Crimea
The war is now in its fourth year since Russia’s full-scale invasion and in its twelfth year overall — Ukraine’s resistance against the Russian Empire. The courage and heroism of Ukrainian soldiers made it possible to preserve the country, but we have suffered incredibly heavy losses, the loss of our best people, the loss of territory.
Amid the extremely difficult situation on the front lines, there has been a growing number of statements and comments distorting historical events and diverting attention from the vital priorities of national defense. One of the "approved" topics is the occupation of Crimea. The latest such statement — "we could have defended Crimea but did not receive the order" — was made by the Commander of Ukraine’s Navy, Neizhpapa.
The truth about those tragic events does not fit into the widely promoted narratives and "politically adjusted talking points." According to the Kremlin’s plans, the occupation of Ukraine was supposed to take place as early as the beginning of 2014. The details of the invasion by a joint inter-service military group had been rehearsed during the Russian and Belarusian strategic military exercises "Zahid (West) - 2013 " back in October 2013.
Crimea was designated as the first foothold in the Kremlin’s invasion plans. On February 20, 2014, while the blood of the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred was being shed on Maidan, Russian troops launched the seizure of the peninsula, exploiting the power vacuum, chaos, and multiple crises that had engulfed the country. Instead of organizing the defense of Ukraine, the president, heads of the Cabinet of Ministers, Ministry of Defense, Security Service (SSU), Interior Ministry, intelligence agencies, Internal Troops, Prosecutor General’s Office, various ministries, and many state institutions and local administrations fled to Russia and began actively assisting the military aggression against their own country.
On the eve of the aggression, the number of all Russian armed forces was 3.4 million. Of these, about one million were in the Russian army. Two million men who had completed their military service were in the military reserve, ready for immediate use. The Kremlin was actively training numerous paramilitary Cossack and veteran organisations to carry out its occupation tasks. By 2014, the reform and rearmament of the Russian armed forces, which Putin had tested in local military conflicts initiated by him, was completed.
Ukraine, by contrast, entered the war with vastly different capabilities. Since the 1990s, some of the country’s best military equipment and weaponry had been sold off or destroyed in a predatory manner. Tanks were sold at the price of passenger cars. Surface-to-air missile systems — priceless for national defense — were sold off at prices hundreds of times below market value. Key air defense brigades and regiments were disbanded. By February 2014, of the 36 surface-to-air missile systems that hadn’t yet been sold off, only 10 were combat-ready. They were insufficient to provide even partial protection against enemy aircraft. Out of 111 military airfields, only 28 remained operational by 2014.
Ukraine, once the holder of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, handed over its nuclear weapons to the aggressor state in exchange for the worthless assurances of the Budapest Memorandum. All of our strategic bombers were either sold to Russia or scrapped. Every cruise missile was exchanged for the cancellation of yet another gas debt. Through disgraceful corruption schemes — often with minimal returns for the state budget, and sometimes simply "free of charge" — defense ministers gave away land, military facilities, and assets.
Multibillion-dollar corruption profits, combined with the professional work of Russian intelligence assets, the systematic sell-off of weaponry and military equipment, chronic underfunding, and reckless downsizing of the army, led to the catastrophic state of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the eve of Russian aggression. In 2011, Ukraine’s defense budget amounted to just 1.08% of GDP; in 2012 — 0.94%; and by 2013, defense spending had dropped to a mere 0.88% of GDP.
Ukraine’s defense-industrial complex was being dismantled at a rapid pace. Deprived of state orders and funding, defense enterprises were driven to bankruptcy. Equipment was dismantled and sold for scrap. The only enterprises that managed to survive were those fully integrated with the Russian military-industrial complex.
After Yanukovych’s victory in the presidential election, all barriers to the infiltration of Russian agents into key leadership positions within the national security and defense sector were removed. Some of the newly appointed heads of security agencies did not even attempt to conceal their Russian citizenship.
In Ukraine, units of the Armed Forces were systematically disbanded in regions that the Russian General Staff had identified as priority staging areas for a future invasion. The 32nd Army Corps, consisting of 12,000 personnel and stationed in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, was disbanded. Some of its units were transferred to the Naval Forces' coastal defense troops, and later fully downsized. The 3rd Separate Special Forces Regiment was also withdrawn from Crimea.
