Unlike Transnistria or Abkhazia, Donbas is heavily industrialized and dependent on subsidies; its infrastructure is devastated; and its businesses are largely owned by oligarchs, who have fled to Kyiv, London, or Paris, rather than Moscow, to escape the conflict. Add to that the irregular legal status of these self-proclaimed “people’s republics,” which makes it impossible for Donbas’s industrial producers to trade with the world, and the region’s economic (and social) prospects seem bleak.