“And so, we took Ukraine ...”: What if Russia sent troops
In truth, I did not have the slightest desire to join the discussion on the topic of “a missed chance to resolve the Ukrainian issue in 2014”. Because it hurts. Because I also live in this unfortunate land. Because, like all normal inhabitants, five years ago he was waiting for salvation coming from the East from a nightmare falling on the country. And yet ... Beautiful article I deeply respected my colleague and compatriot forced me to express my own opinion. "Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer..."
In that fateful year, everything was much more complicated than the cliches from the Putinspas and Putinslill series that had already become commonplace. Therefore, I want to focus on several key questions, without an answer to which all the talk about “missed chances” and “fatal mistakes” remain fortune-telling on the coffee grounds and a manifestation of emotions - even the most fair ones. In the process of searching for answers to them, I allowed myself to use the pronoun “we” on behalf of the Russians. Sorry, if anyone doesn’t like it. And now - the specifics.
Question one: in what format was it possible to “resolve the issue” in Ukraine in the spring of 2014? It is clear - the official appeal of Viktor Yanukovych, the then legitimate president of the country, and the corresponding decision of the State Duma of Russia opened a direct path for the introduction of “peacekeeping contingent” into its territory. And so we took Ukraine ... What would really happen next? My answer is Yanukovych’s return to power. But why did you decide that this would be a blessing for Ukraine and a victory for Russia ?! Once the “guarantor”, who had lost power in the most mediocre and indecent way, would inevitably have deceived it again - a maximum of a year later, in the process of the presidential elections, which were to be held in 2015. Moreover - to death, frightened by the “Maidan”, this “leader” would most likely agree to an “opposition” and the West, not even at its repetition, but at the first hint of him. An alternative to this scenario is the Russian military presence in Ukraine for an indefinitely long period, which the West would not fail to declare to be “occupation” with all the ensuing consequences.
In order to prevent this from happening, it was necessary, first of all, to carry out severe repressions against not only the leaders, but also almost all the participants of the “Maidan”, considering them as carriers of a deadly infection that should not spread. And who would do that? Yanukovych, who, in a New Year’s address to the country on the eve of the offensive in 2014, flashed from television screens that “Ukraine is moving towards mutual understanding through the Maidan”? Do not tell ... Or maybe this ... should have been removed by Russian peacekeepers? What was the point of returning to the Kremlin “to the kingdom” one who was completely unable to defend even his own chair, not to mention the country as a whole? Pour into the bottomless "bins" of Kiev not 3, but all the promised 15 billion dollars, so that later they can sue them without a chance of success?
By the way, about 65% of Ukrainians who, after the coup "were for Yanukovych" ... Nothing of the kind. Against the junta reigning in blood - yes! But not for the cowardly one who threw all at her to the mercy, and for the one who fled, like a schoolboy who was naughty from the smoked toilet of the “president”. Believe me, among the security forces of Ukraine, especially the police, the burning hatred of the “commander in chief” who had been fooled was simply off scale in those days. Yes, most soldiers and army officers, cops and SBU officers would not have thrown grenades under Russian tanks. However, who knows - would they want to serve the betraying president?
And so we took Ukraine ... In order to be in the epicenter of a military coup with all its attendant “charms” after a few months? Great perspective. As a result, we have a dilemma - in a legal way it was only possible to return the “haunted” status quo and restore Yanukovych’s power. But was it worth it?
The second question: how long will the Maidan try to reduce only to the "special operations of the US State Department"? Yes, that was the place to be - but by no means from the very beginning. What subsequently resulted in a coup d'etat, began, as a purely internal matter - the revolt of the Ukrainian oligarchs against the president and his "inner circle" who felt an excessive taste for power. It was then that the reins were intercepted by the iron hand of the West. And so we took Ukraine ... "Maidan" and its clear leaders are dispersed and squandered. Nuland, dropping cookies on the way, quickly got out. But gentlemen Firtash, Kolomoisky, Levochkin, Akhmetov - they haven’t disappeared! Who should “deal with” them, so that once and for all, so that they no longer dare to decide who will rule Ukraine in their interests and who will not? Again Russian? There is too much honor for Viktor Fedorovich and his family. And if you leave everything as it is, then the new "Maidan" is inevitable - only not spontaneous, but well prepared, as mentioned above.
