By Vestnik Kavkaza
As euphoria about the merger of Crimea and joy about soft sanctions by the West ebb in Russia, serious security problems begin to come to the fore. Sergei Aksyonov, the prime minister of Crimea, urged Ukrainian forces on the peninsula to lay down arms and swear allegiance to the people of Crimea. At the same time, not only Crimea, but whole of Russia expects provocations.
The federal agencies got a task to establish a security system on the peninsula. Igor Morozov, a member of the Council of the Federation Committee for International Affairs, stated that “about 20,000 Ukrainian military men are located in Crimea at the moment; today they are deciding what country they defend. It should be considered that most of the people got an education in Soviet times, they speak Russian and think just like we do. If the Ukrainians are ready to serve in the Russian army, the Russian border troops, we must accept them.”
This concerns security bodies as well. “It's no secret that we gave passports to officers of Berkut in the second half of February. At the moment they are arriving in Crimea. We have a big group of professionals who participated in the Maidan events and want to serve Russia. We can use these human resources in Crimea without involvement of soldiers from Russian internal troops or the Interior Ministry’s systems. The only thing is that they should be organized,” Morozov said.
According to him, in December when the Maidan began, Berkut was disarmed: “Body armours and other defense were taken away; actually they were naked in the Maidan, they had only kevlar body armours and batons; they had no arms up to the last moment… Establishing a security system, we should remember about the human element, our powerful professional capital which exists in Crimea.”
Mikhail Delyagin, Director of the Institute of Globalization Problems, spoke about those who would probably have to fight to: “The Acting Defense Minister of Ukraine at a time when he could express his thoughts once again (and this period did not last long) established that the Armed Forces of Ukraine had 6000 battle-ready people. The actual fighting force in Ukraine consists of Euro-nationalist militants who have been training since 1990, by the Security Service of Ukraine as well. They could have been raised for a "crusade" in the first days after the seizure of power. Lately they have realized that as soon as they leave Kiev, they'll be buried. Therefore, their main forces continue to occupy Kiev.”
According to Delyagin, a punitive expedition is possible, while subversive actions are inevitable: “The head of the "Russian Party of Crimea" has already been kidnapped, for some reason we are all silent about it. Pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian activists as well as anti-Nazi activists are being kidnapped all across Ukraine. I think that Moscow is currently under a real terrorist threat. But it is impossible to talk about any serious combat actions, since these people were trained for something else. And they will not leave Kiev en masse, because they still have some people to rob and they will not accomplish it soon.”
Vladimir Lepekhin, Director of EurAsEU Institute, says that “Russia sent special forces to protect its military facilities in Crimea immediately after the change of power in Kiev. If Russia had not done this, the Americans would have been there by now.”
Lepekhin thinks that Washington is interested not in Ukraine, but in Crimea: “Iran and Syria now are the main topic of American interest. And if instead of the Russian base in Sevastopol there was an American base, it would be possible to make a circle – through Georgia and Karabakh – around Syria and Iran... There is an opinion that the Americans were interested in destabilization in order to use this pretext to enter Crimea and organize their base there.”
