Kremlin 'considered plan to split Ukraine before president’s overthrow'

Strategy document suggests Moscow was already pondered plan to annex Crimea and assimilate pro-Russian regions

Pro-Russian troops who had taken control of the Belbek air base in Crimea fire warning shots into the air in March 2014

The Kremlin received advice to break up Ukraine and absorb its pro-Russian regions even before the country’s president fled in the wake of street protests a year ago, according to an alleged strategy document obtained by a Russian newspaper.

Novaya Gazeta said the “plan” for annexing Crimea was passed to Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration between February 4 and 12, 2014, at least 10 days before Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s then leader, left the capital, Kiev.

The newspaper published parts of the document, which urged the Kremlin to “play on the centrifugal ambitions of different regions of the country with the aim, in one way or another, of initiating the joining of its eastern areas to Russia”.

Mr Putin has argued that Russia was forced to absorb Crimea in March as a result of what he calls an “unconstitutional coup” which ousted the pro-Russian Mr Yanukovych and brought in what Moscow claimed was a nationalist Ukrainian government which threatened the peninsula’s largely Russophone population.

But the document, if genuine, suggests the Kremlin was already considering a plan to divide Ukraine as a means of strengthening Russia’s economy and global status.

While taking on the financial support of Crimea and “several eastern regions” would be a burden, the unknown authors of the paper argue, “in a geopolitical sense the gain would be priceless: our country would receive access to new demographic resources, highly qualified cadres of industry and transport specialists would become available…

“The industrial potential of East Ukraine, including the military-industrial sector, joined to the military-industrial complex of Russia, would allow the quick and successful fulfillment of the programme of rearmament of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

The document argues that the European Union wanted to take over Ukraine, and Russia must “intervene in the geopolitical intrigue of the European community” in order to maintain some control of gas pipelines through Ukraine and avoid losing energy markets in central and south Europe, something “that would inflict huge economic damage to our country”.

Novaya Gazeta said it believed the document was prepared with the help of Konstantin Malofeyev, a well-known pro-Kremlin businessman with links to the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, although Mr Malofeyev reportedly denies that. The newspaper did not say who in Mr Putin’s administration viewed the strategy document or whether it was adopted but said that, “the extent to which this project coincides with the subsequent actions of the Russian authorities is striking”.

Proposals laid out in the document do bear a strong resemblance to some of the tactics adopted by the Kremlin and the rebels in eastern Ukraine, where more than 5,700 people have died since April as a result of fighting between separatist and government forces.

The document recommends that referendums on autonomy are held in pro-Russian regions of Ukraine in order to strengthen their claims to self determination, “and later to joining Russia”. A controversial pro-independence referendum result in Crimea was used by the Kremlin to endorse its annexation of the region.

The plan also proposes a PR and press campaign to legitimise the “pro-Russian drift of Crimea and eastern Ukrainian regions” which argues for three things: federalisation of Ukraine (providing regions with a high degree of autonomy without breaking away from the state), independent accession of eastern regions to the Russia-led Customs Union, and full sovereignty and eventual annexation by Russia.

Those three proposals are frequently put forward by Russian politicians and rebel figures, although the Kremlin has shied away from fully endorsing or absorbing the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”.

Also familiar in the document was the use of highly contentious arguments to approve Kremlin intervention in Ukraine, as often employed in Russian media.

Pro-Western demonstrators in Kiev, the authors claimed, were mostly football fans and criminals acting under the control of Polish and British special services. No evidence was offered for the allegation.

There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin on the document.

By Tom Parfitt