My Escape From Eastern Ukraine

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A pro-Russian gunman stands guard at a seized police station in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slovyansk on Sunday, April 13, 2014.

Image: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

By David Patrikarakos2014-04-14 11:50:13 UTC

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine — As you drive into the outskirts of Sloviansk, a small town of just around 130,000 deep in eastern Ukraine, it becomes clear that the country’s crisis is reaching new levels.

See also: Ukraine President Sets Deadline for Pro-Russia Militants to Disarm

I have spent the last week traveling across the region with another British journalist, and on Saturday, as we approach the city, the first thing we see is a checkpoint manned by pro-Russia militia mingling with police blocking the road. A bus filled with men dressed in combat fatigues is parked on a grass verge nearby. It is clear that these people are now in control of who enters or leaves the city.

Further down the road we hit another checkpoint, where a group of men flag us down demanding to know what why we are coming to Sloviansk.

As we talk, I notice a Russian flag that has been erected on a road sign and ask to take a picture of it. A couple of the men, eager to show it in the best light, climb up the sign to straighten it; there is pride in Russia here. I ask about the police at the first checkpoint. "The police are with us," says the group’s leader, a middle-aged man dressed in combat gear with a peaked cap. "They are the people, too." He starts laughing: "Do you like our bus?" he says and points up the road.

I've become familiar with the increasing lawlessness of the region, having already visited the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk, where pro-Russia separatists have stormed and occupied government buildings, demanding the right to hold referendums that would allow them to join the Russian Federation. East Ukraine is close to the Russian border, and Russian is almost universally spoken here. Moscow’s influence permeates everything — from the architecture to the food.

Ukraine has staggered from one crisis to another since the Euromaidan revolution that deposed President Viktor Yanukovych in February.

Yanukovych –- a Donetsk man seen as a Kremlin puppet by the Euromaidan activists — was more popular in the East where the revolution is reviled among many with pro-Russia leanings. The people here told me repeatedly that the Kiev government treats them with contempt and wants to eradicate the speaking of Russian in Ukraine. Anger and paranoia combined with grinding economic depression is everywhere. Violence was inevitable.

Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea two months ago and the Ukrainian government, not without good reason, fears further Russian incursions onto its territory — or at the very least Russian meddling. Moscow has proven adept at stirring unrest amongst Ukraine’s pro-Russian population in Crimea and the many protests I have seen in the area contain organized elements that suggest more than merely a simultaneous outpouring of disaffection.

Sloviansk is a bleak, industrial city of concrete buildings and grey streets that are broken up by threadbare patches of grass. Only few people are out, walking hunched over in the falling rain. The occupied police station is in the city centre and we manage to tag onto a group of protesters passing through the makeshift barricades that surround it, and go inside.

Inside, more barricades line the streets; Russian flags fly everywhere. The Donbass Region and Russian Empire flags are also in evidence. A crowd of about a thousand is in full voice. The same chants that I have heard again and again over the last week echo through the streets. "Ro-Si-Ya! Ro-Si-Ya!" alternates with "Re-Fer-En-Dum! Re-Fer-En-Dum!"

Masked men armed with large machine guns and in full military dress stalk the area around the police station. Their uniforms are unmarked but they are clearly professional soldiers and are obviously in charge here. Many bark orders to the gangs of youths building up the barricades. The Ukrainian government has vowed to take the occupied buildings in Eastern Ukraine and the people here are preparing for war.

Speakers are whipping the crowd into further excitement and its roars grow louder. The people we speak to all reiterate their desire for a referendum and their contempt for the government and for the Euromaidan revolution, but it is clear nothing more is happening so we make our way out. After a meal in a local restaurant my friend tries to get back inside but is refused. "It’s for your own safety," a guard tells him. "The boys get a bit rowdy at night."

Sunday morning things are calm but tense. Everyone now expects the imminent arrival of troops from Kiev and the area around the barricades is thronged with armed men conferring amongst themselves and shouting to each other across the streets.

Reports are coming in that government forces have arrived but no one seems to know anything. The barricades are built up even more. The afternoon brings sporadic gunfire sounds around the city — and it's clear that conflict has arrived in Sloviansk.

