© Artem Geodakyan/TASS
“Year in review” has long been a tradition for any single human being or society. In the DPR as a new Russian region, the outgoing year has featured historical events and important shifts in all the spheres. All the good things are associated with Russia, all the bad ones – with Ukraine, its authorities and militants. With a great many issues accumulated inside the republic, fateful changes are irreversible. Summing up the results is also interesting because most of what happened both in the military, economic and political spheres will step over into 2023 to gain momentum or get settled.
The key events of 2022 were the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, the long-awaited recognition of the Donetsk republic and subsequent accession into Russia as a subject. The path was hard and long, with much blood, sweat and tears, severe losses, misery and hardship. But the Donetsk people travelled it with dignity and without betraying Russia, their Russian identity or history. Cars wearing corresponding symbols and graffiti on the walls signalize the locals’ attitude to their warriors and the special operation as a whole. Russian flags can be seen everywhere, but someone still does not believe this has finally happened. Russian media pay stepped-up attention to the new regions, with no more humiliating definitions like "unrecognized" or "self-proclaimed". The years of uncertainty have come to an end, and with it comes hope that the enemy will be eventually expelled from the Donbass once and for all.
As its special military operation goes on, Russia has liberated over 50 percent of DPR territories previously occupied by the Ukrainian regime – a total of 338 settlements. And the task of controlling the entire territory of the DPR within the constitutional borders is yet to be accomplished. Ukrainian militants sponsored by the West seek to tear the Donbass to pieces before they retreat and take any terrorist methods it takes, including sabotage, terrorist attacks and strikes against civilians.
Meanwhile, Ukraine keeps up shelling the DPR and its capital city of Donetsk, making it suffer from deadly storms of Grad and Uragan missiles several times a day, with not a single safe place or area left. Seeking more civilian casualties, the enemy targets crowded places and has destroyed a number of shopping malls, markets, administrative buildings, and hospitals. The Armed Forces of Ukraine use NATO 155-caliber artillery systems, HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and the Czech Vampires.
Another nightmare of the outgoing year has been the Butterfly anti-personnel mines Ukrainian militants literally peppered across Donetsk, Gorlovka and other cities. Mining is carried out remotely, with rockets scattering cassettes with mines everywhere upon falling. Defusal efforts involve sappers with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the military, and ordinary people helping collect mines in their yards and in the streets. No one can say for how long hidden mines will keep maiming and killing people. Currently, there have been 87 cases of civilians being blown up, four of those children. One of the victims died in hospital.
Official statistics as of the end of 2022 says the 305 days of escalation killed 4,392 civilians, among them 132 kids. The number of people injured within boundaries before Russian' military operation accounts for 2,285, of whom 155 are children. 1,641 people, including 92 children, were injured in territories liberated. Altogether 3926 people, 247 of them juniors.
Shelling destroyed or damaged 9224 residential buildings; 2,200 civil infrastructure facilities, including 118 medical institutions; 446 educational institutions; 857 social security facilities; 59 critical infrastructure facilities; 720 electric, water, heat, and gas supply facilities; 1,114 vehicles. Data on damage and destruction of residential buildings and civil infrastructure facilities in the territory liberated during the war cannot be fixed for certain so far.
For 305 days, 13 563 cases of firing by Ukrainian militants were recorded, including 13 232 with the use of heavy weapons. In total, the enemy fired 89 650 various caliber ammunitions, including 32 Tochka-U missiles, 149 HIMARS missiles, 255 BM-27 Hurricane missiles and 12104 BM-21 Grad missiles, as well as 15 689 155-mm shells.
Ukrainian soldiers target boiler facilities and power substations, forcing certain areas survive without electricity for several successive days. The heating situation is tense but stable, with pipe breaks occurring every now and then. Therefore, heat is a rare guest in Donetsk. Some people have adapted to warm themselves with bricks heated on their gas stoves. Others use heating elements, once electricity is on. One of the most popular products among Donetsk civilians and fighters in the trenches are portable ranges with compact gas bottles. The city's plumbery is in short supply of water, making it only served once in three days as per schedule.
