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In reply to the discussion: Kerry privately urges Poroshenko to provide evidence of Kremlin involvement with separatists in Ukra [View all]Tommy_Carcetti
(43,181 posts)....on subsequent matters. And a person's prior bad acts can be used as evidence to show a pattern of behavior.
So we have it undoubtedly clear that Vladimir Putin lied about his troops not assisting with the Crimean annexation given that he later admitted the exact opposite. And now we have Putin saying the exact same thing about the situation in Eastern Ukraine.
Now, it is true that those prior lies alone are not smoking gun evidence in and of themselves that Putin is lying about Eastern Ukraine. But when you couple it with the other evidence that also indicates all sorts of Russian footprints over Eastern Ukraine, Putin's credibility becomes incredibly suspect.
Right now it is undisputed that there are Russian nationals from Russia fighting in Eastern Ukraine. That has long been established by news and video reports. You have Igor Girkin, a Russian military intelligence officer, who is leading the Donetsk separatist military campaign. You have the "Vostok Battallion" paramailitary force who come in extremely, extremely well-armed...far better armed and organized than you would ever think any sort of "volunteers" would be. When members of that battalion were killed in combat, their bodies were shipped back to Russia. And when you consider Russia also commissioned a "Vostok Battallion" paramilitary force to help fight its battles in Chechnya, again there is a strong sense that history is repeating itself.
Then you have the fact that the militants have attacked Ukrainian-Russian border crossings so that supplies and weaponry can come in from Russia.
Now, I know you and some others have claimed any Russian national participation are "volunteers" and are not acting under state color. Some have drawn the comparison to Americans fighting in the Spanish Civil War, or various other foreign conflicts where the US military itself wasn't involved. However, they aren't considering the main difference between those situations and this one: the Spanish Republicans weren't demanding to become part of the United States (or even to have one part of Spain separate from the other). Thus the mindset of any foreigner going to fight in a situation like the Spanish War would be entirely different than the mindset of a Russian national going to fight in Eastern Ukraine where separatists have demanded specific regions of Ukraine separate from Ukraine and join none of than Russia itself.
In other words, these Russian nationals are not fighting out of any greater ideological purposes but are in essence fighting for Russia itself, since the ultimate intent of the militants is to have Donetsk and Lugansk annexed by Russia. Now you have to consider Putin--if he brings in his regular troops and invades Ukraine, he'll undoubtedly face strong sanctions from the West, far stronger than what's currently been imposed on him. But if he plays the paramilitary game, sending in Russian military agents and paramilitary forces, he can achieve similar results while maintaining an air of plausible deniability. Plausible deniability was in fact what Putin skated on in Crimea all the way until the coast was clear and he could take off the mask.
Even if one were to assume that these Russian nationals are completely volunteers free of all control or agency of Moscow, Putin could easily throw cold water on the situation by asserting unconditionally that Russia would not recognize any entrance of these separatist regions into the Russian Federation. But he hasn't done so, and given his "Novorossiya" remarks a couple months back, I doubt he has any interest in making any such statement.