Mikael Forsberg
2015-03-16 01:38:18 UTC
Putin in film on Crimea: US masterminds behind Ukraine coup, helped
train radicals
http://rt.com/news/240921-us-masterminds-ukraine-putin/
The Ukrainian armed coup was organized from Washington, Russian
President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview for a new documentary
aired Sunday. The Americans tried to hide behind the Europeans, but
Moscow saw through the trick, he added.
“The trick of the situation was that outwardly the [Ukrainian]
opposition was supported mostly by the Europeans. But we knew for sure
that the real masterminds were our American friends,”Putin said in a
documentary, 'Crimea - The Way Home,' aired by Rossiya 1 news channel.
“They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western
Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania,” he added. “They
facilitated the armed coup.”
The West spared no effort to prevent Crimea’s reunification with Russia,
“by any means, in any format and under any scheme," he noted.
Putin said this approach was far from being the best dealing with any
country, and a post-Soviet country like Ukraine specifically. Such
countries have a short record of living under a new political system and
remain fragile. Violating constitutional order in such a country
inevitably deal a lot of damage to its statehood, the president said.
The law was thrown away and crashed. And the consequences were grave
indeed. Part of the country agreed to it, while another part wouldn’t
accept it. The country was shattered,” Putin explained.
He also accused the beneficiaries of the coup of planning an
assassination of then-President Viktor Yanukovich. Russia was prepared
to act to ensure his escape, Putin said.
“I invited the heads of our special services, the Defense Ministry and
ordered them to protect the life of the Ukrainian president. Otherwise
he would have been killed,” he said, adding that at one point Russian
signal intelligence, which was tracking the president’s motorcade route,
realized that he was about to be ambushed.
Yanukovich himself didn’t want to leave and rejected the offer to be
evacuated from Donetsk, Putin said. Only after spending several days in
Crimea and realizing that “there was no one he could negotiate with in
Kiev” he asked to be taken to Russia.
The Russian president personally ordered preparation of the Crimean
special operation the morning after Yanukovich fled, saying that “we
cannot let the [Crimean] people be pushed under the steamroller of the
nationalists.”
“I [gave them] their tasks, told them what to do and how we must do it,
and stressed that we would only do it if we were absolutely sure that
this is what the people living in Crimea want us to do,” Putin said. He
added that an emergency public opinion poll indicated that at least 75
percent of the people wanted to join Russia.
“Our goal was not to take Crimea by annexing it. Our final goal was to
allow the people express their wishes on how they want to live,” he said.
“I decided for myself: what the people want will happen. If they want
greater autonomy with some extra rights within Ukraine, so be it. If
they decide otherwise, we cannot fail them. You know the results of the
referendum. We did what we had to do,” Putin said.
READ MORE: 95.7% of Crimeans in referendum voted to join Russia -
preliminary results
He added that his personal involvement helped expedite things, because
the people carrying out his decision had no reason to hesitate.
According to Putin, part of the operation was to deploy K-300P Bastion
coastal defense missiles to demonstrate Russia’s willingness to protect
the peninsula from military attack.
“We deployed them in a way that made them seen clearly from space,”
Putin said.
The president assured that the Russian military were prepared for any
developments and would have armed nuclear weapons if necessary. He
personally was not sure that Western nations would not use military
force against Russia, he added.
In order to demilitarize the Ukrainian troops based in Crimea, Russia
sent the army's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) forces, the
president said.
“A specific set of personnel was needed to block and demilitarize 20,000
people, who were well-armed. Not only in quantity, but in quality,”
Putin said, adding that he gave orders to the Defense Ministry to
“deploy the special forces of the GRU, together with marine forces and
paratroopers.”
However, according to Putin, the number of Russian forces did not exceed
the limit of 20,000 authorized under the agreement on basing the Russian
Black Sea Fleet at its military base in Crimea.
“As we didn’t exceed the number of personnel on our base in Crimea,
strictly speaking, nothing was violated,” he said.
The Russian president added that the move to send additional Russian
troops to secure Crimea and allow a referendum to be freely held there
prevented major bloodshed on the peninsula.
“Considering the ethnic composition of the Crimean population, the
violence there would have been worse [than in Kiev]. We had to act to
prevent negative development, not to allow tragedies like the one that
happened in Odessa, where dozens of people were burned alive,” Putin said.
READ MORE: As part of Russian territory Crimea can host nuclear weapons
– Foreign Ministry
He acknowledged that there were some Crimean people, particularly
members of the Crimean Tatar minority, who opposed the Russian operation.
“Some of the Crimean Tatars were under the influence of their leaders,
some of whom are so to speak ‘professional’ fighters for the rights of
the Tatars,” he explained.
But at the same time the “Crimean militia worked together with the
Tatars. And there were Tatars among the militia members,” he stressed.
The Crimean people voted in a referendum to join Russia after rejecting
a coup-imposed government that took power in Kiev in February 2014. The
move sparked a major international controversy, as the new government’s
foreign backers accused Russia of annexing the peninsula through
military force.
Moscow insists that the move was a legitimate act of self-determination
and that the Russian troops acted only to provide security and not as an
occupying force. Russian officials cite the example of Kiev’s military
crackdown on the dissenting eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which
claimed more than 6,000 lives since April 2014, as an example of
bloodshed that Russia acted to prevent in Crimea.
http://rt.com/news/240921-us-masterminds-ukraine-putin/
train radicals
http://rt.com/news/240921-us-masterminds-ukraine-putin/
The Ukrainian armed coup was organized from Washington, Russian
President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview for a new documentary
aired Sunday. The Americans tried to hide behind the Europeans, but
Moscow saw through the trick, he added.
