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In Eastern Ukraine, unfathomable human dramas have unfolded since 2014. Thousands died in the fighting. The homes of tens of thousands were destroyed. Many were captured and tortured, millions ousted from their homes. The lives of many were broken. Volunteers started to collect food, clothes and even weapons for the frontline. Charity organizations transferred donations to the Donets’ Basin (Donbas). Priests became chaplains for soldiers. Journalists and photographers flooded into the war-zone and sometimes became involved in the events. A Hungarian and Ukrainian journalist, Eperjesi and Kachura had the opportunity to meet and talk to many of these characters. The book provides a tableau of the emblematic figures of the war in the Donbas. It not only presents tragedies, but also human moments and noble deeds. The two journalists show how the lives of ordinary people have changed as a result of the horrors of war. They also spoke to pro-Russian militiamen and even with a Russian military officer captured in Ukraine. Shreds of War is one of the few authentic books with on-the-spot coverage, interviews, and dramatic photos documenting the war in Eastern Ukraine.

Cilj ovog rada je kroz prizmu analize vremenskog slijeda prikazati ekonomske politike ukrajinskih separatističkih dijelova područja Donbasa. U razmatranju tematike ekonomskih politika Donbasa, izvršena je demarkacija prema fazama koje su definirane društveno političkim i ekonomskim politikama separatističkih vlasti i okolnosti unutar kojih su razvijane. U prvoj fazi (2014.-2017.) je održavana ekonomska i industrijska suradnja između vlade i separatista, naročito u području energetike i trgovine ugljenom. Drugu fazu (2017. – 2020.) karakteriziraju blokada i prekid ekonomske komunikacije između zaraćenih strana, što je rezultiralo uvođenjem koncepta vanjskog menadžmenta. Treća faza se odnosi na period od 2020. do 2022. godine i nju karakteriziraju procesi reorganizacije i nacionalizacije političkih struktura u separatističkim „republikama“ te društvenopolitičke i ekonomske integracije s Ruskom Federacijom. Originalnost rada proizlazi iz činjenice da su na temelju raspoloživih, makar, iz objektivnih razloga, nedostatnih podataka, rekonstruirane ekonomske politike dvaju separatističkih entiteta, koje na informativnoj razini, ipak omogućavaju određene uvjerljive uvide. Ovaj rad je na slučaju Ukrajine prikazao kako separatistički entiteti prilagođavaju svoje ekonomske politike u specifičnim okolnostima, ali koje ni u kojem smislu nisu održive bez vanjskog utjecaja i pomoći, u ovom slučaju Ruske Federacije. Rad može poslužiti za daljnja istraživanja za razumijevanje kompleksnih politički i ekonomskih sustava u specifičnim okolnostima i ovo se posebno odnosi na metodološke izazove u smislu dostupnosti informacija o ekonomskim kretanjima i industrijskoj proizvodnji.

This article discusses two inter-related issues. Firstly, the factors lying behind Russia's fervent belief that its Novorossiya (New Russia) project, aimed to bring back to Russia eight oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhhya, Odesa, Mykolayiv, and Kherson in eastern and southern Ukraine and launched during the 2014 “Russian Spring,” would be successful. Russian identity misunderstood, and continues to misunderstand, Ukraine and Ukrainians through stereotypes and myths of Ukraine as an “artificial state” and Ukraine's Russian speakers as “fraternal brothers” and Russians and Ukrainians as “one people” (odin narod). Secondly, why Ukrainian national identity was different than these Russian stereotypes and myths and how this led to the failure of the Novorossiya project. Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians came face to face with the reality of Russian-speaking Ukrainian patriotism and their low support for the Russkij Mir (Russian World). The article compares Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians with how Ukrainians see themselves to explain the roots of the 2014 crisis, “Russian Spring,” and failure of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Novorossiya project.

The conventional narrative about war and women, normalized by patriarchy, is that war is men's business and that it requires specific masculine characteristics that women do not possess, and as such, women ought to be exempt from direct combat for their own good. So pervasive is this narrative that women are often portrayed in the media coverage of war as hapless and dependent victims in need of rescue and protection. Focusing on the case of Ukrainian women in the ongoing war against Russia, this study debunks the conventional narrative by positing that Ukrainian women have demonstrated agency in the face of unimaginable adversity, serving as diplomats and journalists calling attention to the war, as frontline fighters, as heads of households, and as anti-war activists, among other roles. Further, they have been instrumental in maintaining children's education and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. This is despite the fact that women have endured political exclusion from the decision-making process on the conduct and end of the war, as well as social exclusion through sexual violence, human trafficking, internal displacement, and refugeehood. Furthermore, they have borne increased economic burdens in the form of energy poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, and poverty. Ignoring the pain, suffering, and diverse sacrifices of Ukrainian women amounts to an insidious form of patriarchy that is bound to further prolong the war and worsen their suffering. Any future negotiations aimed toward ending the war, providing post-war humanitarian assistance, and developing reconstruction plans must involve all parties who fought and bore the brunt of the war, especially women.

Everyday War provides an accessible lens through which to understand what noncombatant civilians go through in a country at war. What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete. In Ukraine, landscapes filled with death and destruction prompted attentiveness to human vulnerabilities and the cultivation of everyday, interpersonal peace. Uehling explores a constellation of social practices where ethics of care were in operation. People were also drawn into the conflict in an everyday form of war that included provisioning fighters with military equipment they purchased themselves, smuggling insulin, and cutting ties to former friends. Each chapter considers a different site where care can produce interpersonal peace or its antipode, everyday war. Bridging the fields of political geography, international relations, peace and conflict studies, and anthropology, Everyday War considers where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.

