For many Russians, it was an unfamiliar sight to see the faces of the two leaders of the pro-Kremlin proxy states in eastern Ukraine pop up on their television screens last Friday, announcing the mass evacuation of Donbas citizens to Russia.
Since then, however, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, heads of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, have seen their political profiles rocket, culminating on Monday with the two leaders asking the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to recognise their “republics”.
“This is their golden hour; they are quickly becoming stars,” said the political analyst Konstantin Skorkin, a Luhansk native who focuses on the region.
Amid reports of Russian tanks rolling into the Donbas, questions have arisen as to what extent the separatists have been acting on their own accord or are just pawns in the Kremlin’s bigger geopolitical aims.
“They are simply puppets of the Kremlin and the recent events only confirmed this once again,” said Skorkin.
He points to how each statement that the two leaders made over the past week was quickly picked up by state media and the Kremlin. “The Russian leadership coordinated everything and nothing was left to chance,” the analyst said.
The two regions have been highly dependent on Russian support since their formation in 2014 as they suffered economic collapse during their eight years of unrecognised independence.
The regions’ People’s Militia is also fully armed by the…
