Command Authority

58

Tatiana Molchanova smiled into the camera as New Russia’s six p.m. news began. Normally, the evening news here, like every evening news program on earth, began by reporting on the day’s events, but Valeri Volodin had shown up right before the start of the newscast, and he’d walked himself onto the set and sat down in what he considered to be his chair.

So the camera faded in with a close-up shot of Molchanova, she stretched an introduction of the president out a little while an audio technician miked Volodin on her left, then she turned and greeted the president with a wide but not overtly unprofessional smile.

Molchanova had no questions for him; his arrival had been a complete surprise, and the producers in her earpiece seemed to be arguing with one another about how to start his interview.

She would have to wing this segment, but she could do it, because she was a pro. Plus, she had a strong suspicion the president wouldn’t give her too much opportunity for improvisation.

“Mr. President, there have been some dramatic events within the borders of our largest neighbor to the west. What comments do you have about the attacks in Ukraine that seemed to be so clearly designed to threaten Russian supporters there?”

Volodin was like a coiled spring released. “Not just supporters, Tatiana Vladimirovna. I remind you that millions of Russian citizens live within the borders of Ukraine.

“The attack against my good friend Oksana Zueva and the bombing in Donetsk were both clearly by the hands of pro-nationalist guerrilla forces supported by Western intelligence agencies. Add to this the attack by the American CIA in Sevastopol. These were provokatsii!” Provocations! “The enemies of Russia are trying to draw us out into a fight. We have kept our disagreements peaceful and within the diplomatic realm, and they did not know how to handle this level of sophistication, so they resorted to bloodshed.”

Molchanova recognized her cue. She asked a vague question about how actions in Ukraine affected the Motherland.

Volodin did not miss a beat. “There are fifty million people in Ukraine, one-sixth of whom are ethnic Russians. And the Crimean peninsula is vital to Russian security interests. That is obvious to even the most basic student of international, economic, and military affairs.

“It is home of the Black Sea fleet. There are oil and gas pipelines to Europe, Russia’s vital market, and military highways to the West that are important to our security interests.”

Volodin continued, “Ukraine belongs in our sphere of influence. As I see it, there are two threats to our nation. Only two. These are terrorism and the lawless criminality of the West on our borders.

“Our enemies would dismember us, and we know this, so we keep them outside our borders, but that is not enough. Eastern European countries have become slaves of America and Europe, and we must protect ourselves from them, no matter the cost.

“We have reduced terrorism in Russia to a large degree. Ethnic divisions within, along with the criminal element, most of whom were of ethnic minority, have been controlled to a large measure. We will need to continue our struggle, to promote the strength of our law enforcement and judicial system at home, and increase the scope of our security services abroad. There is no other way to survive.

“But looking into what is going on in Ukraine, I see we not only share interests with our Slavic neighbors, but we also share threats.

“The Ukrainian nationalists in power in Kiev are just such a threat.”

Volodin stared into the lens of the camera. Tatiana Molchanova sat meekly to the side. The president had clearly forgotten he was in an interview for the time being. “No rogue regime will be allowed to exist peacefully on our borders. This is just the thing I have been trying to protect the Motherland from.

“The pervasive crime and lawlessness in Ukraine has shown me that the Russian citizens there must be protected, and this protection must be actual, and not some new line drawn on a map, which will not serve anyone’s interests.”

He paused, so Tatiana Molchanova filled the dead air with her voice: “Can you tell us what steps your government is prepared to take to alleviate the threats along our border?”

“I have ordered our military to prepare a series of small-scale security actions to protect Russia’s interests in the Crimea, and Russia’s population who live in eastern Ukraine. I cannot go into any operational details, of course.” He smiled. “Not even for you, Tatiana Vladimirovna.”

She smiled back.

“But everyone should remember this is nothing more than a mission of mirotvorsty.” Peacemaking.

Tatiana said, “Ukraine is not a NATO member state, but they are a member of the Partnership for Peace, which means there is some training and coordination with NATO forces. Do you expect this to cause trouble in any security operation?”

Volodin said, “We were NATO members until a year ago, but I saw the folly of this. How could we continue in NATO, an organization that was set up for the express purpose of defeating us?

“NATO is not so much of a threat. Most European nations are completely reasonable. But America is a concern, and I will give you an example of why. They have an obsession for antiballistic missiles. This was started by Ronald Reagan, and it has continued for thirty years. The Americans want these missiles only for one reason. To cloak themselves in safety for an inevitable battle. A battle they plan on starting.

“Now we have been spared President Ryan’s hyper-use of force in the past years, only because our leadership was weak and America enjoyed setting all the terms for us. As long as we were compliant, they were kind. A master who pets a lazy cat.

“But we have privileged interests in our region, and America would do well to remember we will protect those privileged interests.”

“What do you consider to be Russia’s privileged interests?”

