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Why Ukrainian forces gave up Crimea without a fight - and NATO is alert

By Pavel Polityuk and Anton Zverev

 

Acting Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval attends a NATO-Ukraine defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium June 3, 2014. REUTERS/John Thys/Pool/Files

 

KIEV/SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (Reuters) - The career of Sergei Yeliseyev helps to explain why Ukraine's armed forces gave up Crimea almost without a fight - and why NATO now says it is alert to Russian attempts to undermine military loyalty in its eastern European members.

 

His rise to become number two in the Ukrainian navy long before Russia seized Crimea illustrates the divided loyalties that some personnel in countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union might still face.

 

Yeliseyev's roots were in Russia but he ended up serving Ukraine, a different ex-Soviet republic, only to defect when put to the test.

NATO military planners now believe Moscow regards people with similarly ambiguous personal links as potentially valuable, should a new confrontation break out with the West.

 

In 2014, Yeliseyev was first deputy commander of the Ukrainian fleet, then largely based in Crimea, when Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms took control of Kiev's ships and military bases on the peninsula.

 

Instead of resisting, Yeliseyev quit and subsequently got a new job: deputy chief of Russia's Baltic Fleet.

 

Yeliseyev, now aged 55, did not respond to Reuters questions sent to him via the Russian defence ministry.

 

In Kiev, however, there is no doubt where his loyalties lay. "When he took an oath to Ukraine, these were empty words for him. He has always been pro-Russian," said Ihor Voronchenko, now commander of the Ukrainian navy, who once served with Yeliseyev.

 

In fact, the Russian soldiers were pushing at an open door in late February 2014 - Yeliseyev was just one of many to defect and almost all Ukrainian forces in Crimea failed to resist.

 

Russia annexed Crimea the following month, prompting a major row with the West which deepened over Moscow's role in a rebellion in eastern Ukraine that lasts to this day.

 

At the time, Moscow and its allies in Crimea exploited weaknesses within Kiev's military to undermine its ability to put up a fight, according to interviews conducted by Reuters with about a dozen people on both sides of the conflict.

 

The Russian defence ministry did not respond to questions on their accounts of the events in 2014 submitted by Reuters.

 

One NATO commander told Reuters that, in a re-run of the tactics it deployed in Crimea, Russian intelligence was trying to recruit ethnic Russians serving in the militaries of countries on its borders.

 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the commander said the alliance was particularly sensitive to the risk in countries with high concentrations of ethnic Russians, notably the Baltic states.

 

NATO had to guard against this, said the commander, though the risk should not be overstated because having Russian roots did not necessarily mean that a person's loyalty is to Moscow.

 

Officials in the Baltic states, former Soviet republics which unlike Ukraine are NATO members, play down the danger.

 

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg likewise said he trusted the armies of the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Still, he told Reuters: "We always have to be vigilant. We always have to develop our intelligence tools and to be able to see any attempts to try to undermine the loyalty of our forces."

 

DROPPING THE GUARD

 

Years before the Crimean annexation, a Ukrainian appointment panel appeared to drop its guard when it interviewed Yeliseyev for the deputy naval commander's post.

 

Yeliseyev was born near Moscow, graduated from a Soviet naval school in the Russian city of Kaliningrad in 1983 and served with the Russian Pacific fleet.

 

So the panel asked Yeliseyev what he would do if Russia and Ukraine went to war. He replied that he would file for early retirement, according to Myroslav Mamchak, a former Ukrainian naval captain who served with Yeliseyev. Despite this response, Yeliseyev got the job in 2006.

 

Mamchak did not disclose to Reuters how he knew what was said in the interview room but subsequent events bear out his account.

 

Relations between Russia and Ukraine dived as Kiev moved closer to NATO and eight years after his appointment, with the countries on the brink of conflict over Crimea, Yeliseyev stayed true to his word by quitting.

 

Russia's actions were not the only factor in the Crimean events. Ukraine's military had suffered years of neglect, there was a power vacuum in Kiev after the government was overthrown, and many Crimean residents felt more affinity with Moscow.

 

Still, Ukrainian service personnel with Russian ties switched sides when the annexation began and some officers pretended to put up resistance only to avoid court-martial. Moscow also intercepted orders from Kiev so they never reached the Crimean garrison.

 

"There was nothing spontaneous. Everything was organised and each fiddler played his role," said Mykhailo Koval, who at the time was deputy head of the Ukrainian border guard and is now deputy head of the Security Council in Kiev.

