Ukraine’s Government Is Starving Residents of the Breakaway Region

Eric Zuesse









The reality in Donbas is this blockade has been in place for almost 6 months now. The bank runs happened in the late spring through the mid summer. I was there as thousands of people stood in line literally for days in front of bank ATMs.

During this time a surcharge was added to every deposit in Donbass banks and the funds went to buy the bullets used to kill people here. When Kiev lost ground in the east mid summer they closed the banks altogether. The banks closed without warning all deposits were stolen and used to buy more bullets.

How is it possible to have a bank run in November when banks haven’t been open for 4 months?

The vulnerable, the dying, and the dead

Pensions and benefits to the elderly and disabled were also cut off in mid summer. State and oligarch owned businesses functioning and reaping profits stopped paying salaries. By early July retirees across the countryside were surviving on leftovers from the last harvest, unripened fruit, and help from their neighbors.

In August I started hearing about the starvation among the most vulnerable people which were the shut-ins. People that were bed ridden or because of disabilities could no longer leave their apartments died of starvation and thirst. Where were their neighbors?

In early summer the Ukrainian army started targeting apartment buildings and homes. Throughout the summer this never let up. At first Kiev denied it but later it didn’t matter anymore in the news. Kiev suspended the human rights of people in Southeast early in the spring.

The shelling of civilian homes had the effect Kiev was hoping for. It created a flood of terrified refugees that simply ran and almost overwhelmed the capacity to take care of them in Belarus and Russia.

I have watched people come to this decision. They don’t talk about it out of fear. They quietly slip away. The neighbors of the shut-ins thought someone else was staying and would look after them. In a lot of cases no one could. No one talked to anyone else, they ran. …

The social net that Poroshenko cynically cut off in November has not existed since late spring. Kiev destroyed it with shells not democracy.


Medications for chronic life threatening illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and basic antibiotics became in short supply in late spring. Early on medication was transported by clearly marked vehicles with red cross insignia or ambulances. These became the favored targets of mercenaries and para military forces like Donbass battalion [from the Ukrainian Government]. In every major city hospitals have been prime targets the entire time.

Until then most medications were distributed through warehouses in Kiev. As early as June publications such as the Telegraph reported on the humanitarian efforts which was caused by Kiev’s humanitarian blockade.

The reality since summer is people dying because the medications they needed were kept out of their reach. No matter how how much effort is put into the humanitarian effort the population of over 7 million people are in a war zone that is constantly bombarded with rockets and shells.

Creating Famine Conditions

Beginning in the late spring the Ukrainian army set landmines across the grain fields needed to support the area for human and livestock consumption. The landmines set in grain fields aren’t in contested areas. They are not marked and the locals weren’t told to stay away by the Ukrainian army.

These are the fields where farmers make their living and produce the grain needed for bread. One of my neighbors hit a mine trying to harvest his wheat. It destroyed his tractor and he was lucky to be thrown clear. He woke to see his tractor burning. In early summer another neighbor on his tractor was used for sniper practice.

The Ukrainian army burnt grain and corn fields that were under their control. This continued throughout most of the summer as noted across many articles.

The scorched earth policy was geared at creating the current situation which will soon be mass starvation and the sicknesses associated with it. Tens of thousands of acres could not be harvested.

To make the point a few short weeks ago Kiev’s appointed Governor in the occupied Lugansk region stated bluntly that Kiev’s humanitarian blockade of Lugansk and Donetsk was geared to reproduce the effects of the Soviet Union’s 1932-33 famine in which millions across central and southeast Ukraine perished from starvation and sickness.


When the refugee problem started getting international attention in mid-summer president Poroshenko made a big deal about how Donbass refugees would be welcomed by the Ukrainians and how much money was set aside for them. It is Kiev of course and the money was stolen like the donations for the families of Kiev’s heavenly hundred.

The refugees were set up in summer camps without utilities and for the most part no humanitarian aid. What humanitarian aid isn’t stolen goes to the soldiers. The men that ran from the war found themselves conscripted and sent back. The families sent to the summer camps still sit there in December with no heat. Many will perish from exposure.

Refugees that thought they were fortunate enough to make it to Kiev or other nationalist cities are denied jobs and benefits because they are from Donbass. They ran from the referendum, thought they were good Ukrainians, and yet are still Moskal [the derogatory term for Russians]. Kiev’s new laws take the children from their mothers so they can be raised in orphanages and become good Ukrainian nationalists.

There is much more in his informative report, which is aptly titled, “Kiev Forcing Death by Starvation or Relocation in Donbass.”

