Panorama.S2014E20.Behind.The.Balaclavas
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00:00This is the story of a peaceful nation's descent into armed conflict.
00:07They're going in through every window of this police station now.
00:17It's the story of how people turn from being law-abiding citizens into hooded gunmen.
00:30It's the story of how some men seize power overnight and others lose it in the most brutal of ways.
00:39He was quickly pushed into a car, but it was over very fast.
00:52Tonight, on the eve of elections, Panorama has rare access to the separatist inner circle
01:03through the lives of two ordinary men who would later become powerful players.
01:10Who is in the background coordinating? Is it people here in East Ukraine or is it people outside the country?
01:17I get the hint. It's being coordinated by the Queen of England.
01:40Panorama began filming in East Ukraine before a building was taken over or a shot fired.
01:47It's March and we're near the Russian border with former building contractor Alexei Moskovoy.
01:54He's trying to drum up support for anti-Kiev protests.
01:58The turnout's small, no sign yet of the chaos to come.
02:09The spark for all of this is Ukraine's February revolution in Kiev.
02:14Here, they say, it's imposed an illegal pro-European government which doesn't serve them.
02:23I'm not hungry for power. I don't want power. I want law and order for the people to be heard.
02:32Down the road in Donetsk, the crowds are already growing, parading to the Russian national anthem, disco style.
02:55On the stage is local history teacher Miroslav Rodenko.
02:59Married with a new baby, he's ready to fight for his region, the Donbass.
03:13His message? The Kiev revolution wasn't for him and wasn't for this region. He wants nothing of it.
03:24You need to remember this country's been in a mess for the past four months, a complete mess.
03:28And the people want things to calm down.
03:33Both Alexei and Miroslav campaign with Russian flags flying.
03:38It's provocative to those who support Kiev.
03:43This is what happens to another group elsewhere in the east, a flying hammer from a Ukrainian loyalist.
03:51Violence is just starting.
03:57Alexei is undeterred. This derelict armaments factory is part of why he wants closer links with Russia.
04:08We've given away everything from nuclear weapons to factories like this.
04:13Russia understands. If you want peace, prepare for war.
04:19Then Alexei hears there's something happening in his hometown, Lugansk.
04:25We arrive with him to find this.
04:29The first seizure of a building, the regional headquarters of the Ukrainian security services.
04:36Panorama is the only team filming.
04:39There are weapons stored here. Now they're in the hands of the protesters.
04:45At this point, Alexei doesn't approve.
04:50These are radicals just interested in seizing a building. There's nothing constructive.
04:54They've seized a building, but where does this take us now?
05:05Buildings are falling elsewhere too.
05:08It's the first sign that things are being coordinated, the West thinks, by President Putin's Russia.
05:15In Donetsk, our history teacher Miroslav, with his separatist hero on his T-shirt, helps seize the town hall.
05:23When the authorities pressured him, he went forward and seized it.
05:37Inside, local council officials are replaced with masked separatists.
05:42It's a legally declared situation.
05:45It's clear to everyone, in no case is there a question of armed confrontation.
05:52Eleven floors up, above the gunmen and the Molotov cocktails, a surreal scene.
05:58A people's committee is formed.
06:01This is one of the first meetings of what they're calling at the moment the People's Republic of Donetsk.
06:08These people are unarmed, outside they've got the tires and the barricades,
06:12but there doesn't seem to be a lot of local opposition to this taking place.
06:18They're electing the republic's three-man government.
06:21Miroslav is voted in.
06:30For him, there's no turning back.
06:39Hurray!
06:48Then, in a single day, more buildings fall, in towns running parallel with the Russian border.
06:55This, too, has all the signs of being coordinated.
06:59As we approach Slavyansk, we pass the Ukrainian army, already in retreat.
07:05The towns surrounded by roadblocks.
07:11Here, there's no way through.
07:17We try another route, but we're met with hostility.
07:27Finally, we enter Slavyansk from another direction
07:32and find a town cut off from the rest of the country.
