As a US citizen i spent 2 weeks in June visiting Lugansk, Donets, Mariupol, and Berdyansk. I took a bus into Lugansk. Spent a few hours getting thru their border control. They ask all the same questions and want to look at your phone. Connecting to any cell phone servive inside the Donbass was almost impossible. So i had to rely on hotel wifi. (Hotel reservations were made over email or telegrcm). Most internet sites are blocked there anyways. The people there seemed very humble that Russia is fighing a war to save them from being forcdfully Ukrinized. There are plenty of army vehicles passing thru the city streets. Air raid sirens go off occasinally with no affect on the locals. All men i met there wanted to shake my hand when they learned i was from usa. The main danger is the drones that attack intercity busses. On one of my bus trips south of Donetsk a drone was spotted by some passengers but it left us alone. Leaving donbass by bus back into russia was a 6 hour border crossing for me, same questions and same looking thru my phone.
Cell phones.
- I used an international 10 day Mint pass that worked great in Moscow ( in Moscow you can get access to cell data after a few minute wait with no wifi connection). The problem with Mint is that most of the time i was blocked from contacting Mint inside russia. So turn on your international pass before entering russia. And Mint would allow me to renew international passes thru text message.
- As a backup i bought an Ubigi esim. I got this to work a few times in smaller mainland russian cities when Mint wouldnt connect.
- In smaller mainland russian cities the cell phone data is sporatic. I think this is because they intentionally drop all foriegn esims anytime there are ukraine drones in the air.
- Learn to download bus directions from your hotel wifi. My method was to use Yandex maps with the streets and satallite turned on and take screenshots. Keep in mind that GPS location only seems to work about 70% of the time.
- Consider locking your esim to a specific provider, rather than let it roam. You will get text messages from the local network providers. The problem with roaming is you might be all set up with MTS but then you enter a basement restaurant and then your phone tries to switch to Beeline. You want to stick to one network provider once you sinc up with one ( you get a text message and need to follow a link to prove you are not a robot). Sometines these links work without needing any wifi.