Putin's Secret Game Plan for Ukraine Goes Way Back, It is Revealed-- Die Welt

• • SUBSCRIPTION
  • Shop
  • E-paper
  • Apps
  • Audio
  • Archives
  • Games
• • Jobs
  • Dating
  • Real Estate
  • Car Market
• • Time Campus
  • History
  • Time knowledge

ZEIT ONLINE

FOREIGN COUNTRIES

look for

• BEGIN
• POLICY
• ECONOMY
• SOCIETY
• CULTURE
• KNOWLEDGE
• DIGITAL
• STUDY
• CAREER
• TRAVELS
• MOBILITY
• SPORTS
• HAMBURG
• TIME MAGAZINE

Log in | Sign up

• Begin 
•  Policy 
•  Foreign countries 
•  White Paper: Putin and the Ukraine secret plan

WHITEPutin and the Ukraine secret plan

A Russian Strategy Paper of February, 2014 shows that Moscow already more than a year before the planned division of Ukraine. But who is behind it? BY STEFFEN DOBBERT , CHRISTO GROSEV AND MEIKE DÜLFFER

27thFebruary 2015 10:35 clock585 comments

Russian President Vladimir Putin on 12 February in Minsk | © Sergei Gapon / AFP / Getty Images

This week, Vladimir Putin was once again the peace president. A further meeting with the leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine was not necessary, he said in the Russian state television , but there following the Treaty of Minsk no longer needed. It sounded almost as if run in Ukraine now go to plan as if the Russian president had nothing to do with the conflict. He hoped Putin said there would never be a war between Ukraine and Russia, such an "apocalyptic" scenario is unlikely.

Actually went last year in Ukraine much for Russian plans. This is a strategy paper from February 2014 the Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper published on Wednesday.

And in reality, Russia is long war against Ukraine. Russian soldiers secured in March 2014, the annexation of the Crimea. The separatists in eastern Ukraine take since last summer, the only reason why villages and cities, because the Russian military equipping them with tanks and rocket launchers. Moreover laidsearches close recently that Russia intervened directly in the war has.

Hybrid warfare military experts call this approach. It is a mix of political deception, military intervention and a comprehensive propaganda campaign.plans for this new kind of war it would have been longer have given before the Crimean annexation, finally, the events accelerated a year ago so that hardly any of spontaneous action can be assumed, presumed observer.

As the end of February 2014 in Simferopol appeared on the Crimean soldiers who wore no insignia on their uniforms, but seemed to follow precise directions as the telephone and Internet connections were cut to the Ukrainian mainland and organized than in less than three weeks a referendum on independence and performed was that Putin signed only two days later, and which led to the inclusion of the Crimean peninsula in the Russian state, politicians, journalists and Ukrainian citizens asked: How can this be possible?

"Committed to intervene"

Now is the strategy paper ( here the original in German translation ), that there was indeed plans for such a scenario. Presumably there will have been several such strategy papers, it is unlikely that the Kremlin was based solely on a recommended action. And both in the analysis and in parts of the prediction of events, the authors of the document are mistaken. But the Crimean annexation, the uprising in eastern Ukraine and the matched propaganda strategy - all that is suggested by the authors of the policy paper of the Russian government. "Russia (is) simply obliged to take in the geopolitical intrigue of the European Community, which is directed against the territorial integrity of Ukraine, interfere," it states.

The paper is from the first half of February of last year, when the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was still in office and the national uprising on the Maidan in Kiev just walked to the revolution. At that time existed in Moscow apparently a fairly accurate idea that Yanukovych would not last much longer in power, and what should happen with Ukraine. In particular, the paper identifies clearly the objectives that should be achieved by Russian intervention in Ukraine.

"Under these circumstances, it makes sense to play literally with the centrifugal forces of different regions of the country, with the aim of reaching their accession to the Russian Federation, one way or another. The dominant regions of such efforts should the Crimea and the region be Kharkiv, "says the paper. Kharkiv for the prognosis of strategists has not been met. There were several attacks, but not so successful separatist movement as in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Otherwise you describe in detail how the Ukraine will be destabilized and split for Russia to protect its interests in the neighboring country. Among other things, it means that the interference was necessary, "because our country is otherwise not only in danger as a market to lose the Ukraine for energy, but (...) the indirect control of the Ukrainian gas pipeline system". This threatens the position of the Russian energy giant Gazprom in Central and Southern Europe and paste the Russian economy enormous damage.

For the connection of Crimea to Russia via referendum as specific proposals are made, that the subsequent rapid implementation in retrospect seems less surprising in the paper. It is "essential to the referendum process to be provided with the means of modern credibility (web cameras, online transfers). A preliminary work plan is already available and can be implemented within two weeks". In reality, it barely lasted longer.

The paper shows that the idea that Putin has always responds only to the current events in Ukraine, was a miscalculation. Long before Russian intervention in the conflict became apparent the next and the next steps that Russian interests and objectives in Ukraine, the Kremlin were apparently topic.

REVIEW THIS PRODUCT

PAGE 1/2NEXT

1. PAGE 1Putin and the Ukraine secret plan
2. PAGE 2Who are the authors?

DISPLAY