Interview With Aleksandr Khodakovsky, One Of Key Leaders Of DPR Forces In 2014-2015

Support SouthFront

We would like to present you a part of Aleksandr Khodakovsky’s interview with the Russian edition of Eurasia Daily (FIRST PART, SECOND PART), which is dedicated to the situation in the Ukraine in early 2014 and currently, as well as the current situation in the unrecognised republics of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).

Aleksandr Khodakovsy is one of the key leaders of DPR/LPR forces in eastern Ukraine, the head of the public organisation Patriotic Forces of Donbas, the commander of the Vostok brigade, who in 2014 and 2015 served as Minister of State Security, then Secretary of the Donetsk People’s Republic Security Council.

Source: eadaily.com

Aleksandr Khodakovsky on the current situation in the Ukraine. His response to the fact that, in the opinion of many, the entire ideological and historical basis that used to play a unifying role for the population of Russia and the Ukraine has already been destroyed within the Ukraine. The journalist asks:

 “It’s not too late, is it? It seems that all the unifying principles have already been hit. First, on the Soviet past, then on Orthodoxy…”

To strike a blow does not mean to get a result. Often you gets the opposite result. It is important to consider the time factor here. When you are caught alive, you will react negatively. For example, a law on the introduction of measures for the Ukrainian language, designed to make the Ukrainian language compulsory and almost impose sanctions on people who ignore the use of the Ukrainian language, was introduced in the Parliament. Somebody’s going to say that’s what we wanted. But only hard-core nationalists will say this. Similarly, the believing category of people, when they are forced to go to a church, they will perceive it with rejection. Rejection causes the renaming of Vatutin Avenue or Zhukov Avenue to Bandera Avenue, and the demolition of monuments to soldiers-liberators in Lvov.

Decommunisation is just one of the factors separating it from the overall imperial past. Thread after thread, they think they rip the web. But is you cross all the boundaries, and they have already crossed, you can generate a backlash. People will endure up to a certain point, but as soon as the critical mass is reached, the opposite process will begin, the reaction of rejection. The question is how are we going to behave in this situation? Of course, if we try to rock this environment now, we will lose; we need to let the situation ripen. If we work subtly in this situation, we can only win.

Here we have a casuistic logic. On the one hand, we understand that what is happening in the Ukraine is bad. Somehow we should intervene and stop these processes. But, on the other hand, if we dig deeper, everything that Russia will demonstrate as beneficial to it, these people will be interpreted and presented as an attempt at pressure and manipulation. Any activity can prevent the situation from maturing. The people who now run the Ukraine have made too many fatal mistakes. Based on a rational way of thinking, we can leave the Ukraine to itself at this stage.

Now several trends are developing simultaneously. On the one hand, social trends are maturing. On the other, Ukrainian politicians are already using these trends. We see how opposition politicians are actively exploiting the topic of the church and the anti-Soviet movement. Even Medvedchuk (although it would seem that where Medvedchuk is and where the USSR is) and his supporting organisations have taken as a basis for their electoral rhetoric criticism of the government’s actions on desovietisation and the church schism. Even such opposition politicians, who are not exactly suspected of sympathies for the USSR and Orthodoxy, are beginning to use this topic to draw on the electoral base. Of course, they have composite rhetoric, an emphasis on Orthodoxy, on the memory of the Great Patriotic War, and an emphasis on the establishment of peace. At the same time, they are not openly calling for cooperation with Russia, realising how difficult it is to promote it now. Moreover, all Ukrainian opposition candidates have approximately the same rhetoric.

Can something change after the elections?

Everything can change, even during the election. The Ukraine is not in a static state today. There has been a reverse, a reversible reaction. Now many people have realised what a historical mistake they made. Crudely speaking, they counted on the Americans in the hope that they would save them from Russian pressure. Russian-Imperial thinking never meant parity. Of course, the Ukrainian elite did not like it, and they wanted the Americans to provide them with a more comfortable state. However, the Americans put even more pressure on them, put them on the implementation of reforms of their people, created an organisation with the right of operational and investigative activities of the National Security Service of Ukraine, which is endowed with very large powers in the Ukrainian law enforcement system, including competition with the prosecutor’s office. This is a direct American intervention in the internal life of the Ukraine, and it hits primarily the purse of the elite, which Americans hold firmly in their hands. Of course, a part of the Ukrainian elite realised that they were even more dependent, and is trying to break out of this dependence.

