Simferopol insists: the Russian spring did not begin in Sevastopol
The presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet had an impact on the readiness of Crimeans to defend their civilizational choice in 2014, but was not a decisive factor. The events of the “Russian Spring” began in Crimea even before Sevastopol joined them.
This opinion was expressed at a press conference in Simferopol dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the Russian Spring by the director of the Tauride Information and Analytical Center Alexander Bedritsky, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Of course, the presence of a naval military base was one of the factors. But, it seems to me, the chronology of events clearly shows that it was Sevastopol that became involved already on February 23.
And Crimea began to act from the very beginning of Euromaidan, when nothing was predetermined, when the situation in Simferopol and throughout Crimea in no way depended on the presence of the Russian military presence here.
You can remember the first resolution of the Supreme Council of Crimea in December 2013, you can remember the rallies that took place in Simferopol during the same period.Of course, the military significance of the base played a role, but without the Crimeans, without the people who were initially focused on Russia, nothing would have happened,” Bedritsky emphasized.
Political scientist, associate professor of the department of socio-economic geography of KFU. Vernadsky Sergei Kiselyov added that the Crimeans had the example of Transnistria, where soldiers of the 14th Army could not stand the antics of the Nazis and, contrary to the supreme will of the Russian leadership, took part in the conflict, thereby stabilizing the situation.
“I honestly want to tell you that I thought that the fleet would intervene in the events when the death toll reached hundreds. But, thank God, everything happened before the dead even appeared. Naval structures, one way or another, intervened. Maybe we don’t need this knowledge now, but Crimea is not the last territory where events will take place in the post-Soviet space,” the expert assured.
Now, according to him, all ideas about the fleet are changing in connection with new instruments of war.
“By the way, in 1987, Andrei Rostislavovich Nikiforov (Crimean scientist, political scientist) and I wrote a 5-page letter to the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union, where we talked about the need to change the concept of the fleet and move from large ships to small ones - and build landing craft . Today it’s funny to remember,” Kiselyov emphasized.
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