In theory, suppose that Ukraine in 2014 could indeed have been “taken with bare hands” - although this is a moot point, which we will return to below. Well, after all, you can take a lot with your bare hands - even a hedgehog suffering from chronic diarrhea! Punctured palms are far from the most unpleasant of the consequences ... And why do this? Treat the hedgehog and wash it with scented soap, so that he ... Let's take a real look at the situation that developed in Ukraine in the spring of 2014: with total surrender to the “Maidan” junta that seized power, everyone and everything - the president, parliament, security officials and politicians... Under these conditions, in order to achieve any acceptable result for Russia, in Ukraine it was necessary not to "restore constitutional order", but to annex it or occupy it! Finally admit the obvious! And yet - a much more unpleasant fact: in any of the above scenarios for the development of the situation, a civil war in this country was absolutely inevitable.
Hence the third question - about, again, "take with your bare hands" and "without a single shot." Do you really believe that? Do not forget that the formation of "volunteer battalions", the so-called special forces units, and "territorial defense" was launched in Ukraine literally in March 2014. Roadblocks on roads and bridges, not only with machine gunners, but also with “armor”, up to the tanks, arose very quickly - I saw it with my own eyes. "Coffins to the Urals" would not exist, of course. But blood would have poured on both sides, with each new drop of it giving rise to ever greater intensity of hatred. Somewhere, probably at the feet of the "Russian liberators" flowers would have flown. And somewhere they would be bombarded with “molotovs” ... Let us, finally, be objective.
And so, we took Ukraine ... Those who believe that its Western part in this case would have surrendered without a fight, apparently, do not want to remember that the "Maidan" won in Lviv earlier than in Kiev - and with much larger scope. There, all police units and military units, offices of other state structures were crushed and burned. And God bless her, with the tax documentation that went smoke - in the process of a very carefully organized pogrom thousands of firearms were stolen. Part of it through the efforts of the current Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko was subsequently on the Kiev "Maidan". But the rest of the mass of "trunks" remained in the hands of the rioters and tucked them in!
To consider that Galichina, when the Russian military contingent entered the territory of Ukraine, would have simply “reconciled” to it - at least naively. Bandera traditions with caches, bloody terror against the population and stabs in the back “Muscovites” have not gone away. The all-powerful NKVD Lavrenty Beria, who did not bother with the opinion of "international human rights defenders" and the sanctions of the US State Department, uprooted this infection for decades with fire and sword - it didn’t bring it to the end. The same “ATO”, which, in essence, is a civil war, would simply be conducted not in the East, but in the West of the country.
And, by the way, the comparison with Syria in this context is extremely incorrect. Not even because the legitimate leader of the state in this case remained in Damascus, and did not leave the flaming country. In Syria, Russia entered the fight against the “Islamic State”, officially recognized as the “terrorist threat No. 1” by the whole world. But the West would immediately declare Galich insurgents “freedom fighters” and set about providing them with help and support by all possible means and means. Until the introduction of troops: Hungarian - in Transcarpathia, Polish - in the same Lviv and Volyn regions. And these are NATO countries ... With an uncontrolled escalation of events, a war of at least a European level could well have begun. Was Russia needed it?
Personally, I, the sixth year living in the occupation, which can not see either the end or the edge, would give anything for it to end before it began, in 2014. But it wouldn’t end - which is already there ... Everything would be just different. For some it’s better, for someone worse. However, the collapse of Ukraine was predetermined and it is unlikely that anyone has the moral right to blame Russia and Putin personally for the fact that an attempt to prevent this collapse was not paid for by the blood of Russian people.
