Operation "Russian Crimea"

The one who opens fire first loses

When Viktor Yanukovych lost and his regime, along with Berkut, disappeared overnight, the Russian leadership did not lose his head and immediately began to implement a plan for an armed invasion and occupation of a neighboring country that did not want to voluntarily become a semi-colony within the so-called Eurasian Union.

The version that has always been extremely popular in Moscow is that if a Europe-oriented opposition comes to power in Kiev, then Ukraine will immediately fall apart, turning into a semi-liquid confederation at best, and its southern and southeastern pieces will inevitably then be integrated into the Eurasian Union.

But the regime of Yanukovych faded away, the “youngsters” won in Kyiv, and no immediate collapse happened, and even in the Crimea, the relatively few Russian separatists were dispersed by the Crimean Tatars. Therefore, in Novo-Ogaryovo, at a meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council, apparently, a decision was made to invade Ukraine, until the new government had time to properly form and strengthen itself.

The first meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council on the Ukrainian issue was on February 21, the second on February 25, when, apparently, a directive was approved to send troops and forces into Crimea under the guise of grandiose military exercises “to check combat readiness”, which “suddenly started the next day. Massive movements of troops (up to 150,000 people), thousands of armored vehicles, hundreds of planes and helicopters in the Central and Western Military District were supposed to divert American means of objective control and surveillance from the actual goals of the operation. At the same time, the deployment of troops to combat positions, the dispersal of aviation to field airfields, and the transfer of reserves from Siberia in the course of a “surprise test of combat readiness” could be very useful if the operation “Russian Crimea” more than expected provokes a serious regional war with possible participation of the West. During the exercises, military transport aviation (MTA) was mobilized and massively used, which is necessary for the operational transfer of occupying forces and assets to Crimea. Regular “peacekeeping” formations, staffed for the most part by contract soldiers and trained for operations abroad, were put on alert for combat advancement: the 15th brigade of the Ground Forces and the 31st Ulyanovsk separate brigade of the Airborne Forces.

Sergei Shoigu, of course, said that our exercises have nothing to do with the internal situation in Ukraine, which turned out to be inevitable cunning.

The plan to seize Crimea began on February 27 with a series of successive actions to seize and block strategically important targets - roads, airports, communications and media systems, Ukrainian military and government facilities - by the Black Sea Fleet marines and special forces secretly deployed to Crimea, which, for the sake of laughter, Russian mass media declared local "self-defense".

Some Russian-speaking "Cossacks" and militias are indeed present in Crimea, but more as a decoration to create the appearance of mass support for the presence of the Russian military.

The vanguard of the Russian forces took control of the main airports of the southwestern Crimea in order to provide a springboard for the airlift of troops by the BTA. At the same time, as part of the coordinated interdepartmental measures on the invasion plan, the Russian Foreign Ministry refused any negotiations and contacts on the Crimean problem with the legally elected government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which was declared a gathering of “Bandera youths”.

At the same time, Yanukovych appeared in Russia as an officially recognized "legitimate" president, clearly ready to return home in a Russian military convoy.

By March 1, cargo Russian IL-76s began to land at the Gvardeyskoye airfield near Simferopol - the air bridge began to work. Combat helicopters were deployed from the Taman Peninsula. In Crimea, communications were cut off, TV and other media were seized, and civil aviation flights were canceled. But there was no convincing pretext for the invasion, as in 2008 with Georgia - the Ukrainian security forces stubbornly refused to open fire even to free the captured objects. There was not a single “Banderite” or even a member of the Maidan self-defense in Crimea, and “chaos” on the peninsula was created only by the Russian military themselves and local pro-Russian Cossack robbers. American means of objective control of the operational situation in the region revealed the facts of the Russian military invasion of Crimea without any Ukrainian provocations or military actions. President Barack Obama confirmed the statement of the Ukrainian acting. President Oleksandr Turchynov on the violation of the sovereignty of Ukraine.

Russia needs a pretext, as with Georgia, so that the West would have a reason to quarrel, and then quickly forget about another aggression and do business as usual. More importantly, the Ukrainians should have a reason to blame the opposition and the “Banderites” for the fact that the Russian military has to rescue and release them by “disproportionately using force.” But the Ukrainian military, police and other security forces, of which there are hundreds of thousands in the country, and there are many in Crimea, are demoralized by the unexpected revolution and are sitting at bases. The self-defense forces of the Maidan and members of the Yatsenyuk government are also reluctant to act. The new Ukrainian leaders have just won, having stood for almost 3 months in the winter on the Maidan, asserting the moral strength of the protest, and made sure that the one who opens fire first loses.

The position of the observer may not coincide with the opinion of the editors