“The neighboring post-Soviet nations where ethnic Russians live. It is my responsibility to guarantee they are protected.”

Volodin turned to the camera. “And to NATO, and especially to the Americans. I will remind you this is our backyard.” He pointed a finger at the camera. “You have been playing in our backyard, and we let it go. But now I will warn you to stay out of our backyard.”

Molchanova struggled to come up with her next question, but she needn’t have bothered, because Volodin lowered his pointed finger and continued talking to the camera.

“Ukrainians should understand that we love your country, we are your best neighbors. We don’t want to remove your flag or your anthem. I only want to address the question of Ukraine’s border. The Crimea is historically Russian — everyone knows this. It will be for the good of both nations for both of us to have the same rights, the same laws, the same bright future.”

Tatiana asked the next question with some trepidation. She was not certain if she was being pulled along into the question, but Volodin had made the follow-up so obvious, there was no way she could pass it up. “So, Mr. President, are you saying the Crimea is the objective of the security operation?”

Volodin did not answer at first. He seemed caught off guard. “One thing at a time, Miss Molchanova. We must see how our peacekeeping forces are treated. If the terrorism dies down… of course we will leave.” He said it with his hands up, as if he was trying to insinuate Molchanova had been the one promoting the takeover of Ukrainian territory.

The opening attacks of the invasion began as the president spoke on television. The late-afternoon start of the action had the desired effect of surprising the Ukrainian forces near the border. They did expect an attack from the east — but they did not expect one that began at dinnertime.

Long-range missile batteries devastated Ukrainian defensive positions, and fighter bombers flew inland to destroy airfields in the eastern Crimea. Tanks rolled west over the border, much as they had done in Estonia, but here they met more resistance in the form of the Ukrainian T-64s. The older Ukrainian tanks were not nearly the quality of the Russian T-90s, but they were plentiful, and most of them were well dug in or were in hardened bunker positions.

Pitched battles of tanks and Grad multiple rocket launcher system systems on both sides of the line continued for the first hours of the conflict, and as the Russian armor crossed deeper into Ukraine, Ukrainian howitzers were brought to bear. Russian MiGs and Sukhois controlled the skies, however, and they took out the gun emplacements just as fast as they could arrive overhead.

The Ukrainians also had a significant number of self-propelled 152-millimeter artillery vehicles — a Russian-built mobile howitzer named after the Msta River, and these were well hidden and mobile enough to present a problem for the T-90s, but the Ukrainian generals kept the majority of this valuable resource in reserve, all but condemning the forward-deployed Msta units to destruction by Russian Kamov helicopter gunships and MiG-29s.

By nine p.m. the Ukrainian cities of Sverdlovs’k and Krasnodon, both just miles from the Russian border, were taken with barely a shot fired within their city limits, and Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, fell by ten-fifteen.

At midnight, a flight of six huge Antonov An-70 troop transport aircraft left Russian territory over the Sea of Azov; they crossed into Ukrainian airspace minutes later. On board each aircraft were between two hundred and three hundred troops. Most of them were members of the 217th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 98th Guards Airborne Division, but there were also several hundred GRU Spetsnaz forces in the mix.

The flight of air-transport aircraft was supported by fighter jets and radar-jamming equipment, and when they flew over Sevastopol, Russian ships in the Black Sea also provided defense for their countrymen overhead with their surface-to-air missiles.

The Ukrainians engaged the aircraft with a flight of Su-27s, but all four were shot down over the sea, two by Russian fighters and two more by surface-to-air missiles.

The Russians lost five fighters of their own, but all six An-70s made it to their drop zones.

The paratroopers leapt into the night from the Antonovs and landed all over the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula.

By half past one Russia had 1,435 lightly armed but well-trained troops on the ground in Sevastopol; they attacked two Ukrainian garrisons and destroyed several small anti-air batteries in the center of the city.

If the Ukrainians didn’t know why the Russians dropped troops in Sevastopol that evening, they would know soon enough. Across the Black Sea, the small port of Ochamchira in the autonomous nation of Abkhazia had been the makeshift home of a flotilla of Russian ships, on board of which some five thousand Russian marines had been living for several days. As soon as the An-70s took off from their base in Ivanovo, Russia, the flotilla set sail for Sevastopol. They would not arrive till the middle of the following day, but this would give the paratroopers and Spetsnaz forces the time they needed to completely control the neighborhoods around the port.

While the Russian forces spread out from drop zones in the Crimea, tanks and other armor rolled deeper into eastern Ukraine. The Russians had significantly better night-vision equipment than the Ukrainians, and their tanks would use this to press on through the entire night, catching the enemy blind and panicked. Although the invasion itself had been no surprise, the Ukrainian leadership recognized in hours that their generals had misjudged the speed, the tactics, and the utter intensity of the fight that the Russians were bringing over the border.