This paper examines the relationship between Western military doctrine, international law, and the impact of sieges in war. This paper examines three case studies – the battles of Mosul (2016–2017), the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport (2014–2015), and Ghouta – to analyze the effect of international law on the conduct of sieges and how that impacts the attacker, the besieged, and the innocent bystanders. In the end, we find that Western military doctrine is inadequate to address siege situations, which in turn can result in mishandling siege situations from an international law standpoint. Additionally, we find that international law, as well as applied law, provides the actors therein sufficient leeway to create the conditions for the siege to continue to be used well into the future.

This article analyzes the cultural transformation in the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” in the Donbas, characterized by a violent rejection of global postmodernist art and the return to a Soviet, often Stalinist, cultural message and visual language. The author, an art critic and curator, born and previously active in the Donbas, begins by discussing the destruction of unconventional art, even when created by the miners themselves, and the projects associated with the IZOLYATSIA art platform. The second part of the article deals with public art in the early years of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), in particular, political posters and art exhibits, which employ Soviet or Soviet-like themes and visual imagery. In a notable departure from the Russian model, the “mobilized art” in the separatist-controlled Donbas features positive references to the Bolshevik Revolution. Throughout the article, the concept of violence is used to analyze the mediatized destruction of nonrealist art and the construction of the DNR’s self-image.

U radu je prikazana studija slučaja Luganske Narodne Republike kao de facto ‎države. Za njezina postojanja separatističke vlasti izgradile su niz društveno‎ političkih institucija i provodile politiku ekstenzivne društvene kontrole. Nastanak, ‎održavanje i nestanak Luganske Narodne Republike ovisili su o ruskoj‎ vojnoj i materijalnoj pomoći i kao takva imala je određenu, ali ne i većinsku ‎potporu stanovništva u Luhanskoj oblasti. Sve vrijeme važnu je ulogu imala‎ međunarodna zajednica koja je posredovala u procesu izgradnje povjerenja‎ između zaraćenih strana, ali njezin je utjecaj prekinut ratom, odnosno ruskom ‎invazijom, kojoj je prethodio proces političke i ekonomske integracije separatističkih‎ područja. Rad se temelji na istraživanju primarnih i sekundarnih ‎podataka i doprinosi razmatranju kompleksnog fenomena de facto država te‎ razumijevanju procesa koji su se odvijali u Donbasu između 2014. i 2022. godine‎ u okvirima rusko-ukrajinskog sukoba.‎ The paper presents a case study of the Luhansk People’s Republic as a de facto‎ state. During its existence, the separatist authorities established a series of socio-‎political institutions and implemented a policy of extensive social control. ‎The emergence, maintenance, and disappearance of the LPR depended on Russian ‎military and material aid, and as such it had some, but not majority support‎ from the population in the Luhansk region. Throughout the period, the international‎ community exerted a significant influence, mediating the process of‎ building trust between the warring parties; however, this effort was ultimately ‎disrupted by the war, that is, by the Russian invasion, which was preceded by‎ political and economic integration of the separatist-held areas. The scientific ‎contribution of this paper is that it is a research based on both primary and secondary ‎data, offering insights into the complex phenomenon of de facto states‎ and enhancing the understanding of the processes that occurred in Donbas between‎2014 and 2022 within the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.‎‎

This article examines how the Soviet grand narrative of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45) was used in the school educational institution in one of the two Donbas “people’s republics” between 2014 and 2021. Using as a case study a Luhansk school with one of the most pro-Russian and pro-occupation administrations, it explores which GPW sub-narratives were present in the school discourse of extracurricular activities, described in the school VKontakte online community. This article employs the elements of discourse analysis to assess visual and verbal texts, published by the school administration, which depict how schoolchildren engage in different Soviet-military contexts, celebrating, commemorating, or learning about GPW-related events. The article concludes that although the school administration incorporated the main Soviet narratives of the Great Patriotic War, present in contemporary Russian education, it also employed two regional GPW sub-narratives, which provide the Luhansk “republican” authorities with the local ideological foundation for militarizing the school youth. The article demonstrates that such militarization of the semiformal school setting is linked with the Russian educational policy and has implications on how pupils of different ages see the social reality and their role in it.

This essay critically examines how the militarization of childhood(s) takes place in the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. The intensification of hostilities in Eastern Ukraine in mid-2014 has had a profound impact on local populations, particularly children. While no systematic recruitment and participation of children in conflict has been reported, childhood has become what Agathangelou and Killian would characterize as a ‘site for displacement and maneuvering for militarization.’ Drawing on feminist methodologies, I examine processes of the militarization of children’s everyday lives. This article investigates a range of ways in which authorities of proto-states in the Donbas region address children as participants and potential collaborators in the processes of militarization. In my analysis, I examine how war and preparation for it are simultaneously co-constituted by the geopolitical—legitimation of new proto-states—and everyday practices, such as engaging with school curricula, visiting museums, and (re)inventing historical narratives. Understanding of mechanisms that militarize childhood and how children become subjects and objects of militarization allows for a critical analysis that reveals spaces of everyday violence. This article, therefore, enhances our understanding about the intersections of childhood, militarism, and security.