Introducing her report Sophia Lambroschini mentioned that the research marks the fifth anniversary of the Minsk Protocol, a first attempt to implement a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, made by involved parties under the auspices of the international community in September 2014.

Its goal is to outline and analyze, through the example of the cross-frontline management of critical water infrastructure in Donbas, how international and domestic actors adapt to the realities of a war-torn water supply system and attempts to map some possible pathways for cooperation in the context of war. In eastern Ukraine, the battlefields span intensely industrialized and urbanized areas, disrupting transport, work, and utilities networks that straddle the frontline, affecting several million peoples’ livelihoods – including their drinking water supply. The report can be downloaded here.

Camilla Corradin, People in Need, mentioned that in five years since conflict started, there are people, in the conflict-affected area, who do not have access to safe and sufficient water. In this area 4,6M people rely on a centralized water system: everything is interconnected, including across the frontline; if a pipeline, a pump, a filtration station is damaged or breaks, the impact easily spreads. Along this very frontline, nearly 300 fighting-related incidents (shelling, shooting) hit water infrastructure, often damaging it.

“The result of those issues: those who need assistance with water supply are still many. Not hundreds, nor thousands, or tens of thousands. Millions: 3,2M people. Imagine that almost one person out of three, here, had last year daily or weekly water shortages.

What does this concretely mean? The scale can vary from being cut off water few hours per day – so you need to make sure you have extra water at home always available, in case you haven’t planned well your shower, need to flush the toilet, or want to wash the dishes – to settlements which have been cut off water for years. This means, having to get water of unclear quality from a well, in a highly industrialized area; having to reuse water to water your plants, or wash your dishes; not being able to run a washing machine. It also means that those people need to rely on humanitarian assistance”.

PIN is one of several organizations which work to provide water to those who would be otherwise left without, on both sides of the frontline.

“We are active in both regions in GCA and are the only INGO with a registered office also on the NGCA Luhansk region. We ensure that over 10,000 people have their right to water met, and we do so in the Popasna district LGCA, Yasinuvata/ Bahmutka/Mariinka districts in DGCA, in Toretsk and Avdiivka cities, and in LNGCA, mainly along the frontline, where needs are the highest.

However, as you can imagine, the scale of the problem is so large that much of what we do is putting band-aids on a hemorrhage. Humanitarian assistance saves lives, allows people to cope, it is absolutely needed. Yet how would you feel if this was the fifth year in a row, in Europe, at the doorstep of the European Union, that you live on 7.5L to 15L of water per day, per person? That you need to walk up to 500 meters to get the water a truck is bringing to your village through an unpaved road? That you have to wait by the truck for up to 15 minutes as others fill their containers – it gets as cold as minus 25 and as hot as plus 35 in the region? And that you don’t know if your heating system, relying on water, will work?”

Galina Pavlovskaya, teacher from Verkhniotoretsk said that her village used to get water from the Yasinuvata filtration station. Caught in fighting and damaged, the FS could not be repaired for 2.5 years, until parties to conflict finally agreed to allow for its repair, and it became functioning once again. For 2.5 years, people in Verkhnitoretsk were left with no water. There are no wells in town. They would get drinking water from humanitarian organizations, which is enough to drink, cook, make tea, but not enough for everything else. She will tell about how they coped: going to family and friends in other villages to get a shower or wash clothes, and to take water to bring back home. Etc. Until now, there are water shortages from time to time, linked to shelling and electricity issues, in which cases humanitarian organizations step in once more to provide water. Remaining without water is difficult because it means that there is no heating, not even mentioning the difficulty of the daily needs like cooking, or showering. People of Galina’s village started repairing water supply by themselves, not waiting the professional brigades who’s arrival often takes long in the condition of the conflict.

Mark Buttle, UNICEF Wash Cluster underlined that the connection between the water and other critical infrastructure is huge. Ukraine has very severe winters with the temperatures dropping to -30. Without heating it is impossible to survive. Most of the settlements in Eastern Ukraine have centralized heating systems. Mostly they are very outdating and loose big proportion of water through leaks. This means that constant supply of fresh water is needed to keep the system going. If the supply stops the system can freeze and restarting it will become a serious challenge. Ukraine had emergencies like this before the conflict. And even for functioning government with substantial resources it took 8 days to restore heating in Alchevsk after it broke down in the end of January 2006. Since then infrastructure in Alchevsk and other cities around the frontline aged even more and it needs continuous maintenance to ensure no emergencies happen. Failure of the water supply in summer but especially in winter will mean the new wave of displacement.

At the same time, the majority of the population is not hostile to fellow citizens who have remained in non-government controlled territories. No less than half of the population is convinced that it is necessary to develop ties with people living in ORDLO, to provide benefits for admission to universities and material assistance for moving to the controlled territory.

