How Russia invaded Ukraine as told by FSB colonel Girkin

While the overall casualty toll in Ukraine’s Donbas besieged by a regular Russian army and Russia-backed militants reached more than 11500, the Russian outlet zavtra.ru published a remarkable interview with Igor Girkin, a former leader of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” and a Russian FSB colonel, on 19 November 2014. In it Girkin openly acknowledges that it was the Russian army that took over the Donbas, and that no war in Ukraine would have been possible without the involvement of terrorists from Russia. On December 1, the outlet ria.ru published another interview with Girkin (translated by Moscow times), later reported by slon.ru to have been twice censored, in which Girkin stated that he is an FSB colonel and doesn’t hide it (translation of its uncensored version on Politnavigator here).  Here we bring the major takeaways from the two interviews, filling in an analysis  of the November 19 article by Dmitry Chekalkin with the censored parts from the December 1 article.

The interview with the terrorist Igor Girkin aka “Strelkov”  is actually quite shocking. Having the potential to bring about a Watergate scenario, which resulted in the impeachment of the President, or to become something like the Pentagon Papers which were a strong factor in the termination of the Vietnam War, Girkin’s interview became merely a source for citations. However, there is still a chance the article could become key evidence in a trial at the Hague Tribunal. It is important, for the sake of Russia’s future, that such a trial should eventuate.

The interview titled “Who are you, Strelkov [the Shooter]?” begins with Girkin’s sentimental recollection of the wars he fought in. “It’s my fifth time,” says the young Ogre. The surreal interview is akin to listening to a maniac who flicks through a photo album of his victims as he reminisces the gory details.

[Ed: An important detail from Girkin’s biography that was censored by ria.ru in that he is a FSB colonel. “I really am a FSB colonel, and I don’t hide it, and in general I don’t recommend you to call a military serviceman by any rank lower than his actual one,” he responded to a citation of critics claiming that Girkin is only a sub-colonel and has no experience in planning military operations.]

No war in East and South Ukraine would have taken place without the involvement of terrorists sent from Russia

The essence of the interview is a confessionary statement by Girkin-Strelkov claiming that no war in East and South Ukraine would have taken place without the involvement of terrorists sent from Russia, and in particular, the group that he commanded. A close translation of his statement reads: “I was the one who pressed the trigger of that war. If our unit had not crossed the border, it would have all ended as it did in Kharkiv or Odesa. Several dozen casualties, those with burns and those arrested. And that would have been the end of it… It was practically our unit, which got this ongoing war moving.”

Regarding the local population, which, according to the Russian propaganda, “stood up to protect the Russian world against the Ukrainian fascists,” the Girkin-Strelkov’s story of this goes as follows: “No-one wanted to make war at first… but in April and May [of 2014] everything was building up, and the rebellion area was expanding. We (!) were gradually taking control of populated areas of the Donetsk Republic.”

The “we” pronoun that Girkin uses to refer to the group of Russian terrorists under his own command means a lot in this case. It was precisely “them,” the Russian mercenaries, who “took control of” the Donbas.

http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/12/07/fsb-colonel-girkin-tells-details-of-how-russia-invaded-ukraine-in-twice-censored-interview/