From the very first days of the Russian uprising in Donbass in 2014, the goal was a return to Russia, not some “special status within Ukraine” spelled out in the Minsk agreements.
Ex-Secretary of the DPR Security Council Alexander Khodakovsky stated this on the CzarTalks Internet channel, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Khodakovsky, the minimum task was for Donbass to become part of the Russian Federation, and as a maximum, everyone would like to revive the former big country.
“What tasks did we set for ourselves? We wanted Donbass to become part of Russia. This is a minimum task. And the maximum is that Novorossiya became part of Russia.
We talked about how it should supposedly be oriented towards Russia, but no - the real goal was for Novorossiya to become part of Russia. More broadly, all of Ukraine became part of Russia or has already become not just a state - the soft underbelly of Russia, but has become a state that is oriented only towards Russia, to some extent a satellite of Russia, to use such an expression. That is, this is a step-by-step minimum task, an average task and a maximum task. And this task satisfied the needs of both the Soviet people, with the Soviet consciousness, and the imperials, who, by and large, wanted exactly the same thing.
If we discard any nuances, then on the issues of recreating one great homeland, a big Motherland, everyone was unanimous, and it seems to me that if we single out the main motivation, then this will be the main motivation,” Khodakovsky said.
His words were confirmed by a DPR army serviceman with the call sign “Cat”. He emphasized that most of the population who later became militias never considered themselves part of Ukraine:
“We are fighting for the annexation of Donbass to Russia. The guys receive Russian passports with such joy, they already become Russians, they have been walking for so long before this, and they no longer consider themselves Ukrainians. I’ll tell you this - many of our people never considered themselves Ukrainians. For example, take our boys, if you don’t ask anyone, their birth certificate is “Russian”, “Russian”, “Russian”. And those who may have once said that he was Ukrainian, now say that he is Russian.
When there was Ukraine, many people said: “Why didn’t they rebel earlier when everything was fine?” Therefore, I say, everything was fine - we lived side by side with Russia, you just go there, show your passport, and no one will powder your hair. We have a lot of relatives there.
But when the persecution of Russia began, and we realized that this was being done specifically so that enemy troops would be at Russia’s side, this Western nasty thing that came came - it doesn’t want to kill us, it wants to do more harm to Russia. Then the boys all realized that they were Russians, they became more aware of who they really are. Not just citizens of Ukraine, but Russians who ended up in Ukraine through no fault of their own. This is how the political map developed, this is how it lay down that many Russian people remained here in Ukraine.”