The 1st Airmobile Division, stationed in Bolhrad, Odesa region — responsible for covering Ukraine’s southern flank — was also disbanded. According to the Soviet military doctrine, which viewed NATO countries as the only threat, the main Armed Forces units were stationed in the western and central parts of the country. Eastern Ukraine was deliberately left without military protection. The only division based in Donbas (the 254th Motorized Rifle Division) as well as the Internal Troops’ operational regiment stationed in Donetsk, were disbanded without any justification.
The NATO-standard Joint Operational Command of the Armed Forces, established to command troops in combat conditions, and the Support Forces Command, responsible for the logistical support of military operations, were dismantled, significantly undermining the Armed Forces’ ability to manage and supply troops during military confrontation.
The Kharkiv Agreements, signed by Yanukovych, not only extended the presence of Russian troops in Crimea, whose numbers and firepower far exceeded those of the Ukrainian contingent stationed there, but also removed all restrictions on their movement across the peninsula, creating all the necessary conditions for its occupation.
Can it truly be considered a coincidence that in September 2013, the so-called "disbandment of troop command structures" was carried out — precisely when the Russian General Staff was conducting large-scale invasion preparations during the "Zahid-2013" military exercises? While the Russian army was rehearsing the occupation of Ukraine in detail, Ukraine’s military leadership was deliberately dismantling the existing defense command system and "failed" to replace it with a new one by 2014.
In October 2013 (just four months before the onset of Russian aggression), the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff decided to disband the last combat-ready unit in the Armed Forces of Ukraine: the 8th Army Corps. Some units were downsized, others were removed from the corps structure, leaving only its command in place to oversee liquidation.
After the army corps system in Crimea was dismantled, the General Staff transferred the remaining land and air force units under the command of the Ukrainian Navy — which effectively eliminated any remaining operational control over the troops stationed on the peninsula.
With particular fury, the defense ministers and chiefs of the General Staff appointed by Yanukovych dismantled Ukraine’s mobilization system. Starting in 2010, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff halted the training of reservists and ceased conducting reserve call-ups. In 2012–2013, the military registration system was entirely destroyed. Staffing levels at military commissariats were slashed by 80%. (In 2012, 547 positions were eliminated; in 2013 — 3,378.) Facilities were sold off, and personnel records disappeared. Only three staff members remained in some commissariats — insufficient to carry out even basic mobilization tasks. In 2013, conscription for mandatory military service was officially suspended.
According to the annual report prepared by the General Staff for President Yanukovych, as of January 1, 2014, the Armed Forces of Ukraine comprised just 103,077 service members (34,265 officers; 63,485 soldiers, sergeants, and petty officers; and 5,327 cadets). To conceal the catastrophic decline in combat readiness, the General Staff introduced a new, more lenient system for assessing combat and mobilization readiness. However, even with the clearly manipulated figures, by early 2014 only about 20% of military units were considered combat-ready. The remaining 80% were categorized in the General Staff’s report as either "partially ready" or "completely unfit" for combat operations.
The worst combat readiness was observed in the Ground Forces — the main component of the Armed Forces. Undermanned and unprepared for even basic tasks, many units faced severe issues with their military equipment. Most tanks, IFVs, and APCs were inoperable, required repairs, lacked batteries, and had no trained crews.
To seize the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Russian forces stationed on the peninsula — already significantly outnumbering and outgunning the Ukrainian units there — were rapidly reinforced with additional formations, making them several times stronger within a short period; these reinforcements included:
-
31st Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade (Ulyanovsk);
-
45th Separate Guards Special Purpose Regiment (Kubinka, Moscow);
-
18th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (Khankala);
-
98th Guards Airborne Division (Pskov);
-
15th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (Samara region);
-
382nd Separate Marine Brigade (Temryuk);
-
Marine units of the Caspian Flotilla;
-
Units of the 7th Air Assault Division (Novorossiysk);
-
Composite units of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces;
-
22nd Guards Separate Special Forces Brigade of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation;
-
FSB special forces units;
-
Numerous paramilitary Cossack detachments...
To conceal the large-scale concentration and movement of troops, detachments of "self-defense forces" were formed from members of pro-Russian organizations. Priority was given to Crimean residents with prior military service. These groups were freely supplied with weapons taken from the depots and arsenals of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
The control established by the Russian military over maritime and air corridors enabled the rapid buildup of this multi-thousand-strong grouping in the event of an offensive operation in southern mainland Ukraine. To enhance the fleet’s capacity for amphibious operations, landing ships of the Russian Navy’s Northern and Baltic Fleets were deployed to the Black Sea, along with warships from the Caspian Flotilla.
