There has been much debate on these points, but this chimes with what I saw on the ground, and learned from interviews, and is also the conclusion of the thousand-page, exhaustive report authored by a Swiss diplomat that found that operations started with a massive Georgian artillery attack' but also stated that much of the Russian military action went far beyond the reasonable limits of defence'. See Shaun Walker, "Georgia Began War with Russia but It Was Provoked, Inquiry Finds," The Independent, 30 September 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/europe/georgia-began-war-with-russia-but-it-was-provoked- inquiry-finds-1795744.html.
This is the account given by Putin in a Russian television documentary made a year after the annexation.
Chapter 6
Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations, 121.
This policy of taking root' was promoted across the Soviet ethnic republic in the 1920s before being rolled back during the 1930s.
Recounted in Snyder, Bloodlands, 50.
Dolot, Execution by Hunger, 211.
Dolot, Execution by Hunger; 197-202.
Snyder, Bloodlands, 47.
Snyder, Bloodlands, 56.
Grossman, Everything Flows, 137-138.
Rossolinski-Liebe, Step an Bandera, 177.
Rossolinski-Liebe, Stepan Bandera, 181.
They took the city from the Soviets, who had annexed western Ukraine in 1939-
Rossolinski-Liebe, Stepan Bandera, 207.
Many Ukrainians went to great lengths to help Jews, and Israel has to date recognized 2,272 citizens of Ukraine as 'Righteous among the Nations' for sheltering Jews during the Holocaust (see Plokhy, The Gates of Europe, 271). Nevertheless, elements of the Ukrainian nationalist movement willingly embraced Nazi anti-Semitism. Close to a million Jews from Ukraine were killed in the Holocaust—around one in six of all the victims—and in at least some of the massacres, locals played a part.
Reid, Borderland, 214.
Reid, Borderland, 222.
Maria Danilova, "Ukraine Marks Anniversary of Great Famine," Associated Press, 22 November 2008.
Rudling, "The Cult of Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine," 34.
There is circumstantial but troubling evidence that mass killings of Jews took place under the guise of 'fighting partisans' during this time; see Rudling, "The Cult of Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine," 39-41.
Interview with Mikhail Tyaglyy of the Ukrainian Centre for Holocaust Studies.
One such town was Rava-Ruska, where a memorial appeared only in 2015.
Talbott, The Russia Hand, 80.
Plokhy, Yalta, 121.
Plokhy, Yalta, 75.
A scene witnessed, and recounted to me, by the Dutch reporter Olaf Koens.
https://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/poll-half-of- ukrainians-dont-support-kyiv-euromaidan-rb-334469.html.
Chapter 7
Pleshakov, The Crimean Nexus, 90.
http://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-crimea-bases-targetted/25306141.html.
The report is available online at http://old.president-sovet.ru/structure/ gruppa_po_migratsionnoy_politike/materialy/problemy_zhiteley_kryma. php. While the official results are extremely dubious, the figures in this report also seem incorrectly skewed in the other direction when compared with informal conversations during the month I spent in Crimea.
From remarks made in a meeting with businessmen quoted by Kommersant, among others, Uvolen za nesootvetsvie zanimaemoi territorii, 22 August 2005, http://k0mmersant.ru/d0c/602759.
"Voennaya doktrina Rossiiskoi Federatsii," http://rg.ru/2014/12/30/ doktrina-dok. html.
Chapter 8
Sebag-Montefiore, Potemkin, 275-276.
Sebag-Montefiore, Potemkin, 272.
Quoted in Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 8.
Figes, Crimea, 422.
Quoted in Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 63.
It was never overtly specified that the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was meant to be specifically Crimean Tatar, and thus bring with it the attributes and privileges that being a titular ethnicity brought with it, but the evidence suggests this probably was the intention. The distinction, while seemingly irrelevant, was important in terms of ethnic claims to the territory, and is still argued about in Crimea today.
Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 77.
Pleshakov, The Crimean Nexus, 88.
Elvedin Chubarov, interview with the author, 2015.
Uehling, Beyond Memory, 4.
Thousands of Crimean Tatars tried to make the journey back to their homeland unofficially, but the Soviet system required the place of residence to be stamped in the passport. Police quickly deported those who did not have it, with up to six thousand Crimean Tatars who had returned unofficially re-deported in 1968 alone. See Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars, 128.
Ablayev, Rossiiskaya Federatsiaprotiv Mustafy Dzhemileva.
Uehling, Beyond Memory, 90.
Uehling, Beyond Memory, 44.
Quoted in Wilson, Ukraine Crisis, 107.
Many Crimean Tatars felt he had been a dictatorial head of the mejlis and some even alleged he had misappropriated funds meant for repatriation. However, nobody doubted his record of dissidence during the Soviet period, and his political activities were widely respected in the community.
After the Russian annexation, realizing that Dzhemilev and other pro- Ukraine Crimean Tatars were a useful tool to portray the Ukrainianness of Crimea to an international audience, there was a sudden interest
in Crimean Tatar history and culture in Ukraine. This had not been particularly in evidence during the years that Crimea was controlled by Ukraine, however. While it was welcome, it also smacked a little of opportunism.
Chapter 9
1. Video available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wozj5Px4s6c; the exact wording used by Mackevicius, which is difficult to translate precisely, was my rabotaem v silovoi sfere and my siloviki.
Chapter 10
1. There was a persistent rumour in Donetsk that Khodakovsky had closer relations with Akhmetov than he let on with me, with the most notable piece of evidence being that members of Vostok guarded Akhmetov s
lavish residence outside town at one moment when it seemed locals might be readying to storm it. Khodakovsky denied any contact other than the initial, fruitless negotiations to me.
Chapter 11
The fullest account of the Odessa violence came from Howard Amos, the only Western journalist to be in the city when it happened, who returned a year later to piece together the build-up: Amos: " 'There Was Heroism and Cruelty on Both Sides': The Truth behind One of Ukraine's Deadliest Days," The Guardian, 30 April 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2015/apr/30/there-was-heroism-and-cruelty-on-both-sides-the-truth- behind-one-of-ukraines-deadliest-days.
On the two-year anniversary of the tragedy in 2016, Ukrainian authorities actually banned relatives of the dead and well-wishers from laying flowers at the site, in a deeply unsavoury episode. (See Shaun Walker, "Tensions Run High in Odessa on Anniversary of Deadly Clashes," The Guardian, 2 May 2016, https://www.theguardian.c0m/w0rld/2016/may/02/ odessa-ukraine-second-anniversary-clashes.)