The Kremlin’s little green duds
18 Apr 2019|Carl Bildt
Five years ago this month, a small force of ‘little green men’—soldiers wearing no national insignia—seized control of a police station in Sloviansk, a small village in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Thus began the second stage of Russia’s campaign to dismember Ukraine, following its illegal annexation of Crimea that March. As the Kremlin’s own statements at the time made clear, Russia’s goal was to establish a semi-independent statelet—‘Novorossiya’ (New Russia)—in Southern Ukraine, and reduce the rest of the country into a kind of Greater Galicia.
The pro-Kremlin insurgents comprised an odd mix of nationalist hotheads and ‘volunteers’ from the Russian special forces. Though Russia supplied them with ‘humanitarian aid’ and sophisticated weaponry, the expectation was that they would mobilise popular support to see the Novorossiya effort through to its conclusion.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-kremlins-little-green-duds/
