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Yuri Butusov: Ukrainians should prepare for all out war

Yuri Butusov: Ukrainians should prepare for all out war

Editor-in-chief of a legendary web-site Censor.net commented on the latest events in Ukraine.

Well-known journalist Yuri Butusov has been interviewed by charter97.org.

- Yuri, the other days, after posting Putin’s portrait with a target on his face, your account on Facebook was blocked. How this could have happened?

- Facebook office on post-Soviet territory is located in Moscow. So Russian Federation has started to make information war using offices of eastern companies. So I’m not the only one whose account has been blocked. Attempts are being taken to block some Ukrainian activist’s accounts. So, now authorities care about Putin’s “moral image”. They follow every piece of information we post about him: both articles and images.

- In fact, Facebook office in Moscow is a part of Russian Federal Security Service. So we’ll appeal their decision in central office in the USA. This is a clear manipulation.

- How could you comment on parliamentary elections in Ukraine?

- The picture is pretty optimistic. First place goes to “People’s Front” party, main participants of Maidan movement. “Self Reliance” party takes the third place; they also took part in Maidan movement. That’s quite logical and predictable process, I suppose.

- How can you comment on such unexpected redistribution of votes? According to polls, “Petro Poroshenko bloc” should have taken a flawless victory.

- Everything can change very fast in democratic countries. During the war ineffective actions caused a credibility gap. And, as a result, doubts started to appear: is it possible for commander-in-chief to take a stand for his country and its interests? So, that is the reason for redistribution of votes between that major part of citizens who support the president. At the end they gave their votes in favor of “People’s Front”.

- What can you say about Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speech, where he claimed that: “Moscow expects that representatives of Petro Poroshenko Bloc will take key positions in Ukraine’s parliament”?

- What should I say? Lavrov is trying to bring a rift in Ukraine’s elite, provoke a confrontation between the leading parliamentary parties. That is a usual element of information war and pressure, an attempt to undermine the situation in Ukraine.

- Nevertheless, is it possible to give a hypothetic forecast on a new government?

- It’s clear that government is going to be coalition. That would be great if “People’s Front” led a national security and representatives of “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” concentrated on domestic and foreign policy.

- Sure, at present moment we have no candidate to take any position and who will be able to oppose this sea of troubles, that we now observe in general government, only by means of his magnificent and enormously genius mind. For Belarusians to understand: our bureaucratic mechanism ran down in one moment and stopped its functioning.

Those government regulators, having worked for criminal side of power, lost their motivation in a moment. It was inculcated by Yanukovych that they were assisting offenders and their every signature cost them particular sum of money. Therethrough, they have hardly ruined the country.

That is the reason why we still see door-plates, but the system of relationships and levers of influence – a fear – has no already more power. The contingent, who made up this system, had been chosen under the “they should be afraid of us” principle and that is a real problem to motivate them by other means. They work only under the whiplash or for big money. In any case, they are incompetent. Bureaucratic system based on fear only is condemned to degradation and extinction.

What we should do now is to build a new system.

- Now journalists in Ukraine form a real fourth power. You criticize ministers and they lose their positions. E.g. you’ve got a conflict with ex-Defense Minister Valeri Galeta…

- I’ve got no conflict with Galeta. The conflict took place with people who couldn’t resolve system problems in Ukraine’s defense capability. So it turned that Valery Galeta, due to his position, was among these people.

If he had run his mission effectively – there would have appeared no conflict. Now he is not minister anymore. Galeta is a good person, I guess. But he is absolutely incompetent and has neither professional nor organizational skills. So that is why I’ve got some claims against him.

- What do you think a new Minister of Defense should do?

- Defense forces claim for systemic reforms. We should begin with a clear statement of defense doctrine, which can announce and officially recognize Russian Federation and its armed forces as the main opponent. Ukraine’s armed forces should be based on the principles of defending the territory from Russian invasion.

- You often visit antiterrorist operation zone. What can you say about present situation there?

- Russia broke off the offensive by means of regular army. But they still run a noncontact war with artillery, so shelling continues.

The enemy stopped using the BM-30 Smerch (9A52-2 Smerch-M), but the BM-21 launch vehicles are still on their service. Taking into account Russian’s soldiers of fortune ammunition expenditures in Donbas, it becomes clear that arms are detrained.

- And what about Ukraine, who is more active: regular army or volunteer battalions?

- Regular army is definitely more active. It’s a noncontact war, after all. That’s a war of artillery. So the army takes it like a duck to water.

That is an all out military conflict. So it is what happens or may happen if significance and adequacy of Russia and Russian authorities will be overestimated. I hope Belarusians will be wise enough not to be involved in Putin’s adventure.

- Seems like Russia is drawing off the troops from the borders. What are your predictions? Does regrouping of forces take place?

The point is that Putin makes the war in Intelligence agency operation way. Russia can’t occupy Ukraine’s territory. It has got lack of troops. Russian authorities will have to carry out a nation-wide mobilization in order to invade spacious territories and hold control over them.

Russia won’t be able to take a leading position in a face-off with the West. The reason for it is that Russia has become an import dependent country. Putin built up a system as if he were an Arabian sheikh. It’s a consumption-based economy. There is no structural growth. That is a Soviet Union in its late “Brezhnevizm”. Any shortage of goods is substituted with import ones. All technologies and manufacturing lines are imported. Mechanical engineering is in a deep crisis and not commercially viable.

