As justification for the war, Russia repeatedly claims that Ukraine wanted to attack it. With this thesis, the war country is pretty much alone. Even a well-known commander of the pro-Russian separatists now contradicts these statements.
The well-known commander of the pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, Alexander Khodakovsky, has openly contradicted one of the Russian attempts to justify the war of aggression against Ukraine. So far he has not found any evidence that Ukraine planned an attack on Russia – Moscow claims this again and again.
“Ukraine is preparing for a defensive war,” wrote Khodakovsky on his Telegram channel. Among the documents captured by his troops after capturing Ukrainian positions, he did not find a single tactical document that provided for offensive actions.
Before supporting the Donetsk separatists, Khodakovsky was head of the local anti-terrorist unit of the Ukrainian secret service SBU until 2014. He was also involved in the attempted suppression of the pro-Western protests in Kyiv in the winter of 2013/2014. The Vostok (east) brigade he founded fought with the capture of the port city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine. It is currently used in attacks on the Ukrainian-controlled city of Wuhledar, about 40 kilometers south-west of Donetsk.
Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24. The Kremlin also justified the invasion by saying that it had to forestall an attack by the Ukrainian army on the parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that have been in secession since 2014. In addition, Kyiv had plans to attack the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine has always denied such allegations.
