[The report said that
oligarchs in Ukraine, who are not tempered by bureaucracy as much as their
Russian counterparts, had lost control of the demonstrations in the central
square in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, known as the Maidan. It said the
commanders in the square were “presumably controlled not by the groups of
oligarchs, but to a great extent by Polish and British secret services.”]
MOSCOW — The Kremlin was advised
to annex Crimea and a large swath of southeasternUkraine weeks
before the Ukrainian government fell, a Russian newspaper reported on
Wednesday, citing what it said was a memo that was presumably presented to the
presidential administration.
Russia has long contended that it acted
without premeditation in Crimea, and was only seeking to protect Russian
speakers who it said were under threat of attack, and to stave off what it
suspected was an attempt by NATO to move its forces into the region.
But a report in Novaya
Gazeta, one of the few independent voices still publishing in Russia, said that well before the Ukrainian government
fell in February 2014, the memo the newspaper had obtained advised the Kremlin
to adopt the policy it has since pursued in Ukraine. The memo appears to have
been drafted under the auspices of a conservative oligarch later suspected of
funding the separatists, the report said.
The memo lays out what
it says is the inevitable disintegration of Ukraine and suggests a series of
logistical steps that Russia should take to make sure it remains in control of
the situation, steps not far off from what actually occurred.
As early as Feb. 4, 2014,
well before President Viktor
F. Yanukovychresigned, on Feb. 21, the memo predicted his overthrow
and suggested that Russia use the European Union’s own rules on autonomous
areas to try to bind both Crimea and eastern Ukraine to Russia.
Dimtry S. Peskov, the
Kremlin spokesman, suggested that the memo was a hoax. “It seems like a fake,”
he said.
“I don’t know whether
this document exists at all, I don’t know who might be the author, but for sure
the document has nothing to do with the Kremlin,” Mr. Peskov said. The
authenticity of the document could not be independently verified.
The memo proposes a
detailed strategy, one that the Kremlin seems to have largely followed, though
it does not seem eager to annex large areas of southeastern Ukraine, as the
memo urges.
With Ukraine likely to
break into two — a European-aligned west and a pro-Russian east combined with
Crimea — Moscow had to act quickly, the report said, particularly given that
the Yanukovych government could soon fall.
Russia should take
advantage of the “centrifugal forces” tearing the country apart in order to
merge the east with the rest of Russia, the memo said. “The dominant regions
for the application of force should be Crimea and the Kharkiv region,” it said,
particularly given that strong groups there endorsed the idea of joining
Russia.
Novaya Gazeta said that a
conservative Russian oligarch, Konstantin V. Malofeev, could have been the
mastermind behind the document. The newspaper quoted Mr. Malofeev’s
communications team as denying any involvement by him.
The report said that
oligarchs in Ukraine, who are not tempered by bureaucracy as much as their
Russian counterparts, had lost control of the demonstrations in the central
square in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, known as the Maidan. It said the
commanders in the square were “presumably controlled not by the groups of
oligarchs, but to a great extent by Polish and British secret services.”
Russia has since switched
tactics, blaming the United States for the protests.
The memo was also
dismissive of the Ukrainian leader’s chances of bringing the situation under
control.
“President Yanukovych is
not a very charismatic person,” it said. “He is afraid to give up the
presidential post and at the same time is prepared to trade the security
officers for guarantees of keeping the post and of immunity after resignation.”
Moscow should abandon the
Ukrainian leader, the report suggested. “There is no sense in further Russian
political, diplomatic, financial or media support for the regime,” it said.
The report emerged as the
cease-fire in southeastern Ukraine seemed to be taking hold.
In Kiev, the military
said that for a second night in a row cease-fire violations had “significantly
decreased,” and that the previous 24 hours had been the quietest since the Feb.
12 signing of a cease-fire in
Minsk, Belarus.
Donetsk, Luhansk and the
Mariupol area experienced no shooting, it said. In the past 24 hours,
separatist forces have fired mortar rounds or other shells just 15 times and
light weapons four times, the Ukrainian military said.
Yet concerns about the
strength of the truce remained, with the Ukrainian military spokesman saying it
could not move to the next stage — the withdrawal of heavy weapons — as long as
the separatists continued fighting.
“For now, there is still
no order on the withdrawal of weapons, as the fighters have not yet fulfilled
the first point of the Minsk agreement, to cease-fire,” said Andriy Lysenko,
the military spokesman.
The unease was also
reflected elsewhere, with France, which helped negotiate the cease-fire,
threatening new sanctions if fighting erupted around the strategic southern
Ukrainian port of Mariupol.
“The problem today is
particularly around Mariupol,” the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius,
told France Info radio. “We’ve told the Russians clearly that if there was a separatist
attack in the direction of Mariupol, things would change completely, including
in terms of sanctions.”
The comments came after
the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine met in Paris on
Tuesday but made little progress in solidifying the agreement known as Minsk
II. Violations on the ground would mean that Europe would again raise the
question of sanctions, Mr. Fabius said.
Rebel forces said that
they had already begun withdrawing heavy weapons, including 100 howitzers
pulled back from the front during the first day of operations on Tuesday. The
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued a statement saying
it could not confirm withdrawals from either side because it did not have a
thorough accounting of the weapons there before the cease-fire.
But the rebel forces said
the organization would soon be able to monitor the withdrawal.
There has been a kind of
unspoken contest in Ukraine about whether the economic situation or the
low-grade war was the worst news, and the economy seemed to edge out the
conflict on Wednesday.
With the Ukrainian
currency falling precipitously against the dollar, the central bank on
Wednesday banned banks from buying foreign currency for the rest of this week,
Reuters reported.
Maïa de la Baume
contributed reporting from Paris.
