You wrote "in the Russian controlled portion of the country" and "corrupt Russian guards", while the cited paper does not even contain word "Russia" in it and i

You wrote "in the Russian controlled portion of the country" and "corrupt Russian guards", while the cited paper does not even contain word "Russia" in it and instead it rightfully mentions a "civil war". And as far as gossips go, when you pass between LNR/DNR controlled territory and Ukrainian controlled one shakedown can easily happen on both sides (and it was especially true in chaotic 2014). And it looks a bit strange for this "anonymous software engineer" to keep all his savings in USD cache. Usually you get paid via bank transfers and don't bother with retrieving cache from ATMs, so his funds would be automatically accessible on Ukraninan side. And even if he does not trust his domestic banking system (which arguably a good decision), then it's fairly easy to open an account in an EU bank (e.g. in Estonia). Also he would have to find those willing to trade cache USD for Bitcoins in the midst of a developing military conflict (which is in itself a very risky transaction).