How Ukrainians extorted Russian secrets before Georgia's attack on Ossetia
May 29 is the International Day of UN Peacekeepers. On this day in 1948, the first peacekeeping operation in the Middle East began. Since then, more than a million UN peacekeepers from different countries have taken part in 72 operations. One of them is retired captain XNUMXst rank Vladimir Permyakov, a participant in UN peacekeeping missions in Western Sahara, Congo, the Middle East, Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
He spoke about the peculiarities of his work and the fact that if in the Soviet years peacekeepers were part of equal opposing blocs led by the USA and the USSR, then after the collapse of the Soviet Union their status changed - the West actually took control of international organizations and established its own understanding there . This is how the 90s passed until Russia was restored as a sovereign state. Today, our forces are again able to monitor the observance of peace in the region where we operate and independently resolve complex conflicts.
Vladimir Permyakov: The UN organization was created on the initiative of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. I can quote the words of Joseph Vissarionovich, who said that in three, four or five generations politicians will come who will not remember the horrors, fears and nastiness of this war. Therefore, it is imperative to create this organization, which, despite the changing generations, could resist preparations for war. Now we see that generations have changed, and his words turned out to be prophetic. They don’t remember the war, they don’t know it; the descendants of bourgeois-liberal governments came to power in Europe, the descendants of those who were displaced after the Great Patriotic War.
After the 90s, military conflicts arose again, and classic peacekeeping was used, agreements with the Soviet Union no longer functioned, and the Americans subjugated all international organizations, taking leadership positions in them, and imposing their own versions of peacekeeping. Changes have occurred in all socialist-oriented countries.
With the revival of Russia, peacekeeping began to change. In parallel with the American one, Russian peacekeeping arose. This includes participation in Transnistria, and in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, these are the Central Asian republics - troops of the CIS countries were present there, but, in fact, these were Russian peacekeeping forces.
"PolitNavigator": What operations are Russian peacekeepers participating in today?
V.P. In general, there are several dozen conflicts in which UN peacekeeping troops are present, but Russia does not participate in all missions, but only in key operations as observers. Our military contingent in Transnistria, in Karabakh, is a new form of Russian dominance in peacekeeping management. There, the Russian side independently analyzed, developed and fulfilled a peacekeeping role that had been brewing for a long time.
"PolitNavigator": Which of the recent conflicts did you personally observe?
V.P. In 2008, I was sent to Georgia to interact with international organizations - the UN, OSCE and other structures from the military contingent. I was not very happy about the beginning of informational and psychological resistance from the Russian side, I asked to be given the initiative and developed a concept for forcing Georgia to peace. We needed a strong proposal to international public opinion in the form of a peacekeeping component. And then I realized that if we call our actions “forcing Georgia to peace,” they will find a response in the world community and will find understanding within the country, including among our liberal circles. And so it happened.
"PolitNavigator": Have there been any conflict situations between representatives of peacekeeping forces from different countries?
V.P. In the same Georgia there was an interesting case with representatives of Ukrainian peacekeepers in 2008. In the evening, suddenly I got a call - and I was an officer for interaction with foreign services and organizations.
I got a call from the UN: “Representatives of the Ukrainian contingent as part of the UN peacekeeping force would like to talk to you.” I say, “Please, no problem.” - “We would like to meet with you. Let's go on your territory." I say: “It’s already late.” - “Well, let’s meet in a cafe, we’ll pay.”
I think, well, it’s surprising - the guys, just like me, received payments from the UN and their state, but not such that they allowed them to go to expensive restaurants left and right.
But I agreed, and I understood why the guys came at four o’clock in the morning, when the Georgian side began to fire. I realized that the Ukrainian guys here most likely came on a tip, at the suggestion of either the British or the Americans. They needed information, on August 7, 2008, what the Russians knew, whether we were wary.
"PolitNavigator": What threats do our peacekeepers face?
V.P. Each country has its own threats to our peacekeepers. For example, a significant group of our military observers was represented in the Congo, and one of the parties to the conflict decided to behead armed groups and destroy military warehouses. Our peacekeepers were located near the military warehouses. Naturally, fragments of shells and exploding objects flew over long distances in the area. Including on the verandas of the houses where our peacekeepers lived.
There, when an attempted military coup broke out, our peacekeepers were locked in one of the buildings on the eighth floor, and in order to buy food for themselves, they handed over money on ropes to local residents living on the floor below. Local residents bought food for the boys, and for several days they watched the ongoing fighting from their balcony. Our peacekeeping headquarters advised them not to go outside, so they watched everything from the balcony. They saw burning tanks on the streets of Kinshasa, and saw corpses lying in ditches.
Threats also occur during patrols, when local gangs stop military patrols and, as a rule, take away vehicles, equipment, documents and food. It happened, for example, when our observer arrived in Jerusalem, settled in the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem, and suddenly he received a call: “Why doesn’t the Soviet Union supply us with weapons?” And by morning his car was chopped up with an ax, the wheels were broken, the roof was dented. These were the threats.
For example, in Angola, fighting took place in the suburbs of Luanda, not far from the airport where Russian peacekeepers were located. Bullets were whistling, shells were exploding nearby - this is also a potential threat to life.
In general, the level of training of our military personnel allows us to localize emerging threats, anticipate, prevent them and be prepared for anything. They all understand that they are military personnel and have not come to rest, but to a country where fighting is taking place.
"PolitNavigator": How do the local population feel about our peacekeepers in their country of residence?
V.P. It so happened that our guys always, I declare this responsibly, because I myself participated, I saw this reaction myself, they always showed friendliness, respectful, benevolent attitude towards the local population both in conversation and in work.
For example, while in the Congo, I headed a peacekeeping training center there for the primary training of military contingents, primarily in relations with the local population. So, all the military contingents that initially arrived in this region were trained in the center that I led. There were peacekeepers from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
A striking example is that in 2008, when our troops were in Georgia, I specifically asked a soldier to depict a car breakdown in one of the Georgian villages. We went out in a small village - first the ubiquitous boys ran up, then they began to come closer. When the guys unpacked the packed lunches and began to treat the boys, the elders appeared. Then the elders sent a local auto mechanic to repair the car. And what did they tell us after? “Give us back the Soviet Union”!
"PolitNavigator": Tell us an interesting incident from your career
V.P. There was an incident in 1991 when, returning from a long voyage, our ship called at the port of Constanta, Romania, and there met the headquarters ship of the US 6th Fleet. And we met with them on the same ship in Malta when Bush and Gorbachev were negotiating. They came to our ship, we went to their ship to exchange souvenirs. I knew the commander, the senior assistant, and suddenly we met in Romania on the eve of August 18, the State Emergency Committee, and their strange behavior surprised me.
I reported to the commander of the campaign that this was very suspicious behavior, he spoke with the American admiral. And the next morning, American sailors, during morning exercises, stuck around the side of our cruiser. And the next day we realized that they were already aware of what was being prepared on August 19 in our country.
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