Ukraine government cuts cash off to rebel territories in risky bid to defeat separatists
A woman stands at an ATM that doesn't work outside a Ukrainian bank in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014. Money is running short in the rebel heartland since the government announced this month that it will suspend banking services as it piles on the pressure. Almost all ATMs have stopped working and the remainder are expected to stop operating over the next two weeks. (AP Photo/Balint Szlanko)(The Associated Press)
DONETSK, Ukraine For hours, small crowds in Donetsk huddle hopefully in the cold around cash machines that never get filled, as artillery rumbles in the distance.
Money is running short in the rebel heartland since the government announced this month that it will suspend banking services as it piles on the pressure. Almost all ATMs have stopped working and the remainder are expected to stop operating over the next two weeks.
The move is part of Ukraine's plan to suffocate its separatist foe, now that its costly military campaign has foundered. Authorities say they are also withdrawing all state services from rebel areas, although hospital and school workers in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk say it has been a while since they last saw funding anyhow.
Yet if the government of President Petro Poroshenko government hopes to turn people in eastern Ukraine against separatist leadership, the evidence on the ground suggests the strategy may only be hardening their resolve.
"What Poroshenko is saying to us is: 'You are no longer Ukrainians. You won't get pensions, you won't get social payments, When you croak, then we'll stop this war against you,'" said Donetsk retiree Georgy Sharov. "But I don't want to go to Ukraine and beg for their mercy."
The cash lines have typically formed in front of cash machines belonging to state savings bank Oshcadbank, which handles pensions and social support payments.
"Even they don't always have money," said Donetsk resident Sergei Smotovsky, standing outside a branch of the bank. "The worst thing is that not only can you not get social payments. You can't even withdraw money that you earned, your salary."
Even though cash machines don't work, account-holders wait from early morning until lunchtime in the hope that bank workers will top them up, but the doors to the banks often remain firmly shut.
Despite the unremitting fighting taking place across Donetsk and Luhansk, the two regions affected by the armed separatist conflict, large supermarkets are still reasonably stocked.
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Ukraine government cuts cash off to rebel territories in risky bid to defeat separatists