To outward appearances, Fyodor Berezin is the picture of a senior military commander. He wears camouflage, has bodyguards and confidently gives orders as the newly named deputy defense minister of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic. Yet, just four months ago, he was an obscure author of 18 science fiction novels, one play and a dozen or so short stories.
In an interview, Berezin said he was as surprised as anybody by his rapid promotion through the rebel ranks.
“Reality became scarier than science fiction,” he said in an interview over iced tea at the Havana Banana bar, a favorite rebel haunt. “I live in my books now. I fell right into the middle of my books.”
Photo: Reuters
In the real war in eastern Ukraine, it is an inauspicious time to hold a high command in the separatist forces. Under relentless pounding by the Ukrainian military, their rebellion is crumbling.
Government troops have advanced to the outskirts of Donetsk, and over the weekend broke into the rebels’ other remaining stronghold of Luhansk.
In the wake of these and other setbacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be maneuvering for a face-saving settlement, analysts say, a way to escape a losing situation without puncturing his strongman image or antagonizing the ultranationalists at home who were expecting him to follow up his annexation of Crimea with an invasion of Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
Step 1 has been a change in leadership. In recent weeks, in what separatist officials hopefully call the “Ukrainianization” of the leadership, almost all the original Russian leaders of the rebellion have resigned and gone home, replaced by Ukrainians of dubious qualifications.
Alexander Borodai, a Russian citizen, stepped down as prime minister of the Donetsk republic to make way for a Ukrainian, Alexander Zakharchenko, who had led a police advocacy group before the war.
In the Luhansk region, Valery Bolotov, a Russian citizen, announced last week he had “temporarily resigned” as prime minister and left for Russia for medical treatment, and was replaced by Igor Plotnitskiy, a former public health inspector in Ukraine.
Igor Girkin, who uses the nickname Igor Strelkov, or Igor the Shooter, a former colonel in the Federal Security Service who led the Russian military takeover of Crimea before arriving in eastern Ukraine, resigned as defense minister of the Donetsk republic. Vladimir Kononov, a local resident and former judo instructor, took his place.
The shuffle also removed those in charge when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down on July 17, including Igor Bezler, who used the nickname Bes, or “the Demon.” Bezler, a native of Crimea, appeared in a video in April identifying himself as a lieutenant colonel in the Russian army. His location is unknown.
The only remaining senior Russian here is Vladimir Antyufeyev, a reputed spy who lived under an assumed name for a decade and is now the first deputy prime minister.
For the pro-Russian enterprise, the change of leadership was a gamble. While opening the prospect of peace talks, as the authorities in Kiev have refused to negotiate with Russian citizens, it has also left the rebel military ranks adrift, with control in the hands of local Ukrainians with modest resumes.
Their increasingly erratic leadership has been met with a breakdown in discipline in rebel ranks and signs of dissent and possible pro-Ukrainian resistance in Donetsk. There, unknown assailants sprayed a minivan of rebels with bullets over the weekend, and graffiti has appeared showing Strelkov shooting himself in the head, with the tag line “Just Do It.”
As the Ukrainian army closes in on the city, public statements by the Donetsk republic have become ever more unbelievable, if not delusional.
“The Ukrainian soldiers are defecting en masse,” one statement said, on the authority of the new prime minister, Zakharchenko.
Finding competent, charismatic leaders for the separatist forces and governments has always been hard. At various times, senior positions have been held by the owner of a dog behavior school, a man who performed as Santa Claus, the operator of a Ponzi scheme and a reputed organized crime boss.
However, with the rebels’ sagging military fortunes, the quest for able leadership has grown desperate. Berezin’s elevation to deputy minister of defense, by his own account in part owing to his literary accomplishments, is a case in point.
He was an aide to Girkin, or Streklov, a Russian citizen and staff officer of the Federal Security Service until last year.
“He was the ingredient that crystallized the whole structure,” Berezin said of Girkin.
Berezin said that he opposed Girkin’s resignation.
Berezin now serves under a little-known fellow Ukrainian, Kononov, who uses the nickname “the czar” in his duties as defense minister. Before the war, Berezin, 54, supplemented book proceeds with a day job as a purchasing official for a university, buying janitorial supplies. In the 1980s, he served in the Soviet army with a rank of captain.
His eyes light up when talk turns to war, though not the kind raging on the outskirts of this besieged city, but rather battles fought in outer space between the Brashis and the Ararbacs, two civilizations on the planet Gaeia and in parallel dimensions from one of his novels.
Asked about his plans for defending the city, Berezin was a little vague, saying the Ukrainian army would bog down in urban combat.
And he described an “international brigade of the future,” modeled on the legions of volunteers who flocked to Spain in 1936, rallying to the cause.
For now, though, most volunteers are Russian, he said.
“We really, really need help,” he said.
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