Russia's War Against Ukraine
OP-ED
Alina Polyakova: Here’s how the Kremlin manufactured a civil war in Ukraine
A Ukrainian serviceman checks his mashine-gun as he holds a position near the frontline with pro-Russian separatists in Krymske village, Lugansk region on June 25, 2015.
The war in eastern Ukraine is a Kremlin-manufactured conflict. The arrival of "little green men" in Crimea in February 2014 transformed the conflict from a domestic altercation between citizens and their government to an international crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly acknowledged in a government-sponsored documentary that he carefully planned and orchestrated the military takeover of the Crimean peninsula.