The absence of Ukrainian mobile communications in the "DNR" brought a lot of difficulties for the inhabitants of the occupation. For 2 weeks people are not just deprived of the opportunity to contact their relatives and friends in controlled territories - the local operator "Phoenix" was not ready for the load that hit him, which led to a real information collapse in the "republic".
According to local residents, discontent is growing among the population.
"The operator (" Phoenix ") exists for several years, and they only now promise that it will begin full-fledged work, at least they should have prepared or what," one of the residents of the occupied city told "Vchasno" news agency. - Would transfer all gradually, and no one would particularly feel. And so people ask to call a taxi and an ambulance through social media, write in groups "on such and such an address a car is needed" and who can call."
In addition to problems with mobile communications, residents of the occupied cities have problems with financial payments.
"More recently, with QIWI (Russian payment service) there were problems. People link pages, throw money, and the wallet closes, no stability, in a word, only a luck," residents note.
According to the “Information Resistance” group, representatives of the “Phoenix” mobile operator in 2017 negotiated with the Russian payment service QIWI to use the specified service in the “DNR” to register electronic wallets on the numbers of the “Phoenix” operator. As a result, the specified service was launched for “Phoenix” subscribers in a test mode, which allowed registering and replenishing the account balance. At the same time, recently QIWI refused to cooperate with Phoenix, allegedly for technical reasons, and blocked all subscriber accounts without refund.
"But to the fact that there is no mail and banks, you can get used to, you can get out, and without communication, there is an apocalypse," says the resident. - The stores do not have supplies since they remained without contacts. And so many things, it turns out, were tied up on mobile communication, that it is difficult to imagine the way we lived before. "
Residents even tried to arrange protests in occupied Donetsk, demanding from the local "authorities" solve the problem. But the dissatisfied quickly and silently were dispersed.
"Everyone is ready to wait as long as necessary, but not in vain, but the confidence grows that with this the whole epic will end," people add.