the kremlin’s plan: anschluss of ukraine before — or after — sochi olympics
the kremlin had contingency plans.
plan a. the kremlin planned to finish the operation before the christmas holidays. if this had happened, the response of the us and eu 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 council chief andriy klyuev dealt with the latter.
leading ukrainian journalist mustafa nayyem called people to independence square on nov. 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, fatherland, and svoboda) began their protest on sunday, nov. 24 with a large rally in kyiv. they occupied european square a block away.
provocateurs, at klyuev’s behest, on nov. 25 began inciting conflicts with the police defending the cabinet of min…
