Alleged Russian Soldiers-Οperatives In Ukraine

Tsavo Lion wrote:

..the largely russian Crimea was able to hold order with the help of the Russian military personnel based there legally at Sevastopol long enough to hold a referendum and get off the USS Ukraine...

They flew in more troops- the capital Simferopol & few other big towns had no Russian bases nearby.
Romanians r now also concerned: https://regnum.ru/news/polit/2505474.html
Ukraine is losing people: https://iz.ru/803000/igor-karmazin/skazku-sdelat-ubyliu-kak-i-pochemu-vymiraet-ukraina

Low intensity border/civil war will keep this dying out & exodus going, with only the most destitute remaining. Russia (& others) will have less of a problem re-absorbing it back, & welcome those S. African farmers as the Germans were welcomed there 200 years ago.

More than 10,000 cases of desertion had been registered in the Ukrainian Army since the outbreak of the Donbass war in April 2014, Ukrainian Vesti reported. In 2014 the army suffered heavy desertion and nearly 30 percent of the servicemen called up in the first wave of mobilization (March 17) abandoned their positions, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.
Hundreds of Ukrainian men chose to flee the country rather than be enrolled. Presidential adviser Yuri Biryukov said January 27, 2015 "Over the past 30 days the state border in Chernivtsi region crossed 17% of total military service area. From unofficial sources that hostels and motels in the border areas of neighboring Romania completely filled by those who evade conscription". ..
Out of 18,000 Ukrainian troops stationed in Crimea, 3,000 said they wished to continue service with the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Russian sources. The troops departed by buses from various areas in the Black Sea peninsula. Military equipment would be transported to Ukraine by railways, under an agreement with the Russian Defense Ministry. About 12,000 of the 15,450 members of the Ukrainian Navy were based in the Crimea. The Acting Defense Minister Igor Tenyukh reported that 4,300 soldiers from the Crimea wanted to continue to serve in the Forces of Ukraine. "4,300 troops and 2,200 members of their families have expressed a desire to continue to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine", - said I. Tenyukh, speaking from the rostrum of VR. ..
More than 16,000 former servicemen and civilian personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces were employed in the military service and given civilian jobs in the Russian armed forces, First Deputy Defense Minister Arkady Bakhin said at an intercom conference held at the situation center of the Defense Ministry on 15 April 2014. "The Russian citizenship was given to 9,268 former servicemen and personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces who were employed in the military service in the Russian armed forces on a contract basis," Bakhin said. Besides, a total of 7,050 former civilian personnel of the Ukrainian armed forces have been employed at the units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Bakhin said.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/personnel.htm

Andrey Illarionov, former advisor of Vladimir Putin, said in a speech on 31 May 2014 that some technologies of Russo-Georgian War, were updated and again being exploited in Ukraine. ..The war in Ukraine did not happen "all of sudden", but was pre-planned and the preparations began as early as 2003. Illarionov later stated that one of the Russian plans envisaged war with Ukraine in 2015 after a presidential election, however Maidan accelerated the confrontation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine_(2014%E2%80%93present)#Crimea

Tsavo Lion wrote:NATO does- those in tanks were not only volunteers, but active duty army troops, under orders from their chain of command. I agree, Russia doesn't have to play by the rules while the West makes its own rules all over the World since 1400s.

GarryB wrote:There is clear and open interference in the Ukraine by various western military forces directed there by their governments and openly helping Kiev bomb innocent civilians and burn people to death... who gives a fuck if some Russian decides he wants to actively help a neighbour in a time of war inflicted by an illegal government imposed on them by a US coup?

To me, it looks like the case with preponderance of evidence.

..we are to believe the only reason there is a problem there is because Russian troops from Russia who should have been on duty were ordered to go over the border and invade the Ukraine..

as always, u exaggerate- r u saying that evidence presented in those videos is all fake just because they r anti-Russian?

Every controversial issue must be viewed from multiple different angles & w/o omitting all the relevant sources & data.

True, most of the fighting defending D/LPR is done by locals, volunteers, & private contractors- but that fact doesn't eliminate Russia's participation, such as non/lethal aid, training, command, artillery support, & occasional direct intervention to preserve the status quo. They sent IL-76s with armed soldiers from elsewhere w/o ID patches in Crimea to take it back, but on a larger scale- Kiev knew it would lose & didn't give order to resist.