People are forced to constantly look for water, either bringing it from friends who have well water sources in their frontages or water distribution points equipped at schools, or buying it at outdoor stalls (4 rubles per liter). The Donetsk Republic has not experienced such issues with water, light and heating even back in the first years of warfare. Before the beginning of Russia’s military operation, the Ukrainian authorities halted the Seversky Donets-Donbass canal, arranging a water blockade with its consequences affecting both the population and industry.
The latter has also experienced the long-awaited and significant changes, despite constant shelling, logistics difficulties and lack of raw materials. Tycoon Kurchenko’s Vneshtorgservice company, which ruined a number of enterprises in the DPR and LPR over the five years, forced them into bankruptcy and saddled with astronomic debts, paid no budget contributions, failed to hand out full salaries for six months, reduced workers and their families to poverty and strikes, and was eventually expelled from the republics.
The Southern Mining and Metallurgical Complex (SMMC) headed by a new investor, Russian manager and businessman Evgeniy Yurchenko, took over the management and remedial action. SMMC arrival and activities are one of the outgoing year’s landmark events. The company managed to pay off arrears in wages, power, logistics, having started actively restoring production and planning to reach the enterprises’ design capacity. The company pursues a clear and understandable economic policy, invests in renovation, community projects and charity. SMMC CEO Evgeniy Yurchenko also reported on increased wages at enterprises and their compliance with the average salary level in the Southern Federal District, namely the Rostov region.
One of the challenges the authorities promised to address but failed, is the lack of railway transport links with greater Russia. Nowadays one can travel to other Russian regions by motor transport alone, with queues at passport control points becoming a real pain. The situation is especially tough during holidays, when people have to spend six to eight hours in a checkpoint row while waiting for a train.
Officially, the customs and the border were gone on September 30, when President Vladimir Putin signed agreements on the accession of the two Donbass republics, the Zaporozhe and Kherson regions. After that, the LDPR closed their checkpoints while Russia’s border guards kept working in filter mode over safety concerns. Inspection and verification of documents are mandatory, but queues have become inevitable due to the lack of border control staff, and intense workload. It is also necessary to expand checkpoint access roads amid constantly growing traffic or open new inspection windows to step up progress.
Russias Promsvyazbank has come to work in the republic, with its regional network in the new regions having reached 200 points. It is a major bank in the Russian Federation, ranking among the top ten as per its assets, being a vital credit institution, and acting as a reference bank for operations on defense orders since 2019. In a short span of time, PSB has deployed a network in 86 localities to provide reliable services to various customer categories and banking support to social functions.
The mechanism for obtaining welfare payments has yet to be adjusted in the republics, which refers to those required by Russian law for all the citizens. To get them, one has to travel outside the republic, which is a true bonanza for cunning businessmen offering intermediary services. But recently, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Labor, Social policy and Veterans’ Affairs Yaroslav Nilov said social security funds for the DPR residents will become part of the federal budget, with the entire procedure to take place under the "Crimean scenario", when passing specific laws allowed for adapting the legal system to that of Russia.
The appearance of Russia’s major mobile operators is not yet planned in the DPR, but Beeline, Tele2 and Megafon have agreed on national roaming in all the four new territories. Services of the kind will let people use another mobile operator within the country. The only local operator Phoenix got the +7 telephone code this year, enabling all the users to communicate with anyone in the territory of Russia.
Republican state structures are being absorbed by their Russian counterparts across the board. All the spheres undergo transition to Russian standards: healthcare, education, taxation, judiciary establishment, local self-government and budget regulations. The republic’s parliament is going to adopt a new Constitution as subject of the Russian Federation by the end of this year. The document is almost ready, finalization required.
And efforts to restore the new territories has already been dubbed Russia’s huge construction site. About 50 regions are engaged as patrons over different cities of the LDPR. 3,5 thousand facilities have been restored to this moment, another 6 200 are being worked on. Tens of thousands of Russians came to Donbass to help rebuild roads, accommodation units, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and other social or cultural facilities.
New steam shops, water supply towers, roads, bridges are in progress, with tens of kilometers of power lines already laid. Assistance and support are sizeable at all levels: both by the government and ordinary people. It is this sense of unity that has become the outgoing year’s main gift.
