The Institute of Modern Russia announces the official release of The Interpreter’s newest report titled “An Invasion by Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine.” Staff of The Interpreter will join fellow Ukraine experts for the report’s official launch at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., on Thursday at 4 p.m.
The 88-page report provides the most comprehensive compilation of evidence on the war in Ukraine to date. It features information and analysis that The Interpreter has meticulously gathered and conducted since just before the height of the Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine.
The report examines the reasons behind the Kremlin’s undeclared war and devotes particular attention to the appearance of Russian military equipment and personnel in the conflict, from the invasion of Crimea to initial evidence of military assistance in the Donbass to the present. Drawing on a variety of sources, the authors explain how armored vehicles, weapons systems, and other military equipment came to enter the separatists’ arsenal, and reveal the Russian origins of that materiel.
The report also lays out evidence showing that hundreds of Russian military personnel have died in the Ukraine conflict, providing an overview of work carried out by several independent media outlets. The stories of journalists, relatives, and activists about the involvement of Russian troops serve to illustrate the information war initiated by the Kremlin amid the conflict.
Based on the gathered evidence, the authors offer several conclusions regarding the presence of Russian military personnel and equipment in the war, and the disappearance of scores of Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Among these conclusions are the following:
- A close examination of direct Russian military involvement in Ukraine, and of the context within which the intervention is taking place, makes clear that the Russian government is directly coordinating and leading the fight to destabilize and divide Ukraine. There would be no war in the Donbass without Moscow.
- Satellite photos, information uploaded to Russian social media websites, observations by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, analysis of open-source information, and warnings from the Ukrainian and Western governments all tell the same story: the Russian military is digging in, building forward operating bases between Mariupol and Donetsk, and turning temporary staging areas on the Russian side of the border into permanent installations for invasion preparations.
- There is evidence that Russia has been quietly burying its war dead—and harassing or defaming anyone in the country who attempts to investigate these burial rites. If the fallen were “volunteers,” there would be no need to designate their deaths “state secrets,” even as Putin bestows honors upon the soldiers without acknowledging the circumstances under which they were killed.
James Miller and Michael Weiss, two of the authors of “An Invasion by Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine,” will present the report on Thursday, with additional remarks by Stephen Pifer, Miroslava Gongadze, and John Herbst.
Follow @InModernRussia for live updates from Thursday’s event, and use #PutinAtWar to join the discussion. For more information and to register for the report presentation, please see the official announcement here.
