Why did the armed conflict with the new Ukrainian authorities start in the Donbas and not in other eastern regions in the spring of 2014?
Since the Donbas had served as the main power base of ousted President Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, it seemed natural that this region would be alienated by the opposition's victory.
Yet the local political elite's chagrin at sensing their imminent loss of power and privilege did not translate directly into an armed insurgency. A more complex causal mechanism came into play. The Donbas establishment and the Russian media had long cultivated an “ethnic” explanation of Ukraine's political divisions by associating civil society and democracy with Ukrainian nationalism, while the defense of Russian culture was linked to support for a paternalistic state rather than civil rights. Such connotations became entrenched in mass political culture on both sides of the conflict.Yanukovych and the oligarchs used the language of protecting Russian culture in Eastern Ukraine pragmatically, as a way of preserving and legitimizing their rule. Yet it was also part of a greater post-imperial discourse embraced by Putin's Russia. When the EuroMaidan Revolution swept away the Yanukovych regime, Russian chauvinists took over the slogans they had prepared. Empire nationalists, who were often Russian citizens, flocked to the Donbas to fight for the idea, if not the actual restoration, of a greater Russia. The Russian state, which had just annexed the Crimea, supported them—covertly at first—but eventually it undertook the more overt measures of supplying arms on a large scale and recruiting servicemen “volunteers" to fight.
The conflict's external dimension was a decisive one, because only a minority of the Donbas population supported the idea of separation from Ukraine both before and after the fighting broke out. About a third of respondents were in favor, as attested by preconflict surveys conducted by Ukrainian pollsters. In December 2014, after the armed struggle began, an Oxford University polling team found 10 percent combined support for independence and/or joining Russia and 25 percent for autonomy within Ukraine, but over half of respondents favored retaining the status quo as Ukrainian provinces.9 It took an external impetus and funding to mobilize the radical minority in the Donbas, but the shared ideology of the mythical “Russian world" as a Russian-speaking civilization extending beyond Russia's borders prepared the groundwork.
There is certain logic in why the Donbas had to become the battleground. After the EuroMaidan's victory in Kyiv, clashes between its supporters and opponents took place in several cities in the southeast, most notably in Kharkiv and Odesa. In both cities, mass rallies took place almost constantly throughout the winter and early spring of 2014, with one major square functioning as a local Maidan, and another as an anti-Maidan. In both cases, one side demanded the symbolic removal of the Lenin statue from the city center, while the other demanded that it be left in place. The situation became particularly acute after the change of power in Kyiv. The new government showed that it, too, was not immune to the “ethnic” framing of the conflict when on February 23 it pushed through parliament the abolition of the law on regional languages. This law was seen as justifying the continued predominance of Russian in the east. Acting President Turchynov announced on March 4 that he would not sign this bill, but it was too late: the new government provided its opponents with a perfect rallying call. Rumors about Right Sector militants “on their way" to any given eastern city also served as a mobilizing tool. Yet pro-Russian forces were not able to take control either in Kharkiv or in Odesa.
On April 6, 2014, about a thousand anti-Maidan activists in Kharkiv occupied the provincial administration building and the next day proclaimed the Kharkiv People's Republic, but the police quickly stormed the premises and re-established control over the city center. The interim cabinet in Kyiv appointed a reliable governor with old connections in the region; the local elites were in any case split on which side to take. The standoff in Odesa went on for longer, in part because of its proximity to the Crimea. It ended in a bloodbath on May 2, 2014, when a joint column of soccer fans and EuroMaidan activists clashed with a parade of pro-Russian forces in the city center.
After the first casualties appeared, the fighting moved into the square where the anti-Maidan activists had set up camp. There, many pro-Russian activists took refuge in the abandoned trade union building and dozens died, apparently of smoke inhalation, when the building caught fire under circumstances that remain disputed. There were 48 casualties in the city that day, all but six on the pro-Russian side, and hundreds were wounded. Local police played an ambiguous role in the Odesa events and possibly even aided anti-Maidan protestors, but after the shock of May 2, the public wanted order restored. This allowed the new Ukrainian authorities to replace some elites, make deals with others, and consolidate their control over the region.In contrast, in the Donbas the old ruling class and police leadership either fled or could not expect to keep their positions under the new government. Newly appointed officials could not re-establish control, even when they represented local business elites, because the entire fabric of regional political life was based on pro-Russian rhetoric now seized upon by the radicals. There was thus no way of quickly building a reconciliatory, pro-Ukrainian political model in the region. Moreover, all of this occurred under the shadow of Russia's openly hostile attitude toward the new Ukrainian administration and immediately after the annexation of the Crimea. Radicals on the ground felt that they could now appeal to Russia over the heads of the remaining, discredited Party of Regions functionaries and not even bother dealing with Kyiv's appointees. When the pro-Russian rebels started creating armed militias and proclaiming “people's republics” in the Donbas, there was no force there capable of stopping them, and the Russian border was close by.