Plan A

Blast from the past: 8 years ago tomorrow

Plan A. The Kremlin planned to finish the operation before the Christmas holidays. If this had happened, the response of the United States and European Union would have been muted.

Plan A entailed creating two separate ‪#‎euromaidan‬ (s), one non-political and the other political. Presidential Administration Head Serhiy Lyovochkin put himself in charge of managing the former, and National Security and Defense Council Chief Andriy Klyuev dealt with the latter.

Leading Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem called people to Independence Square on November 21. He emphatically called on protesters to bring with them only EU banners, not the banners of Ukrainian political parties. The protest camp was located on Independence Square.

Ukrainian opposition parties (Udar, Batkyvshchina, Svoboda) began their protest on Sunday, November 24 with a large rally in Kyiv. They occupied European Square, a block away.

Provocateurs, at Klyuev’s behest, on November 25 began inciting conflicts with the police de…