in the campaign “Continuation of the Russo-Ukrainian War: Armed Aggression in the Donbas (2014–2015)”
The seizure of Sloviansk by an armed group that had crossed the border, and the formation of the separatist "DNR"/"LNR": the detachment's commander openly admitted that "in practice it was our detachment that set in motion the flywheel of the war that is still going on," and that "it was I, after all, who pulled the trigger of the war"[1]. In parallel, "groups of armed men unlawfully carried out a well-organized and coordinated seizure of public buildings and police and security service offices"[2]. The "republic's" leadership was from the outset dispatched from Moscow: "Alexander Boroday - the first prime minister of the DNR, who in 2014 handed over his powers to Alexander Zakharchenko," a Muscovite raised "in an intelligentsia Moscow family"[3]. In the spring and summer of 2014 the same formations tried to take Mariupol: "those advancing on Mariupol were mainly 'vacationers'," that is, Russian soldiers, and about the outcome the same commander says that after their departure "both the front line and the opportunities remained shaky"[1]; on 13 June Ukrainian troops retook the city.