Russians' Remose

From USA Today:
"For pro-separatist Ukrainians, hardship replaces hope"

Ethnic Russian residents in this eastern province who cheered on a rebel drive a year ago to separate from Ukraine are now suffering buyers' remorse. While local governance such as schools and law enforcement continue to function, many ties to the outside world have been broken since fighting erupted between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian security forces. The Ukrainian government in the capital of Kiev cut off the banking system here and instituted travel restrictions between separatist-held areas and the rest of the country. As a result, pensions, salaries and many jobs have dried up, and residents in separatist-held areas have difficulty leaving. Residents who once had comfortable lives now live in poverty and geographic seclusion, prompting some to change their minds about separating from Ukraine, said Olga Lapteva, 35, a grounds cleaner at the Victory Cultural Center in downtown Amvrosiivka, about 50 miles southeast of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk and close to the Russian border. Lapteva said she hasn't received a salary in months. Like other women waiting in the cold for handouts of baby food and diapers, Lapteva said the new rebel government has provided no help at all: "The new authorities promise but don't do anything," she said. When residents ask the Russian-backed People's Republic of Donetsk for aid, the authorities say they've not received official requests from her town, so things must be OK, Lapteva said. When residents call the Akhmetov Foundation, a local charity, aid workers say the Ukrainian military won't let convoys go through, Lapteva said. While government services are mostly restored in Donetsk, amid an uneasy cease-fire, separatist authorities in outlying areas provide almost no assistance to medical clinics, hospitals, orphanages, old age homes and other social service institutions, said Evgeny Shibalov, an aid worker with Responsible Citizens, which provides baby food and diapers to the mothers in Amvrosiivka and other aid in the region. "Supplies that rebel forces have they give to the armed groups and almost nothing is left over for civilians," Shibalov said. "What's good: They never interfere with anybody providing services" to those in need. The air is cleaner because there's so much less traffic and many of the city's industrial plants are idle. At the Porochovsky district of Donetsk's public school system, the war has led to a drop in student enrollment from 6,625 last year to 5,989 because some parents fear it is unsafe to attend school and others left the district, chief administrator Svetlana Malina said. As a result, teachers must correspond with absent students through the Internet, she said.  Donetsk authorities have ordered educators to continue organizing academic competitions, humanitarian aid and meals for students like before, and they have made changes in the history and language curriculums, Malina said. The district increased Russian-language instruction from two hours a week to three, matching the number of hours devoted to the Ukrainian language. History lessons, which had focused on Ukraine, now put more emphasis on the region's relationship to Russia, the history of World War II and the Soviet Union's role in liberating the region from Nazi occupation.

 ^I don't feel sorry for the majority of the people that stayed behind in the ethnic-Russian terrorist-controlled areas of the Ukraine. They made their choice and it turned out to be a bad one and now have to go the way of those that supported the Nazis or the Confederates. I do feel bad  for the: children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled who are caught in all of this. Maybe now people living under the terrorists' rule will see what they had before the war and what they can have now with peace. ^


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/03/22/ukraine-donetsk-amvrosiivka-residents-regret-separatism/25173657/