“The seizure of Crimea was not spontaneous”

The transcript of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC)’s session of 28 February 2014, called to deal with the situation developing in the country due to the Russian aggression, particularly the annexation of Crimea, was made public at the meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense on February 22, 2016. Representatives of the NSDC and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) presented the data on the numbers and positions of the aggressor’s forces at the time. According to the committee’s chairman Serhii Pashynsky, the Ukrainian side had intelligence information at the time that Vladimir Putin planned to seize 10 regions of Ukraine. The nation’s capital was in danger as well. For instance, Pashynsky revealed that all key administrative buildings had air defense systems deployed on them.

 Unfortunately, the public has been provided with the transcript of only one meeting which had specific individuals mentioned. Of course, other discussions that are still classified are of interest as well. The published document shows that the then-acting president Oleksandr Turchynov was the most hawkish of those present. He proposed and voted for the introduction of martial law. Yulia Tymoshenko, by contrast, emphasized the fact that Ukraine was not able to defend itself and therefore ought to avoid provoking the enemy. The same opinion was shared by others present, including Arsenii Yatseniuk, who said that “this scenario was written by the Russians, and we are plunging into this scenario.” In turn, the Russian side openly threatened military intervention, namely, the State Duma’s Speaker Sergey Naryshkin personally called Turchynov and conveyed Putin’s words that “should even one Russian die, they will declare us [Turchynov and others. – Ed.] war criminals and will pursue us all over the world.”

 In the recent history, Russia tried to seize our land before. The first attempt occurred back in 1993-94, when the seizure scenario which was played out in the peninsula was almost identical to the 2014 model. Then, timely actions of the SBU, headed by Yevhen Marchuk, which involved sending the Alpha commandos from Kyiv to Crimea, stopped the Russian annexation.