NOS correspondent Iris de Graaf:
“President Putin now has a perfect pretext for military intervention. To this day, Putin has remained vague about the deployment of the peacekeepers† The president kept saying that he might be able to deploy those troops, but that he would keep an eye on the spot to see if that would be necessary.
Today on Russian state television we saw a lot of news about violence in the Donbas; there was talk of “terrorist attacks” from Ukraine, in order to “create understanding” in Russian society. The massive increase in so-called “terrorist” attacks, a “humanitarian crisis” and the leaders who have “officially” asked for a request: these complete the whole process of military intervention.
The big question now remains: when will those troops really cross the border? That can be done in a moment, tomorrow, next week: only Putin decides and knows. He decides the next move.”
–