Nevertheless, such social sentiment is not reflected in the state policy. The government is still reluctant to introduce the administrative procedure of issuing civil documents (passports, birth certificates), to improve movement across contact line and communication at the human level, or to develop programs for the reintegration of the population. This is particularly contrasted with the fact that, according to experts familiar with life in NGCA, the Russian Federation has launched many programs through which young people living in ORDLO can participate in various all-Russian competitions for talented children and athletes.

People living in NGCA see a lot of uncertainty and risks in the context of relations with the rest of Ukraine. First of all, they do not understand how the cooperation/ collaboration with de facto authorities will be defined legally and which groups of people will  be prosecuted criminally or administratively.  For example, whether a person who worked in the pension fund of the so-called DNR will be considered a criminal.

People engaged in small and medium business are very interested in the resolution of the conflict and reunification with Ukraine, but they also have considerable fears. For example, it is not clear to business whether entrepreneurs will be accused of financing terrorism if they have been conducting economic activities in non-controlled areas. Clarifying such issues, i.e. defining the main parameters of the transitional justice system, will open up opportunities for dialogue with NGCA residents.

Experts from Russia noted that the topic of the conflict in Donbas practically disappeared from the information space and appeared again only in connection with the decree on the simplified granting of Russian citizenship to the Ukrainians living on the territory of ORDLO. It was also noted that over the last past 5 years, popular support for the war in eastern Ukraine has halved.

Participants discussed social life in ORDLO. It was noted that among the religious organizations only the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate actively works in ORDLO. It openly declares that it provides humanitarian aid and its activities are not hindered by the de facto authorities. It was noted that civil society in ORDLO exists, moreover, there are signals that the de facto authorities may be more open to cooperation with international organizations. Currently active local civil society organisations are mainly concerned with humanitarian issues. The position of Russian civil society in the ORDLO territories is not unambiguous. Those Russian civil society organisations that are in opposition to the authorities have little or no access to the ORDLO territories. The activity of Russian public organizations loyal to the authorities (such as, for example, the New Scythians movement Dugin) is not systematic. They come to ORDLO, hold some events, but are not permanently located on the territory.

As a result of the experts’ work, a publication will be prepared that will analyze various aspects of the conflict and the main actors involved in it.

CivilM+ experts have prepared recommendations for successful reintegration of the region and its residents, addressed to all levels of government, politicians and diplomats, parliamentarians and officials in Ukraine and
abroad, international political and financial institutions and humanitarian organisations, civil society.

This Policy Paper was developed on the results of the 2nd International Forum «Reintegration in Donbas – improving the humanitarian situation and strengthening people to people contacts in the conflict region», which was held on November 13-14, 2019 in Kyiv.

The following are amongst the priority measures for the effective reintegration of the ORDLO and their population, as well as IDPs:

• resolution of humanitarian crisis and provision of the effective access of the population to exercising of rights/ basic services;
• eliminating all forms of discrimination and ensuring equal access to services and rights;
• development of a concept of transitional justice;
• ensuring access to citizens’ right to the freedom of movement and the restoration of social ties;
• access to the education for all citizens;
• implementation of the consistent policy towards the local selfgovernance in the territories under the control of the Government of Ukraine;
• Minimisation of risks for the environment in the conflict affected region;
• Information and language policy.

Read more in the publication “Reintegration of the population affected by the conflict in Donbas and restoring justice and peace: current state and priorities” in Russian and English.

It has taken about two years to collect information about those involved in the armed conflict in Donbas. The experts from the ‘Democracy House’ have drafted this ambitious document which nevertheless covers only a part of the whole spectrum of the actors. In parallel, other experts have written several self-standing publications on the matter. The process was led by Olena Zakharova, the Head of the NGO ‘Ideas of Change’.

“The purpose of our work on the “Map of the Conflict Actors” is to define the range of interests and influences, as well as the relations between individual actors at different levels, in order to be able to develop a strategy of the civil society action in the process of peaceful conflict resolution and for dealing with its consequences,” explained Zakharova.

The “Map of the Conflict Actors” is a brief informational and analytical review of the positions, interests and actions of officials, political parties, organizations, and other actors. All of them, in this or that way, have a role to play in resolving the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict in Donbas. The review covers four groups of actors: Ukrainian actors, Russian actors, quasi-state formations “DPR” and “LPR”, and international actors.

Before the publication becomes available for the public, it was presented to independent experts: historians, political scientists, human rights defenders from Ukraine, Russia, and the EU. The experts highly appreciated the work that had been done and supported its continuation, including in an interactive online format.