 

INVITATION TO DEFECT

 

Voronchenko, who was another deputy commander of the navy at the time of the annexation, said he had received invitations to defect to Moscow's side soon after the Russian operation began.

 

These, he told Reuters, came from Sergei Aksyonov, who was then head of Crimea's self-proclaimed pro-Russian government, as well as from the commander of Russia's southern military district and a deputy Russian defence minister.

 

Asked what they offered in exchange, Voronchenko said: "Posts, an apartment ... Aksyonov offered to make me defence minister of Crimea." Neither Aksyonov nor the Russian defence ministry responded to Reuters questions about the contacts.

 

Voronchenko, in common with many other senior Ukrainian officers, had been in the Soviet military alongside people now serving in the Russian armed forces. He had spent years in Crimea, where Russia leased bases from Ukraine for its Black Sea fleet after the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union.

 

"Those generals who came to persuade me ... said that we belong to the same circle, we came from the Soviet army," he said. "But I told them I am different ... I am not yours."

 

Naval chief Denis Berezovsky did defect, along with several of his commanders, and was later made deputy chief of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Many in the ranks followed suit. At one Ukrainian signals unit, service personnel were watching Russian television when President Vladimir Putin appeared on the screen.

"To my surprise, they all stood up," said Svyatoslav Veltynsky, an engineer at the unit. "They had been waiting for this." The majority of the unit defected to the Russian side.

 

JUST A SHOW

 

Even those willing to resist found themselves in a hopeless position. One member of the Ukrainian border guards told Reuters how his commander had despatched their unit's ships to stop them falling into Russian hands, and ordered his men to train their rifles on anyone trying to enter their base.

 

However, the base's military communications were not working, having been either jammed or cut by the Russians. Isolated from his own side, and outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops outside, the commander struck a deal with the head of a Russian special forces unit.

 

Pro-Russian civilians were allowed to force the base's gate without reprisals. The Ukrainians "supposedly could not do anything; you cannot shoot civilians", the member of the unit said on condition of anonymity because he is still living in Crimea and feared repercussions.

 

Russian troops then followed the civilians in, taking over the base and offering the unit a chance to switch allegiance to Russia. About half agreed, although the base's chief refused and was allowed to leave Crimea.

 

"The commander did not resist," said the unit member. "On the other hand, he did what he could under the circumstances."

 

Two other people involved in the annexation - a former Ukrainian serviceman now on a Russian base in Crimea, and a source close to the Russian military who was there at the time - also described witnessing similar faked confrontations.

 

"You have to understand that the seizure of Ukrainian military units in Crimea was just a show," said the source close to the Russian military.

 

LESSONS LEARNED

 

NATO's Baltic members differ significantly from Ukraine. Soviet-era commanders, for instance, largely left their armed forces after the countries joined the Western alliance in 2004.

 

Officials also point out that Russian speakers were among the seven members of Latvia's forces to die during international deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Nevertheless, lessons have been learned from Crimea. "We learned, of course, that there was not only the issue of loyalty, but also false orders were submitted and there was a blockage of communication during the Crimea operation," said Janis Garisons, State Secretary in the Latvian defence ministry.

 

Latvia has changed the law so that unit commanders are obliged to resist by default. But Garisons said the simplest step was taken long before the annexation, with the introduction in 2008 of vetting by the security services for "everybody who joins the armed forces, from private to general".

 

(Additional reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko in KIEV, Andrius Sytas in VILNIUS, Gederts Gelzis in RIGA, David Mardiste in TALLINN, and Robin Emmott in BRUSSELS; editing by David Stamp)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-07-24

[shamrock09]

Excuse me, but didn't the citizens of Crimea vote to return as part of Russia. Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1955 by Kruschev. The Russian speaking citizens were never particularly happy with this deal.

[craigt3365]

1 hour ago, shamrock09 said:

Excuse me, but didn't the citizens of Crimea vote to return as part of Russia. Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1955 by Kruschev. The Russian speaking citizens were never particularly happy with this deal.

No, they did not vote to return as part of Russia until AFTER the invasion.  It's sovereign territory of Ukraine.  Agreed the Russian speaking citizens were never happy with this deal.  But that's the same in all former USSR satellite states. 

 

The entire country of Ukraine needs to vote on the status of Crimea, not just the citizens who live there.  Not to mention the thousands who've been killed and the hundreds of thousands who've been displaced.  Maybe Russia can offer them compensation?

[tonbridgebrit]

2 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

No, they did not vote to return as part of Russia until AFTER the invasion.  It's sovereign territory of Ukraine.  Agreed the Russian speaking citizens were never happy with this deal.  But that's the same in all former USSR satellite states. 

