Really worth the read to understand the current Russian understanding of their UW strategy and how they are carrying it out.
neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/1461-is-russia-a-state-sponsor-of-terrorism …
Is Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism?
Published on Thursday, 22 January 2015 09:12 Written by Taras Kuzio
PART ONE of the article
As France and Europe mourned and condemned the senseless terrorism in Paris, the European Parliament only a few days later, in a tough resolution on Ukraine, refused to describe the Russian-sponsored separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine as “terrorist.” Why the double standards?
Promoting terrorism
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini’s proposal to the EU to return to business with Russia and not only ignore its state-backed terrorist campaign but even its hybrid war was rejected by member states. US Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey has declared that the threat of Russian aggression and terrorism in Europe are growing. After all, the arrest of five Russian citizens in France on January 20th on terrorism charges showed how futile it is to try and sanitise developments in one part of Europe and separate them from those in another.
Europe’s focus on Russia’s hybrid war has ignored Russia’s second front of promoting terrorism in Ukraine. While the hybrid war in the Donbas seems far away for most Ukrainians, the terrorist campaign, which is spreading and becoming more deadly as seen in explosions in Kharkiv, which injured 20 people, and Zaporizhzhya which derailed a train, are very much closer to home. On January 20th the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council introduced heightened security measures throughout the country because of the growing number of terrorist attacks.
Intelligence reports point to these terrorist attacks as not being the work of “lone wolves”, as in Boston, Ottawa, and Paris, but a well-coordinated campaign orchestrated by Moscow. Coordinating centres ‘Novaya Rus’ (New Russia) are training groups of 3-5 Ukrainian and Russian citizens in Russia (Belgorod, Tambov, Taganrog, and Rostov), Crimea and Moldova’s frozen conflict zone of Transnistria.
Training is provided by Russian military intelligence (GRU), which controls the “little green men” that led to the annexation of Crimea and capture of state buildings in Donetsk in the spring, and are known as such because of the absence of country insignia on their uniforms. The Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s domestic intelligence service that is tasked with operating not only in Russia but also throughout the former USSR, is also involved in providing intelligence and training.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence have captured terrorist groups Svat, Dzygit, Staryy, Pryzrak, Kharkov Partyzany, Kulykove Pole, and Koban. Captured terrorists from the Svat group who were active in the Mariupol region have testified to attending training camps in Sevastopol where they were taught how to build bombs and undertake urban guerrilla warfare, reconnaissance, and intelligence operations behind enemy lines.
Russian weapons and explosives have been intercepted while being sent using private postal services. Roadblock checkpoints have also discovered explosives and weapons hidden in cars and trucks travelling to Kyiv from Eastern Ukraine. In one incident near Kyiv last month terrorists travelling in a car that was randomly checked threw hand grenades at traffic police.
The greatest concentration of terrorist attacks have taken place in four key areas – the capitol city of Kyiv, the two swing regions of Odesa and Kharkiv, where in the spring of 2014 pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian forces battled for control, and the port city of Mykolayiv which was temporarily occupied by separatists and is key to any Russian attempt at establishing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. Security expert Oleksiy Melnyk from Kyiv’s Razumkov Centre believes these four cities are “where Russian-backed forces feel there’s still a possibility to destabilise the situation.”
In spring of 2014, Russia invested enormous resources in destabilising Kharkiv and Odesa, which after the failure of these operations have borne the brunt of terrorist attacks.
The battle for Ukraine
In May, the PBS Frontline documentary “The Battle for Ukraine” reported how pro-Russian vigilantes were trained and paid 40 US dollars per hour by Russian intelligence to beat up “Ukrainian fascists” (i.e. EuroMaidan supporters). Ultimately their plans were foiled by the mobilisation of Russian-speaking Ukrainian patriots and in Kharkiv patriotic football fans coined the well-known chant “Putin hhuilo!”, which translates as “Putin is a dickhead!”. Kharkiv-born Interior Minister Arsen Avakov assisted local patriots in defeating the pro-Russian Oplot (Bulwark) vigilantes who moved to Donetsk to form Donetsk People’s Republic Prime Minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko’s elite forces. Oplot was one of a number of separatist organisations sanctioned by the US government last month.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) believes that Oplot members now operating underground in Kharkiv have undertaken these terrorist attacks. In Kharkiv, terrorists have targeted the city’s prosecutor’s office, a military hospital, a furniture factory owned by a Euromaidan activist, and a rock pub called Stina (“Wall” in English) where EuroMaidan activists gathered. An underground explosives and printing factory in Kharkiv was closed down in October and a number of separatist organisations were banned. In an ongoing anti-terrorist operation in Kharkiv, members of the Iskhod terrorist organisation were captured.
In Odesa there has been calm since early May, when street battles between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces led to over fifty deaths, mainly of pro-separatist activists who died in the Trade Union building. But, since the Minsk peace accords the number of terrorist attacks have markedly risen, and after seven recent attacks Kyiv dispatched National Guard units to Odesa to assist the local police forces.
A group of five terrorists were detained in Odesa in September of last year who had been trained in Russia. A second detained terrorist group had planned to copy the violent seizure of state buildings undertaken in the Donbas in the spring. One terrorist accidentally blew himself up last month while planting a bomb at a military academy. Other terrorist targets have included Euromaidan civil society support groups who collect supplies for Ukraine’s military, shops owned by these activists, train lines, and freight cars transporting oil. On January 20th, three were shot in Odesa, including a volunteer who had been collecting supplies for the Ukrainian army.
Besides these four strategic targets, terrorist groups planning to commit acts of terror have been captured by Ukraine’s security forces throughout the country from Trans-Carpathia and Lviv in the West, to Zhitomir, Khmelnytskyy and Vynnytsya in Central Ukraine, and in the Kyiv metro and near Kyiv’s Borispil airport. In eastern and southern Ukraine, terrorist groups have been captured in Zaporizhzhya, Odessa, Kherson, Mylolayiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Two terrorist attacks targeted the private home of the popular Mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyy, whose new Samopomych (Self Reliance) party came in third in the October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary elections. Kharkiv Mayor Hennadiy Kernes survived an April assassination attempt by Oplot.
The Dnipropetrovsk region, led by Jewish-Ukrainian oligarch and Governor Igor Kolomoyskyy, is on the frontline of the Donbas conflict and is key to supplying Ukrainian army and National Guard units and treating wounded casualties. Last month the SBU detained a group backed by the Communist Party planning to launch a series of terrorist attacks in Dnipropetrovsk against banks and military bases. Pryvat Bank, owned by Kolomoyskyy and his business partners, has been nationalized in Crimea and has been extensively targeted by terrorists in Ukrainian cities.
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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