So there was no fatal mistake at all? How it was! However, it did not happen in the spring of 2014, but exactly ten years earlier - when the first "Maidan" was allowed in Ukraine, which now seems almost harmless. The secret services of the West and their henchmen in Ukraine were given literally to mow down the country's potential leaders - Yuri Kravchenko, Georgy Kirpa, Yevgeny Kushnarev. There is only one hedgehog with diarrhea left - Yanukovych. After Yushchenko, after the "Orange Revolution" events could still be given a different course - however, the Kremlin did not draw proper conclusions from what had happened. Exactly nothing was done to create and promote a truly pro-Russian political elite in Ukraine, for its coming to power. The stake was placed on the Donetsk team - and they went bankrupt. Those, carried away, to put it mildly, the decision economic issues, not only did not fight the impudent and growing nationalists - they flirted with them and even financed them, hoping to use them as a "scarecrow" in the next elections. Used ?!
From Yanukovych and his team, Moscow's allies were the same as from a hippopotamus - a ballerina. They were even afraid to make Russian the second state language, or simply did not want to - contrary to their own election promises. Instead of hoping for them, Russia needed to beat the “orange” power after 2004 with sanctions, gas and transit prices, lawsuits for the rehabilitation of Nazi criminals and Russophobia as a state policy. A filthy broom had to drive from the Kremlin those who came there from Kiev with translators - and not negotiate with them! In the heads of Ukrainian politicians it was necessary to tightly tighten up - to go against Russia is unprofitable and dangerous. And in parallel - not sparing money to educate tens and hundreds of thousands of those who, in 2013-2014, instead of “liking” photos of the “Golden Eagle” in social networks, would go to the square and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Then no troops would be needed.
It is precisely the fact that all these things have not been realized - that is a fatal mistake. But we are not talking about that now, right? Sorry, dear colleague, if something offended you or hurt you. Those who have to breathe in the local air poisoned by hatred and fear every day have the right to judge what is happening in Ukraine and why. Apparently, we are destined to drink this cup to the bottom. Ukraine has to go all the way to the end, so that after the next Ruins, a beautiful and cheerful Little Russia is reborn - the very one that Oles Buzin and Alexander Zakharchenko, who were killed by the junta, dreamed of.
No offense. No complaints. There is grief for the dead and burning regret that everything happened just like that. And also - a desperate hope to live up to the moment when it will be possible to finally say: “And now, we have taken Ukraine!”
In that fateful year, everything was much more complicated than the cliches from the Putinspas and Putinslill series that had already become commonplace. Therefore, I want to focus on several key questions, without an answer to which all the talk about “missed chances” and “fatal mistakes” remain fortune-telling on the coffee grounds and a manifestation of emotions - even the most fair ones. In the process of searching for answers to them, I allowed myself to use the pronoun “we” on behalf of the Russians. Sorry, if anyone doesn’t like it. And now - the specifics.
Question one: in what format was it possible to “resolve the issue” in Ukraine in the spring of 2014? It is clear - the official appeal of Viktor Yanukovych, the then legitimate president of the country, and the corresponding decision of the State Duma of Russia opened a direct path for the introduction of “peacekeeping contingent” into its territory. And so we took Ukraine ... What would really happen next? My answer is Yanukovych’s return to power. But why did you decide that this would be a blessing for Ukraine and a victory for Russia ?! Once the “guarantor”, who had lost power in the most mediocre and indecent way, would inevitably have deceived it again - a maximum of a year later, in the process of the presidential elections, which were to be held in 2015. Moreover - to death, frightened by the “Maidan”, this “leader” would most likely agree to an “opposition” and the West, not even at its repetition, but at the first hint of him. An alternative to this scenario is the Russian military presence in Ukraine for an indefinitely long period, which the West would not fail to declare to be “occupation” with all the ensuing consequences.
In order to prevent this from happening, it was necessary, first of all, to carry out severe repressions against not only the leaders, but also almost all the participants of the “Maidan”, considering them as carriers of a deadly infection that should not spread. And who would do that? Yanukovych, who, in a New Year’s address to the country on the eve of the offensive in 2014, flashed from television screens that “Ukraine is moving towards mutual understanding through the Maidan”? Do not tell ... Or maybe this ... should have been removed by Russian peacekeepers? What was the point of returning to the Kremlin “to the kingdom” one who was completely unable to defend even his own chair, not to mention the country as a whole? Pour into the bottomless "bins" of Kiev not 3, but all the promised 15 billion dollars, so that later they can sue them without a chance of success?
