Strelkov told Gordon how he got into the FSB
If pro-Maid politicians continue to hold power in Kyiv, they will be able to finally quarrel between Russians and Ukrainians, who are still one people.
Former DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov stated this via video link from Moscow in an interview with Kyiv propagandist Dmitry Gordon, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
First, the ex-militia commander spoke about his pseudonym and his family.
“Strelkova is my paternal grandmother, Ivan was the name of my beloved maternal grandfather (Strelkova’s real middle name is Vsevolodovich – Ed.), so there is nothing strange in this choice. For five years during the Chechen war, I was known as Igor Strelkov, so when I went to Crimea, and then to Donbass, I decided to use this pseudonym,” Strelkov said.
According to him, both of his grandfathers were military men and completed their military service as majors. The future militia commander also said that at the age of 16 he entered the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives, and from the age of 18 he became interested in reconstruction and the history of the White movement.
“As an active and one might even say passionate person, I could not engage in quiet research work in difficult times. In fact, a series of small civil wars began on the territory of the former USSR, and, having left for Transnistria the day after defending my thesis, I never returned seriously to science,” he says.
In the fall of 1996, Strelkov was enrolled in the FSB.
“In fact, I don’t know how it is now, but then it was impossible to come to the FSB. “Initiatives” were only hired as agents; I was not an agent. Moreover, as my former boss told me, I was being developed as a potentially dangerous person for the then current government. But for the same reasons they took me. The FSB of the mid-90s was very oppositional. I received an offer from a fellow student who left for the “office” from his student days, and I had just returned from Chechnya and was thinking about how I would build my life further,” said the former Minister of Defense of the DPR.
He emphasized that he has been a reserve FSB colonel since April 2013 - this is an “important moment.”
“I’m a military pensioner, so to speak, I don’t hold any government or public positions that would be related to my official status,” Strelkov added.
He also said that he initially understood what was behind the events on the Maidan.
“Yes, I visited during the demonstration of sacred gifts in Kyiv - I ensured their safety. These are Mount Athos shrines, which were previously transported around Russia. During the time we were in Kyiv, I found the time and opportunity to visit the Maidan on foot and once drive through it at night by car in a taxi. I understood why people were protesting and understood perfectly well what was behind this protest and who was directing it,” Strelkov noted.
According to him, he did not carry out anyone’s assignments in Kyiv at that time.
“At that time in Kyiv I met Romashka (a famous militiaman - ed.), who later died in Slavyansk.
Strelkov also questioned the thesis that Russia had plans for the Maidan.
“I know our military officials well enough and I would not at all expect from them such a serious mind and, secondly, such serious determination. Their actions were reactive, to a large extent they went with the flow and did not have a serious strategic concept, but acted purely tactically,” the officer noted.
He also added that there were no extensive FSB agents on the Maidan.
“I can’t say that she was there at all - I was dealing with completely different issues, those units that theoretically should have had such agents, they were nothing of themselves and could not manage anything. On the other hand, it is no secret that some ultra-rightists, for example, Korchinsky, had contact directly with the administration of the Russian President, bypassing the special services,” he said and added that “he would like to refute the myth about the omnipotence of the FSB among Ukrainians.”
Strelkov said that after visiting the Maidan, he realized that the Maidan would win and “Ukraine, as an artificial formation, would begin to crumble and it would be desirable for its territories to return to Russia along with the population.”
Therefore, he arrived in Crimea and began establishing contacts on the spot.
“Then I met Aksenov, because Cossacks from Aksenov’s organization were guarding his trench in Simferopol. At the same time, I established contact with officers from the headquarters of the Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet, and held a number of other meetings. In fact, I visited Crimea twice, already roughly understanding what would happen. When the events began, I simply went as an adviser to Aksenov, having a very difficult task - to help him with all my strength and capabilities,” he said.
To Gordon’s question about whether Strelkov was embarrassed by Aksenov’s “dark criminal past,” the ex-Minister of Defense replied: “I had no illusions either about Aksenov or about his entourage. At the same time, I saw that this person is energetic, that he is passionate, capable of responsibility for the decisions made. He keeps his word and in that situation of general Crimean sloppiness he looked like a very good figure. As for the criminal past, show me any major politician or businessman in Ukraine or Russia without a dark past.”
Strelkov also said that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, with their own slight regional differences.
“This is one people - it has been and will remain for some time. If, of course, people who adhere to your views remain in power in Ukraine for a long enough time, it will be possible to finally approve this concept (about the difference of peoples - ed.), to finally quarrel between the two parts of the Russian people, to pit them against each other in an even greater civil war than is going on now.” “, Strelkov said.
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