"Crimean syndrome", – Oleksandr Turchynov
"If the order to defend the country had been given in 2014, I am certain that the full-scale war as we see it today would not have happened. Our mistake is that we did not push them back," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said of the occupation of Crimea in an interview with "The Diary Of A CEO" (as reported by TSN – tsn.ua).
In the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s view, defeating the Russians at the time would have been quite easy, because "dozens of people entered Crimea. Dozens. For a country like ours, that is zero. That is nothing…"
It is hard to understand who supplies the president with such "profound" analysis, but, by sheer coincidence, similar arguments voiced by "experts" of varying caliber have recently been appearing constantly in pro-government media.
History can be distorted, touched up, or concealed, but it cannot be changed. The truth about those tragic events does not fit the widely circulated narratives and "politically calibrated emphases," because, according to the Kremlin’s plans, the occupation of Ukraine was supposed to have been completed back in April 2014.
The details of seizing our country with a joint force grouping were rehearsed down to the smallest detail during the "Zapad-2013" strategic exercise held by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and Belarus in October 2013. Crimea was designated as the first bridgehead in the Kremlin’s plans for conquest. On February 20, 2014, as the blood of the "Heavenly Hundred" heroes was being spilled on the Maidan, Russian troops began seizing the peninsula, taking advantage of the power vacuum, chaos, and sweeping crises that had engulfed our country. Instead of organizing Ukraine’s defense, the president and the heads of the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Defense, the SSU (Security Service of Ukraine), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the intelligence services, the Internal Troops, the Prosecutor General’s Office, ministries, numerous state institutions, and local administrations fled to Russia and began doing everything they could to facilitate military aggression against their own country.
I want to reveal a terrible secret. In 2014, Ukraine was attacked by the same brutal and unprincipled Russia as in 2022. With the same military and economic potential, led by the same maniacal, deranged Putin. The Kremlin’s plans at the time, to occupy and destroy an independent, democratic Ukraine, have not changed either.
In February 2014, just as in February 2022, Russia’s armed forces formations had a total strength of 3.4 million. Of these, around one million served in the Russian military, which Putin had battle-tested in local conflicts that he himself had instigated. Two million men who had completed military service were in the military reserve, ready for immediate deployment. To carry out its occupation plans, the Kremlin had also prepared numerous paramilitary Cossack and veterans’ organizations. On the eve of the aggression, Russia had completed the rearmament and reform of its armed forces and their preparation for complex combat missions.
Ukraine went into the war in a completely different state. From the 1990s onwards, the best equipment and weaponry were either sold off at rock-bottom prices or simply destroyed. Tanks were sold for the price of passenger cars. Anti-aircraft missile systems, invaluable to the country’s defence, were sold at prices a hundred times lower than market value, whilst key air defence brigades and regiments were disbanded. In February 2014, of the 36 anti-aircraft missile systems that had not yet been sold off, only 10 were capable of carrying out combat missions. They did not even provide a fragmentary defence against enemy aircraft.
Ukraine’s leadership handed over the world’s third most powerful nuclear arsenal to the aggressor state, receiving the empty scraps of paper of the Budapest Memorandum in return. All our strategic bombers were sold to Russia or cut up for scrap, and all our cruise missiles were exchanged for the cancellation of yet more gas debts. Through disgraceful corruption schemes that brought negligible revenue into the budget, and often simply "free of charge," defense ministers gave away land, military facilities and property.
Billions in corrupt profits from the reckless sell-off of weapons and military equipment, combined with the skilled work of Russian agent networks, chronic underfunding and thoughtless cuts to the army, left our Armed Forces in a catastrophic state. In 2011, Ukraine’s defense budget amounted to just 1.08% of GDP; in 2012, it fell to 0.94%; and in 2013, defense spending dropped to 0.88% of GDP!
Ukrainian Armed Forces units were systematically and consistently dismantled in the regions that the Russian General Staff had identified as priority bridgeheads for a future invasion. The 12,000-strong 32nd Army Corps, stationed in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, was disbanded. The 3rd Separate Special Forces Regiment was withdrawn from Crimea. The 1st Airmobile Division, stationed in Bolhrad, Odesa region, which provided cover for southern Ukraine, was also disbanded.