Economics is a chink in Putin’s armour. In case the West imposes veto on supply of component parts in Russia, it will bring its economy to immediate economy collapse. And even oil won’t be the way out.

Putin sees the limits he can reach. That is why he makes a manoeuvre: he draws off a regular army, but hereby the apparatus of security service, artillery and reconnaissance units stay at their positions.

- Should we wait for another wave of offence in spring?

- Definitely yes. Ukrainians should be ready for war. So it’s important to reorganize army.

- Is Poroshenko ready for war?

- All of us are dreaming about peace, but we have got a case of Russian invasion and we should put an end to all of it. It doesn’t matter what a peaceful person you are. If we don’t stop them in Donbas, then it won’t be able to do it near Kiev.

We can’t but wage a war. Trans-Dniester and Georgia’s experience shows that Russia create seats of tensions which can smoulder for many years. So they may flare up at any moment. That is Putin’s lever of influence on domestic situation in the region.

- What do you think about Belarus as a negotiation field with its separatists and Lukashenko acting as a “peacemaker”?

- Lukashenko maneuvers and tries to extract some dividends. He wants to act as the economic and political bridge between Russia and the West. The apparent Putin’s stupidity and schizophrenia of the Russian leadership plays into his hands.

Before it, all the time he had to look for a dictator who, in the eyes of Europe, would seem more outcast, now Putin got a pariah status. Lukashenko even makes money on it. Instead of Norwegian cod and salmon "Belarusian" salmon and other "Belarusian" delicacies have appeared in the Russian shops.

He regularly permits himself some Frondes – slightly criticize Russians actions, e.g. to say that he recognizes the integrity of Ukraine. He pronounces long speeches, so the mass-media can cut them and make a full news line. The messages, being claimed there, sound contradictory in many ways. He cynically says that “we cooperate with Russia, Russia is our friend and partner”, but at the same time - “we should cooperate on some affairs with Ukraine, Ukraine is united and so on”. As a result, Russian media makes soundbites using one part of his speech, Ukrainians – the other one.

- So what, these contradictory claims are enough for Ukraine’s authorities, who have come to power on the wave of democratic revolution, but continue supporting close relationships with neighboring dictator?

- I have no claims against them, because Ukraine’s authorities are in the process of makeover and foreign policy has no its feet on the ground yet.

Poroshenko can’t build up relations even with Ukraine’s main partners. For instance, there are no ambassadors in many countries yet. That is an outstanding example of system approach deficiency to foreign policy, the reason is that the war is going on and many questions are left unresolved.

Lukashenko, against the background of Putin’s criminal war, seems to be the less evil for Ukraine. And it is so small that he becomes a real player. Therefore, expect that in such difficult circumstances, in this Zeitnot (time trouble, time pressure)…

- Milosevic, Qaddafi, Hussein were also “real players”.

- Yes, Qaddafi attended Kiev too. We closed our eyes to everything when we heard that there was an opportunity to sign a contract or get some money. Yes, that is a cynical approach but that is how Europe acts too.

We’ve heard about western sanctions for a year already. They’ve started to work only in the last few weeks. And all that time Europe was “much disturbed” by multiple examples of Russian aggression, interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs and nothing was being done!

But on February 20 Maidan won, death toll was more than 100 people. The world saw that Ukrainians are ready to sacrifice their lives in order not to live in one country with Yanukovych. The West was shaken by those events. That was the catalyst which led to the toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych. And those suffered casualties in Kiev at the end of August also shook the West: we demonstrated our will to resist Putin.

All proceeds from society. We can’t expect that authority will operate on its own, because it thinks mathematically precise several moves ahead. The authority is always based on a real social movement. At the moment if Belarusian society had some significance, some subjectivity, this or that way could have an effect on public policy, Ukraine’s leaders would attach importance to it, I suppose.

- Seems like you can’t see the whole picture. For 20 years thousands of Belarus people have been subjected to repressions, have been imprisoned, kidnapped or murdered.

- Lukashenko acts as a mediator, some kind of convenient field (for Putin, first of all). Ukraine plays by stipulations proposed. We do not have a system policy. Poroshenko is putting out fire. He wants to stop future casualties.

For Russia it’s like Afghanistan before Gorbachev’s Thaw: when people die, nobody knows the death tolls, nobody writes about it, and graves are all that we have. And the death toll has been the same as we had, for instance, in 1988. But nobody knows about it and all the country keeps silence. So, it means that for Russia it’s acceptable, for Ukraine – not, because every war dead is highlighted in news. All mass media broadcast the funerals of heroes and give the information about injured.

Ukraine’s got a different decision-making structure. That is why Poroshenko’s main priority is to stop the war. So that is the reason why he’s ready to negotiate with everyone.

The main thing is that Ukraine took an election and we’ve got a power to change something. Greater majority went to those parties who had claimed that they would stand for Ukraine’s independence and freedom, and would have only pragmatic relationships with Russia.

I think, that the accession to power of such independent and free forces will mean a support for democratic movements in other countries. The democratization process on post-Soviet territory will turn into an inevitable process.

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