By the way, about 65% of Ukrainians who, after the coup "were for Yanukovych" ... Nothing of the kind. Against the junta reigning in blood - yes! But not for the cowardly one who threw all at her to the mercy, and for the one who fled, like a schoolboy who was naughty from the smoked toilet of the “president”. Believe me, among the security forces of Ukraine, especially the police, the burning hatred of the “commander in chief” who had been fooled was simply off scale in those days. Yes, most soldiers and army officers, cops and SBU officers would not have thrown grenades under Russian tanks. However, who knows - would they want to serve the betraying president?
And so we took Ukraine ... In order to be in the epicenter of a military coup with all its attendant “charms” after a few months? Great perspective. As a result, we have a dilemma - in a legal way it was only possible to return the “haunted” status quo and restore Yanukovych’s power. But was it worth it?
The second question: how long will the Maidan try to reduce only to the "special operations of the US State Department"? Yes, that was the place to be - but by no means from the very beginning. What subsequently resulted in a coup d'etat, began, as a purely internal matter - the revolt of the Ukrainian oligarchs against the president and his "inner circle" who felt an excessive taste for power. It was then that the reins were intercepted by the iron hand of the West. And so we took Ukraine ... "Maidan" and its clear leaders are dispersed and squandered. Nuland, dropping cookies on the way, quickly got out. But gentlemen Firtash, Kolomoisky, Levochkin, Akhmetov - they haven’t disappeared! Who should “deal with” them, so that once and for all, so that they no longer dare to decide who will rule Ukraine in their interests and who will not? Again Russian? There is too much honor for Viktor Fedorovich and his family. And if you leave everything as it is, then the new "Maidan" is inevitable - only not spontaneous, but well prepared, as mentioned above.
In theory, suppose that Ukraine in 2014 could indeed have been “taken with bare hands” - although this is a moot point, which we will return to below. Well, after all, you can take a lot with your bare hands - even a hedgehog suffering from chronic diarrhea! Punctured palms are far from the most unpleasant of the consequences ... And why do this? Treat the hedgehog and wash it with scented soap, so that he ... Let's take a real look at the situation that developed in Ukraine in the spring of 2014: with total surrender to the “Maidan” junta that seized power, everyone and everything - the president, parliament, security officials and politicians... Under these conditions, in order to achieve any acceptable result for Russia, in Ukraine it was necessary not to "restore constitutional order", but to annex it or occupy it! Finally admit the obvious! And yet - a much more unpleasant fact: in any of the above scenarios for the development of the situation, a civil war in this country was absolutely inevitable.
Hence the third question - about, again, "take with your bare hands" and "without a single shot." Do you really believe that? Do not forget that the formation of "volunteer battalions", the so-called special forces units, and "territorial defense" was launched in Ukraine literally in March 2014. Roadblocks on roads and bridges, not only with machine gunners, but also with “armor”, up to the tanks, arose very quickly - I saw it with my own eyes. "Coffins to the Urals" would not exist, of course. But blood would have poured on both sides, with each new drop of it giving rise to ever greater intensity of hatred. Somewhere, probably at the feet of the "Russian liberators" flowers would have flown. And somewhere they would be bombarded with “molotovs” ... Let us, finally, be objective.
And so, we took Ukraine ... Those who believe that its Western part in this case would have surrendered without a fight, apparently, do not want to remember that the "Maidan" won in Lviv earlier than in Kiev - and with much larger scope. There, all police units and military units, offices of other state structures were crushed and burned. And God bless her, with the tax documentation that went smoke - in the process of a very carefully organized pogrom thousands of firearms were stolen. Part of it through the efforts of the current Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko was subsequently on the Kiev "Maidan". But the rest of the mass of "trunks" remained in the hands of the rioters and tucked them in!