 

The entire country of Ukraine needs to vote on the status of Crimea, not just the citizens who live there.  Not to mention the thousands who've been killed and the hundreds of thousands who've been displaced.  Maybe Russia can offer them compensation?

 

"The entire country of Ukraine needs to vote on the status of Crimea, not just the citizens who live there."

No, I don't think so. Britain had a vote, to leave the EU or stay in.  It would have been ridiculous to give the entire EU a vote, to see if Britain is going to leave or stay in. I hope you can see what I mean. If you are going to have a vote, let the ones in that specific area vote, no need to ask everybody else.

[craigt3365]

23 minutes ago, tonbridgebrit said:

 

"The entire country of Ukraine needs to vote on the status of Crimea, not just the citizens who live there."

No, I don't think so. Britain had a vote, to leave the EU or stay in.  It would have been ridiculous to give the entire EU a vote, to see if Britain is going to leave or stay in. I hope you can see what I mean. If you are going to have a vote, let the ones in that specific area vote, no need to ask everybody else.

You need to do some research re:Britain and the EU.  And how they are related.  The EU isn't a country. And they for sure don't control Britain. LOL

 

But you are right, the entire country of Britain voted to leave the EU.  Not just one small part.  Got it?  It'd be like if Cornwall voted to leave the EU.  Never be allowed.  Just like Ukraine would have never allowed Crimea to do a vote all by themselves.  The entire country would have to vote on it.

[funandsuninbangkok]

Huge mistake by Obama to try to pull the Ukraine into NATO.

 

image if Putin asked Mexico to join the Wolf PAc. 

[craigt3365]

6 minutes ago, funandsuninbangkok said:

Huge mistake by Obama to try to pull the Ukraine into NATO.

 

image if Putin asked Mexico to join the Wolf PAc. 

What's wrong with Mexico joining the Wolf PAc...whatever that is.  Up to them.  If Russia offers a better deal, then good for Mexico.

 

The EU offered a better deal and Russia's response was to invade.  Classic Russian move.

[tonbridgebrit]

2 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

You need to do some research re:Britain and the EU.  And how they are related.  The EU isn't a country. And they for sure don't control Britain. LOL

 

But you are right, the entire country of Britain voted to leave the EU.  Not just one small part.  Got it?  It'd be like if Cornwall voted to leave the EU.  Never be allowed.  Just like Ukraine would have never allowed Crimea to do a vote all by themselves.  The entire country would have to vote on it.

You want to talk about Cornwall ?  If Cornwall wants to leave Britain, well, either don't allow them a vote. Or, there will be a vote, but only those in Cornwall will vote, other people in Britain will not be voting on the issue.
Bit like Scotland. They had their vote to seperate from England. Those living in England were not given a vote to see if Scotland leaves or stays. Got it ?  

Hence, the Crimea, no need to ask everybody in the Ukraine.

[Baerboxer]

6 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

No, they did not vote to return as part of Russia until AFTER the invasion.  It's sovereign territory of Ukraine.  Agreed the Russian speaking citizens were never happy with this deal.  But that's the same in all former USSR satellite states. 

 

The entire country of Ukraine needs to vote on the status of Crimea, not just the citizens who live there.  Not to mention the thousands who've been killed and the hundreds of thousands who've been displaced.  Maybe Russia can offer them compensation?

 

But The Crimea was never part of Ukraine until the Ukrainian Kruschev, whilst dictator of the Soviet Union, decided to give to them. AFAIK he didn't give anyone in The Crimea the chance to vote or discuss it.

 

Unfortunately communist dictators, not just in the Soviet Union, had a habit of changing maps and displacing whole peoples just to suit themselves. But Ukraine has very little historical claim to The Crimea whose Tatar people were expelled by good old uncle Joe Stalin.

[craigt3365]

12 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

But The Crimea was never part of Ukraine until the Ukrainian Kruschev, whilst dictator of the Soviet Union, decided to give to them. AFAIK he didn't give anyone in The Crimea the chance to vote or discuss it.

 

Unfortunately communist dictators, not just in the Soviet Union, had a habit of changing maps and displacing whole peoples just to suit themselves. But Ukraine has very little historical claim to The Crimea whose Tatar people were expelled by good old uncle Joe Stalin.

If you look at a map of Europe, it changes dramatically over time.  Mostly due to wars and invasions.  Crimea has changed hands many times over the years.  But until it was invaded, it was sovereign territory of Ukraine.  You're probably right about how Crimea was handed over to Ukraine, but that's irrelevant.

