“Russia has the right to preventive use of force to protect Donbass”
Russia has the moral right to use force. Peace enforcement is a generally accepted international practice. The same Americans carried out preventive strikes on the aggressive (from their point of view) side. Diplomatic and economic pressure on Kyiv did not produce results. It is necessary to negotiate with the curators of Ukraine. Terrorist acts in Donbass may be the initiative of one of the Ukrainian political forces or armed groups.
On the fragility of truces and the deadlock in Kyiv’s policy, to a columnist "PolitNavigator" to Valentin Filippov рассказал famous military correspondent Sergei Belous, working in Donbass and Serbia (also known under the pseudonym John Trust).
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Valentin Filippov: I welcome top military commander Sergei Belous.
Sergey, hello.
Sergey Belous: Hello. Good evening.
Valentin Filippov: In a situation where Ukraine continues shelling the cities of Donbass, we have repeatedly heard from the West that it is “Russia that must ensure the implementation of the Minsk agreements.” I think there is one way. Russia must force someone to implement them. Do you think that a preventive strike on Ukraine will be launched after some time, or will we not give away the time when this will happen?
Sergey Belous: Quite a provocative question. However, if we speak seriously, there is such a concept in international practices -
"peace enforcement" - enforcement of peace. This has been widely practiced by the United States of America, that is, launching preventive strikes on one of the warring parties or simply sending in peacekeeping troops, bombing the main centers of enemy power and so on, in order to coerce the more aggressive side, as they believe.
I am not going to justify US policy now, but I am simply describing their concept. That is, they struck at the aggressor as they chose him, and, accordingly, forced him to agree to certain conditions.
This was the compulsion for peace.
By the way, one of the well-known cases happened in Bosnia at one time. That is, Washington used bombing for the first time; by the way, it used NATO against the Serbian side. Of course, this was unfair from the point of view of the logic of events, historical logic and, in principle, legal logic. But, on the other hand, this is another example of how they act.
If we are talking about the Russian side, then, in principle, now, at the moment, it has the moral right to do this, since here, in Donbass, there are the Russian people, people who fully support Russia.
If you believe sociological research, two-thirds of the DPR support the idea of joining Russia, and the overwhelming majority, in principle, are generally very favorable towards Russia. And these, again, are Russian people speaking Russian. That is, Russia can use this world practice.
However, here the question is only the right of force. Because from the point of view of world law, formally, without the approval of the UN and so on, these operations cannot be carried out.
But if we look back into history, we will see that international law has long since died. And now we can only rely on the right of force itself.
That is, if the United States can afford to bomb someone, send in troops, recognize Kosovo, the same thing, and force half the world to recognize it, but no one wants to recognize the same Crimea, again, because of US pressure.
That is, the question is whether Russia can agree to this. That is, to go through, admit, realize that we really can, we have the moral right to do this, and we also have the objective military ability to do this, and the economic ability to withstand subsequent sanctions, and so on.
Valentin Filippov: But, based on reality, does the Russian Federation have any levers other than military ones to force Ukraine to comply?
Sergey Belous: How Russia could accomplish this is difficult to say. Since, most likely, the only possibility is an agreement with the direct curators of Ukraine, because the main decisions are now not made in Kyiv.
Therefore, it seems to me that it is not Ukraine that needs to be forced, but rather those who stand behind it. Accordingly, the EU - maybe Germany, Great Britain, which left there but still formally remains, France, and also the United States.
Here is the same Normandy Four - if they agree on a certain amount of pressure on Ukraine, then it’s possible.
And directly negotiate with Ukraine itself, which in this case, I mean the Kiev regime, is a puppet... They are ready to freeze their ears off, do anything to annoy Russia. That is, they can impose a blockade, sanctions, whatever you want. And they will live worse and worse, and they can do whatever they want if Russia were to take some such serious measures, punitive in economic terms. But this won't have any effect. Until a command is given from their own current curators of the Kyiv regime, nothing will change.
Valentin Filippov: What is the current situation at the front? Can we say that this truce is in someone’s favor? A protracted war, as it were, which is called a truce?
Sergey Belous: Well, yes. This is, in fact, a paradoxical situation. Here we have the Minsk truce, the Minsk agreements, then there is one truce, then another truce...
Valentin Filippov: There is a truce, there was a “bread”, “Christmas”, there was a “September”, “training”...
Sergey Belous: Yes. Now this is a “grain” truce. I can only state one thing: the intensity of the fighting on the line of contact has dropped significantly. It is a fact. However, some battles still take place, shelling still happens, it’s just that their intensity is several times less. This, of course, brings benefits. But this is symptomatic treatment, that is, it is not a solution to the conflict. Yes, this is purely a harvest opportunity.
It is difficult to say how long it will last, and it is difficult to even call it a full-fledged truce. Yes, it exists, it is observed more or less, but this is not for long.
