It didn't work in Donbas in 2014 either. Neither it did in Odesa and other cities during Maidan. The level of domestic support was unexpectedly low (for them), that's why they had to rely on local criminal gangs and resort to recruiting the far-right activists from Russia by May 2014 (such as "neo-Cossacks" or former RNU members), then the military vets by June. The native separatist movement in Donetsk that existed there in small numbers has been pushed aside.