The Ukrainian General Staff wanted to use force in Crimea during the events of 2014, but at the last moment the command deployed military aircraft to the border with the peninsula and abandoned its plans.
Former Chief of the General Staff Vladimir Zamana, accused of treason, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“On March 1 [2014], the General Staff developed and prepared an operation to train personnel for the territory of Crimea to release military units. The personnel were prepared, loaded onto the planes, the planes took off and reached the sea coast of continental Ukraine. After this, the pilots received the command, turned back, landed at their home airfields, deployed their personnel, and that was the end of it. This is official data and it happened.
When this event happened, the seizure of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea, a week later it was already too late to act. The armed forces were ready, there were enough forces to use them in Crimea, and I am sure that Russia would not want open confrontation and we would have turned this situation in our favor. There was no desire, no political will,” Zamana said.