 

Crimea, according to international law, belongs to Ukraine.  Russia took it with force.  Which is not only illegal, but immoral.

 

What's happened since the change over is pretty bad. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea
 

Quote

 

In 1783, Crimea became a part of Russian Empire as the result of Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Crimea became an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the USSR, though later, during World War II, it was downgraded to the Crimean Oblast.

 

In 1954, the Crimean Oblast was transferred to Ukrainian SSR from Russian SFSR by Nikita Khrushchev/^[3]

 

Following collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was formed as an independent state in 1991.

 

Here's the legal side:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation

Quote

 

The Russian–Ukrainian Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet^[a] signed in 1997 and prolonged in 2010, determined the status of the military bases and vessels in Crimea prior to the crisis. Russia was allowed to maintain up to 25,000 troops, 24 artillery systems (with a calibre smaller than 100 mm), 132 armoured vehicles, and 22 military planes, on military base in Sevastopol and related infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula. The Russian Black Sea fleet had basing rights in Crimea until 2042. Usage of navigation stations and troop movements were improperly covered by the treaty and were violated many times as well as related court decisions. February troop movements were in "complete disregard" of the treaty.^[142]

 

Both Russia and Ukraine are signatories to the Charter of the United Nations. The ratification of said charter has several ramifications in terms of international law, particularly those that cover the subjects of declarations of independence, sovereignty, self-determination, acts of aggression, and humanitarian emergencies. Vladimir Putin said that Russian troops in the Crimean peninsula were aimed "to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will",^[143] whilst Ukraine and other nations argue that such intervention is a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.^[136]

 

Russia, United States, United Kingdom and Ukraine also signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, by which all these countries reaffirmed their obligation to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine (including Crimea) and to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.^[144]

 

Anyway you cut it, what Russia did was wrong.  Impossible to argue it any other way.

 

Edited July 25, 2017 by craigt3365

[craigt3365]

And here's the aftermath.  Hope you don't agree with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation

Quote

 

In the year following the annexation, armed men seized various Crimean businesses, including banks, hotels, shipyards, farms, gas stations, a bakery, a dairy, and Yalta Film Studio.^{[234][235][236]} Russian media have noted this trend as "returning to the 90's", which is perceived as a period of anarchy and rule of gangs in Russia.^[237]

 

n March 2014, Human Rights Watch reported that pro-Ukrainian activists and journalists had been attacked, abducted, and tortured.^[241] Some Crimeans were simply "disappeared" with no explanation.^[242]

 

On 9 May 2014 the new "anti-extremist" amendment to the Criminal Code of Russia, passed in December 2013, came into force. Article 280.1 designated incitement of violation of territorial integrity of the Russian Federation^[243] (incl. calls for secession of Crimea from Russia^[244]) as a criminal offense in Russia, punishable by a fine of 300 thousand roubles or imprisonment up to 3 years. If such statements are made in public media or the internet, the punishment could be obligatory works up to 480 hours or imprisonment up to five years.^[243]

 

Following the annexation of Crimea, according to report released on the Russian government run President of Russia's Council on Civil Society and Human Rights website, Tatars who were opposed to Russian rule have been persecuted, Russian law restricting freedom of speech has been imposed, and the new pro-Russian authorities "liquidated" the Kiev Patriarchate Orthodox church on the peninsula.^[37] The Crimean Tatar television station was also shut down by the Russian authorities.^[242]

 

 

Lovely way to treat these people.

 

[craigt3365]

I was in Moldova last year.  Met a couple with relatives in Crimea.  They've lost everything as they aren't ethnic Russians.  Ethnic Russians are taking everything they can.  Tartars are really screwed.  Lovely, eh?

 

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/crimea

Quote

 

The occupation authorities have sought to compel Crimea residents to accept Russian citizenship and surrender their Ukrainian passports. Those who fail to do so face the threat of dismissal from employment, loss of property rights, inability to travel to mainland Ukraine and elsewhere, and eventual deportation as foreigners.

Property rights are poorly protected, and the Russian invasion has resulted in a redistribution of assets in favor of Russian and pro-Russian entities.

 

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/03/russia-continues-oppress-crimea-tatars-160308054208716.html

 

Quote

 

Russia continues to oppress Crimea's Tatars

With the exception of Turkey, the Muslim world has been virtually silent on the Tatars' situation.

 

 

Yet some condemn the US and have nothing but praise for Russia over this.  Boggles my mind.