May 27, 2015

DPR: What is it like to exist under an economic blockade?

by Systematic

Alla Pierce, VT [Veterans Today] correspondent, interviews Andrey Purgin, Chairman of the National Council of the Donetsk People’s Republic:

[…] Alla: You mention blockade. It’s a rather abstract concept for American people.  What exactly is it like to exist under an economic blockade ? How does one survive? How would one overcome these difficulties and how do the general populace live in such conditions?

Purgin: We have substantial assistance from the Russian Federation, not only from the government, but great support from the general public. We have a little help from the West through the UN, but it’s a little drop in an ocean.

We get serious help from Doctors Without Borders. They provided medicine which we were unable to buy on the market, such as vaccine, morphine, etc.

Ninety percent of our received aid comes directly from the Russian Federation. This assistance is everywhere. There are party economists, lots of funds, free canteens, etc.

Now we are able to issue pensions to pensioners, but before there were one-time payments, not regular payments for teaches and doctors.  Now we will begin regularly issuing pensions, run our industrial output efficiently and establish normal life.

Many improvements have been made in order to restore infrastructure, such as electrical power network, everything connected with water: water pumping. It’s not too noticeable, but actually a lot of things were worked on and improved, many objects have been restored gradually.  Normal life is coming back. […]

Alla: They destroyed not only the churches, but also hospitals, schools, day care centers…

Purgin: Yes, there is intensive intimidation.. It is a war against the population. There are numerous signs of genocide. I hope it will be investigated sooner or later. Also, Ukraine is confusing everybody with geography. For instance, for the last six weeks everybody has been discussing Shirokino.

Shtrokino  is like a polygon (shooting range). This is a place where you can go to shoot. This is a steppe containing a small village, which has no strategical or political value. But there is nonstop shooting. The world media has a different point of view about the fight in Shirokino, but in reality this small village has no value.

At the same time the media ignored shelling attacks upon Donetsk, where we have a population of 700 thousand people. It is a huge difference to have 15-20 shells drop on Shirokino than the same in Donetsk. One shell landing in Donetsk can kill between 10 to 20 civilians. So, this is a deliberate targeting of residential areas where people live.

It turns out that Ukrainian propaganda machine actually works well and Europe always believes the Ukrainian propaganda. There are ridiculous claims made by their propaganda to appear as if it were serious news. We cannot understand for what reason they do this. But this propaganda is not for local people who understand that this is nonsense, but for outsiders who do not know what is going on. […]