Ten years ago, on April 12, 2014, Russian saboteurs led by Igor Girkin-Strelkov seized police stations in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. These events became the reason for the start of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in Donbas to repel Russian aggression.
Apostrophe has collected facts about these events.
Around 9 a.m. on April 12, 2014, 2 buses arrived at the building of the Sloviansk City Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, bringing about 20 well-armed and equipped unidentified men who captured the institution. During the assault, the militants used smoke bombs and tear gas and fired into the air. The purpose of capturing the police station was to obtain firearms. In the evening of the same day, a group of militants seized a police station in the neighboring town of Kramatorsk.
On the afternoon of April 12, reporter Vasyl Maksymov recognized one of the members of the storming group in Sloviansk as a participant of the Russian intervention in Crimea - back then he was armed and forbade journalists to film. His photo was published for comparison in Crimea and Sloviansk.
The Head of the Information Resistance Group, Dmytro Tymchuk, said that the events in Donbas are controlled by Russian intelligence. The same Russian GRU fighters who seized Crimea in March are operating in Sloviansk.
According to the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, there were about 20 armed men in the building who introduced themselves as an initiative group of the so-called "Donetsk republic".
There were two dozen assault rifles, more than four hundred Makarov pistols, and ammunition in the police station. The attackers did not make any specific demands.
The Russians handed out the seized weapons to the participants of a rally that was taking place in Sloviansk at the time. The mayor of Sloviansk, Nelya Shtepa, after negotiations with the armed men who seized the police station, said that they were representatives of the "Donbass People's Militia".
As of the morning of April 13, saboteurs controlled all exits from Sloviansk.
On the night of April 12-13, 2014, at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, a decision was made to conduct an anti-terrorist operation to settle the situation in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier, Apostrophe reported that more than 40 missiles and 40 drones were launched during Russia's combined massive attack on Ukraine.