Inside the 'Donetsk People's Republic': balaclavas, Stalin flags and razorwire

Pro-Russian militants say they have no intention of leaving their eastern Ukraine base, and insist Moscow is with them

It is part Soviet theme park, part wacky anti-western wonderland. Stuck to the barricades outside the "Donetsk People's Republic" are several caricatures of Barack Obama. There is Obama as Hitler, complete with moustache. There is Obama, Bonaparte and the Führer, and the words: "They all thought their nations were superior." And there is Obama as a monkey (the monkey-Obama, visible on Friday, had disappeared by Saturday).

Further inside, past a serpentine wall of tyres, activist Vitaly Akulov stood beneath a flag of Stalin. The Soviet leader had a Kalashnikov. Wasn't he responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens? "Without a tough tsar who uses harsh methods you can't build an imperium," Akulov observed. Other banners read: "Fuck EU and USA", "Donbass with Russia" and "Russians should be together!"

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