Undeclared war: Putin's covert invasion of eastern Ukraine

Der Spiegel: 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.

Photo: Marina and Sergey Balobanov have not heard from their son since July. They
believe 18-year-old Andrey was dispatched by the Russian army to Ukraine and said today
he is being held as a prisoner of war.


From Der Spiegel

By Benjamin Bidder, Moritz Gathmann, Christian Neef and Matthias Schepp

Moscow has continued to deny direct involvement in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. But
evidence to the contrary continues to mount. NATO says up to 1,000 Russian soldiers have
joined the fray and the pro-Russian separatists have made a remarkable turnaround.

In the middle of a field of withered sunflowers stands a man in a white shirt wondering if
war or peace will ultimately prevail. His name is Paul Picard and he is the head of the
OSCE Observer Mission on the Russian-Ukrainian border in southern Russia.

For weeks now, volunteer fighters, weapons and even heavy military equipment have been
trickling into Ukraine through this segment of the border. The soldiers are coming to
provide support to pro-Russian separatists in their battle against the Ukrainian military.
They're members of Vladimir Putin's secret army in Ukraine.

Picard, a Frenchman, is witness each day to the events taking shape along the border, but
there's little he can do to stop them. His mandate with the observer mission is limited to
the scope of a few meters inside the border because Russia and the other OSCE member
states failed to reach an agreement on anything more extensive. Picard and his 15 staff
don't even have permission to inspect the cars and trucks that are legally crossing the
border. Nor do they have the right to stop people who are penetrating the border into the
Ukraine through unguarded fields.

One of the border crossings under OSCE observation is located near a city on Russian soil
with 50,000 inhabitants. The municipality is surrounded to the north, south and west by
Ukrainian territory. Strangely, the city is named Donetsk -- the same as the embattled
bastion of pro-Russian separatists some 160 kilometers (99 miles) to the west in Ukraine.

For weeks, the Russian Donetsk has also played an important role in the conflict over
Ukraine's future. It has become the hub for Putin's creeping invasion. Two barracks are
located at the edge of the city and 50 military vehicles parked at one of the facilities. Pro-
Russian fighters from eastern Ukraine can be seen walking in the city center. They claim
they are "here to rest." A group of Chechens wearing bullet-proof vests and armed with
pistols is standing next to their Ladas, which have no license plates.

Just as Picard is giving an interview to Russian television, a military jeep with a Russian
license plate and decals of the Russian airborne troops passes by. The men sitting inside
wear camouflage and identify themselves to SPIEGEL as rebels. It's also possible they're
Russian soldiers, or at least that they still were only a few days earlier.

Vacation in a War Zone

But Picard can't say such things -- he needs clear proof first. His reports instead make
frequent reference to "people in military uniforms crossing the border in both directions."

In his interview, Picard states that he and his men, stationed at the border crossings in
Donetsk and Gukovo, haven't observed the delivery of any military equipment to Ukrainian
territory. It's a sentence that will then be broadcast that night on the Russian news.
Picard's observation that this applies only to his OSCE mandate -- in other words, "the 40-
meter border in Donetsk and the 40-meter (130 foot) border in Gukovo"-- is ignored
entirely by the Russian propaganda.

As is so much else. 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.

For complete text, link below:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/russia-expands-war-in-eastern-ukraine-amid-web-of-lies-a-989290.html

Photo courtesy article source