To consider that Galichina, when the Russian military contingent entered the territory of Ukraine, would have simply “reconciled” to it - at least naively. Bandera traditions with caches, bloody terror against the population and stabs in the back “Muscovites” have not gone away. The all-powerful NKVD Lavrenty Beria, who did not bother with the opinion of "international human rights defenders" and the sanctions of the US State Department, uprooted this infection for decades with fire and sword - it didn’t bring it to the end. The same “ATO”, which, in essence, is a civil war, would simply be conducted not in the East, but in the West of the country.
And, by the way, the comparison with Syria in this context is extremely incorrect. Not even because the legitimate leader of the state in this case remained in Damascus, and did not leave the flaming country. In Syria, Russia entered the fight against the “Islamic State”, officially recognized as the “terrorist threat No. 1” by the whole world. But the West would immediately declare Galich insurgents “freedom fighters” and set about providing them with help and support by all possible means and means. Until the introduction of troops: Hungarian - in Transcarpathia, Polish - in the same Lviv and Volyn regions. And these are NATO countries ... With an uncontrolled escalation of events, a war of at least a European level could well have begun. Was Russia needed it?
Personally, I, the sixth year living in the occupation, which can not see either the end or the edge, would give anything for it to end before it began, in 2014. But it wouldn’t end - which is already there ... Everything would be just different. For some it’s better, for someone worse. However, the collapse of Ukraine was predetermined and it is unlikely that anyone has the moral right to blame Russia and Putin personally for the fact that an attempt to prevent this collapse was not paid for by the blood of Russian people.
So there was no fatal mistake at all? How it was! However, it did not happen in the spring of 2014, but exactly ten years earlier - when the first "Maidan" was allowed in Ukraine, which now seems almost harmless. The secret services of the West and their henchmen in Ukraine were given literally to mow down the country's potential leaders - Yuri Kravchenko, Georgy Kirpa, Yevgeny Kushnarev. There is only one hedgehog with diarrhea left - Yanukovych. After Yushchenko, after the "Orange Revolution" events could still be given a different course - however, the Kremlin did not draw proper conclusions from what had happened. Exactly nothing was done to create and promote a truly pro-Russian political elite in Ukraine, for its coming to power. The stake was placed on the Donetsk team - and they went bankrupt. Those, carried away, to put it mildly, the decision economic issues, not only did not fight the impudent and growing nationalists - they flirted with them and even financed them, hoping to use them as a "scarecrow" in the next elections. Used ?!
From Yanukovych and his team, Moscow's allies were the same as from a hippopotamus - a ballerina. They were even afraid to make Russian the second state language, or simply did not want to - contrary to their own election promises. Instead of hoping for them, Russia needed to beat the “orange” power after 2004 with sanctions, gas and transit prices, lawsuits for the rehabilitation of Nazi criminals and Russophobia as a state policy. A filthy broom had to drive from the Kremlin those who came there from Kiev with translators - and not negotiate with them! In the heads of Ukrainian politicians it was necessary to tightly tighten up - to go against Russia is unprofitable and dangerous. And in parallel - not sparing money to educate tens and hundreds of thousands of those who, in 2013-2014, instead of “liking” photos of the “Golden Eagle” in social networks, would go to the square and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Then no troops would be needed.
It is precisely the fact that all these things have not been realized - that is a fatal mistake. But we are not talking about that now, right? Sorry, dear colleague, if something offended you or hurt you. Those who have to breathe in the local air poisoned by hatred and fear every day have the right to judge what is happening in Ukraine and why. Apparently, we are destined to drink this cup to the bottom. Ukraine has to go all the way to the end, so that after the next Ruins, a beautiful and cheerful Little Russia is reborn - the very one that Oles Buzin and Alexander Zakharchenko, who were killed by the junta, dreamed of.
No offense. No complaints. There is grief for the dead and burning regret that everything happened just like that. And also - a desperate hope to live up to the moment when it will be possible to finally say: “And now, we have taken Ukraine!”
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