“‘Our children know no other world but war.’”

Guy Mettan talks to Denis Pushilin.

‘We all live with risks..’ Pushilin and the author, April 2024.

Denis Pushilin has served as head of the Donetsk People’s Republic since September 2018, shortly after his predecessor, Alexander Zakartchenko, was assassinated in a bombing of a restaurant in Donetsk city. Pushilin had been prominent in the separatist politics of Ukraine’s eastern provinces, Donetsk and Lugansk, since the U.S. orchestrated the coup that deposed Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s duly elected president, in February 2014. By the following spring Pushilin had survived two assassination attempts himself, and the European Union and the U.S. had sanctioned him for his opposition to the unelected regime in Kiev and his work in behalf of the newly declared DPR.

The 43–year-old Pushilin is a native of Makiivka, a suburb just east of the capital. He had served in various posts before succeeding Zakartchenko—vice-chairman and then chairman of the DPR’s Supreme Council, the Republic’s representative in the negotiations that led to the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements (which failed because Kiev refused to implement them) in the autumn of 2014 and the spring of 2015.

Guy Mettan, the distinguished Swiss journalist, met Pushilin during his travels in Donetsk and Lugansk earlier this year. “He’s still one of the most targeted men by the Ukrainians, who sentenced him to fifteen years in prison for treason in December 2023,” Mettan writes from Geneva. “No surprise, Pushilin’s name appears prominently in the top ten of the most sanctioned persons by the U.S., the U.K., and E.U.”

Mettan’s interview with Pushilin gives us a rare glimpse into the leadership of the two republics, which voted via referenda two years ago this September to join the Russian Federation. Mettan’s “Report from Donbas,” a two-part series The Floutist published this spring, can be read here and here. We are pleased to welcome Guy once again into our pages.

—  P. L.

Guy Mettan  

Not very tall but muscular, with a clipped beard and in battle dress, Denis Pushilin resembles an MMA wrestler more than a politician in a white shirt and a tailor-made suit. The man is as open, straightforward, and energetic as he appears at first glance. 

For the sake of Pushilin’s security, it’s not so simple to arrange a meeting with him. Ours was scheduled for a Friday morning, but one hour before leaving my hotel in Donetsk city, I was told that the appointment would take place that afternoon in a small village a hundred and fifty kilometers distant, where Pushilin was to meet a delegation of local people. Our small team immediately jumped into a car to make it on time.

I finally met Pushilin in a teacher’s office at a recently rebuilt primary school in the middle of the countryside. This was territory that was formerly in South Ukraine, incorporated into the Russian Federation since September 2022. In the courtyard there were a dozen cars and two dozen people—but not more: Too large a gathering would risk attracting Ukrainian missiles. For the same reason, none of Pushilin’s meetings exceeds two hours. He spends every night in a different place, making time to see his daughter—but not much for journalists.

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GM: Let's start with safety. What are the current security conditions in the Republic? How are people coping with the state of siege that has endured since 2014? How has the situation evolved in recent months, and what are the main challenges for the future?

DP: The level of security in the Republic is relative. On the one hand, if we’re talking about Donetsk, after the liberation of Avdiivka [Ukrainian forces retreated 17 February 2024], the situation there seems easier insofar as the enemy can no longer reach the city with its artillery. The [Ukrainians’] use of artillery did not require hierarchical approval, and shells were cheap, making them easy to use.

However, the enemy can reach us with long-range weapons supplied by Western countries. These are more expensive but more dangerous, as they strike different types of targets with great precision. Given that the enemy no longer has any self-imposed restrictions in terms of morality or military utility, we find that it often uses these expensive weapons just to fire on city squares and public establishments, this is to say civilian targets, social infrastructure or critical infrastructure—which of course, affects the population. At the moment, four Donetsk districts—Kievsky, Kuibyshevsky, Petrovsky, Kirovsky—are under fire, as well as the towns of Gorlovka and Yasinovataya, and a number of small towns close to the battle line.

As a result, our soldiers have no choice but systematically to drive the enemy away from our towns and homes. There is no other way to put an end to the Ukrainian regime’s war crimes.