"DPR" against "LPR": what is the intrigue?

Will Igor Plotnitsky be able to resist or give way to the patronage of the piercing from the West Alexander Zakharchenko

Updates
Updated 08/31/2018. The head of the "DPR" Alexander Zakharchenko died after a wound with a terrorist attack in Donetsk.

On November 24, 2017, it became known that Igor Plotnitsky suddenly resigned. The place of the head of the self -proclaimed LPR was taken by Leonid Pasechnik, who previously acted as the Minister of State Security of the Republic.

Rumors that the Donetsk people want to unite two republics into one have been going on for a long time. For the first time, the head of the DPR Zakharchenko openly expressed his claims to neighboring territories back in July 2017, announcing the creation of a new state of Little Russia. In the Kremlin, I did not receive this idea of ​​approval. Of the public, the Person of Donetsk was supported only by the writer Zakhar Prilepin, who was retraining this winter to battalion commander.

But the idea of ​​uniting the “LPR” and “DPR”, apparently, did not die. Only the right moment was needed.

Historically the weaker and fragmented Lugansk is a mild victim for the current Donetsk groups of influence, which ended up in the conditions of a strict resource deficiency. The main resource of both “republics” is their local budgets centrally filled with Russian rubles, as well as some not yet stopped enterprises working for the supply of goods to Russia.

The skirmishes between groups of separatists fighting for existence were always. But if earlier the heads of each other bitten vassals of vassals, then the direct proteges of Moscow are fighting today.

The tension between the groups of separatists became inevitable in the context of a reduction in hostilities with Ukraine, almost a complete stop of local economies, the commodity blockade of the territories from Kyiv and with a clear reduction in interest in the region from Russia.

In this situation, Donetsk is initiative and attacks a weak Lugansk. Moscow bosses do not interfere. In principle, they have nothing to worry about - both sides are one hundred percent loyal to the Russian government. And the right as always will be the strongest (physically).

Why is Lugansk we are weaker?

Clan and bureaucratic fragmentation of the Lugansk territories existed in the pre-war time. "Russian Spring" only added the phenomenon of the front -line color.

Over the past three years, the former state fire inspector in the Luhansk region, Igor Plotnitsky, approved by Moscow, tried to subjugate the territory of the “LPR”. However, in fact, he controlled and fought only inside Lugansk itself. While, for example, in Alchevsk, formally part of the Lugansk Republic, he was refueling the combat of the Mozgovoy, in Stakhanov - the battalion commander of the Dremov, Russian Cossacks dominated in Pervomaisk, and the Novocherkassky Ataman Kozitsyn who settled in the Red Luch completely proclaimed the Cossack People’s Republic.

It was possible to achieve a shabby unity of unity of unity of unity of unity of unity of unity of unity of command only by the beginning of this year. Most of the self -called princes was expelled or eliminated in 2016, however, others, not particularly loyal to Plotnitsky, came in their place. The weak handling of the LPR regions at first was smoothed out ruble injections. But rubles soon began to lack, and in Moscow they even started talking about reducing funding.

At the same time, the Donetsk quasi -Socialist was much more stable compared to Lugansk from the very beginning. The main advantage of Donetsk in comparison with Lugansk: only one power group is successfully owned by a monopoly on internal lawlessness in the “DPR”. The local vertical under the command of Alexander Zakharchenko and his deputy Alexander Timofeev named Tashkent is much more efficiently mastering the allocated budgets, reporting to Moscow about the construction of roads, repairing houses and schools. Zakharchenko’s legitimacy is not disputed by anyone from the local smaller leaders. And all financial flows and activities of the remaining enterprises are forcibly closed to his deputy Timofeev.

It was Zakharchenko, along with the “wallet” of the current Donetsk Tashkent, can be called the main beneficiaries of the “Revolution” in the “LPR”.

The conflict developed for several weeks between the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the “LPR” by the cornet, friendly Donetsk groups, and Plotnitsky demonstrates both Moscow and the local population for a long time obvious fact: the former state infinition does not have absolute authority in the territories and does not control the situation.

Moscow again arises the question of the unification of two territories or the appointment of a new governor from the winners' clan in Lugansk - that is, Donetsk. Donetsks can look forward to dividends - in the event of the final absorption of the “LPR”, 1.5 million people and the corresponding budgets will be in their operational management.

The compromise option for the parties may be the preservation of Plotnitsky as the nominal leader of the “LPR”, but with the loss of real control over the territories and finances. Moscow can choose such a design of fears in the breakdown of the Minsk truce, which is the signator of the LPR.