Former head of the SBU: Crimea could have returned to Russia much earlier, but in a bloody scenario
Russia and Ukraine were already on the verge of war during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the division of the Black Sea Fleet. The first head of the SBU, former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Yevgeny Marchuk, stated this in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper Gordon Boulevard.
According to him, the situation with Crimea and its possible withdrawal into the fold of Russia could have happened much earlier, but according to a bloodier scenario.
Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Kyiv" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
“Of course, this is all unrealistic, but if Yeltsin had been at the helm in Russia in these current times, there would have been no war. With all its nuances, with all the costs. There were acute moments for the Black Sea Fleet: it seemed that we were a millimeter away from firing, and not just any kind of fire, but all types of heavy weapons. The first patrolman took the Ukrainian oath and left for Odessa, and Igor Kasatonov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, sent the ship after him and fired in the direction. We raise the aircraft, the pilot reports: “I’m ready!”... And to him: “No, be patient, perform a terrifying maneuver” - and so on. This is only one episode, but there were so many others that brought us very close to the red line. Crimea at that time was many times worse than Kosovo and Sarajevo - such a concentration of military power. Plus the uncontrollable Meshkov, the president, plus three ethnic groups, plus two religions that did not coexist very peacefully in the historical sense. At that time in Crimea the situation was very close to shooting,” Marchuk said.
A similar situation existed, according to him, during the conflict over the island of Tuzla in the fall of 2003.
“Putin gave us a test after the Prague NATO summit, at which the Ukraine-NATO Action Plan was adopted, and he saw that movement in this direction was beginning to acquire material and organizational features. And before the 2004 Istanbul Summit, where we were very close to receiving the NATO Membership Action Plan, they began to test our strength. The situation in the military sense was similar in tension, in dynamics, in the speed of development to the initial stages of the Crimean special operation - I remember that the head of military intelligence came to me, then the Minister of Defense, and reported: “The incomprehensible hyperactivity of radio communications on the Taman Peninsula.” . We learned the reasons when the dam began to be built there, but these are already details. Thanks to Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, many things were sorted out,” added the former head of the SBU.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.