In accordance with Soviet military doctrine, which identified NATO countries as the only source of threats to the country, the main Armed Forces units were stationed in the western and central parts of the country. Eastern Ukraine was deliberately left without military cover. The only division stationed in the Donbas (the 254th Motor Rifle Division) and the Internal Troops’ operational regiment based in Donetsk were disbanded without any justification.
Can the disbandment of key military command structures in September 2013 be considered a coincidence, when it took place at the very time the Russian General Staff was conducting extensive preparations for an invasion during the "Zapad-2013" military exercise? The Russian army was rehearsing the occupation of Ukraine in detail, while the Ukrainian military leadership was deliberately dismantling the existing defense command and control system, "not having managed" to replace it with a new one by 2014. In October 2013 (four months before the start of Russian aggression), the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff decided to disband the 8th Army Corps, the last combat-capable army corps in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The Kharkiv Accords 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 lifted all restrictions on their movements around the peninsula, creating all the necessary conditions for its occupation.
The defense ministers and chiefs of the General Staff appointed by Yanukovych destroyed the country’s mobilization system with particular ferocity. From 2010 onward, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff halted the training of those liable for military service and stopped holding reservist training assemblies. In 2012–2013, the military registration system was completely destroyed. Staffing at military commissariats was cut by 80%! Premises were sold off, and personnel records disappeared. Military enlistment offices were left with just three staff members each, unable to perform basic mobilization tasks. In 2013, an end to conscription for compulsory military service was announced.
According to the annual report prepared by the General Staff for President Yanukovych, as of January 1, 2014, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had just 103,077 service members (34,265 officers, 63,485 soldiers, sergeants and petty officers, and 5,327 cadets). In other words, there were only two soldiers for every officer. To conceal the catastrophic decline in the Ukrainian military’s combat readiness, the General Staff introduced a new, more lenient set of criteria for combat and mobilization readiness. But even according to these clearly inflated figures, only around 20% of military units were assessed as combat-ready at the beginning of 2014. The remaining 80% were classified in the General Staff’s report as "partially ready" or "completely unready" to carry out combat missions.
Combat capability was at its worst in the Ground Forces, the core of the Armed Forces. Understaffed units, untrained to perform even basic tasks, faced severe problems with the condition of their military equipment. Most tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers were unserviceable, needed repairs, and lacked batteries and trained crews.
To seize the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the Russian General Staff substantially reinforced the already formidable 25,000-strong Russian force stationed there under the Kharkiv Accords by transferring the following to the peninsula:
- the 31st Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade (Ulyanovsk);
- the 45th Separate Guards Special Forces Regiment (Kubinka, Moscow);
- the 18th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Khankala);
- the 98th Guards Airborne Division (Pskov);
- the 15th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Samara region);
- the 382nd Separate Naval Infantry Brigade (Temryuk);
- naval infantry units of the Caspian Flotilla;
- units of the 7th Air Assault Division (Novorossiysk);
- composite units of the 58th Army of the Russian Armed Forces’ Southern Military District;
- the 22nd Separate Guards Special Forces Brigade of the Russian General Staff’s GRU;
- FSB special forces units;
- numerous paramilitary Cossack detachments…
These were the "dozens of people," or "nothing," who were seizing Crimea. To provide cover for the large-scale concentration and advance of the occupation forces, "self-defense" detachments were formed from members of pro-Russian organizations, primarily recruiting Crimean residents who had completed military service. They were supplied without restriction with weapons from the bases and arsenals of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The Russian army’s control over sea and air corridors allowed it to rapidly build up this force of many thousands for an offensive operation in southern mainland Ukraine. To strengthen the fleet’s amphibious assault capabilities, landing ships from the Russian Navy’s Northern and Baltic Fleets arrived in the Black Sea, along with warships from the Caspian Flotilla.
Ground-attack aircraft and attack helicopters were redeployed to military airfields in Crimea controlled by the occupying forces. To blockade the peninsula from the sea, Black Sea Fleet ships left Sevastopol’s bays and took up combat stations.
Missile systems transferred to Crimea brought the entire maritime area under their control, monitoring any activity by NATO countries’ naval forces. The US destroyer Donald Cook, which was in the Black Sea at the time, was among the vessels targeted by missile radar.