“The trick of the situation was that outwardly the [Ukrainian]
opposition was supported mostly by the Europeans. But we knew for sure
that the real masterminds were our American friends,”Putin said in a
documentary, 'Crimea - The Way Home,' aired by Rossiya 1 news channel.
“They helped training the nationalists, their armed groups, in Western
Ukraine, in Poland and to some extent in Lithuania,” he added. “They
facilitated the armed coup.”
The West spared no effort to prevent Crimea’s reunification with Russia,
“by any means, in any format and under any scheme," he noted.
Putin said this approach was far from being the best dealing with any
country, and a post-Soviet country like Ukraine specifically. Such
countries have a short record of living under a new political system and
remain fragile. Violating constitutional order in such a country
inevitably deal a lot of damage to its statehood, the president said.
The law was thrown away and crashed. And the consequences were grave
indeed. Part of the country agreed to it, while another part wouldn’t
accept it. The country was shattered,” Putin explained.
He also accused the beneficiaries of the coup of planning an
assassination of then-President Viktor Yanukovich. Russia was prepared
to act to ensure his escape, Putin said.
“I invited the heads of our special services, the Defense Ministry and
ordered them to protect the life of the Ukrainian president. Otherwise
he would have been killed,” he said, adding that at one point Russian
signal intelligence, which was tracking the president’s motorcade route,
realized that he was about to be ambushed.
Yanukovich himself didn’t want to leave and rejected the offer to be
evacuated from Donetsk, Putin said. Only after spending several days in
Crimea and realizing that “there was no one he could negotiate with in
Kiev” he asked to be taken to Russia.
The Russian president personally ordered preparation of the Crimean
special operation the morning after Yanukovich fled, saying that “we
cannot let the [Crimean] people be pushed under the steamroller of the
nationalists.”
“I [gave them] their tasks, told them what to do and how we must do it,
and stressed that we would only do it if we were absolutely sure that
this is what the people living in Crimea want us to do,” Putin said. He
added that an emergency public opinion poll indicated that at least 75
percent of the people wanted to join Russia.
“Our goal was not to take Crimea by annexing it. Our final goal was to
allow the people express their wishes on how they want to live,” he said.
“I decided for myself: what the people want will happen. If they want
greater autonomy with some extra rights within Ukraine, so be it. If
they decide otherwise, we cannot fail them. You know the results of the
referendum. We did what we had to do,” Putin said.
READ MORE: 95.7% of Crimeans in referendum voted to join Russia -
preliminary results
He added that his personal involvement helped expedite things, because
the people carrying out his decision had no reason to hesitate.
According to Putin, part of the operation was to deploy K-300P Bastion
coastal defense missiles to demonstrate Russia’s willingness to protect
the peninsula from military attack.
“We deployed them in a way that made them seen clearly from space,”
Putin said.
The president assured that the Russian military were prepared for any
developments and would have armed nuclear weapons if necessary. He
personally was not sure that Western nations would not use military
force against Russia, he added.
In order to demilitarize the Ukrainian troops based in Crimea, Russia
sent the army's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) forces, the
president said.
“A specific set of personnel was needed to block and demilitarize 20,000
people, who were well-armed. Not only in quantity, but in quality,”
Putin said, adding that he gave orders to the Defense Ministry to
“deploy the special forces of the GRU, together with marine forces and
paratroopers.”
However, according to Putin, the number of Russian forces did not exceed
the limit of 20,000 authorized under the agreement on basing the Russian
Black Sea Fleet at its military base in Crimea.
“As we didn’t exceed the number of personnel on our base in Crimea,
strictly speaking, nothing was violated,” he said.
The Russian president added that the move to send additional Russian
troops to secure Crimea and allow a referendum to be freely held there
prevented major bloodshed on the peninsula.
“Considering the ethnic composition of the Crimean population, the
violence there would have been worse [than in Kiev]. We had to act to
prevent negative development, not to allow tragedies like the one that
happened in Odessa, where dozens of people were burned alive,” Putin said.
READ MORE: As part of Russian territory Crimea can host nuclear weapons
– Foreign Ministry
He acknowledged that there were some Crimean people, particularly
members of the Crimean Tatar minority, who opposed the Russian operation.
“Some of the Crimean Tatars were under the influence of their leaders,
some of whom are so to speak ‘professional’ fighters for the rights of
the Tatars,” he explained.
But at the same time the “Crimean militia worked together with the
Tatars. And there were Tatars among the militia members,” he stressed.
The Crimean people voted in a referendum to join Russia after rejecting
a coup-imposed government that took power in Kiev in February 2014. The
move sparked a major international controversy, as the new government’s
foreign backers accused Russia of annexing the peninsula through
military force.
Moscow insists that the move was a legitimate act of self-determination
and that the Russian troops acted only to provide security and not as an
occupying force. Russian officials cite the example of Kiev’s military
crackdown on the dissenting eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which
claimed more than 6,000 lives since April 2014, as an example of
bloodshed that Russia acted to prevent in Crimea.
http://rt.com/news/240921-us-masterminds-ukraine-putin/