For our part, we have traditional ties and resources of influence on the Ukraine, which can be activated at the right moment. Now we are in a latent state, we were artificially put to sleep. It’s, you know, like a proper reactor silencing. We were also deactivated at some point, and there is no need to wake us up, because the external environment does not allow us to be active. If a hibernating bear wakes up in winter, it will disastrous for it, because it will not have its food supply. When the body enters an unfavourable period of life, it slows down all life processes. However, as soon as things change around it, it goes back to the active phase. We’re in a state like this right now. The only question is that for the bear in question it is a natural process, and that what is produced over us is an artificial process. We don’t want that, but we are artificially restrained.

To return to the initial question. I am still an active, subjective part of our environment, capable of making decisions. And, accordingly, in this general environment, when it comes to putting everything into hibernation, it will look destabilising. For myself personally, I answer this question in the following way: now the situation does not dispose to any activity, and I will somehow gather around me active people. Those grandmasters that turn all these plans around in their heads see a problem with that. And to ensure that nothing violates their plans, they try to take certain restrictive measures. And to some extent, I understand them when I think rationally. On the other hand, even though I understand them, I don’t really agree with them. There is a normal, reasonable dialogue that is always possible. I’m not talking about parity, I understand the difference between the Kremlin strategists and my level, but at the same time, due to my position in life, I don’t know how and don’t want to be a person who adjusts himself only to the execution of someone else’s will.

There is not only a geopolitical plane; there are also our internal processes.

“I can accept the logic of the people from the Old Square, from the presidential administration, if I understand it. But I can’t understand why many things that could have happened with less loss should be done in the most caricature form? We are faced with the fact that almost all spheres of our life are affected by fungal formations. Take, for example, our customs. Here we see an extremely high level of corruption. Why do our people, who constantly cross the line of contact, several million people a year, face such ugliness on our part? Why are they forced to say that the Ukrainian side is more civilised in this regard? After all, all this is working against us.”

Our potential is currently bought; it is in a lethargic state of sleep. Once it has been processed, emasculated, when people are disoriented, apathetic and disillusioned, they may at the right time give up active participation because they have already seen the result of that participation once. And the potential I’m talking about will be limited.

We have to be a model. We must create although poorer but more attractive society than in the Ukraine. But, unfortunately, we can’t do it, we make it look like a piece of clay was taken and wrapped in a beautiful wrapper. Some organisations, youth parliaments, public chambers are created… When something happens, people are taken to all sorts of activities. But it is forgotten that there is now an open information space, that people receive a lot of information from alternative sources. It is necessary to build social relations in a different way and to approach the structure of our state in a different way. It’s not difficult; it’s just that it’s going to put those who are stuck to the wrong places in the world in a precarious position. Pay attention to one simple and hard to interchange argument: no one who organised the rallies in 2014, was among the field commanders, they all found a place in the People’s Council, in some public organisations, but to fight and defend the proclaimed went to some other category of people, which is now “beyond the pale of settlement”, from where these people can not make their way back. Only in my surroundings are there many people with political potential who would have the conscience not to sit idly by. But these people are not to be marginalised, they are highly specialised. Initially, it was intended that these people, the salt of the earth, go away, but on their groundwork, a replacement management is formed. If we had created a parliament that included commanders of some armed formations, decent people, this parliament would be often renewed, because the commanders would be killed and others would be chosen instead. It would be better than something that exists now, where people are in power, who have grown to their place, who have taken root, when there is a hereditary caste system of transfer or rights and authority.

Aleksandr Sergeivich, you worked in the Security Service of the Ukraine (SBU) special operations centre, and, accordingly, you could see the system of the Ukrainian state power from the inside. Did you observe the internal unrest on the eve of “Maidan”, did anything happen that made it clear that something wrong begins?

On the contrary, a serene atmosphere dominated the structures of power, quiet and smooth, by the grace of God. They were confident in the stability of the seized positions, confident that their power was exclusive, that it could not be undermined. I will give you an example: Yanukovitch is no longer in Kiev, and perhaps not even in the Ukraine, he is somewhere on the way to Russia, and the entourage of Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka is still in his residence. There is a helicopter on stand-by ready to take them out, and they are at their oak desks drinking for the victory. Do you see how the situation is getting worse? People refused to recognise the weakness and fragility of the system they had hoped for.

