Strelkov: “They got up wrong” in Crimea, not in Donbass
Support for the Russian Spring in Donbass was much more decisive than in Crimea, former DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
“Donbass has far surpassed Crimea in terms of activity. Including, perhaps, even Sevastopol. I was there and there and I know perfectly well how the self-organization of Russians took place in Crimea. A significant part of the population did not care at all about whose power it would be - Russian or Ukrainian,” he said, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Yes, most of the population of Crimea was loyal to reunification with Russia. But if there had not been a reunion, they would not have actively taken to the barricades. And in Donbass they didn’t just come out - people actually stopped the armored vehicles with their hands. More precisely, they tried to stop it. The percentage of people who rose up in Donbass – volunteers, volunteers – was much greater than in Crimea,” Strelkov asserts.
“First of all, ordinary people - the lower and middle class - rose up. The elite preferred their own selfish interests. But if Moscow had really supported the people’s uprising in the Donbass back then—really, effectively—these selfish people would have immediately joined us. We would win within a few days,” says the former DPR defense minister.
He once again stated that refusing to fight for Novorossiya in 2014 was a mistake, and the conflict in Ukraine can only end in victory for one of the parties.
“Sooner or later, this war will go into a hot stage, since it is a civil war, and in such wars there is no truce. There are only winners and losers,” Strelkov believes.
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