'Putin has been deceiving the world since the very beginning of the Ukraine crisis. When asked on March 4 if Russia was thinking about annexing Crimea, he answered, "No, we are not." But only 14 days later the peninsula's annexation was celebrated on Red Square.'<blockquote>'..The list of deliberate lies that President Vladimir Putin spews about Ukraine to both his people and the world is long and cynical -- including his claim that Russian soldiers spotted in Ukraine had either gotten lost or were spending their vacation in the war zone.
Putin's house of cards, which began teetering last week following numerous reports from observers and also NATO satellite images, holds many risks -- not just in terms of foreign policy, but also domestically. The reintegration of Crimea into Russia and Putin's tough stance against the West may have quickly driven his popularity rating to over 80 percent. But last week, when the first reports emerged of deaths among Russian recruits in Ukraine, the mood began to darken.
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Last Thursday, the family received a letter from the public prosecutor stating that Andrey has been declared a deserter. The country to which he had pledged his allegiance and that dispatched him on a secret mission is now trying to label him as a traitor. "Our son may be sent to prison for up to five years," his father says. "But we're certain that he only wound up in Ukraine under his commander's orders."
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Attempts at intimidation, lies and propaganda have all been part of Putin's creeping invasion of Ukraine for weeks. Hundreds of Russian soldiers have reportedly been removed from their units and allegedly sent on maneuvers before receiving orders to go to Ukraine.
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Putin has been deceiving the world since the very beginning of the Ukraine crisis. When asked on March 4 if Russia was thinking about annexing Crimea, he answered, "No, we are not." But only 14 days later the peninsula's annexation was celebrated on Red Square.
He also professed to have nothing to do with the armed men wearing uniforms on the streets of Crimea. They are just "local self-defense forces" he said during the press conference in May. "You can go to a store and buy a uniform," he added. It was a further lie, as the president himself admitted during a televised question-and-answer session on April 17. Of course he sent troops, he said. Without soldiers, "it wouldn't have been possible to hold the referendum."
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..By the middle of August, the area controlled by the separatists made up a mere 1 percent of Ukrainian territory. Kiev announced that it would soon take back Donetsk.
At this point, the rebels were clearly overmatched militarily. But that's not all: The popular uprising they had hoped for failed to materialize..
The sudden shift began two weeks ago. It was most obvious in the fight for Ilovaysk, a town of just 16,000, but strategically important because of the rail hub there. The Ukrainian army had tried to take back Ilovaysk on Aug. 10, but was unsuccessful. Eight days later, they tried again.
On August 19 at 5 a.m., the Ukrainian commander there, Semen Semenchenko, announced that his forces controlled two-thirds of the town and that they had managed to advance to the center and plant the Ukrainian flag there. Finally, it seemed, the eastern approach to Donetsk was open.
But suddenly, shells from Russian Grad rocket launchers began raining down on the town, a Russian tank appeared and a deadly street battle broke out. The Ukrainian commander Semenchenko was injured by shrapnel.'
- Benjamin Bidder, Moritz Gathmann, Christian Neef and Matthias Schepp,
Undeclared War: Putin's Covert Invasion of Eastern Ukraine, September 2, 2014</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
'..[Russian] Pskov paratroopers .. killed .. in Ukraine..'</blockquote>