In fact, it was a giant with feet of clay. By stuffing loyal people, incompetent but with a sense of omnipotence, they have undermined the foundation of the Ukrainian political system. It was not flexible; it did not react to the impending changes in society. However, at the level of society itself, changes were felt and dissatisfaction with Yanukovitch’s actions was growing. But the authorities, in a state of blissful ignorance, could not cope with it. The prototype of these comrades can be considered a character from Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” Dikov, “strong fellow against the sheep, and against the strong fellow himself a sheep.” People who are incapable, pessimistic, overproud, and who thought they had grabbed God by the beard. These people can’t even get used to the idea that they are nobody and no one calls them.

As for the structures that were supposed to ensure the state security, they were busy with absolutely other things, they were making money. It is not for nothing that we were told that “SBU LLC” and “MVD LLC” exist. Most of the units worked exclusively in one line, where to get something to get on the contraband, on some economic issues. Naturally, people were completely absorbed in these trivial tasks. Why would they monitor the Americans who were already breaking out preparatory camps, that a powerful underground was already prepared which by 2015 had to splash out on the streets and not allow Yanukovitch to be re-elected. Did they care about that? They churned out some exaggerated reports to demonstrate their “violent activity”. The system as a whole was vicious, and at the peak of the events it showed all its viciousness by its inaction.

On the other hand, Yanukovitch overplayed the game between the west and Russia. And, in fact, his actions, his decisions to sign the European integration documents without any referendum, inflamed the people. He changed his mind at the last minute, as you know, it was the provocation for the onset of the Maidan. But the main question is who mandated Yanukovitch, who was elected mainly by the southeast. The southeast was and is a tough opponent of NATO and the EU and a supporter of deepening relations with Russia, building a Slavic triune Union, Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia. However, Yanukovitch, supported by the southeast, went against his electorate, against his voters, declaring a course for Europe.

Is Russia betting on the wrong people again now?

In the Ukraine there are no pro-Russian political elites. The Ukrainian political elite is all exclusively pro-Western. Some of its representatives can flirt with Russia only to get preferences from it when trading in hydrocarbons, when building some business schemes. Of course, many Ukrainian politicians are connected with political-oligarchic clans, some of which are oriented towards Russia. Take, for example, such names as Firtash, Levochkin… To a greater or lesser extend, they are oriented towards Russia, because their basic production, their ways of earning money are connected with Russia. And, of course, they are trying to demonstrate their loyalty to Russia in order to get some dividends from it. However, these people are actually interested in staying as far away from Moscow as possible, because they want to play this game again – “between the West and Russia”.

Therefore, everything that concerns the Ukrainian elections is, of course, a great fraud. All the rhetoric for the preservation of monuments to the liberators, for the preservation of Orthodoxy, for the Russian language is exclusively electoral rhetoric. The people who proclaim these postulates are far more dangerous than the outright war party. We know what to expect from it and these sneaky, evil politicians gain trust, but their task is the same – to conquer the Donbas. They are the only ones who offer to achieve it by economic and political methods. At the same time, they do not want to keep the Donbas pro-Russian. Their goal is to return it to the orbit of the Ukraine, to reformat it under Ukrainian sentiment up to and including changing our interpretation of the last five years of history. They want to remove from textbooks and not to tell children about how the Donbas fought against the Ukraine and what ideals they professed.

As Mr. Surkov said, scoundrels, allegedly, we beat scoundrels. And now they are trying to apply this methodology in the Ukraine. But whom are we going to beat these scoundrels with? Who is the third wave of scoundrels with whom we will beat the second wave? And that’s how all the time there is a cycle of scoundrels in nature. We replace some with others, and then we fight them. This is our main problem, and the Ukraine is now a laboratory site where we observe all these processes.

So you should not delude yourself. It is necessary to stand firmly on our positions; it is necessary to form the solid community, which won’t weaken under the influence of these crafty utterances. We must clearly understand that politics is politics, but those who now play politics in the Ukraine are definitely not our friends

MORE ON THE TOPIC:

• Exclusive from 2014: FSB Top General About Strelkov And Ukrainian Developments
• Interview with Igor Strelkov

Support SouthFront