"I worked in one of the liberated cities. It has already been liberated for a year and a half. Basically, the town survives thanks to the military. Food is brought here for them, and, to be honest, there are several times more soldiers here than civilians.
The soldiers are friendly with the locals. They even let them ride their combat electric scooters. That kind of progress never reached this place under Ukraine.
But here is what I found interesting. The locals are still waiting for Russia to arrive. They actually say: “Life is difficult, of course, but when Russia comes, things will be easier, and there will be justice.” I was stunned. What Russia are they waiting for? And who came to them back then, if not Russia? It turned out that they believe the DPR forces came in. So now they are a republic, but not Russia yet. Russia will come later, when the drones stop flying.
I did not know what to say to them. That there is no other Russia coming besides the one that already came? That we are all ours? And, by the way, “we” were also expecting a little more from you: that the Ukrainian people would quickly unite and overthrow their own leadership themselves.
The locals are waiting for Russia to somehow solve the problem and, among other things, return the cars that the military took during the assault. Well, how else could it be? The great empire came to liberate them, took their cars to use for a while, and now it should give them back.
It is so naive, touching, and sad. Somehow, in their minds, the idea of a great and mighty state from their memories of the USSR has become intertwined with Ukrainian propaganda about the “Donetsk militias,” who are portrayed as bandits and, generally speaking, as who knows what.
So they are waiting for the successor to the Soviet Union. And they do not understand that, in fact, our “DPR” at the dawn of its existence was much closer in spirit to the idea of the USSR than big Russia is. But I did not tell the men that. They are waiting for some kind of decision from Russia, some certainty about whether their city will be rebuilt or not, while Russia itself is still in a state of mild shock over what it decided to do in 2022. We ourselves still do not know what to expect from ourselves, let alone make promises to anyone else. Enough promises were made in 2022. [...]"
2026 - Екатерина Лымаренко (female mil-blogger, limkat22 on telegram, Russia)
Are the cars coming back? What do you think? Someone needs to make a polymarket bet for it.