This "heroism" by Russian troops is recounted in detail in the propaganda documentary "Crimea. The Way Home," released in 2015. Putin, the central figure in this piece of television propaganda, pompously declares that he personally directed the Russian troops’ occupation of the peninsula and was prepared to use nuclear weapons if NATO countries intervened.
But there was no need to frighten those countries’ leaders. They were stunned by the Kremlin’s aggressive cynicism, were unprepared to intervene in the tragedy unfolding in the heart of Europe, and had no plans to do so.
Nominally, around 14,000 Ukrainian service members stood against the Russian onslaught in Crimea, most of them unmotivated local contract soldiers and 18-year-old conscripts, still children. Political disorientation, low morale, pitiful funding and logistical support, and the systematic work of Russian agents within the leadership of the security and defense agencies led to mass desertion and the defection to the aggressor’s side of most Ukrainian soldiers and officers stationed in occupied Crimea. In the first days of the occupation, more than 70% (!) of Armed Forces personnel betrayed their country, along with the Navy command led by Admiral Berezovskyi. Only 3,990 Ukrainian troops did not betray Ukraine. They were scattered across the peninsula, without communications or supplies, completely surrounded by enemy forces ten times their strength.
The situation in Crimea’s other security and law enforcement agencies was even more tragic. Of the Crimean police personnel, 99% (!) went over to the enemy; among border guards, 73% betrayed Ukraine, as did 90% of SSU personnel and 96% (!) of State Guard Department personnel.
Having established that no one was going to provide military assistance to Ukraine, exhausted by crises and conflicts, the Kremlin began the countdown to a full-scale invasion of the mainland.
On February 28, 2014, the Russian armed forces launched a "snap" combat readiness inspection of troops from the Southern and Western Military Districts stationed along our country’s northeastern border.
Around 200,000 personnel from several armies, with aircraft, armored vehicles and artillery, began deploying strike units for combat in the Rostov, Voronezh, Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions.
Powerful strike groupings were deployed along the Kyiv, Slobozhanshchyna, Donetsk and Odesa operational axes, fully combat-ready to invade 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.
Ukraine, meanwhile, only managed to form a government on February 27, and the following day I convened the first meeting of the National Security and Defense Council. According to information provided by the military leadership and intelligence services, despite the tragedy unfolding in Crimea, the greatest threat to the country was in the north and east, where a formidable Russian force numbering many thousands was deploying along our border, ready to invade the undefended Ukrainian mainland.
The Ground Forces accounted for less than a third of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total personnel, and even official reports showed that 80% of ground units were not combat-capable. Consequently, in those days, our General Staff could muster only a few composite battalion tactical groups against the full might of the Russian military. Around 5,000 poorly armed, untrained service members with faulty military equipment constituted the nominally combat-capable force available for deployment. Most were 18-year-old conscripts.
Sending this composite force to break through into Crimea through a narrow bottleneck against elite Russian troops, who far surpassed us in numbers and armament, would have meant losing our already meager reserves and leaving not only the country but even the capital without military cover or any semblance of protection.
Our military contingent in Crimea had been severely depleted by widespread betrayal and the defection of soldiers and officers to the aggressor’s side. But those who remained faithful to their oath, though surrounded, had to tie down superior enemy forces and buy us time. Under these circumstances, I made the only possible decision: military units in Crimea were to take up defensive positions and use their weapons to defend those positions in the event of Russian assaults and provocations. This order is recorded in the minutes of the National Security and Defense Council meeting.
I did not know how long our troops could hold out on the peninsula. But in that time, we had to restore at least some of the army’s combat capability, carry out mobilization, and arm and train our troops to perform basic combat missions. Since the main Ukrainian Armed Forces units were stationed in western and central Ukraine, I ordered their urgent redeployment to the north and east to provide cover along the Russian army’s most likely axes of attack.
By my decree of March 1, 2014, I ordered the Ukrainian Armed Forces to be placed at "Full" combat readiness. This is the highest state of readiness for all military units and formations, requiring the full range of measures to move troops from a peacetime to a wartime footing, including immediate preparations for combat, in particular, issuing weapons and ammunition and occupying defensive lines.
