Ukrainian military expert Melnyk announced three stages of the “seizure” of Crimea
Alexei Mělník. Photo: A still from the video.
Ukrainian military expert, co-director of foreign policy and international security programs of the Razumkov Center Oleksiy Melnyk said on the website of Novoye Vremya that Ukraine will try to take Crimea in three stages. Earlier, in an interview with Scandinavian journalists, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Crimea will be the target of the expected counter-offensive.
According to Melnyk, the first phase will be the training of both military forces and means and a comprehensive package of non-military forces and means “operational restoration of control ” over the territories.
In the second phase, which Mělník described as the most difficult, the direct implementation of the operation “liberation of the peninsula” will begin. He emphasized that this would be a military operation, but noted that it would be desirable to conduct it without intense hostilities.
Melnik described it as an application of Sun Tzu's principle of “suppressing enemy resistance without fighting. “
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According to the Ukrainian expert, the third phase will be a “long process of reintegration”. He admitted that in the event of the occupation of Crimea, the Ukrainian authorities would have to deal with the anti-Ukrainian sentiments of the local population for many years.
Earlier, Senator Olga Kovitidi from Crimea, commenting on the plans of the Ukrainian authorities to RIA Novosti, said: “Crimea, Russian opponents will never get, we Crimeans have seen many conquerors – and they all lie in cemeteries in Sevastopol and all over the Russian land.”