Slavyansk: Vyacheslav Ponomaryov says he was running a soap factory when pro-Moscow separatists tapped him to lead them in the east Ukrainian town of Slavyansk.
While his broad smile revealing several gold teeth, he says his escalation to self-styled “mayor” was unexpected. But this man, who was once in the Soviet military, clearly relishes it.
Ponomaryov, who turns 49 next week, presents an imposing, quasi-military figure with a past. His short greying hair is often covered by a cap. Two fingers are missing from his left hand.
In some ways, he resembles Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB colonel who also leapt from obscurity to leadership before the cameras.
Like Putin, Ponomaryov speaks in macho phrases peppered with sometimes crude references. Like Putin, he never shows any sign of self-doubt.
When Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, visited troops in the restive east last weekend, Ponomaryov was blunt about the welcome he would offer should Avakov venture into his insurgent-held town.
“If he comes, I’ll shoot him myself,” he said. “No way will I shake hands with that faggot.”
Neither did he hesitate in threatening to have a journalist thrown out if he asked even the smallest awkward question at one of the many press conferences held by Ponomaryov.
Since taking over the town, he has ordered the detention of two journalists, one American and one Ukrainian, and imposed a midnight-to-dawn curfew after an attack on a nearby rebel roadblock killed three militants.
Ponomaryov took charge of Slavyansk in mid-April, moving into the rebel-occupied town hall where he gave an interview to three media outlets including AFP.
He arrives at the building in a car stripped of registration plates, escorted by two heavily armed bodyguards. On his chest is the black-and-red St George ribbon adopted by the pro-Moscow separatists.
In his worn, broken voice, Ponomaryov asserts that “I didn’t particularly want to be mayor,” but explains that “I got the order” from the separatists.
Like Putin, he insists that the pro-Kremlin militants in the town are only locals standing up to authorities in Kiev whose legitimacy they don’t recognise.
He denies the presence of Russian special forces or intelligence officers — even the taciturn and highly trained men in uniforms without insignia who have been seen in Slavyansk.
But he would like to see Russian troops sent to eastern Ukraine. His appeals have so far gone without response, he says, adding: “I have no contacts” with Russian officials.
For now the situation in Slavyansk is relatively calm.
“Of course we don’t have 100 per cent” of support from the town’s 110,000 inhabitants, he says. “Some hesitate. Others are afraid.”
He adds: “There are also people who are openly right-wing. When the time is right, we’ll take care of them. There are traitors.”
Although the rebel leader declares himself apolitical, he claims to be backed by the Communists in the town, where he says he still runs the soap factory.
Born in Slavyansk, on May 2, 1965, to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother, and who today is father of a boy, Ponomaryov says he and his supporters have but one demand: “The right to our people’s self-determination.”
The path to that goal cannot lead through negotiations with Kiev, he declares, because “it’s not a government — it’s a junta”.
As for the April 17 Geneva accord signed by Kiev, Moscow and the West in an effort to ease the crisis, Ponomaryov said “that has nothing to do with us”. The rebels did not help draft it, so the situation will remain as it is “until all the fascists are eliminated”.
“I served in the Soviet military, in the navy, I took part in special operations,” he says of his background.
“Then, in 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed, I resigned.”
For many in Slavyansk, Ponomaryov is little-known.
“I know almost nothing about him,” for instance says a fruit and vegetable vendor, Svetlana.
But Vladimir Kukhno, a militant manning a barricade close to the occupied police station, says: “He’s the only one able to handle the very difficult situation in Slavyansk.”
There are some dissenters.
Liubov Vasilievna, a pensioner, stresses that “he isn’t the elected mayor,” and that he deposed the female mayor who “let us all live in peace”.
