Putin could have been stopped back in 2014: ex-MP named Turchynov's key mistake

UNIAN, photo UNIAN, screenshotThe refusal to use military force to retake buildings seized by Russians in Crimea in February 2014 was the fundamental mistake of Acting President of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov, which later contributed to Russia's full-scale invasion. This opinion was expressed by five-term people's deputy Taras Stetskiv in an interview with Nataliya Moseychuk.

"He should have acted differently... You have the Constitution, the law on defense. You had to act as the head of state should. But you started negotiating. Naryshkin called you and said, 'Don't move.' Obama called you and said, 'They won't leave.' And you convened the NSDC on 28 February, the day after the Crimean parliament had already been held hostage for a day, and you put on a performance called 'To impose martial law or not to impose it,'" Stetskiv said.

The ex-MP reproached that the then Ukrainian authorities did not even declare a counterterrorist operation in Crimea.

"The 'little green men' seized a state authority building on 27 February at 6 in the morning. What were you supposed to do? There were two options... You could have scrambled what was flying, put it in the air and simply bombed the Crimean parliament. Bomb it under the pretext that terrorists had seized it. You could have declared a counterterrorist operation. And don't tell me there were no units loyal to Ukraine in Crimea. There were. You could have carried out a landing operation," the politician asserts.

He insists that "when the Crimean parliament was seized, it should have been attacked and physically destroyed within the day."

"I spoke with many people; there were different opinions about whether we would have provoked Putin. I believe not. And now there is evidence that if Putin had encountered resistance in Simferopol or anywhere in Crimea, he would not have proceeded further," Stetskiv claims.

Russians postponed the referendum date in Crimea

As evidence, he cited the example of the referendum in Crimea, which, Stetskiv says, was initially scheduled for 25 May, but, he says, 'after they saw that we were doing nothing, they moved it to 16 March.' He says the Russians were cautious because they did not know how people would react.

"Therefore I assert that the mistake, bordering on a crime in Turchynov's actions, was that he, not accepting the challenge of war, did not take military measures to eliminate the terrorists who seized the Crimean parliament," the former people's deputy said.

In his view, this would undoubtedly have led to casualties, "but the situation would have been stuck in Crimea," and the Russians "definitely would not have gone further."

Liberation of the Kharkiv regional administration

As a telling example of how the use of force yields results, Stetskiv points to the liberation of the Kharkiv regional state administration in 2014, led by then Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.

"What did Avakov do? He went to one regional center where Berkut had beaten us on the Maidan, sat down with them, talked about something, loaded them onto a plane. They flew to Kharkiv and within 45 minutes cleared the Kharkiv regional state administration with direct use of force. Well, here's the way the state authority should act. That's what should have been done in Donetsk, in Luhansk, and before that it should have been done in Crimea. The fact that we did not do that largely led later to Russia's direct invasion," the ex-MP says.

Poroshenko repeated Turchynov's mistake

According to him, later Turchynov's mistake was "repeated exactly" by then-president Petro Poroshenko, who did not impose martial law.

"Where did Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko go? The same place Turchynov went. He went to negotiations, to scheming. He began to rely on the West, that the West would help with sanctions. Turchynov only listened to Naryshkin, while Petro Oleksiyovych negotiated with Putin. Poroshenko delayed the war. He passed it on to the next president... And that, I believe, is dishonest, it is wrong," Stetskiv noted.

Crimea under Russian occupation: important news

As UNIAN previously reported, U.S. President Donald Trump made a bizarre statement about Crimea, saying that the peninsula is washed by an ocean on four sides. At the same time he blamed former U.S. President Barack Obama, claiming that it was because of him that Ukraine lost the Crimean peninsula. 'It started when Barack Obama allowed them to give away Crimea. Crimea is the most valuable part of Ukraine,' Trump recently said.

We also wrote that Ukraine is trying to cut off Russia's logistics to Crimea, and this is directly affecting the course of battles, as the Russians are facing problems supplying ammunition, personnel, cartridges and fuel to the front line.