{"id":1404704,"date":"2022-03-28T11:30:37","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T15:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1404704"},"modified":"2022-03-28T11:30:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T15:30:55","slug":"ex-separatist-leader-calls-russian-attack-on-ukraine-a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ex-separatist-leader-calls-russian-attack-on-ukraine-a-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-separatist leader calls Russian attack on Ukraine a mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fex-separatist-leader-calls-russian-attack-on-ukraine-a-mistake%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1404704&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-28T135308Z_1_LYNXNPEI2R0O9_RTROPTP_0_UKRAINE-CRISIS-KYIV-DEFENCE_1.jpg\" alt=\"Russia&#039;s invasion on Ukraine continues\" \/><br \/>A Ukranian serviceman stands on top of a Russian tank captured after fighting with Russian troops in the village of Lukyanivka outside Kyiv, as Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukraine, March 27, 2022. REUTERS\/Marko Djurica<\/div>\n<p>March 28, 2022<\/p>\n<p>LONDON (Reuters) \u2013     One of the architects of the Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine eight years ago said Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is a mistake, in comments that show the Kremlin cannot count on support from all pro-Russian opponents of Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p>Alexei Alexandrov was one of the leaders of a movement in 2014 to reject Kyiv\u2019s rule and create an autonomous pro-Moscow territory in Ukraine\u2019s eastern Donbas region, triggering a war against Ukrainian government forces.<\/p>\n<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia attacked Ukraine last month in part to protect the separatist territory from Kyiv, though Western states say that is a pretext for an unprovoked land grab.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with Reuters last Friday, Alexandrov said: \u201cAll this could have been resolved earlier, mainly through diplomatic means and perhaps an insignificant use of force. But that was not done, and that is a mistake on all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said that because Moscow failed to negotiate a settlement with Kyiv guaranteeing autonomy for the Donbas and rights for its residents, by the start of this year armed conflict became unavoidable.<\/p>\n<p>Alexandrov said Moscow had, over many years, failed to grasp how to deal with Ukraine, whose rulers he said were set on crushing the identity of the Russian-speaking community in eastern Ukraine, an allegation that Kyiv and its allies deny.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoscow\u2019s reaction was always late, and never got to grips with the situation,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was a mistake, and we are reaping the consequences now in blood, and multiple victims on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Contacted by Reuters, the Kremlin did not provide a comment about the remarks by Alexandrov, who was chief of staff to the head of the self-proclaimed republic\u2019s parliament, Andrei Purgin, until both men were pushed out of their roles in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>In the interview, Alexandrov said once the active phase of the conflict in Ukraine is over, the long-term outlook for Donbas was unclear. He said he doubted Russia had the resources to bring the whole of Ukraine under its control.<\/p>\n<p>If Russia kept its presence in eastern Ukraine, there would therefore be a high likelihood of a renewed armed conflict with the Ukrainian state, Alexandrov said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not how it should have ended,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth all the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alexandrov was among a group of people who created the self-proclaimed Donetsk People\u2019s Republic in 2014, defying Kyiv\u2019s rule, after pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted by popular protests and replaced with Western-leaning leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2015, when his boss Purgin was dismissed and briefly detained for reasons that were never spelled out, Alexandrov has lived as a private citizen inside Russian-controlled territory and has not held any official roles or elected office.<\/p>\n<p> (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Ukranian serviceman stands on top of a Russian tank captured after fighting with Russian troops in the village of Lukyanivka outside Kyiv, as Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukraine,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}