where did this hatred come from?
We were one country not long ago. The older generation especially, everyone came from the Soviet Union. Many were born in Russia, went to Ukraine by assignment, started families there, and now they’re caught in this vortex of hate. Where did this hatred come from, why did it flare up so quickly?
— It’s all brainwashing. Even here, you see it. Some here also hate Ukraine, some don’t care, some just live for today. I have many friends in Ukraine. We still in touch. Just this February, a friend from Nikolaev wrote to me. She wrote, that she understood now how we felt. They started bombing Nikolaev. She asked me what to do, how to act. So I explained, if they strike from there, run there, hide in the stairwell. They also wanted join Russia, Nikolaev, they had been waiting for Russia there since 2014. That is, there were many people there who supported Russia, but they were afraid to rise up. Now they hate Russia because when the city is being bombed, it changes everything.
— So you still talk to friends in Ukraine? There’s no hate?
— Yes, we keep in touch. The thinking people don’t hate, because they understand it’s not their war. They’d be okay under Russia, just don’t bomb, don’t kill. Not many people like that want to fight for Ukraine. Of course, there are idiots also here, sorry. Go on TikTok, you’ll see. “Invaders put equipment here, and there…”
— So even here, in the older LPR territory, there are people who support Ukraine?
— Yes, mostly among the young 19- or 20-years old. They have no values anymore, they don’t care. But it was parents who raise their children like that. Right?! How could this happen? Yes, I had children late, I am 36 years old, my child could be 16 now, like my classmates. Would I teach my child that? Would he or she be able to think and say that it’s okay to kill Muscovites? Even now, when you go into a public chat room, you see things like “cotton was wound around the tank tracks”… I try not to participate in these debates, not to get involved in discussion with idiots.
But once there was something about Kiev, about a children’s intensive care unit. A girl posted a video saying that the scariest thing is the moment when they switch the generators in the children’s intensive care unit. And she writes that “Russia is to blame” for all this and something bad about Russian children. I wrote to her, “Tell me, please, are the children of the world, the whole world — let’s not take Russia, Ukraine, let’s not touch us at all, let’s just say in general. Do the children of the world cry in different languages? Or do the mothers of the world cry in different languages? You wish for death now — you will reap what you sow. You want death now — for whom? You want death for children! Children! Okay, you want death for those who are fighting. Okay, for the adult generation. What do you wish children, children? No one can cancel the boomerang effect. You will get the same thing you want. How can you wish death upon a child? You wish death upon children because they are Russian. Do children have a nation? Do tears have a nation?
— Is that kind of hate common?
— Very common. It’s madness. My TikTok account was blocked, they said I was inciting hatred. But Ukrainian hate videos are everywhere. There are tons of those. You lost Donbass nine years ago, let it go. You said “we would rot without you”, but we didn’t. Why to start all this again? Let us go. Why the needless deaths? How many Ukrainians have died already? I used to have friends in the nationalist guard. Even when it all began, we kept ties. I was on this side, they were on that side. And we communicated quite normally, the guys called me almost every day to ask how am I, is everything okay. Then one of them disappeared, just vanished, disappeared. And the other one called one morning, I was still in bed. He called and said, “I hate you all. I wish you all would die!” And he hung up. It’s not like we hadn’t talked for a long time, no, we talked every day. And for some reason, this happened. They had already brainwashed him.
My mother has a goddaughter in Kiev, and we also got along very well. Then one day she said, “You are separatists.” That was it. Our relatives’ daughter left for Austria when the war started. She called her mother every day, asking if everything was okay. Mommy, mommy, shw was repeating. Then one fine day she called and said that the war was not going on for nothing, that we were all separatists. Her mother replied, “I’m your mother. Am I a separatist?“ ”Yes, you’re a separatist.“ ”What if I get killed?“ ”Well, it’s war.” The daughter said that! To her own mother!
— Do you know what happened in the territory of Lugansk Region occupied by the Ukrainian army?
— Yes. I had many friends there. Honestly, I haven’t heard about rape or murder. But I have heard that everything fell into decline rapidly. The Starobelsk region, Starobelsk, Novopskov, Markevka, Milovo — that part of Lugansk Region — land was being sold off. People lived there, the villages were completely abandoned, and how did people live there? Here we are sitting, and we are in Ukraine, but… already in Russia. The state farms were destroyed, most people worked for Russia, went there to earn money. People crossed the road to go to Russia. All that is gone now. I had a friend who lived in Novopskov. That’s how I know.
— Did you in the republic sense that a storm was coming, that Russia’s special military operation and recognition of the LPR and DPR would happen?
— Everyone was expecting this, but earlier, and then everyone got used to what was actually happening. When the evacuation was announced, we were just shocked. Our first thought was, what is this? There were no signs, no one said anything. We started calling each other. “Yes, it’s true, the buses have arrived.” What buses? “For the evacuation.” What evacuation? Well, on the first day, a couple of people left for Russia, where they were held in refugee camps. It was unclear what was going on. And I was pregnant, about to give birth. War? No, there was no sign of war. I asked the guys in the army, is there anything going on? No, they said, nothing. But it turns out they had already sent out the draft notice.
— So the mobilization had already happened quietly.
— Yes, but no one knew. Guys got draft notices, showed up at the enlistment office, and they were taken somewhere without any explanations. “For training,” they said. Took them to Kharkov Region. Many of our guys died there… Many are still missing.
— And they weren’t even properly trained?
— No, no one knew it was mobilization. I have a friend who received a draft notice. He went to the military enlistment office, which is not far from where he lives. He said, “I went out, threw on a windbreaker and sneakers, even though it was freezing outside, but it’s close by.” He stayed there. And they sent him to war. They also took people from factories. Then Putin announced the special military operation. First, on February 19, there was the evacuation, then the recognition, then the special military operation. And that’s how we found out about the special military operation. I’m sleeping, and in my dream I hear a thunderstorm. I wake up and think, what a strange dream — a thunderstorm in February. But the sky is still rumbling like thunder. What’s going on? I go online, and a friend from Belgorod Region writes to me. “Listen,” she says, “Putin has attacked Ukraine.” I say, “Olya, have you been drinking?” “No,” she says, “I haven’t been drinking, Putin has attacked Ukraine, everything is rumbling here.” She starts sending me photos. I say, “Olya, are you joking?” “No,” she says, “Putin is about to make a speech.” It was half past five in the morning. I ran into the room, turned on my laptop, and saw that Putin had indeed announced a special military operation. That’s how we found out about the special military operation.
— I suppose, like the rest of Russia, people expected it to end quickly?
— Yes. Putin said it would last two weeks and be over.
(To be continued)
This is a translation of the interview first published in The Essence of Time newspaper, issue 639.
