“With gratitude to the people of Feodosia”: residents of Crimea remembered how NATO exercises were disrupted in 2006

Highlights: In May-June 2006, mass protests took place in Feodosia against military exercises with NATO participation on the peninsula. Thanks to the actions of the Crimeans, the plans of the alliance were thwarted. In memory of these events, a memorial plaque was installed on the boulevard near the port. RT talked with participants in anti-NATO protests in Crimea Oleg Rodivilov and Yuri Kokin. They spoke about the historical context of the confrontation and the struggle of Crimeans with the presence of NATO troops.

In May-June 2006, mass protests took place in Feodosia against military exercises with NATO participation on the peninsula. Thanks to the actions of the Crimeans, the plans of the alliance were thwarted. In memory of these events, a memorial plaque was installed on the boulevard near the port, where city residents were on duty around the clock. RT talked with participants in anti-NATO protests in Crimea Oleg Rodivilov and Yuri Kokin. They spoke about the historical context of the confrontation and the struggle of Crimeans with the presence of NATO troops on the peninsula.

“Here, from May 27 to June 22, 2006, a picket was organized by citizens of Ukraine and Feodosia residents against the exercises and deployment of NATO troops in Crimea.

“With gratitude to the people of Feodosia for their civil courage, deputies of the City Council of the 5th convocation,”

says a memorial plaque installed in Feodosia on the boulevard, not far from the port, at the intersection of Paratroopers and Gorky streets.

Then the residents of the city organized a round-the-clock watch and did not allow the unloading of the American warship Advantage, which arrived in Feodosia and brought equipment and equipment for the preparation of joint exercises between NATO and Ukraine.

Protesters blocked the port gates.

The employees of the sea terminal and the city police did not interfere with what was happening.

As a result, it was not possible to conduct alliance exercises in the region.

Crimea.
Feodosia.
2006
Protest against NATO exercises.
Military personnel in the port of Feodosia are awaiting the unloading of a NATO ship.
© RT

"Orange Republic"

“The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between the Russian Federation and Ukraine implied the division of the Black Sea Fleet.

The signing was scheduled for May 1997.

And the first US-Ukrainian Sea Breeze exercises were already planned for the summer of that year,” recalls Oleg Rodivilov, a veteran of the Russian movement in Crimea, a member of the Crimean parliament since 1998, who led the organization of the Russian Bloc party.

“Then the situation was worked out that a certain “Orange Republic” (and this was seven years before the “Orange Revolution” of 2004) could not cope with the province of Cimmeria.

Cimmeria is the territory where the Cimmerians lived - the people of the eastern Crimea, who did not reach us, this is the current Kerch, Feodosia and other cities.

Unrest in Cimmeria occurs with the support of a large military unit - the Black Sea Fleet.

The Americans and the Ukrainian army are fighting against the military and separatists,” explains Rodivilov.

Participants of the “Crimea - Anti-NATO-1997” action.
© From the personal archive of Igor Evtyushkin

"Cut off Sevastopol"

After the victory of Viktor Yushchenko during the “Orange Revolution” in 2004, the legend of the Ukraine-NATO Sea Breeze exercises changed.

“According to the legend of 1997, they landed in a deserted area on Lake Donuzlav to control the Perekop Isthmus and Chongar, and the task of the exercise was to blockade Sevastopol.

In 2006, their tactical task was different.

They were supposed to land at the port of Feodosia and proceed about 30 km to Old Crimea, where Mount Agarmysh is located.

The Americans planned to install a radar on this mountain, and they intended to lease the military training ground located behind the mountain for a long-term lease.

The tactical legend of the 2006 exercises assumed the incitement of an ethnopolitical conflict similar to the Balkan one.”

However, in Feodosia people raised mass protests against these teachings.

Many media and information resources of the CIS joined in their coverage.

Since these exercises were not coordinated even with the Verkhovna Rada, the presence of foreign military personnel was, in fact, illegal.

Any emergency situations could arise, so the US Armed Forces were forced to leave Feodosia.

Oleg Rodivilov recalls that later another phase of Sea Breeze was supposed to take place in Crimea, when, according to the legend of the exercises, hospitals and certain collection points for the population were set up, similar to the Bosnian events.

But the country was headed by Viktor Yanukovych, and there were no more attempts to land NATO troops in Crimea.

“After 2014, Sea Breeze exercises were held regularly, but outside the Russian Crimea, mainly near Nikolaev, at the Shirokiy Lan training ground, or, as it was called in Soviet times, Sri Lanka, and near Odessa.

All legends, as a rule, were associated with the blockade of Transnistria.

In our republic we have an information and analytical portal “Crimean Echo”, which contains memories and photographs about these events.

Until 2014, it was one of the few resources in Tavrida that accumulated up-to-date information about protest events.”

“Yura, come on!”

Yuri Kokin is the deputy director of the Feodosia Museum of Antiquities for scientific work, a deputy of the Feodosia city council from United Russia.

He told RT how events developed in Feodosia a year after the memorable anti-NATO protests.

“On the first anniversary, in 2007, Ukrainian nationalists, about 50 people, came to Feodosia by bus. It was June 22.

They marched from the port with a megaphone and shouted: “Russian occupiers, get out of Crimea!”

And we, the Russian community of Feodosia, came out to meet them and collided near the monument to Nazukin.

The leader of this group was the well-known nationalist Fomushkin in Crimea.

He had a Ukrainian flag in his hands, with the staff of which he hit World War II veteran Konstantin Ivanovich Kuznetsov on the head.

And Kuznetsov held the Russian flag.

Then the chairman of the Feodosia organization of the Russian community of Crimea, Gennady Pilyaev (unfortunately, he had already died) decided to act.

He turned to me as his youngest ally: “Yura, come on, beat him!”

He himself hit this Fomushkin, and I seized the initiative and entered the fight.

A report from Channel 5 that captured this skirmish has survived.

The police separated us.

As a result, a report was drawn up against me for violating public order.

But we did not allow them to go further, and they were forced to turn around to the port gates, where a memorial plaque is now installed.

Residents of Feodosia, the Party of Regions and progressive socialists also came there.

The visiting comrades argued a little more, got on the bus and left.”

“The solution is to perpetuate”

Yuri Kokin recalled how immediately after the end of the protests there were attempts to distort history, to replace the true reasons that prompted the Feodosians to protest with political slogans:

“Then the Ukrainian authorities tried to blur the impression, to present it as if the public protest had no basis in social nature, as if it was a paid rally.

But in Feodosia they decided to perpetuate the events of 2006.

The memorial plaque was installed in agreement with the city council of Feodosia on the initiative of the Anti-NATO organizing committee, which included the Party of Regions, the Russian Community of Crimea, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the communists, the Union of Afghan Officers and other organizations.

The majority in the City Council at that time were deputies from the Party of Regions, they also took part in anti-NATO events.”

Feodosia.
Port gate and memorial plaque commemorating pickets against NATO exercises in Crimea in 2006.

Yuri Kokin is now defending his homeland.

He signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense - he serves as the senior operator of a mobile anti-tank missile system for the airborne assault regiment.

“With gratitude to the people of Feodosia”: residents of Crimea remembered how NATO exercises were disrupted in 2006

"Orange Republic"

"Cut off Sevastopol"

“Yura, come on!”

“The solution is to perpetuate”

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