As the West sounded the alarm about the Kremlin ordering troops into eastern Ukraine and decried it as an invasion, Russian state media painted a completely different picture — of Moscow coming to the rescue of war-torn areas tormented by Ukraine’s aggression and bringing them peace.
The fanfare came hours after Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s recognition of the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine as independent states and ordered its troops to “maintain peace” in territory where Russia-backed rebels have been fighting Kyiv’s forces since 2014 — a conflict that has killed over 14,000 people.
