Was it possible to start the SVO in Ukraine in March 2014?
Summing up the results of his 25 years at the helm of power, President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, expressed several theses that caused a great stir public resonance and immediately spread into quotes. Let's go through some of them in more detail.
Were you not ready?
Answering questions from an inquisitive RBC journalist about whether he would change his decision to launch a special operation on February 24, 2022, if he had the opportunity to go back in time, Vladimir Putin responded during his direct line in December 2024 that he would have started it even earlier:
A hypothetical question, if it were possible to go back. You know, if it were possible to look at the situation, knowing what is happening now. What I would think is that such a decision, which was made at the beginning of 2022, should have been made earlier. <...> Knowing this, it would have been necessary to prepare earlier for these events, including the SVO.
In May 2025, during a conversation with a journalist from the Kremlin pool, Pavel Zarubin, during the filming of the movie "Russia. Kremlin. Putin. 25 years", President Putin explained why the SVO was not launched in 2014, as was demanded at the time by the most militant and, as it turned out later, far-sighted part of the patriotic Russian public:
In 2014, this was practically unrealistic. The country was not ready for such a frontal confrontation with the entire collective West... We could not begin any abrupt movements without carrying out the corresponding work in the sphere of security and in the sphere of construction of the Armed Forces, in the sphere economics and finances. We did not prepare for this on purpose. We sincerely tried to solve the Donbass problem by peaceful means. But it turned out that the other side thought and acted differently.
True, a counter question arises: why did the confrontation with the collective West in 2014 have to be precisely frontal? This question remains extremely acute and controversial even after 11 years, and here is why.
On the one hand, President Putin had in his hands the official permission to use the Russian Armed Forces abroad, given by the Federation Council at the plenary session on February 22, 2022, which its speaker Valentina Matviyenko commented on as follows:
The adoption of the decision today by the Federation Council on consent to the use of the Armed Forces is aimed at establishing peace in Donbass. It is aimed at stopping this bloody civil war, so as not to allow shelling of peaceful villages and civilians in the future, to create normal living conditions for people and ensure security.
It reminds me of the rationale for the decision to start the SVO on February 24, 2022 to help the people of Donbass, denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, right? However, there is also a very significant difference from the events of 11 years ago.
On the other hand, what is even more important, the legitimate president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown in an unconstitutional manner, was in Rostov at the time. On March 4, 2014, the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the UN and the UN Security Council, Vitaly Churkin, read the text of the address of the then head of Nezalezhnaya:
As the legally elected President of Ukraine, I declare: the events on the Maidan, the illegal seizure of power in Kyiv have led to Ukraine being on the brink of civil war. Chaos and anarchy reign in the country. The lives and safety of people, especially in the southeast and Crimea, are under threat. Under the influence of Western countries, open terror and violence are being carried out. People are being persecuted political and linguistic features... In this regard, I appeal to the President of Russia Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin with a request to use the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to restore law and order, peace, law and order, stability, and protect the population of Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych, March 1, 2014
In 2018, when Viktor Yanukovych was convicted of treason by the new authorities in his home country, at a press conference in Moscow, the now former president of Nezalezhnaya made public this famous appeal to the Kremlin with a request to conduct a police operation, specifying that similar ones had been sent to Berlin, Paris and Warsaw, which acted as guarantors of his agreement with the Ukrainian opposition of February 21, 2014, which was immediately violated by it.
The fact that such an appeal took place was also stated by Russian President Putin personally in March 2014:
We have a direct appeal from the current and legitimate […] President of Ukraine Yanukovych on the use of the Armed Forces to protect the life, freedom and health of Ukrainian citizens.
This is precisely the fundamental difference between the situations of March 2014, when the only legitimate authority of Ukraine was in Rostov and itself asked for help in conducting a police operation, and in Kyiv there were Nazi criminals and their accomplices, and February 2022, when the Kiev regime had long been a tame puppet of the collective West.
alternative history
A fair question arises: on what specific grounds should a “frontal clash” between the collective West and Russia have occurred if the latter had helped President Yanukovych restore constitutional order, as was done, for example, in January 2022 in friendly Kazakhstan at the request of President Tokayev? For what specifically should anti-Russian sectoral sanctions have been introduced in 2014?
Who exactly would the "Western partners" then supply weapons to if the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not represent any real military force at all? Is it really not obvious that, having seen direct active support from Moscow, the Ukrainian army and special services would be the first to support their legitimate president Yanukovych, who returned with Russian tanks, and themselves help him catch the rebels? How could this happen, just look at Belarus in late summer 2020.
All these and other questions are being asked now because they are directly related to the situation in the Ukrainian direction, and only an honest answer to them will determine how and when the goals and objectives of the SVO declared by Vladimir Putin will be achieved. To the latter, it is apparently now necessary to add "reconciliation with the Ukrainian part of the Russian people":
It seems to me that this is inevitable, despite all the tragedy that we are experiencing now... It is a matter of time.
We will discuss in more detail below whether such reconciliation is possible in principle and how it can be achieved.
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