"....The separatists’ ideology rests on two claims that were hard to defend even without their new anti-Semitic label. First, they have said that Ukraine’s revolution in February brought fascists to power in Kiev, and second, they have insisted that armed separatism is the only way to keep those fascists from taking over eastern Ukraine. At the entrance to their “People’s Republic,” on top of a pile of tires, is a poster with a big, crossed-out swastika and the words “No Fascism.” So for them to be seen as anti-Semites is a particularly painful irony.
That was part of the reason suspicion fell on their political opponents as soon as the fliers started making the rounds online. Dmitro Tkachenko, who helped organize a large rally in Donetsk on Thursday to support the unity of Ukraine, called the flier “a brilliant piece of disinformation” against the separatists. Asked if one of his fellow activists for Ukrainian unity could have staged it, Tkachenko says it’s possible. “But this is a sophisticated trick, and to be honest, I don’t think any of our folks are that smart,” he tells TIME.
More likely, Tkachenko says, the fliers were the work of an opportunistic splinter group, from separatists who just want to make money from their newfound impunity.
Over the past week, they have managed to seize numerous government buildings in Donetsk, most recently the city hall on Wednesday, without any resistance from the police. “But their movement is very divided,” says Tkachenko. It includes various groups of armed thugs who answer to no single leader. So it’s quite possible that some of the more entrepreneurial goons among them just felt like making a bit of extortion money on the side.
Instead, they seem to have intensified the backlash against all their fellow separatists. The rally on Thursday gathered at least two thousand people, not bad considering that the local police had warned locals to stay away, citing concerns of a separatist attack on the demonstration. As for the Jewish community, its members have no intention of showing up to register their property with the vigilantes of the People’s Republic or anyone else. “It looked like a pretty stupid provocation,” says Larissa Loyko, a representative of civil society organization the Jewish Foundation of Ukraine.
She suspects the separatists may indeed have been behind it, because Jewish leaders openly supported Ukraine’s revolution this winter.".."
