The Long Hangover by Shaun Walker

Author:Shaun Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

IV

It was obvious from the encounters at the Ukrainian military installations that the Kremlin was directing events in Crimea, but with the operation shrouded in secrecy, it was only much later that I was able to piece together exactly how Putin had coordinated the operation.

On 23 February 2014, soon after Yanukovych had hotfooted it from Kiev and gone into hiding, a delegation of high-ranking Russians called on Leonid Grach at his office in Simferopol. Born in mainland Ukraine in 1948, Grach came to Crimea in 1967 for his military service and fell in love with the peninsula. The climate, the mentality, and the quality of life were all different to other places in the vast Soviet motherland, and Grach settled in Crimea, working first as a factory director and then entering the ranks of the local party leadership. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Grach had risen to become first secretary, the top party boss for the region. He stayed in politics during the 1990s, but by 2014 he was long retired, with the reputation of a charming if eccentric old Communist. His office was sparsely furnished, with a cheap desk and a bronze bust of Lenin. A small oil painting depicting a pensive Vladimir Ilyich perusing a newspaper was hung on one of the white walls.

The visitors from Moscow included Oleg Belaventsev, a top aide to Russia’s defence minister, who would later become Putin’s representative in Crimea. They had arrived in the peninsula to help spirit the fugitive Yanukovych out of the country and get him to Russia. But the men had another, top-secret, matter to discuss. Surprising discussions were going on in the Kremlin, they said: the plan was for Crimea to separate from Ukraine and declare itself independent. At this point, the testimony of Kremlin insiders suggests Putin had not yet decided whether Russia would actually annex Crimea, but it was clear the option was under consideration. Would Grach be interested in becoming prime minister of either a Russian-protected ‘independent’ Crimea or a Russian-annexed region of Crimea?

Separately, a high-ranking acquaintance in the FSB called Grach from Moscow to say an FSB delegation was in Crimea and wanted to meet with him. The men appeared at his home with a special secure telephone; the Russian defence minister was on the line and repeated the offer. Grach was to organize a meeting of locals the next day and declare a split from Ukraine, making it look spontaneous.

Much later, when I visited the office with the two Lenins, Grach recounted the tale, as his assistant brought in cups of instant coffee and stale square biscuits. Grach had always been of the belief that independent Ukraine could only prosper in coalition with Russia; a book he had published in 2007 finished on that very conclusion. In fact, he remained devastated the Soviet Union had ever collapsed. In the 1980s, he had supported Gorbachev’s reforms in principle, and understood the need for freedom of thought and exchanges of opinions, but he rued the speed of change.

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