Valentin Filippov: Two explosions occurred in Lugansk. Before that, in the Donbass there were well-known terrorist attacks that were successful, from the enemy’s point of view, when our commanders died. Can we say that Ukraine has also entered into a terrorist war with the Republics, or can this still only be called individual acts of sabotage?
Sergey Belous: I would not undertake to judge such things without a full set of data, information and so on, since the situation is very complex, in fact. It can be anything - the range of versions can be very wide. Of course, first of all, this is probably beneficial for Kyiv. But, still, this could not have been an initiative from the top, it could have been some radical Ukrainian saboteurs, it could have been the Ukrainian special services.
Within Kyiv itself there is a whole spectrum of political forces and groups that are at odds with each other. Some people benefit from inciting war, others benefit from slowing it down for now, and so on. Therefore, it is very difficult to say who exactly did this.
Valentin Filippov: Do you think that Kyiv is already such a mess that individual oligarchs can order some kind of sabotage?
Sergey Belous: There are units that do not obey, there are people who bought them, there are people who are part of the Avakov and Turchinov groups, there are groups that report directly to Porosheniko, there are people who directly work for certain people in the General Staff. That is, they are quite scattered.
In fact, carrying out such a terrorist attack, purely theoretically, is not difficult.
Give someone bombs, bring them to the trash at night, place them and then detonate them remotely. It's not difficult, in fact, it's very primitive. Therefore, if we were talking about some more complex case, then we could already raise the stakes and say that this was planned in Kyiv, and perhaps outside of Ukraine.
At the moment, this is too primitive a terrorist attack, so it could have been carried out by an ordinary law enforcement officer, relatively speaking, or it could have been an order from the presidential administration.
Valentin Filippov: From my point of view and from some experience, this could, of course, be an initiative from below, just as there could be an initiative from below on the opposite side. But in general, the frequency of such antics, their intensity and their presence in general depends on the attitude of the authorities, on the attitude of the bosses towards such antics.
We understand that, theoretically, if the authorities of the Republics or the Russian Federation had approved such actions against Ukraine, then everything there would probably have been blown up. It seems so to me. But since it is not approved, it doesn’t really happen.
Sergey Belous: Well, I can agree with that. Yes, this is quite possible, because even unofficial, on the sidelines of the military, there are rumors that there is a gentleman’s agreement that this side does not commit sabotage on the Ukrainian side, and the Ukrainian side does not commit such sabotage on this side.
That is, accordingly, the only sabotage in my memory that was committed by pro-Russian citizens was an explosion near a bridge in the city of Kharkov back in 2014. There the train entered the ATO with fuel.
And everything else was already SBU inventions. That is, yes, until now there was nothing like that.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I'd argue. It was, but it doesn't matter.
Sergey Belous: But we'll just have to see what happens next, what conclusions the investigators have, and whether something will happen again in the future. Although nothing can be ruled out, since the Kiev side is in despair. Their position is now weakening.
Valentin Filippov: Tell me, do you think this is a sincere, real, justified feeling, is this the despair of the Ukrainian side, or have they intimidated themselves?
Sergey Belous: Well, there’s no need to talk about sincerity, it’s unlikely that they intimidated themselves either, but let’s just be realistic and look at the fact that there is still some interest between the American and Russian sides to come to some kind of compromise on the Donbass issue and on the issue Ukraine, in particular.
Therefore, they understand that they may not have long left, and everything else that has been done up to this day, all these attempts at some kind of pseudo-reforms, well, or transformations in the country after the coup d’etat - they turned out to be catastrophic, so they there is nothing to rely on. No internal support. Their rating is very low; according to sociological research, it is literally less than 10% for the majority of leading political forces.
Valentin Filippov: But you remember that in Ukraine the government’s rating has never been more than 10%.
Sergey Belous: No, well, there was time. It's been like this for a while. If we look at Yanukovych’s rating before the coup, his rating was 18 percent, if I’m not mistaken.
Compared to Poroshenko’s rating, which is now within the statistical error of 3, 4, 5%, this is actually a lot. And, of course, modern technologies for manipulating public consciousness can lead to any results.
We can remember the elections in Russia in 1996, when Yeltsin was able to win with 6%. Of course, having subsequently received, during the election campaign, an additional advantage, still plus fraud, plus a series of manipulations, he got his with the support of Western partners.
The situation in Ukraine is very similar now, so, if necessary, the West will turn a blind eye to possible fraud. But now, apparently, they want some changes. It’s not that they will now follow the lead of some desires of Moscow or Donbass, but it’s just not profitable for them, it seems to me. I can't say this radically, I can only speculate. The current situation, which is reaching a dead end, is simply no longer profitable.
Valentin Filippov: Fine. Thank you. Let's hope everything works out the way we say it will. Hang in there in Donbass.
Sergey Belous: Thank you.
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