Window on Eurasia: ‘Single Command’ Prepared Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimean Operations, Donetsk Leader Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 17 – The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic told a press conference in that Ukrainian oblast’s capital today that “a single command” had prepared the pro-Russian operations in Crimea and in other parts of Eastern Ukraine, acknowledging that he personally had “worked in Crimea” but refusing to say just whose project this was.

            Aleksandr Boroday insisted that he was acting as “a private person” in Ukraine, even though he acknowledged that he is a Moscow native and a citizen of the Russian Federation, had “for many years” been “involved in political and business consulting for various structures,” and would be seeking Donetsk’s annexation by Russia (ostro.org/general/politics/news/444825/).

            Boroday’s statement, while something just short of an acknowledgement of what most Western observers are already convinced of, represent the clearest Russian acknowledgement to date that Moscow is behind the Russian moves in all three places and that Vladimir Putin ultimately intends the same outcome in Donetsk and Luhansk he has achieved in Crimea.