SBU General: Putin planned to seize Ukraine in three phases in 2014
The testimonies of Russian special services agents, arrested in the spring of 2014, indicate that Russia planned to gradually establish control over all regions of Ukraine, as indicated by the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) departments in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, General Oleksandr Petrulevych, on the air of 112 Ukraine.
"According to our information, as well as radio interceptions and intelligence messages, three phases were planned: the first was meant to seize the southeast, the second – the center, and the third one was intended to take control over the western borders, namely Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk. No one was going to limit themselves to the southeast," the SBU General said.
According to him, the key information about the plans of the Russian Federation was received from an employee of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Roman Bannyh, who was detained on April 5, 2014 at the Krasna Talivka checkpoint in the Luhansk region.
He also told SBU the names of those who planned the seizure of the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine who were in Rostov-on-Don and Moscow at that time.
"In the course of the initial interrogation, he immediately began to talk. It’s only in films that they keep silent, although no one applied force to him. He indicated that he had arrived to check on the readiness of combat groups. The groups in Luhansk and Donetsk were more or less ready, in contrast to those in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Odessa," Petrulevych said.