Donetsk

Cities throughout Russia and the wider former Soviet Union are preparing for the 9th of May celebrations of Victory Day.
Many Russians are astonished that individuals in the United States and much of Europe know so little about the most important non-religious holiday in Russia and several other countries.
On the 9th of May, Russia received news of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, thus ending The Great Patriotic War/World War II in Europe.
A recent piece in The Duran discussed why Russians are averse to war due to the experience of the 1940s,

A recent poll by Russian VTSIOM has indicated that virtually half of Russians polled either favour the recognition of the Donbass republics as sovereign entities or the full incorporation of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics into the Russian Federation.
Of those polled, only 4% stated that they favour Kiev rule over the republics.

The war in Donbass can no longer be called a civil war.

As part of a wider drive to expand the media presence of the Donbass republics, The Donetsk People’s Republic has set up a phone-line as part of an effort to help unify Donbass.
Unsurprisingly, the phone-line has been receiving calls from many areas outside of the two Donbass republics including from Odessa, Kharkov and Ternopol.

Since 2014, the fascist war of aggression against the Donbass republics has impeded many normal activities both at home and abroad, for citizens of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic.
Russia’s recent move to recognise passports and other important documents from the Donbass republics as well as offering CIS style visa-free entry to the Russian Federation, has done a great deal to alleviate these pressures.

Since September of 2015, a floating Russian rouble has been the official currency of the Donetsk People’s Republic.
Today, the other republic of Donbass, the Lugansk People’s Republic  made the same move.
Even prior to today, the rouble was generally the most common currency used in Lugansk in the daily lives of ordinary people.

After Sean Spicer’s statement regarding Crimea a few weeks ago, it is clear that the West, including Donald Trump, are still confused about Crimea and it’s history with Russia. Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded to the White House statement in kind.

During an overnight offensive that yet again violated the Minsk II agreements, forces loyal to the fascist regime in Kiev took control of a water filtration plant in Donetsk. The move bears an eerie resemblance to when Al-Qaeda recently poisoned the water supply flowing to Damascus, causing a major crisis.
The leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic have called on the international community to condemn this move.

Viktor Yanukovych is not known for personal courage or taking sides. When the fascist forces overthrew his government in Ukraine in 2014, he did not stand and fight, let alone exercise his legal right to call in international allies to help him. He could well have set up his government in Kharkov or indeed in Donetsk and asked strong foreign allies to help to restore power.

Kiev has declared a state of emergency throughout Ukraine, in a further sign that the fascist regime may well collapse under its own weight.
Power stations throughout the country have been switched to emergency operations as neo-Nazi extremists physically block shipments of coal from the industrial Donetsk and Lugansk republics to Ukraine.