Assault aircraft and combat helicopters were redeployed to military airfields in Crimea under the control of occupying forces. To blockade the peninsula from the sea, ships of the Black Sea Fleet left the ports of Sevastopol and began combat patrols.
Missile systems transferred to Crimea took control of the entire maritime area, monitoring all naval activity by NATO member states. The radar targeting systems locked onto multiple targets, including the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Donald Cook, which was operating in the Black Sea at the time.
This "heroism" of Russian troops is detailed in the 2015 propaganda documentary Crimea. The Way Home. The main figure in the propaganda documentary, Putin, solemnly declares that he personally oversaw the occupation of the peninsula by Russian forces and was prepared to use nuclear weapons in the event of NATO intervention.
But there was no need to intimidate the leadership of NATO countries. They were in a state of shock at the Kremlin’s brazen aggression, unprepared and unwilling to intervene in the unfolding tragedy in the heart of Europe.
In Crimea, the Russian onslaught was nominally opposed by around 14,000 Ukrainian servicemen, most of them unmotivated local contract soldiers and 18-year-old children-conscripts. Political disorientation, low morale, meagre levels of financial and logistical support, and the systematic infiltration of the security sector’s leadership by Russian agents led to mass desertions and the majority of Ukrainian soldiers and officers stationed in occupied Crimea sided with the aggressor. In the early days of the occupation, more than 70% of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel, together with the Navy’s command under Admiral Berezovskyi, betrayed their country. Only 3,990 Ukrainian troops remained loyal to their oath. Scattered across the peninsula, they were cut off from communication and supplies, completely surrounded by enemy forces that outnumbered them many times over.
The situation in other security agencies in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was even more catastrophic. 99% of Crimean police personnel sided to the enemy. Among border guards, 73% betrayed Ukraine; among SSU officers — 90%; and among State Guard Directorate staff — 96%.
Having confirmed that no one intended to provide military assistance to Ukraine, a country exhausted by crises and internal conflict, the Kremlin began the countdown to a full-scale continental invasion.
On February 28, 2014, the Russian Armed Forces launched a "sudden" combat readiness inspection of troops from the Southern and Western Military Districts, stationed along Ukraine’s northeastern border.
Approximately 200,000 personnel from multiple armies, supported by aviation, armored vehicles, and artillery, began deploying strike units in the Rostov, Voronezh, Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions.
Powerful strike groupings were positioned along the Kyiv, Slobozhanskyi, Donetsk, and Odesa operational directions. These forces were in full combat readiness to launch an invasion of mainland Ukraine.
On March 1, the Russian parliament authorized Putin to deploy troops to Ukraine, using a written appeal from President Yanukovych as political cover and justification for the military invasion.
It was only on February 27 that a new Ukrainian government was formed, and the following day I convened the first meeting of the NSDC (National Security and Defense Council). According to information provided by the military leadership and intelligence services, despite the unfolding tragedy in Crimea, the greatest threat to Ukraine was in the north and east, where a massive and heavily armed Russian military force was being deployed along our border, fully prepared to invade the unprotected mainland.
The Ground Forces made up less than a third of the total strength of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and even according to official reports, 80% of ground units were unfit for combat. At that time, the General Staff could oppose the full might of the Russian military with only a few improvised battalion tactical groups. Around 5,000 poorly equipped and untrained servicemen with inoperable military hardware constituted the conditionally combat-ready force available for deployment. Most of them were 18-year-old conscripts.
Sending this improvised group into a breakthrough toward Crimea, through a narrow chokepoint and against elite Russian troops that far outnumbered and outgunned us, would have meant sacrificing our already limited reserves and leaving not only the country, but even the capital, without any cover or semblance of defense.
Ukraine’s military contingent in Crimea was significantly reduced due to mass defections, as soldiers and officers sided with the enemy. However, those who remained loyal to their oath, despite being surrounded, were tasked with holding off the superior enemy forces and buying us time. Under these conditions, I made the only possible decision: Ukrainian military units in Crimea were ordered to assume defensive positions and to use weapons in the event of Russian assaults or provocations. This order was officially recorded in the minutes of the National Security and Defense Council meeting.
