He had not foreseen the invasionUkraine. Andrei Illarionov did not think that Putin would launch such a large-scale aggression. However, former economic adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Andrei Illarionov believes there have been some signs. The most noticeable? The one from 2003 on the street from Kerch. So you could already see signs of aggression 19 years ago. But that he could organize an invasion of this magnitude, he says in an interview with Rainews 24, is “simply impossible”. “The sanctions have started to work,” adds Illarionov, “but it’s not yet time for the effects to be seen. Sanctions are not enough,” he emphasizes.
Graham Phillips, the pro-Russian English YouTuber accused of war crimes https://t.co/1InruBSOfN
– The Messenger (@ilmessaggeroit) April 24, 2022
According to Illarionov, a “real embargo” by western countries on Russian energy could stop the war in Ukraine. “If western countries try to impose a real embargo on oil and gas exports from Russia, I bet that Russian hostilities in Ukraine will likely end within a month or two. This is one of the very effective tools that Western countries still have at their disposal,” Illarionov said, stressing that Moscow “does not take seriously” threats from other countries to reduce their energy consumption.”
Andrei Ilarionov
«In the short term, Putin wants to take Ukraine and then he could target Moldova via Transnistria, then Georgia and again the Baltic countries. According to these plans, it could then go to Europe,” explains the economist at Putin’s side from 2000 to 2005. What are his plans? Illarionov says the Russian president wants to go back in time and restore 1997 spheres of influence. He wanted to return to the Soviet Union.
What happened to Kerch in 2003 and 2018: the precedents
Why does Illarionov even go back as far as 2003 when looking for the historical precedents of the current invasion? Talk about Kerch and Tuzla. The latter is an island that naturally connects Crimea to Russia: Putin even wanted to build a bridge. Russian authorities argued that the 1954 cession of Crimea to Ukraine included only the continental parts of Crimea. The Russians built a 3.8 km dam from the Taman Peninsula to the island of Tuzla without consulting the Ukrainian government authorities. Ukraine only recognized the strait as internal waters of both countries in 2003. On October 23, 2003, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a resolution ‘to eliminate a threat to the territorial integrity of Ukraine posed by the construction of the dam of the Russian Federation in the Kerch Strait’. The construction of the dam was suspended.
Then there is a second precedent. The Kerch Strait incident is an international incident that occurred on November 25, 2018. The Coast Guard of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly KGB) shot and captured three Ukrainian Navy ships after trying to get from the Black Sea to the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Four years earlier, in 2014, Russia had annexed the neighboring peninsula Crimea. Putin was not happy and also wanted to build the Crimean bridge across the strait. According to a 2003 treaty, the Strait and the Sea of Azov are understood as common territorial waters of both countries and are freely accessible. And yet Russia argues that Ukrainian ships had to ask permission before entering Russian waters along Crimea’s border, as with any transnational water crossing, as regulated by the Law of the Sea treaty. For Ukraine, this is an illegitimate demand. Result? In 2018, Ukrainian ships got stuck in the strait for eight hours before turning back to return to the port of Odessa. The Russian coast guard pursued them as they left the area and subsequently shelled and hijacked the vessels in international waters off the Crimean coast. Three Ukrainian crew members were wounded in the crash, and all twenty-four Ukrainian sailors from the captured ships were detained by Russia.
The Ukrainian President described the incident as an antecedent to a Russian invasion. and declared martial law along the border with Russia and in the coastal areas of the Black Sea. The Kerch incident appears as a reference and argument for supporting sanctions against Russia. And it’s a very important historical precedent. Also for Illarionov, who belonged to Putin’s closest circle in those years.
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