As Russian troops amassed at the Ukrainian border earlier this year, the question of whether an invasion was imminent was left hanging in the air. Vladimir Trendafilovski explains how the situation unfolded.
In late March, totally unprovoked and without any prior notice or obvious reason, substantial numbers of Russian Armed Forces (VS RF) assets were mobilised and deployed to the border with Ukraine – both in mainland Russia and in Crimea. The latter is a territory of Ukraine annexed by the Russian Federation in March 2014.