I did not know how long our troops would be able to hold out on the peninsula. But during that time, we had to at least begin restoring the army’s combat potential — to conduct mobilization, to arm and train our soldiers for the execution of basic combat tasks. Since the main units of the Armed Forces were stationed in western and central Ukraine, I ordered their urgent redeployment to the north and east in order to cover the most likely directions of a Russian strike.
By decree on March 1, 2014, I ordered the Armed Forces of Ukraine to be brought to Full Combat Readiness. It is the highest level of military alert, requiring the full range of measures to transition from peacetime to wartime footing, this included immediate preparations for combat operations: issuing weapons and ammunition, and securing defensive positions.
According to Ukrainian law, it is the NSDC that must submit a proposal to the president to impose martial law. Only I voted in favor of this measure. The leaders of the new parliamentary majority parties also did not support the decision, which meant that the parliament would not approve the introduction of it.
The main reason this proposal was not supported was the fact that martial law would have blocked the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections. Ukraine was in urgent need of a legitimate authority — one that would be recognized by the entire civilized world. And such legitimacy could only be achieved through free, transparent nationwide elections. As long as Yanukovych retained even formal legal legitimacy, the country remained under mortal threat. Dragging the "legally elected" puppet Yanukovych back to Kyiv behind a column of Russian tanks would have silenced what little protest there was from key international actors.
Talk of conducting military operations in Crimea using the forces available on the peninsula is completely devoid of meaning. Most of the encircled and scattered remnants of our military units were unable even to follow orders or meet the basic requirements of military regulations by defending their positions with weapons. During assaults, they surrendered without a fight, citing the overwhelming superiority of enemy forces, the demoralization of personnel, low levels of military training, the hopelessness of resistance while surrounded, and the enormous risk to the lives of servicemen’s families — who had become hostages of Russian occupiers and aggressively hostile local collaborators.
The order to use weapons was reiterated by me — and accordingly by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces — on March 18, 2014, following the death of a Ukrainian serviceman during the assault on the 13th Photogrammetric Center in Simferopol. At my request, the order to use weapons was made public, which is why this information could not be "erased" along with many other documents from that period.
Unfortunately, even after this repeated order, the situation remained unchanged: not a single Ukrainian soldier or officer used their weapon — even during the assault on the Ukrainian Navy headquarters!
Therefore, all claims that "we received no orders, and that’s why we didn’t liberate Crimea" are a distortion of historical truth — a sign of either incompetence or political bias. There were heroes in Crimea who were not deterred from engaging the occupiers in combat. A group of sailors aboard the large landing ship Kostiantyn Olshanskyi refused to comply with the occupiers’ ultimatum and did not lay down their arms — although most of the crew abandoned the ship and sided with the Russians. Only 20 Ukrainian naval servicemen remained on board with the ship’s commander, Captain First Rank Dmytro Kovalenko. They took up all-around defensive positions and engaged in battle. For four days, they fought while completely surrounded by superior enemy forces.
The crew of the small minesweeper Henichesk, led by Senior Warrant Officer Oleksandr Boichuk, did not surrender their weapons and bravely broke through the blockade. The heroic resistance of the crew of the mine countermeasure ship Cherkasy, commanded by Captain Third Rank Yurii Fedash, later became the subject of a feature film.
In those tragic days, we received another stab in the back. Our strategic partners refused not only to fulfil the guarantees of our security under the Budapest Memorandum, but also to provide Ukraine with any military and technical aid. Their reasoning was that they did not want to provoke Putin or risk triggering a full-scale war in the center of Europe. Ukraine was not given a single bullet. Deliveries of not only weapons and military equipment, but also protective gear (body armor and Kevlar helmets), and even equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons were blocked. This senseless "partnership embargo" remained in place until the end of 2017. Had Ukraine received even a tenth of the military support it is now receiving, the situation in 2014 could have been drastically different.
Despite all these circumstances, 103 cadets, 2,239 soldiers and sailors, and 1,649 officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who did not betray their country in Crimea and remained loyal to their oath fulfilled a critically important mission. Holding out for nearly a month in complete encirclement, they bought us the time we desperately needed to prepare for the country’s defense: to launch mobilization, arm our army in any way possible, repair equipment, take up positions along the most likely directions of a Russian offensive, and begin suppressing separatist uprisings. In doing so, they disrupted the Kremlin’s plans for a military blitzkrieg, for the complete destabilization of Ukraine, and for its division and occupation in 2014.
Oleksandr Turchynov
