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Powerful external crises, such as disasters and epidemics, make more sharp community’s reactions and visible their organically responsive reactions (Flynn, Norwood, 2004; Reeder, McCormick, Spiro, 2014). The narratives distributed in communities are playing a role of such reaction’s markers (Boasso, Overstreet, Ruscher, 2015; Kostyuchenko, Yuschenko, Artemenko, 2018). Thus, in the chaotic picture of the crisis, it is possible to detect natural reactions, as well as to trace the communication links of varied groups and communities.
In particular, disasters are exacerbating conflict reactions and increase threats of terrorism (Fullerton et al, 2003; Nel, Righarts, 2008; Berrebi, Ostwald, 2011; Zemishlany, 2016). In general, it is believed that the chaos caused by disasters is a favorable environment for varied militants and terrorists, so their activity increasing in the periods of crises and disasters (Berrebi, Ostwald, 2013; Perry, Lindell, 2003). However, in some cases, the mobilization of the state and society to overcome the consequences of the catastrophe may lead to a reduction in terrorist threats and conflict risks (Walser et al, 2004; Zhuang, Bier, 2007). Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms of reactions of militant communities to crisis challenges in every studied case.
The effects of the current epidemic on the dynamics of violent radicalism and terrorism have been analyzed in a considerable amount of work over the past two years. Many researchers, for example Grant and Smith (Grant, Smith, 2021), declared, that in many countries, COVID-19 has amplified the health, economic and social inequities that motivate group-based collective action and may be driver of radicalization.
In the context of conflict analysis, it was mentioned by Basit (Basit, 2020) that within conflict zones, there impact will be different between cities where governments have imposed lockdowns, and remote areas where governance is weak and terrorists have territorial control. At the moment the question is whether the evolving world order, emerging technologies and Covid-19 will provide opportunities or challenges for terrorists. Some researchers, for example, Bloom, Pantucci and Wither have warned not to ignore the terrorist threat as new risks emerge (Bloom, 2020; Pantucci, 2020; Wither, 2020).
At the same time, Ackerman and Peterson (Ackerman, Peterson, 2020) propose to analyze the various impacts and potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the terrorism landscape through the temporal parsing: to distinguish between those impacts that are likely to be felt only in the short term during the current initial outbreak, those likely to operate in the medium term, and those that are likely to manifest or persist into the longer term.
This article analyzes the mainly short-term reactions of the militant community and society in the separate territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine controlled by illegal militants (so called “Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics” – “L/DPR”), which have developed over 6 years of conflict since April 2014 (see Figure 1), to SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Also, the comparison with reactions of pro-Ukrainian non-governmental radicals and Ukrainian society is proposed.