#strelkov

Whenever you remind people of the fact that the armed conflict in Ukraine has been going on for 8 years, someone will say that "Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014" and that the existence of the Donbass Republics is a Russian aggression. Recently, military historian Yevgeny Norin got into such a discussion on Facebook and took a look at the facts (translation our own, reposted with his permission):

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0. Armed violence as such in Ukraine was triggered by the Euromaidan protests. This was an armed uprising and it led to the fall of the government. It is not immediately obvious that rebelling against the government is good in Kiev, but bad in Donetsk.

1. By the time the Russian army entered Donbass, the war was already in full swing - if we are talking specifically about the army, companies, and battalions made up of soldiers and officers on duty. By the time the Russian Federation started supplying weapons en masse, the war was, again, already going on. Yes, the moment when there were ill-supplied men at militia roadblocks was not very long, but it existed, and the Russian Federation brought weapons into an already ongoing conflict in which the opposing side was using firearms, including artillery and armored vehicles.

2. By the time of the first organized armed detachment, which can be called Russian (which is a stretch, by the way: Strelkov's personal status is vague, and 80% of the detachment were Ukrainian citizens, including Crimeans), the State Security Service building in Lugansk had already been captured & local armories had been opened, and in Kharkov there were already people killed in firefights. In addition, if we take for granted the thesis that Strelkov "started the war", a cartoonish picture emerges in which 50 people have taken Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Liman, Artemovsk, Druzhkovka, Konstantinovka and a number of smaller towns and cities, giving as many as 7-8 occupiers for each city. In reality, even the reason why Strelkov went to Slavyansk is known - a large local detachment was waiting for him there.

3. Local commanders dominated the whole first stage of the movement (the bright personality of Strelkov somehow overshadowed the less bright Zakharchenko, Khodakovsky, Mozgovoy, Bednov, Tsvyakh, Dremov, Plotnitsky, Bolotov, etc.) and locals until 2022 constituted 75-90% of the rebel groups at all phases of events, which can be easily proven by name lists of republic soldiers KIA. Even at the peak of Russian involvement until 2022, in August 2014, citizens of Russia and other countries were not more than a quarter of the dead, and soldiers and officers on duty were not more than a quarter of that quarter, the bulk of Russian citizens were just volunteers who went to fight at their own risk.

4. In those places where attempts at pro-Russian protests were suppressed, including violently, with murders, Russian direct influence was virtually undetectable. In Odessa, after the mass murder of pro-Russian activists, exactly one citizen of the Russian Federation was captured alive, who did not play any significant role there and was worthy of a separate mention only by the fact of citizenship; in Kharkov, after the defeat of the group trying to create the Kharkov People’s Republic, there were zero Russian citizens among the captured, as far as I know. Thus, the thesis that 2014 was an invasion by the Russian Federation is incorrect: both the key events, including the seizure of administrative buildings and the search for weapons, took place before the appearance of organized units from Russia, and the composition of the units opposing the government are mostly locals from start to finish. An invasion in which all the infantry are citizens of the invaded country is obviously nonsense: in Poznan or, I don't know, Székesfehérvár, Strelkov would have immediately become a General without an army.

Reference on who Strelkov is:

