Privation in Donetsk

"It was just a massive boom, the windows cracked, and we threw ourselves on the floor. We know what to do."
Antonina Sumina, Pervomaisk, Ukraine

"No one has any money. If there is food in the shops, we can't afford to buy it. It is worst for the elderly, the grandfathers and grandmothers who cannot leave the house to get to the soup kitchens or do not have family to help. They are the ones who will starve."
Irina Shtiben, nursery worker

"We have 250,000 individual registered users and we shift 20,000 individual aid packages a day. If it was a commercial operation, we would probably be one of the biggest retailers in the region."
Andrei Sannin, manager, Donetsk Shakhtar FC stadium

An armed supporter of the self-proclaimed "People's Republic of Donetsk" stands gurad as a Russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid for residents of the Eastern Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast approaches the city of Makiyivka near Donetsk, on Dec. 12, 2014.
In eastern Ukraine, residents come under bombardment fairly frequently. Six people were killed in an apartment building on December 8 when a Grad rocket slammed into the building. The heating station was knocked out so it cannot now be relied upon to supply heating during the winter months in the area. The following day a truce that seems to be holding came into effect

A detachment of the Russian-based Don Cossack Host controls the town. During the lull, a soup kitchen has been opened and Russian aid is being distributed consisting mostly of clothing. The town square has seen a traditional municipal Christmas tree to cheer up residents.

In Pervomaisk, situated 80 kilometres north-east of Donetsk, only 20,000 residents of a pre-revolution population of 80,000 remain. The government in Kyiv has seen no purpose in paying pensions or wages to public-sector workers since July. After all, the Russian-speaking rebels have declared Donetsk and Luhansk to be fully independent of Kyiv. As independent states it is up to the newly established 'governments' to administer as they must.

Since many private businesses have been forced by the violent crisis to shut down, people working for them haven't fared any better. The Ukrainian government was evicted from the "people's republics", but the governors of those republics have done little, aside from seizing power, to alleviate the burden suffered by the residents for whom they are now responsible.

A decree signed by Petro Poroshenko on December 1, suspended state services and banking operations in rebel-held areas. This move was meant to have the rebels face the need to support the financial burden of operating the regions they seized. And they have not, unfortunately, risen to the occasion. As such, schools and hospitals, prisons and water treatment plants have no funding.

To access bank accounts, residents must travel across the front line; their credit cards no longer work. Lines for food, warm clothing, cash handouts on a one-time basis, and other types of aid are evolving in towns and villages in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The aid effort, however, is not well co-ordinated and dreadfully insufficient.

Some foreign agencies like Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Red Cross have supplied aid to hospitals. And in the gap where aid is required it seems that the management of the Donbass Arena in Donetsk has assembled an army of volunteers, sorting pasta, baby food, sunflower oil, canned meat and other needs into aid packages to distribute to towns across the region.

The club's owner, oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, took it upon himself to initiate an assistance program through his charitable foundation. What has resulted is an efficient operation earning praise from professional NGO workers for its success in getting aid to those who crucially need it.

Unfortunately, frustrated by the sorry progress of official talks between the separatists and Kyiv, semi-autonomous battalions have stated they will allow convoys of relief supplies through only in exchange for the release of Ukrainian prisoners. Should neither side blink, the civilians effectively held hostage by the rebels will be facing a dismal January 7 Orthodox Christmas.