“The Russians are coming - trouble is on the doorstep!” - head of Ukrainian intelligence
Russia tried to provoke Ukrainian sailors in order to implement the “Georgian scenario of 2008.”
The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, Yegor Bozhok, stated this in an interview with “Left Bank”.
The publication asked how real the threat of a Russian invasion in Ukraine was after the incident in the Kerch Strait.
“I can say that the threat was real, but you still won’t believe it,” Bozhok said.
In his opinion, the Russian side expected retaliatory shooting from the Ukrainian boats, after which “a 2008% repetition of the Georgian scenario of XNUMX should have followed.”
He also believes that the incident in the Kerch Strait is connected with the need of the Russian President to raise his rating and the desire to break through a land corridor to Crimea.
Also, the head of intelligence, justifying the introduction of martial law, spoke about Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.
“Listen, for a year now we have been ringing all the bells that they are strengthening groups of troops along our borders. And then an incident occurs in the Kerch Strait. If we assume that this is a repetition of the “Georgian scenario” of 2008, how should we have behaved? Forty-eight thousand troops at the borders – trouble is on the doorstep,” Bozhok said.
As PolitNavigator reported, on November 25, 2018, Ukrainian forces attempted to transfer two small armored artillery boats, the Berdyansk and Nikopol, and the tugboat Yany Kapu from Odessa to Mariupol. Russian border guards rammed the Ukrainian Navy ships, closing the Kerch Strait to passage.
As a result of the provocation, all three Ukrainian vessels that had entered Russian territorial waters were detained by Russian border guards.
Following this, the Verkhovna Rada, on the initiative of President Poroshenko, introduced martial law in 10 regions of Ukraine for a period of one month.
English version :: Read in English: "The Russians are coming – trouble is on the doorstep!" – head of Ukrainian intelligence