Translated material
Novaya Gazeta published a plan for Russian intervention in the Ukrainian crisis
Novaya Gazeta published a document containing an assessment of the situation in Ukraine in the last days of Viktor Yanukovych's presidency and a plan for Russia's intervention in this situation. According to the publication, between February 4 and 12, 2014, this plan was transferred to the Kremlin administration.
According to the newspaper, the document was presumably prepared with the participation of businessman Konstantin Malofeev. At the same time, the publication notes that the press service of the entrepreneur has already refuted this information and promised to go to court.
The authors of the document begin by stating the fact that Yanukovych and his entourage are rapidly losing power, while the European Union and the United States are starting a “geopolitical intrigue” with the aim of dismembering Ukraine and gradually joining the EU. Russia, as the document says, is obliged to intervene in this intrigue - first of all, so as not to lose the Ukrainian market and control over the Ukrainian gas transportation system.
The intervention plan provides for the organization of mass actions of disobedience demanding the federalization of Ukraine, the entry of the eastern and southeastern regions of the country into the Customs Union, and then the declaration of sovereignty with subsequent accession to Russia.
“The dominant regions for the application of efforts should be the Crimea and the Kharkiv region, in which there are already quite strong groups supporting the idea of maximum integration with the Russian Federation,” the document says. The Donetsk region is not mentioned in this series "because of the close business and political ties of the local business elite, headed by Rinat Akhmetov, with a number of representatives of the opposition oligarchic alliance, who have their own large-scale interests here."
“It seems right to play on the centrifugal aspirations of various regions of the country, with the aim, in one form or another, to initiate the annexation of its eastern regions to Russia.
- Crimea, following a referendum held in March 2014, was annexed to Russia. No active separatist movement was created in the Kharkiv region.
- People from the entourage of Konstantin Malofeev in 2014 actively participated in the events in the east of Ukraine. A former businessman consultant Alexander Boroday served as prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic until August 2014.