Donetsk, the heartland of pro-Russian separatism, is wary of a ceasefire in Ukraine

Donetsk is a gray city that still seems stuck in the post-Soviet depression of the 1990s; a town of rusty factories and crumbling homes, plagued by a severe shortage of running water. However, life is slowly returning to the city, which Ukraine has not controlled since 2014 and which Russia annexed in 2022, at the cost of the war spreading to other cities in the region. There are more children on its streets than a few months ago, and there are new restaurants in its historic center. The residents of Donetsk never want to hear another gunshot, but for now it’s just a dream: no one believes in the success of the negotiations for a new ceasefire.

“It’s much safer to live here now, people are coming back,” the residents of Donetsk unanimously agree, often pointing out with a certain degree of excitement the city’s biggest new development of just over a month: “We have traffic jams!”

The desire for a peaceful life unites all generations in Donetsk, but they also agree that the three-way talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine will be “difficult.”

A grandmother, who asks not to be named, walks her newborn grandson through a park in central Donetsk. “I don’t know what they’ll decide,” she replies with a sigh, “but I want there to be peace, peace not only in Donetsk, but also in Kyiv. Peace everywhere.” Two 19-year-old students sitting on a nearby bench also request anonymity. One of them didn’t want to participate in the conversation until she suddenly breaks her silence when a possible ceasefire is mentioned. “I want everything to be resolved with peace. I don’t wish war on anyone,” she says after recounting her fear in a trembling voice. “My father participated in the war. There have been negotiations in each battalion to avoid returning; his have protested, and so far he hasn’t been sent to the front. I don’t want them to send him [back to war],” explains the young woman, who admits to being “pessimistic” about the outcome of the peace negotiations.

Donetsk was very close to the line that separated Ukrainian troops from those backed by Russia following the Minsk agreements signed in 2014 and 2015. Although the number of casualties had decreased significantly in the years prior to the war, as confirmed by the mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), occasional exchanges of fire between the two sides continued, which, since the Russian invasion, have escalated into full-blown bombings of civilian populations on both sides of the front.

Vladislav, 25, is walking with his partner. “I want peace, of course, but from the negotiations I only hope that at least the attacks on the neighborhoods will stop, so that we can finally live normally,” he says.

Two 27-year-old friends are also strolling in the park. One, Eliota, is pregnant, and the other one, Marina, has a one-and-a-half-year-old child. “This won’t be resolved easily, there won’t be a solution soon,” thinks Eliota, who believes she can’t call herself “specifically Russian.” “My grandfather is Russian, my father is Ukrainian, I love Ukrainian songs,” says this martial arts teacher, who notes that “before [the war and the breakup of the country] everything was fine.”

“All of this should have been stopped in 2022. So many people wouldn’t have died, there and here,” Eliota responds when asked for her opinion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The aspirations of civilians differ, however, from those of many military personnel. “To see it through to the end, of course,” says Kirill, a Dnipro native in his late twenties and a veteran both of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in 2015 and of the Russian army in 2022, when he served on the Bakhmut front.

“We want Novorossiya,” he said, referring to a territory so named by the ultra-patriotic Russian faction, which is even larger than the Kremlin’s officially recognized objective in the negotiations. For this military official, the Russian advance should also reach the Ukrainian regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Odessa. ”And Kyiv?” He only responds with a smile.

No water in the great capital of the "new territories"

Donetsk lived in limbo for almost a decade until Russia annexed it on paper in September 2022. However, three years have passed, and many basic services continue to function terribly due to the war and limited Russian investment in the region. At the same time, prices have soared to the level of Russia's richest cities, while the average salary is barely a third of that: about 40,000 rubles, or about €440.

Donetsk depended on coal, a sector that faces a huge crisis in the Russian Federation itself, and companies are hesitant to invest in the region because it is not internationally recognized, not even by allies like China. Russia's main taxi service doesn't operate there, and Russia's Google, Yandex, doesn't draw national borders to avoid upsetting both Moscow and Washington.

The area has been facing a massive hydrological crisis, destroying everything in its path. Running water barely reaches the area’s homes, and emergency buckets are stored everywhere next to showers and toilets. During the separatist era [2014-2022], water continued to flow from the Ukrainian pipelines of the Water of Donbas utility, but the invasion has devastated everything. This also affects the salinity of the Sea of Azov, and several reservoirs are at risk of drought. Russia has built some pipelines from Rostov-on-Don to address this issue, but it’s not enough.

“There's a little more water in the city center,” Vladislav says, “but in other districts it doesn't reach them. In some places it only runs after lunch, in others for a couple of hours at night.”

“Our pipes are very rusty, and the water barely reaches the upper floors,” says Eliota, who points out that the only affordable neighborhoods are those near hospitals. “It’s a matter of budget,” she adds.

“It’s very annoying,” complains the second of the two students, who is studying graphic design. “Water reaches my house once every two days for a while at night, and we don’t have any hot water,” laments the young woman, who learned Ukrainian until she was 12. “They’ve taken away the [Ukrainian] textbooks, and it hasn’t been taught in schools since we became part of the Russian Federation. When we were an independent republic, we had both languages.”

Eliota claims that “speaking Ukrainian isn't prohibited, but some people look at you strangely.” The grandmother, for her part, admits she doesn't know what her grandson will study “because everything is constantly changing.” “I grew up in the Soviet Union. And I was exempt from learning Ukrainian in school because my father and mother were Russian,” the woman adds, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In any case, they all agree that their future will remain tied to Donetsk. “I was born here and I didn’t go anywhere; this is my home.”

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