07:38Everyone we speak to is opposed to the rule of Kiev.
07:50How many people here want to be part of the People's Republic of Donetsk?
07:54Here, it's not just angry crowds.
07:57Paramilitaries with weapons have taken over the town hall.
08:02This is significantly different from other towns that we've filmed in
08:06because they don't just control the police headquarters or a government building.
08:10Here, they control the town.
08:13Nearby, the elected mayor of Slavyansk, Nellie Shtepa, is on the streets.
08:18She's sympathetic to their age, but she doesn't want to be seen.
08:22Recriminations are already starting.
08:25The mayor tries to prevent a man being snatched on the street.
08:29Later, she herself goes missing, and a new mayor suddenly takes over.
08:35Mayor of the town, Nellie Shtepa.
08:38I have an order to call the town council.
08:41I have an order to call the town council.
08:44I have an order to call the town council.
08:47I have an order to call the town council.
08:51Inside the seized town hall,
08:54the new mayor, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov,
08:57seems to have acquired his own private army overnight.
09:01And he's taking hostages in the cellars.
09:04Foreign journalists, politicians, international monitors.
09:21The former mayor's mother wants to ask him what's happened to her daughter.
09:28He was there giving a speech.
09:30I ran forward and asked for the microphone.
09:33I asked to see her as her mother.
09:35I asked where my daughter was and asked them to let me in.
09:39He started pushing me away.
09:42Then a tall woman pulled me aside and told me Nellie had heart problems
09:47and had been taken to the Lenin hospital.
09:54That wasn't true.
09:56And others are going missing too.
09:59This man, Vladimir Rybak, head of a local pro-European party.
10:04His crime? Simply attempting to fly the Ukrainian flag.
10:11He chose in the video.
10:13It was hard to stop him.
10:15He's such a strong man, stubborn too.
10:18There was a struggle, he resisted.
10:21He was quickly pushed into a car.
10:23It was over very fast.
10:29It'd be five days before his wife learned what had happened to him.
10:34The next time we meet Alexei, he's just back from meetings in Moscow.
10:39He and his followers are in newly acquired uniforms.
10:43Now all they need is weapons.
11:04What kind of help did Moscow offer?
11:07Why are you only interested in asking about my trip to Moscow?
11:11We're one people. Who am I to go to if not my brother?
11:14Who shall I ask advice for if not my relatives?
11:18But who is in the background coordinating?
11:21Is it people here in East Ukraine or is it people outside the country?
11:25I get the hint. It's being coordinated by the Queen of England.
11:33Happy birthday to you!
11:36Happy birthday to you!
11:39A few hundred yards away, life continues as normal.
11:43Happy birthday!
11:4523 today, Sonia and her friends are in a minority,
11:49pro-European professionals, and they're all bewildered by this.
11:55I do not believe there's people who would say they want to be...
12:00You know, the Soviet Union? Come on, really, people?
12:03I was born in Ukraine. I do not want to be Soviet Union anymore.
12:07Like, no way.
12:09We are scared, but what we can do? We can do nothing here.
12:13We're just having fun and think that everything's going to be OK.
12:18I hope they will never get what they want
12:21and they just will be tired and go back home.
12:29RADIO CHATTER
12:37Without the Ukrainian army, these are the people taking on the pro-Russians.
12:42They're far-right activists, known as the Right Sector,
12:46Ukrainian nationalists wanting closer links with Europe,
12:50and they're on their way to one of their biggest rallies.
13:00What do you think when you see pictures of key government buildings
13:05in East Ukraine collapsing, falling into the hands of these pro-Russians?
13:24At the rally in Kharkiv,
13:26a pro-European mob of right-wingers has gathered.
13:29It feels like a football crowd, but many are carrying weapons.
13:34Mingling with families and children,
13:37these men are welcomed as their protectors as they sing the national anthem.
13:46We want freedom.
13:48We don't need some help from Russia, from Europe. We want freedom.
