Some people forget that the conflict in Donbass began in 2014, with the declaration of an “anti-terrorist operation” aimed against the citizens of what was then still eastern Ukraine.

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Some people forget, but the conflict in Donbass did not begin in 2022 with the start of the special military operation, but in 2014, with the declaration – in April of that year – of an “anti-terrorist operation” aimed against the citizens of what was then still eastern Ukraine.

However, even before the declaration of the anti-terrorist operation, the citizens of Donbass already seemed convinced that they would have to fight to guarantee their rights and survival. By early April, some of them were already moving around armed, organizing barricades and fortifying positions, whereas one month prior their protests were limited to the unarmed occupation of public buildings, and any instances of violence occurred only in clashes with the police trying to evict them.

Between February 22, 2014 (the date of President Viktor Yanukovych’s fall) and April 13, 2014 (the date of the first armed clash between Ukrainian troops of the “anti-terrorist operation” and the Donbass militia) something led the “eastern Ukrainians” to realize that nothing would ever be the same again and that they would need to fight to survive.

It was in this direction that my curiosity went during the press conference I attended on September 14 with the President of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin. I asked him specifically what led the people of Donbass to “suddenly” take up arms. What did they realize? What did they see? What did they hear? When was the “last straw”?

And Pushilin provided a historical overview that traversed the events that took place between the end of 2013 and the first months of 2014.

As everyone knows, the great controversy of 2013 was the question of the direction of Ukrainian geopolitics: West or Russia? European Union or Eurasian Economic Union? With which bloc would Ukraine establish preferential strategic, diplomatic, and economic relations?

As soon as it became clear that the Yanukovych government (in practice, elected by the east of the country) was reluctant to choose the West, international networks of NGOs, aided by Western embassies, initiated the color revolution in Kiev, the Maidan. The inhabitants of Donbass watched the events with apprehension until the actual regime change.

Then, from the end of February 2014, protests began, especially in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, and Odesa, against the regime change. The protesters demonstrated by occupying public buildings and demanding greater levels of autonomy. What motivated the demand for autonomy was the rhetoric of the new authorities in Kiev, such as Arsen Yatsenyuk, Aleksandr Turchynov, and others, which pointed towards not only abandoning the idea of integration with the Eurasian Economic Union but also initiating a process of “de-Russification,” with the imposition of limitations on Russian-language media and education.

Russophobic racism became the order of the day in official speeches, in the national media, and in schools. “Russians” (and, therefore, eastern Ukrainians) were compared to “Mongols” and “Asiatics,” were considered a people “without culture,” from the “third world,” nostalgic for the USSR, attached to “collectivism.”

The citizens of Donbass then began to intensify their protests throughout March and early April. But the demands were ignored, and eventually, mayors, governors, and other local authorities began to flee and abandon their citizens. In places that tried to organize referendums, some gatherings were already being shot at by pro-Kiev police and military.

The gradual paramilitarization of the anti-Maidan protesters (usually through the occupation of police stations and military bases) therefore became inevitable and necessary, since Kiev showed no interest in negotiating, no local authority seemed willing to lead the masses, and peaceful demonstrations were suppressed with increasing violence – all while in Kiev and Lvov, open hatred was declared against all inhabitants of the east of the country.

This is how Denis Pushilin recalls those moments of uncertainty that led to the armed struggle for the identity and rights of Donbass.

However, what led me to ask about the topic was more than just a historiographical interest. All over the world today, but especially in Europe, liberal-democratic regimes are embracing totalitarianism and beginning to suppress citizens’ prerogatives or even replace the democratic process with judicial technocracy. Politicians are assassinated in Germany and France, elections are fraudulent in Romania, critics of the system are arrested and given draconian sentences for the most trivial offenses in the United Kingdom.

It is important to understand the triggers of armed struggle because similar scenarios could repeat themselves in other countries.

If the takeover and militarization of Slavyansk by 50 armed men, for example, in early April 2014, had not occurred, awakening everyone from their stupor and lighting the powder keg of resistance, what would have happened? What would Donbass be like today? “Timing” (or kairos) is everything in the most important moments of history.

In such moments, it is truly advantageous for a people to have among them at least a portion of brave madmen and desperate adventurers, willing to dare against all common sense, because these – the “misfits” – are the vanguard of revolution, as the late Eduard Limonov wrote.

Are there still such men in Europe and other parts of the world threatened by liberal totalitarianism? In this standardized, sanitized, and artificialized world of the most “advanced” regions of the West, is it still possible to find “madmen” and “adventurers” willing to act?

That is what we will see in the coming years.