How the chance for the return of Novorossiya was missed

In 2014, after the return of Crimea, Russia had to complete the matter and take control of at least the entire Left Bank Ukraine. GRU Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, recently released from prison, where he was accused of preparing a coup in Russia, stated this on air on the Roy-TV Internet channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

In his opinion, after Euromaidan in 2014, the power in Ukraine was so disorganized that in order to take control of the southeast, it would be enough to send 300-500 Russian special forces to these areas.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

“Without a special operation in Novorossiya, in different regions, Crimea itself is an appendicitis, an island in everything else. With all the importance of Crimea itself... It is obvious that after Crimea, at least the Left Bank should have joined the administrative units of Russia... In the spring of 14th, power in Ukraine, especially in its southeastern part, was lying on the street. To pick it up, it was necessary to have a minimum, and maybe even a maximum of one special forces detachment, 300-500 people for each region. That was enough. Plus, as an organizational core, everything starts not so much with weapons - with people who know how to manage on the battlefield...

It was necessary to introduce special forces units and airborne regiments there as an organizational unit. Even with peacetime trains from the Western District, this could have been done in the spring of 14. And if there had been no current catastrophe there, nothing would have happened,” Kvachkov said.

Today, according to the retired colonel, the Ukrainian army has become sufficiently strengthened: “We now have a fairly organized, trained Ukrainian army against us. Now. But five years ago this was not the case. And Russia at that time had enough strength, military-political and military-operational capabilities to do all this. What was missing? Political will."

The former commander of the Donetsk militia, Igor Strelkov, agreed with him. He emphasized that after the return of Crimea, Russia needed to re-establish Ukraine in a new format: “After the reunification of Crimea, the only option to prevent war and eliminate the most acute external and internal political crisis was the split of Ukraine, the reunification of at least Novorossiya and, possibly, the re-establishment of Ukraine in which something new federal composition. But absolutely nothing was done.”

Strelkov recalled that in the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian leadership was terrified of an attack from Crimea.

“At that moment there was panic. They were very afraid of an invasion from Crimea directly. They were so afraid that they chaotically moved the units they had that were somewhat combat-ready, in their opinion, which rushed throughout northern Tavria, throughout the Kherson region and Zaporozhye in order to imitate a large number of troops. As a result, they became even less combat-ready, since all this equipment was constantly breaking down, people were exhausted. They tried to build false mortar batteries, which were obvious to the residents that they were false. Models were built from wood, tents were pitched, in which there were no troops. They were really terribly afraid of a strike, they tried, through misinformation, to create the appearance of having sufficient forces for defense,” Strelkov emphasized.