U.N. finds growing signs of Russian involvement in Ukraine war

REUTERS ^ | Jun 1, 2015 | TOM MILES

[McGruff]

A separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine is revealing increasing evidence, but not yet conclusive legal proof, of Russian state involvement, senior United Nations human rights officials said on Monday.

"We are speaking about increasing inflow of (unofficial) fighters and increasing evidence that there are also some (Russian) servicemen involved in fighting," Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic told a news conference in Geneva.

[McGruff]

Now there's a definitive statement.

[thorvaldr]

Nothing to see here, the red army just gets a lot of vacation days. And they don’t have a lot of room to store their rifles, rpg’s, APC’s and artillery so the soldiers usually take them home with them.

[Bluewater2015]

[dfwgator]

"They don't need me right now."

[tcrlaf]

Of COURSE there is “Russian Involvement”, the Rebels are Ethnic Russians.

There are public recruiting offices for the Republic’s in almost every Major Russian city. While most of the Independent groups have been absorbed into the DNR and LNR forces, there are still a couple of groups, like “Vostok”, that maintain their own recruiting systems, as well.

That said, it’s still almost 2-1 locals vs, fighters from Russia.

What’s of more interest to me are the 4-6 Americans now fighting for the Rebels. One is a nutjob communist from Austin, that goes by “Tex”, that has been there a while, and saw the hardest of the fighting at Debaltsevo.

Another is a Boston-born Russian.

There is one American there with the code-name “Micheal”, that supposedly came in with some ex-Italian Army guys a couple of months ago, as well.

Russian Media has been interviewing the Americans fighting for the rebels. This “Tex” guy though, has obviously volunteered for some Russian propaganda stuff, recently.

The videos are on Youtube.

[MasterGunner01]

Well, like duh — isn't it precious the brainiacs at the UN have figured out that Russia is involved doing bad things in the Ukraine. I am shocked!

[Ivan Mazepa]

That said, it’s still almost 2-1 locals vs, fighters from Russia.

There is no definitive source on the composition of the fighters, so 2-1 ratio is only one of many guesses. Estimates vary from 20-80 to 80-20. Ukrainian sources point to the heavily Russian leadership (who are citizens of RF, not just ethnic Russians in Ukraine). Many fighters returning back to Russia commented that the number Ukrainian citizens (ethnic Russians or not) who fight for them, are few. These comments were repeated by Russians commanders (Strelkov and Motorola)