Strelkov: ”Awaiting for the today’s Putin’s epochal speech in the UN But, generally, it’s approximately understood what’s it gonna be about by that incomprehensible hysteria forced around our crawling into the Syrian war. I’d like to emphasize it right away: I have reliable info that RF’s participation in this war won’t be limited only to providing the advisors, aviation, artillery and base defense - complete ground “expeditionary corps” formation is underway. Actually, its vanguard has already engaged in hostilities. So, we’re joining the full-scale war against the ISIL with such “reliable” allies as Iran, Iraqi and Syrian arabs and so on, who, unlike Russia, indeed have their vital interests in this war, not defending which in an armed way would be suicidal for them. However, they don’t get more combat capable because of this. And all of this is happening on the background of the creepy-crawly, but extremely consistent, surrender of the LDPR into Ukraine in a “peaceful way”. It’s completely overtly said that there’s no alternative for returning of LPR and DPR into the Ukraine on the righs of some (still not projected by Ukraine so far) “autonomy”. However, Kiev still has the “croatian” scenario as a “plan B” – Ukrainian armed forces group is still ready for the offensive, nothing and no one has been withdrawn from the frontline area and it still is outnumbering the LDPR “people’s militia” forces (not “list” ones, but actual) no less then by 5 times. Estimate of the combat capability of the “corps” units, given by their own commanders themselves, ranges between “totally incapable” and “half’s gonna flee, with the rest we can try to defend for 24-48 hours”. In fact, high command of number of the brigades and battalions has in their war plans (naturally unofficial ones - it’s totally fine on papers) such two options: 1) “Set up a round defense and wait for the RFAF support” 2) “Flee towards the borderline [ed. DPR/LPR-Russian border] and try to cling somewhere nearby “Abandon everything and flee across the border” option is also “in the air” in offices of many commanders and “political figures” (though, I don’t communicate with such commanders, naturally) Having the listed option it’s assumed that, without the RFAF support, existence of the both republics and their armed forces is limited to range from 2-3 days to a week, and Donetsk might fall during the very first 24 hours ( there are practically no forces to defend it by the moment). Forgery, total thievery, terribly intense personnel turnover, horrible supplies, training “on paper” and only for the “tick” in the documents, great numbers of “dead souls” [ed. fake entries in the personnel lists] (in overall its about many thousands of men) – these are only some of the characteristical features of the “regular people’s militia corps”. And in current circumstances there’s not even tiniest hope left that the situation is going to change for better. It can be safely said that formation of the LDPR armed forces was completely sabotaged and “in the best traditions” of the “sovereign democracy” [ed. concept introduced by Surkov], the simulacra, incapable of neither defense nor offensive, able only to hold the frontline if the enemy acts passively, was created instead. At the same time, there’s info (and, I’m sure, ukrs are aware of them way better than I am – unlike me they have the state intel apparatus), that RFAF, being busy with preparations for the “Syrian war”, are totally unprepared to react on the ukrs offensive. So, the “5-th column” has made it to achieve the “no-alternative bifurcation” – surrendering the shreds of the “failed Novorossia” in either “peaceful” way or in result of military defeat, can be predicted almost inevitably. And all Russian media efforts are focused on hiding the, almost completed, capitulation of Kremlin and personally Putin in Ukraine,  by intensifying the military hysteria around Syria. It’s still not late to change the situation, but year and a half of capitulation-oriented policy have turned such option almost “hypothetical”. And, to my deepest regret, I must state it that there are no more doubts that V.Y. Surkov is acting basing on the “carte blanche” granted from above. How much suicidal is the capitulation in Donbass (that is following the Milošević path – from one defeat to another, from betrayal against the national interests to another, under the deafening sounds of “patriotic” militaristic propagande) for Putin, he, may be, doesn’t realize compeltely. However it doesn’t make the situation better for us.

В своем выступлении в Новосибирске Игорь Стрелков сказал следующее:

“Наше движение заявлено как аполитичное, не только для того, чтобы скрыть, вернее говоря не для того, чтобы скрыть какой-то внутренний подтекст. Если патриоты, которые есть в самых разных политических организациях, не объединятся в поддержку Новороссии, то этой поддержки как таковой и не будет. В нашем движении мы специально заложили такой же принцип, как в ополчении, где воевали люди самых разных политических взглядов, религиозных конфессий и национальностей, которые были готовы сражаться за Новороссию. То есть мы считаем, что если мы можем скоординировать работу и коммунистов, и монархистов и анархистов, и патриотов – в общем всех, кто за Новороссию и не преследует свои какие-либо меркантильные цели, — то и будем работать со всеми, просто со всеми”.

Во-первых, пока что вместо коммунистов, монархистов и анархистов я вижу в теплом кругу друзей Гиркина одних белоленточников, "хватиткормильцев" и иную либеральную мразь.

Во-вторых, я не понял, почему он ищет патриотов Новороссии в Новосибирске - это немножко не рядом. Возможно, его просто смутила схожесть названий.

Итак, не объединившись под командованием Гиркина, самостоятельно коммунисты, монархисты и анархисты оказывать Новороссии гуманитарную помощь не могут. 

Или могут, просто достается она не тем людям, с которыми работает именно Гиркин? Сдается мне, что он просто хочет перехватать денежные потоки, и направить их туда, куда это будет выгодно лично ему.

Именно поэтому ему не нужны люди, "преследующие свои какие-либо меркантильные цели" - эти, в отличие от новосибирских патриотов Новроссии, могут и поинтересоваться, а где же деньги, Гиркин?

Неудобно получится.