13:57We've been told that all the football hooligan groups
14:00around the country have called a truce
14:03so they can fight a common enemy together.
14:11But there are no pro-Russians to fight
14:14until later when they emerge to take on the stragglers.
14:20Even the injured aren't spared.
14:23Watch the elderly pro-Russian woman.
14:35But elsewhere, other pro-Ukraine forces are gathering,
14:39and this time they're armed.
14:42We've been invited to meet them at a secret camp in remote farm buildings.
14:48But when we arrive,
14:50the camp's been surrounded by a hostile pro-Russian crowd.
14:54They believe that paramilitaries have taken local youths hostage.
15:07See if we can go across to the other side
15:10to where the right sector seems to have some kind of camp.
15:17These paramilitaries support the Kiev government and the West.
15:23Back on the other side of the fence, a man claiming they did this to him,
15:28shot him with a rubber bullet as punishment.
15:34Then, evidence of how close this private army is to the Ukrainian army.
15:39They summon air support.
15:42I am very scared.
15:44But they're here to protect you, aren't they?
15:47We protect our country and...
15:50THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN
15:53We protect our country and...
15:55THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN
15:58We protect our country and...
16:00THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN
16:03We protect our country and...
16:05THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN
16:10THEY SPEAK RUSSIAN
16:23It prompts the crowd to set off on a new mission
16:26in convoy and into town with a helicopter in pursuit.
16:34They want local police to intervene and get their boys back.
16:40We've just arrived at the police station
16:42and the crowd who were out there where the helicopter came
16:45have now decided to take it over by the looks of things.
16:49It's just starting.
16:53THEY CHANT
17:04A lone officer appeals for calm.
17:10THEY CHANT
17:16Then it begins.
17:26They're going in through every window of this police station now.
17:30Our men are just running in there with balaclavas and baseball bats.
17:40SCREAMING
17:49You can see they've successfully taken over this police station
17:52in a matter of about ten minutes.
17:55CHEERING
18:05In Donetsk, the self-proclaimed People's Republic
18:09is making plans for the whole region to break away.
18:15Our former history teacher Miroslav, part of the three-man leadership,
18:19is trying to organise a referendum,
18:22but he lives under the constant threat that Kiev will send in forces
18:26before he can sort out a vote.
18:30When all this started, you didn't want to take over the building, did you?
18:35You wanted to do it through the democratic process.
18:38Yes, our aims aren't the building, it's the referendum.
18:41And for too long, the authorities have ignored us.
18:45Inside his seized building,
18:47these are rare shots from one of the operations floors.
18:51Two women guarding the rooms where Miroslav works.
18:56We're right in the heart of the seized administration building in Donetsk,
19:00and we're here at a tense moment because the government in Kiev
19:05has launched what it calls its anti-terrorism operation
19:09to take back buildings like this one.
19:12In Miroslav's office, they're on the lookout for snipers.
19:17Essentially, this is the start of a civil conflict, the outbreak of civil war.
19:22We're on our land, we know what we came out for.
19:25Unfortunately, the so-called Kiev government is unaware.
19:28They intend to resolve this by resorting to violence.
19:35Around the country, it's becoming increasingly dangerous.
19:41On the road to Slavyansk,
19:43journalists are being hooded at checkpoints and beaten.
19:49And a group of Ukrainian special forces have been captured.
19:57The man showing them to the press is the mayor's military chief, Igor Strelkov.
20:03He's from Moscow and says many of his men are from Russia and Crimea.
20:08We head for the town hall,
20:10where the new mayor is being questioned about the international monitors he's holding.
20:30But then intercepted phone calls emerge,
20:33evidence of what's happened to the missing politician.
20:38Pro-European Vladimir Rybak.
20:57Soon after, a grim discovery in a river just outside Slavyansk.
21:02Two bodies showing signs of torture.
21:08At the mortuary, Vladimir Rybak's wife arrives.
21:20His skull was fractured.
21:22There were signs of torture. His jaw was broken. No teeth. You understand?
