Thread by @IneBackIversen

🧵1: “Ukraine didn’t fight for Crimea”A narrative only spread by someone who got zero knowledge about what happened in 2014 during russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, or someone with russian talking point.

Ukrainians resisted in 2014 & keep fighting for all their land today!

2: First, lets start with the fact that russias invasion & occupation of Crimea in 2014 wasn’t an overnight coup, without planning, russia had already tried to occupy Crimea many times before and infiltrated the peninsula with pro-russian assets long before 2014.

3: On February 24, 2014, in Novorossiysk, russian Navy ships took on board military equipment, the so-called “little green men”(russian soldiers without the insignia of the russian Armed Forces) and headed for Sevastopol.

4: Ukrainians were already fighting and reforming, after the Revolution of Dignity. President Yanukovych, backed by Moscow, had fled.
A new interim government had barely formed when russia exploited the power vacuum to strike Crimea.

5: In crimea, there were already a lot of russian military retirees with real estate. And before the invasion, there was an influx of FSB agents, and many local law enforcers already on russian payrolls, rallying up paid actors to play civilians opposing any pro Euromaidan event.

6: On February 26, local Ukrainian patriots and Crimean Tatars rallied for the territorial integrity of Ukraine in front of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The date was approved as the Day of Resistance to the russian Occupation of Crimea.

7: There was approximately 20 000 participants of the All-Crimean Peaceful Rally in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, A rally of pro-russian organizations was held nearby, it barely had 2,000 participants.

8: The very next day, February 27th russian armored vehicles appeared on the streets, unmarked russian soldiers blocked off and seized the buildings of the Crimean parliament and government in Simferopol.

9: Following, the russian forces seized & took control of other head offices & infrastructure, all before Ukraine’s military could even mobilize. russia took advantage of a country already fighting.
An illegal invasion launched in the middle of Ukraine’s political upheaval.

10: russia used Spetsnaz units without insignia, blocked Ukrainian bases, and cut off Crimea from the mainland. This wasn’t a fair fight. It was a pre-planned hybrid invasion with psychological warfare, disinfo, abuse of power and blockade tactics

11: Crimean journalist Iryna Siedova said in an interview to “hromadske”: “The owner of the ferry crossing in Kerch was a russian. He had railroad ferries that transported trains. He immediately loaded military equipment onto these ferries & brought it from the Kuban to Crimea.

12: “The military tried to remove the chevrons, but the license plates on all the vehicles were russian. We saw all these Grads MLRS coming in. We were threatened and chased for that.” Iryna said.

13: Despite being surrounded and outnumbered, Ukrainian soldiers stood their ground.
•Many refused to surrender.
•Some were taken hostage.
Thousands of Ukrainians in Crimea marched unarmed to confront russian troops.
This was resistance! With courage and restraint.

14: In Sevastopol, forced to leave their base unarmed, while being shot at & threatened by the russians, Ukrainian Colonel Yuliy Mamchur led his airbase troops, marching toward armed russians, with only a Ukrainian flag, singing the anthem. A moment symbolic of Ukrainian resolve.

15: On 18.03.2014 Serhiy Kokurin, a Ukrainian officer became the 1st victim of russian occupants in Crimea. He was killed during the storming of the photogrammetric center that was carried out by a division of russian mercenaries. He died defending Crimea from russian occupation.

16: The causes of death states Kokurin was killed by 5.45 mm machine gun bullets fired from the bottom up. He was killed by a member of Girkin's spetsnaz. A fact refuting all statements from both Putin, russian propaganda & now Trump; that Crimea was taken "without shots fired".

17: On March 3, 2014, Crimean Tatar activist Reshat Ametov was abducted in Simferopol, where he had come to protest against the so-called referendum in front of the Crimean government building. His dead body with signs of torture was found 2 weeks later in a forest.

18: Ametov is known to be one of the first victims among those who opposed the occupation of Crimea. The work of pro-Ukrainian Crimean journalists was actively obstructed. Most of them had to leave in 2014 because they were not allowed to work & was being hounded by FSB officers.

19: On March 16, 2014, the so-called referendum on the status of Crimea took place. In every city, ‘little green men’ armed with machine guns accompanied by the intelligence officers. Anyone was given a ballot, no ID required. Paid actors arrived by busses, throwing in ballots.

20: “Those who did not go to the ‘referendum’ were visited at home by russian police and forced to vote. It was arbitrariness,” states Crimean journalist Tetiana Kurmanova.

21: Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea was never accepted by Ukraine or the world.
The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 68/262 affirming Ukraine’s sovereignty. The “referendum” Russia held under military occupation was a fraud.

22: Since 2014 Ukraine has fought to reclaim Crimea politically, diplomatically & militarily.
•The Crimean Platform was launched to build global support.
•Ukrainian partisans resist inside occupied Crimea.
•The UAF are targeting key russian military infrastructure in Crimea.

23: Crimea wasn’t “given away.”
It was stolen.
Ukraine resisted in 2014—and continues to resist. The fight for Crimea is not over.
Don’t fall for Russian propaganda.
Crimea is, was and always will be Ukraine.