Under Ukrainian law, it is the National Security and Defense Council that, by its decision, submits a proposal to the president to introduce martial law. I was the only one who voted in favor. The leaders of the parties forming the new parliamentary majority did not support the decision to introduce martial law either, which meant that parliament would not consent to its introduction.
The main reason this proposal was not supported was that martial law would prevent presidential and parliamentary elections from being held. Ukraine desperately needed legitimate authorities recognized by the entire civilized world. Such authorities could only be established through fair, transparent, nationwide elections. As long as Yanukovych retained his legal legitimacy, the country remained under mortal threat. By bringing the "lawfully elected" puppet Yanukovych to Kyiv in the wake of its tank columns, the Kremlin would have silenced the already muted indignation of key international actors.
Claims that military operations could have been conducted in Crimea using the forces available on the peninsula are entirely baseless. Most of the remnants of our military units, surrounded and scattered across the peninsula, could not even carry out the order and meet the basic requirements of military regulations by defending their own positions. During assaults, they surrendered without a fight, citing the enemy troops’ overwhelming superiority, demoralized personnel, poor military training, the hopelessness of resisting while surrounded, and the enormous risk to the lives of service members’ families, who had become hostages of the Russian occupiers and hostile local collaborators.
The order authorizing the use of weapons was reiterated by me and, accordingly, by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on March 18, 2014, after a Ukrainian service member was killed during the assault on the 13th Photogrammetric Center in Simferopol. At my insistence, the order authorizing the use of weapons was made public, so information about it could not be "scrubbed" along with many documents from that time.
Unfortunately, even after the order was repeated, the situation did not change: even during the assault on the Ukrainian Navy headquarters, none of the Ukrainian soldiers or officers managed to use their weapons!
Therefore, all claims that "the Ukrainian authorities issued no clear orders, and that is why Crimea was not liberated" are baseless and distort historical truth. In February–March 2014, the country simply did not yet have sufficient forces to counter the treacherous aggression of a nuclear monster. The claim that no one resisted in Crimea is also untrue. Nothing prevented true heroes from carrying out their military duty with honor.
The marines of the Feodosia battalion engaged in hand-to-hand combat despite the overwhelming superiority of the Russian assault troops surrounding their unit. The courageous sailors of the large landing ship Kostiantyn Olshanskyi refused to comply with the occupiers’ ultimatum and did not lay down their arms, even though most of the crew had abandoned the ship and gone over to the Russians. Only 20 naval personnel, including the commander, Captain 1st Rank Dmytro Kovalenko, remained aboard. They established an all-round defense and engaged the enemy. For four days, they fought superior enemy forces while completely surrounded.
The crew of the small minesweeper Henichesk, led by Senior Warrant Officer Oleksandr Boichuk, did not lay down their arms and fearlessly attempted to break through the blockade. The heroic struggle lasting several days by the crew of the mine countermeasures ship Cherkasy, led by Captain 3rd Rank Yurii Fedash, became the basis for a feature film.
"Cherkasy"
In those tragic days, we suffered another stab in the back. Our strategic partners not only failed to honor the security guarantees they had undertaken under the Budapest Memorandum, but also categorically refused to provide Ukraine with any military or technical assistance. They explained that they did not want to antagonize Putin or provoke a full-scale war in the heart of Europe. Ukraine was given not a single round of ammunition, not a single dollar or euro to restore its defense capability. Deliveries were blocked not only of weapons and military equipment, but also of equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons. The insane "partners’ embargo," orchestrated by Obama, Merkel, and other leaders of major democratic countries, remained in place until the end of 2017. Had Ukraine received even a tenth of the assistance it receives today, the situation in 2014 could have changed radically, and Russia would have forgotten the way to our border forever.
Despite all these circumstances, the 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 faithful to their oath accomplished a critically important task. By holding out for almost a month while completely surrounded, they gave us the vital time we needed to prepare to defend the country, begin mobilization, provide our army with at least some weapons, repair equipment, and take up positions along the most likely axes of a ruscist offensive. We suppressed separatist uprisings in the Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and halted the Russian offensive in the Donbas. This thwarted the Kremlin’s plans for a military blitzkrieg, the partition of Ukraine, and its occupation in 2014. We held firm and, relying solely on our own strength, defended the country and built combat-capable Armed Forces that stopped the enemy in both 2014 and 2022.
Oleksandr Turchynov
