Brothers and sisters!
Here is the summary for March 23
The bad news:
1. Kidnappings of our unit commanders in Crimea have become a norm. The occupiers are cynically calling these acts “arrests.” But neither the Russian militaries nor the so-called “Crimean self-defense” have any legal rights whatsoever (even under the Russian legislation!) to arrest anyone. Under any international norms, what they are doing is defined as kidnapping, a crime recognized by any country in the world.
Most of the “arrested” are being kept and interrogated in the commandant’s office of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Today, this is the Crimean peninsula’s own little Gestapo. The Russian militaries are stunning in their roles as terrorists and secret police. To add to that, today these despicable creatures started threatening to kidnap more of our servicemen, those who haven’t surrendered yet. Our guys in Feodosiya reported of such threats. So, it seems that Russians and their lapdogs have two styles: either staging assaults while hiding behind human shields, or kidnapping enemies that they fail to break in an open attack.
2. Another date by which the Russians plan to clear out troops from Crimea has been announced – March 25th. We think that the Kremlin folks remember that the UN General Assembly is meeting on March 27th, and wish to be full-fledged owners of the peninsula by that time. Plus an extra day for any contingencies.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Moscow is setting up timeframes. The first such date was March 16th – to prepare for the variety show known as the “Crimean referendum.” That plan had failed. Then they [Moscow] announced March 21st [as another deadline]. Our guys still stood firm.
Considering what is recently going on with our units, the latest announced date may be realistic. But not necessarily, because our guys keep presenting the aggressor with a lot of surprises.
The good news:
1. Putin was in such a hurry to snatch up Crimea that he tripped himself up. Ukrainian lawyers started voicing their confusion about the current situation: with his decree, the Russian President acknowledged “independence” of Crimea (because only an independent state can be included in the Russian Federation). Whereas the Crimean separatists were expecting an immediate inclusion as a part of Russia.
But here’s the ticket – at the Crimean “Referendum,“ no one voted for Crimea’s independence that was “acknowledged” by Russia. The option of independence was never on the agenda. The ballots had an option to be included into the Russian Federation, but formally, that is entirely different from independence.
Therefore, the “referendum” staged by Moscow was entirely worthless from a legal point of view. The smarter thing to do would be holding a referendum on the independence [of Crimea], and only after that vote to be included into the Russian Federation.
Obviously, such serious legal flaws mean nothing to Putin himself. But for any reasonable state, this is yet another piece of evidence of how Putin’s heist was a blatant violation of all legal norms.
2. Our border guards are picking up whole bunches of Russian soldiers attempting to travel from Russia to Crimea entirely matter-of-factly, as if tourist season had started. Today, border guards of the Donetsk detail, at “Ilovaysk” checkpoint, stopped seven such “vacationers,” who turned out to be Russian marines.
Meanwhile, the State Border Service, the Interior Ministry and the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] have intensified the border control for people traveling from Crimea [to mainland Ukraine]. This is an absolutely correct and timely measure. Today, Crimea is the source of a disease that is attempting to cover the entire southeast of Ukraine. Thus, we need “quarantine officers” at the border, to ensure complete isolation. We can’t let these things out of their terrarium.
3. Today, an amusing incident happened during a separatist freak show in Donetsk. Those riffraff were trying to raise a Russian flag above the Donetsk city council, when, all of sudden, the separatists started beating each other up.
As it turned out, representatives of the Russian Block party didn’t want to let the sympathizers of Pavlo Gubarev, a Donetsk separatist bigshot, to the stage near Lenin’s monument. This led to a heated argument as to who loves Russia more, and who is more worthy to lick Vladimir Vladimirovich’s [Putin’s] shoes.
So, it looks like the spiders in the jar started devouring each other. Good sign.
