DONETSK, Ukraine — Early in the separatist struggle for eastern Ukraine, a leading Russian nationalist, Aleksandr G. Dugin, painted a glowing portrait of what the newly captured territories, referred to in Russia as Novorossiya, would become.

The land will be “a holy place for a renaissance of Russian culture, Russian spirit and Russian identity,” he told followers in Moscow. The residents will be “absolutely different people — brave, clever and able to fight for their freedom.”

Today, that dream seems distant, as the Ukrainian Army closes in on Donetsk, the separatist capital, having claimed on Saturday to surround the city. Shelling by Ukrainian troops killed six people in Donetsk over the weekend and set fires in outlying districts, while the forces probed the city’s outer defenses. Shops and restaurants are closed, and the streets all but deserted. Yet the pro-Russia leadership is pressing ahead with a sweeping goal of establishing a lasting government here.

For that, they have turned to a cadre of bureaucrats who have made their way into Donetsk from Transnistria, a breakaway territory of Moldova that is another unrecognized, pro-Russia region. They are led by Vladimir Antyufeyev, who was a longtime security chief there, and who in July was appointed deputy prime minister of the main rebel group here, the Donetsk People’s Republic.