>Lol. No. Explain the military purpose of sending riot police
OMON are not just riot police and are routinely sent on Russian military expeditions (e.g. there are some in Syria). Theres some evidence that a few hundred of the invading force of 15,000 (cite: Wikipedia) were OMON.
The question you apparently haven't asked yourself is "if their goal was occupation, why did they send a few hundred OMON troops rather than the hundred thousand they'd actually need?"
>The simplest explanation is that he in fact did believe all the shit he said on TV about Ukrainians secretly yearning to be Russians
The most likely explanation is that he was primarily gambling on a quick collapse of Ukrainian resistance and the ability to pull off a coup, before placing Opposition Platform for Life (who already had ~44 seats) in charge.
The backup/secondary plan was likely to provide a distraction such that the southern and eastern forces could link up and secure Russia's main geopolitical achilles heel - the land bridge to crimea.
I think you got confused. The attack on Kiev had 16,000 troops total. It's unclear how many were OMON but it's clear that it was no more than a few hundred.
In no way, shape or form does that justify presuming that this was an occupation force - with or without uniforms.
OMON are not just riot police and are routinely sent on Russian military expeditions (e.g. there are some in Syria). Theres some evidence that a few hundred of the invading force of 15,000 (cite: Wikipedia) were OMON.
The question you apparently haven't asked yourself is "if their goal was occupation, why did they send a few hundred OMON troops rather than the hundred thousand they'd actually need?"
>The simplest explanation is that he in fact did believe all the shit he said on TV about Ukrainians secretly yearning to be Russians
The most likely explanation is that he was primarily gambling on a quick collapse of Ukrainian resistance and the ability to pull off a coup, before placing Opposition Platform for Life (who already had ~44 seats) in charge.
The backup/secondary plan was likely to provide a distraction such that the southern and eastern forces could link up and secure Russia's main geopolitical achilles heel - the land bridge to crimea.