THE tides of eastern Ukraine's war have shifted again. After weeks of ceding territory, the Ukrainian rebels have dealt government forces a series of swift counterstrikes. Backed by reinforcements from Russia, the separatists retook several towns near the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk over the past week, and have opened up a third front to the south. The message was clear: we aren't going anywhere. The pro-Western Ukrainian government in Kiev has long asserted that the insurgency is a Russian creation. Despite moving more than 1,000 Russian troops into Ukrainian territory over the past week, the Kremlin calls the war a purely “domestic matter”, insisting that any Russians that happen to be found fighting are simply “volunteers” or soldiers on holiday. So who exactly are the rebels?
After Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February and Russia annexed Crimea in March, a patchwork of poorly coordinated militias began seizing government buildings throughout the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in April. These groups, who were made up almost entirely of disgruntled locals and sympathisers from elsewhere in Ukraine, declared independence in May as the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic. Together, this budding statelet calls itself “Novorossiya” (New Russia)—a revived term for southern Ukrainian territory conquered by the Russian empire in the 18th century. Eastern Ukraine has since attracted a number of shadowy Muscovites, some with ties to Russia's security services, who have transformed the ragtag movement. Igor Girkin (aka “Strelkov”) took control of the Donetsk military wing; while Alexander Borodai was appointed as Donetsk’s prime minister. They returned to Russia in mid-August after being replaced by Ukrainians in an apparent attempt to give Novorossiya a façade of local control.
