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# This Man Thinks He's In Charge of "Donetsk People's Republic"

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/K3RjNPC2.m3u8" -->
## Video: This Man Thinks He's In Charge of  "Donetsk People's Republic"

[Watch (HLS stream): This Man Thinks He's In Charge of  "Donetsk People's Republic"](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/K3RjNPC2.m3u8) (1:30)

![This Man Thinks He's In Charge of  "Donetsk People's Republic"](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/K3RjNPC2/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2014-07-25. Meet Alexander Borodai, the self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the pro-Russian separatist "Donetsk People's Republic"_


---

Jul 27, 2023 5:03 PM UTC

---

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[Inside The Self Proclaimed 'People's Republic' of Donetsk](/video/ZfLCqPmB/)

### Inside The Self Proclaimed 'People's Republic' of Donetsk

---


## Transcript

Borodai calls himself the Prime Minister of the self proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic the, the breakaway republic in Eastern Ukraine. It's not clear how he, got that title or why he feels he deserves it. He is a Moscow Public Relations guy. He's a communications expert. It's all clouded in, in a great deal of mystery. Because you know, he admits, with a wink and a nod, that he is in contact with you know, unnamed interlocutors in Moscow on various issues. Including the, the crash of, of the Malaysian flight. But it's not clear, you know, who he's Who's pulling the strings in Moscow. It's also not clear how much authority he has among the militants.

And a lot of the gunmen that I've met and interviewed they don't take Bardi very seriously at all. So I would call him the political leader of the separatists in the region of Donetsk. As opposed to the militant leader. They don't particularly follow orders from him. Essentially he's the public face. He's the, the only one holding the negotiations on the side of the separatists, I think primarily because the, the real guys in charge are the military commanders and the separatist fighters. And they don't wanna talk to anybody.

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