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June 22nd, 2015 
David Schulberg 
A man claiming to be a Ukrainian major general and former assistant to the country’s defense minister has announced he is now working with the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
“I am Ukrainian
Armed Forces Major General Aleksandr Kolomiyets. My latest posts
are chief analyst of the Ukrainian armed forces, assistant to the
Ukrainian defense minister,” the man said at a news
conference at the Donetsk news agency loyal to the
self-proclaimed republic. Kolomiyets had also spent 19 years as
the chief enlistment officer in the Donetsk region.
“I am going to work for the good of the Donetsk People’s
Republic,” Kolomiyets (not to be confused with oligarch
Igor Kolomoysky) announced.
READ MORE: Ukraine’s Right Sector rejects Minsk deal,
calls for renewed offensive in E. Ukraine
The defector says he took his family out of the Ukrainian
capital, fearing repercussions from officials.
He also claims a lot of people in the Ukrainian military want to
switch to the self-proclaimed republics’ side, including
officers. According to Kolomiyets, hundreds have already
abandoned Kiev.
“Look at who is actually fighting. Only the volunteers from
nationalist squads,” the defector said at the news
conference.
There is growing dissatisfaction with the commanders, Kolomiyets
said. “Soon, there is going to be unrest within the military.
They do not understand the orders they are given, to kill
civilians. We are going to see that by autumn, everything will
change.”
READ MORE: Blitzkrieg turned mayhem: Hacktivists claim
they reveal Ukrainian troops’ annihilation
He added that morale is very low in the Ukrainian army: “All
the officers, the generals that understand the criminal nature of
the authorities’ actions, do not want to fight.”
Meanwhile, the press secretary of Ukraine’s General Staff has
told Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper that Kolomiyets was fired from
the army in 2012 due to incompetence. “He could not handle
the post of the army’s top analyst,” the newspaper quoted
the press secretary as saying. “Besides, he traveled to
Russia as a private [individual]. Military men are supposed to
inform their commanders about such visits, but he broke the
rules.”
Kolomiyets, if it is him, is not the first Ukrainian official to
have switched sides in the conflict that has been tearing the
country apart for over a year now. Previous defections include
the head of the Lugansk customs office, an officer of the
Ukrainian foreign intelligence office and a member of staff of
the Ukrainian embassy in France.
Source Article from http://rt.com/news/268828-kiev-officer-defects-dpr/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
Member of Kiev’s top brass ‘defects’ to anti-govt forces, predicts more like him
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