But I have more pressing problems. For various reasons I have had to part from my Russian-speaking friend and am now alone in the city and unable to speak the language, which under the present conditions is less than ideal. No trains are running, and a taxi carrying a foreign man will never make it through the many checkpoints around the city.

The only thing I can think is to call to my brother in the U.S. His girlfriend is American-Ukrainian and her father lived and worked in Ukraine for years where he had dealings with the military. The message quickly comes back that he can arrange to get me out. I tell him I don’t have much money and he says not to worry –- the people who will do it are his friends. He tells me to sit tight and wait, which I do. A couple of hours later I get a phone call from "Sergei." He is, he explains, a major in the Ukrainian army in Kiev. He will get me out, he says, but it will have to be done covertly. If Ukrainian army soldiers are discovered here they will be taken captive, or worse, killed. The message is the same: "Sit tight," he tells me. "I am sending men to get you. Give me your address."

Half an hour later there is a knock at my door and three men, dressed in the Ukrainian working class style – thick jumpers, jeans and leather jackets are standing outside. They tell me to pack quickly. The plan, Sergei tells me on another call, is that the men will take me past the inner city checkpoints, at which point, we will switch cars and a different set of people will get through the far more dangerous checkpoints that control access in and out of Sloviansk.

As we leave the Hotel Ukraine where I have been staying, just streets from the occupied police station, I ask Dmitri, the guy who speaks the best English of the three, what the plan is. "Now we drink Cognac," is his surreal answer. "I’m sorry?" I reply. Sure enough, we immediately cross the street to buy a bottle of Cognac before congregating around a nearby park bench to drink it and, rather incongruously it seems to me (though it’s a custom out here), eat chocolate. In the distance I hear machine gun fire.

I take this opportunity to ask Dimitri where our car is. "We get taxi," he replies. While I digest this further piece of alarming information I ask Dmitri where he is from and rather surprisingly he tells me that he is from Sloviansk. But, he continues with a wink, "I have spent some time in Kiev."

We walk through the city streets onto a main road where several ancient Lada taxis are parked up on the pavement. Dmitri begins gesticulating and talking loudly to one of the drivers, sweating and raging while he tries to convince him to take us through the city checkpoints and, unbelievably, haggles over the price. Dmitri can tell I am getting frustrated. "Don’t worry, be happy!" he says, before laughing hysterically at his own joke.

Agreement is reached with the taxi driver and the four of us pile into the beaten up car and drive through Sloviansk, negotiating the barricades that span the road at various points throughout the city centre. We reach the main city checkpoint and Dmitri gets out to talk to the armed militia manning it. They are soon laughing at his jokes and for the first time I’m grateful for his bluff, good nature. Once through the checkpoint I’m told that it’s time to get out and walk to the meet point where they will hand me over to the next car. "It’s women who are coming," says Dmitri. "Four men in a car is not good. Only women can get you past those checkpoints."

Dmitri is in good spirits as we wait for the car on the corner of a junction where several militia have gathered, clutching bats and sticks. "See him," he says pointing to one of his friends, "He is gay!" before collapsing with laughter once more. "No, that was joke," he continues. Dmitri wants to drink more Cognac but I tell him that now is not the time. He looks crestfallen.

After about fifteen minutes a white car with two blonde women in it pulls up. I say goodbye to Dmitri and the others and we set off. As we approach the first checkpoint the women smile and wave at the armed guards, who usher us through with barely a second glance. At every checkpoint I have previously crossed in Eastern Ukraine I have been stopped and interrogated. The phone rings and the driver passes me the phone. "My name is Colonel Valeri Dobogyrsky, of the Ukrainian army in Kiev city," says the voice at the other end. "These women are my officers. Everything will be fine." We pass through another two checkpoints with similar ease and I am on the road to Donetsk airport and to safety.

Back in Kiev it’s another world.

Elegant Ukrainian girls walk past designer shops while cafes blare out Jessie J. But the talk of war is everywhere. In Maidan Square in the city centre, the scene of the revolution that ousted Yanukovych, the pro-Ukrainian militia are still camped out in tents.

Many of them believe they will soon be fighting again.

David Patrikarakos is the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, a Poynter Fellow in journalism at Yale University, and Associate Fellow, School of Iranian Studies, at the University of St Andrews. You can follow him on Twitter at @dpatrikarakos.

Topics: russia, US & World, World