21:27It sounds as though on the day,
21:29your husband was abducted and killed for trying to raise the Ukrainian flag.
21:34He wasn't abducted so much because of the flag,
21:37but because he was for a united Ukraine against the Russian occupation.
21:41The flag was just an excuse.
21:46Another call about a disappearance.
21:48And this time, the voice is that of the mayor of Slavyansk himself.
21:53Vyacheslav Panamaryov is speaking to his chief military officer,
21:57Igor Strelkov, the man from Moscow.
22:08HE SPEAKS IN RUSSIAN
22:29Despite allegations of brutality and the hostages,
22:33the mayor of Slavyansk remains a popular figure amongst pro-Russians.
22:37Are you a supporter of the methods of the mayor of Slavyansk?
22:42Absolutely. And the day after tomorrow, I'm meeting him.
22:52And the mayor had agreed to meet with Panorama too.
22:56But on the way to Slavyansk to see him, this.
23:03A Ukrainian military advancing towards town.
23:10A Ukrainian helicopter circles nearby.
23:16It's shot down.
23:24In town, a pilot caught and taken away.
23:29The Ukrainian army advance stops here, on the bridge in front of us.
23:35We arrive just as locals surround the armoured vehicles.
23:46Look at the anger.
23:48There's a lot of anger here.
23:50There are people screaming at the Ukrainian military,
23:53and they seem to be reversing.
23:59What are you doing?
24:03The army says they're here for the people,
24:06to protect them against the mayor and his men.
24:09But many of these people support the mayor.
24:20The Ukrainian military has successfully blocked the road into town,
24:24cutting off Slavyansk, trapping the mayor.
24:29We can't get to our interview.
24:32And over the next few days, the violence spreads.
24:39More than 40 dead in a fire in Odessa.
24:46Attempted assassinations, policemen shot on the street.
24:52And in the middle of the chaos,
24:54a referendum organised by Miroslav's separatist government.
25:00This is the start of new Russia, and it will clear our land of Nazis.
25:07Alexei turns up to vote with his new bodyguards in tow.
25:11The result, an overwhelming vote for East Ukraine to break away.
25:15Only Putin's Moscow takes it seriously,
25:18but doesn't respond to their formal request to join the Russian Federation.
25:23Even though that seems to be increasingly
25:26what pro-Russian leaders here are looking for.
25:31Under siege in Slavyansk, the mayor agrees to be interviewed down the line
25:35with a local film crew in his office.
25:38I asked what had happened to his predecessor, Mayor Nelly Stepa.
25:43Where's Nelly now?
25:48She's under your guard. She's in the cellars of the town hall.
25:51Is she there?
26:09How many hostages have you got in your cellars at the moment?
26:13What about his intercepted phone call?
26:44Now, he says, his besieged town will never return to Kiev's control.
27:05Five days ago, we met up with Alexei and his men
27:08in a secret location near the Russian border.
27:11By now, they're armed. He won't say by whom.
27:16He blames the conflict on foreign interference,
27:19America and Europe's support of what he calls the illegal government in Kiev.
27:27It's already a state of civil war.
27:29The civil war began after the first shots in Slavyansk.
27:32Now it's in full swing.
27:34The east of Ukraine is moving steadily towards Russia, and that's a fact.
27:39Yelena Rybak has fled her town,
27:42fearing the same fate as her murdered husband.
27:52Those who share his beliefs, and those who don't,
27:56should fight for democracy, so we can solve every problem.
28:00We're not going to let this happen.
28:03Those who share his beliefs, and those who don't,
28:06should fight for democracy, so we can solve everything through diplomacy,
28:10and not through banditry, so we can be like a civilized nation.
28:18Later this week, national elections are planned for Ukraine.
28:22Whoever wins will inherit a divided country,
28:25with entire towns out of Kiev's control.
28:29And it's now clear many of their citizens are ready to fight
28:33for a future in the Russian Federation,
28:36whether the West likes it or not.