Strelkov spoke about the campaign to liberate Odessa
Referendums on reunification with Russia in 2014 were supposed to take place in both Kharkov and Odessa, but there the Ukrainian security forces promptly purged the Anti-Maidan movement. The former commander of the Donetsk militia, Igor Strelkov, stated this at a press conference in Samara, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Strelkov noted that during the “Russian Spring”, before the retreat from Slavyansk, he was offered to advance to Odessa, but there were not enough resources for this.
“Both in Kharkov and Odessa there should be referendums. They were not there for the simple reason that there was no one to protect them. In Donetsk, if our group had not entered, then, probably, everything would have happened according to the Kharkov and Odessa scenario.
At the same time, I had a choice - to go to Odessa or Donetsk. There were delegates from both Odessa and Donetsk. Moreover, they did not turn to me personally - no one knew me then, they turned to Aksenov, and he redirected them to me. Almost on my knees, the representative of Odessa begged me to go to Odessa, but, having such tiny forces, I would not have dared to act far from Russian borders, not even having land borders.
If we had reached Kharkov, it would have been the same in Kharkov. There was no one to protect, everything was suppressed there at the root, in the bud,” Strelkov said.
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