To complete their work on the current first volume of the review, the authors received a number of recommendations. During the online meeting, the participants also discussed the possibility of using the “Map of the Conflict Actors” in advocacy work, as well as to increase the influence of civil society on the political processes related to the war in Donbas.

Two external experts have made a thorough review of the document, Mr. Alexander Morozov, political scientist and researcher at the Boris Nemtsov Academic Center for Russian Studies at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic), and Wilfried Jilge, historian, Associate Fellow at the German Foreign Policy Council/DGAP (Berlin, Germany).

“The important work has been done, and I have read it with great interest. The publication fulfills an ambitious task: to cover the entire spectrum of actors [involved in or influencing the situation in Donbas], including those holding insignificant positions today, but with big institutional potential. What I would add to this description is a playbook, i.e. the analysis of how this or that side acts, what tools it uses,” summed up Alexander Morozov.

Wilfried Jilge stressed the importance of the section about the actors from the self-proclaimed “DPR”/”LPR” (certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not controlled by the government of Ukraine) because there is a lack of reliable and complete information about them in the European discourse. Jilge also suggested issuing a separate paper within the project “The Map of the Conflict” on the role of civil society in Ukraine since 2014:

“It is important to reflect on what has or has not been done. CivilM+ is a civil society. We need a detailed analysis of the resources and capacities of civil society, as well as of the new actors who emerged in the civic and political sectors, including in regional politics, in 2014. It is also necessary to analyze political and systemic factors that may limit the activities of the CSOs and hinder the change of elites in Donbas. Understanding of these processes will enable CivilM+ to continue to effectively support the influence of civil society in the region and to strengthen the influence of the independent civic actors on the course of the complex negotiations”.

Valerii Novikov, the Head of Luhansk Regional Human Rights Centre “Alternatyva” stressed thе importance of developing contacts with actors in the territory that is temporarily not controlled by the government.

“Now is the time to establish contacts with those actors in this territory who have the potential of being influential, reliable and legitimate. Among those several million residents, we should look for people who can share credible information about life under occupation and build the dialogue gradually. Through dialogue, people learn more about the post-conflict stage and at some point, this network of contacts can have a positive impact on reintegration”.

Associate Professor at the University of Paris Nanterre (France), sociologist Julia Shukan suggested expanding the section with the actors in the Ukrainian Parliament. In particular, to add information on the human rights and reintegration committees.

“It is also important to note and consider the positions and actions of those members of parliament who were elected from Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the first-past-the-post basis. We also need to know and consider the representatives of local authorities, heads and other officials of military-civil administrations. Often, they are opinion leaders and have the authority,” said Shukan.

Several experts stressed the importance of a detailed representation of Russian actors in the overview. First, to demonstrate the role and responsibility of the Russian Federation in starting and continuing the conflict in Donbas. Second, to facilitate the search for actors who are willing and available to cooperate to advance the agenda of peace, both in relation to Donbas and to the region as a whole. Third, it is important to go beyond the simplified paradigm that “one person in the Kremlin decides everything”.

“Of course, Putin’s position is decisive in this matter and the conflict resolution is blocked in the Kremlin. Yet, Russia does have a few independent media outlets, groups in social media with thousands of followers, political scientists and experts with different views, and human rights defenders. Also, few officials hold a position that is different from that of the Kremlin’s. Yes, they are very few, but they are there. We, as independent civil society activists, have to have a good understanding of who can be our interlocutors in Russia and pay very serious attention to this matter,” said Stefan Melle, the Head of the German NGO DRA.

Alexander Morozov also suggested showing the position of Russian media [as one of the actors]:

“…institutions in Russia are weak and subordinate to the Kremlin, but in Russia, media fulfill the role of the parties. We need to see them as actors. Some of them adhere to the Kremlin’s positions on the [conflict] resolution, but there are also those in opposition. Popular Russian media have different views on the Minsk process”.

The mode of operations within the CivilM+ Platform allows to involve experts from different countries in the analysis. This, in turn, makes it possible to analyze the situation around the conflict in Donbas from various perspectives and in different aspects. Also, the joint work on the “Map of the Conflict Actors” enables experts to share knowledge and engage in a dialogue about the conflict resolution, to find entry points to influence its peaceful resolution.

The CivilM+ Platform will continue implementing a project on mapping the actors of the conflict in Donbas and is open for cooperation with experts from Ukraine, Russia and the

European Union. Such cooperation may take the following forms: writing analytical publications on individual actors; conducting peer review of analytical publications; participation in the development of a methodology and in expert discussions of analytical papers; organization of discussions/presentations of the “Map of the Actors of the Conflict” in their respective communities; participation in working on the digital version of the map. If you are interested in joining our pool of experts, please contact the head of the subproject, Ms. Olena Zakharova, at [email protected].