# It's Russian troops in Crimea, right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 8, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169 "2014-03-08T04:24:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/1 "2014-03-08T04:24:03Z")
As of my posting this, Russia is still claiming that the thousands of troops on the ground in Crimea are not Russian. But I haven’t heard a single person anywhere–even on the pro-Russian side–that believes them. Is there any conceivable way that the military forces in Crimea came from somewhere else? Am I missing something? Or are the Russians just that shameless when it comes to false media reports? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/2 "2014-03-08T05:45:17Z")
> [@Reyemile](#): > > Or are the Russians just that shameless when it comes to false media reports? So were you asleep throughout the Cold War, or… ? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/3 "2014-03-08T05:53:31Z")
Some enterprising Ukrainian reporters did a video of the “self-defense” guy occupying or guarding some Ukrainian military building, blew up a couple of frames, found a collar label on his uniform listing his rank and name, did a search in Russian social media, found his web page, found out that after regular army service he re-upped and is currently serving in Spetznaz GRU (Russian Special Forces unit), and his last message on the “VKontakte” (Russian Facebook equivalent) page was on Feb. 26 and just said “Vacation”. The page was taken down, but still can be accessed from a cache. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/5akWFP6G1oM/hqdefault.jpg "З'явилося відео, як озброєні люди знеструмили штаб ВМС у Севастополі") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5akWFP6G1oM) [http://icdn.lenta.ru/images/2014/03/06/18/20140306180127404/pic\_20cc86db4be06e5710ed648abceb53d4.jpg](http://icdn.lenta.ru/images/2014/03/06/18/20140306180127404/pic_20cc86db4be06e5710ed648abceb53d4.jpg) [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gPKe0nq1Z6UJ:https://vk.com/id191664514+&cd=1&hl=ru&ct=clnk&gl=ua&client=firefox-a#/search?cd=1&client=firefox-a&ct=clnk&gl=ua&hl=ru&q=cache%3AgPKe0nq1Z6UJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fvk.com%2Fid191664514%2B](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gPKe0nq1Z6UJ:https://vk.com/id191664514+&cd=1&hl=ru&ct=clnk&gl=ua&client=firefox-a#/search?cd=1&client=firefox-a&ct=clnk&gl=ua&hl=ru&q=cache%3AgPKe0nq1Z6UJ%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fvk.com%2Fid191664514%2B) ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/4 "2014-03-08T07:53:40Z")
It’s obviously Russian troops, if you look at their vehicles you’ll see that they have Russian military number plates. So if Putin insists that they’re not his troops, maybe he should try to find out how these random Ukrainians got a hold of Russian military vehicles. The use of undercover troops has a long history, because they are great in this kind of situation. Sending these troops assure you that you have a presence in a contested area, in case something goes wrong. On the other hand, if something goes wrong (such as them getting killed) you can always claim that they were not your troops and avoid any responsibility. The American soldiers that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan were in a similar situation. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/5 "2014-03-08T09:21:21Z")
Without insignia’s are they not Russian spy’s? KGB? covert? When did world leaders go around telling the truth about having spies on the ground on foreign soil? Just wondering if that could be it. ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/6 "2014-03-08T09:27:20Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Without insignia’s are they not Russian spy’s? KGB? covert? When did world leaders go around telling the truth about having spies on the ground on foreign soil? Just wondering if that could be it. Wouldn’t that go against the purpose of spying in the first place? You send spies to go relatively undetected and collect sensitive information without sparking unrest. These troops, on the other hand, are going around in military formations, full army gear and vehicles, and surrounding Ukrainian military bases. Hardly what you would want from a spy. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/7 "2014-03-08T20:56:49Z")
[![](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) ](http://tinypic.com/images/goodbye.jpg) Picture of a Russian soldier’s social network page with his snaps of himself in the Crimea. I mean, it’s written in Ukrainian, but I think all Russian soldiers use Ukrainian. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/8 "2014-03-09T02:10:56Z")
> [@Reyemile](#): > > As of my posting this, Russia is still claiming that the thousands of troops on the ground in Crimea are not Russian. But I haven’t heard a single person anywhere–even on the pro-Russian side–that believes them. Is there any conceivable way that the military forces in Crimea came from somewhere else? Am I missing something? Or are the Russians just that shameless when it comes to false media reports? Its old hat to the Russian’s, they are actaully the Russian Peace corp Declan ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/9 "2014-03-09T02:45:11Z")
> [@Batistuta](#): > > Wouldn’t that go against the purpose of spying in the first place? You send spies to go relatively undetected and collect sensitive information without sparking unrest. These troops, on the other hand, are going around in military formations, full army gear and vehicles, and surrounding Ukrainian military bases. Hardly what you would want from a spy. Putin could be messin’ with Western heads, and he’s playing it well. This is an invasion but its not really an invasion. These are Russian soldiers protecting ethnic Russians but they are not really there. In a normal territorial invasion unmarked soldiers could be shot on sight. Ukraine is too skeerd to do anything about anything. The EU will fall apart on sanctions, Obama did enough, Crimea goes where it wanted to be in 1992. Peaceful co-existence returns to the world. Relax dudes. This ain’t even close to the big one, ---
**Author:** ![dofe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@dofe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dofe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/10 "2014-03-09T03:05:38Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Putin could be messin’ with Western heads, and he’s playing it well. This is an invasion but its not really an invasion. These are Russian soldiers protecting ethnic Russians but they are not really there. In a normal territorial invasion unmarked soldiers could be shot on sight. Ukraine is too skeerd to do anything about anything. The EU will fall apart on sanctions, Obama did enough, Crimea goes where it wanted to be in 1992. Peaceful co-existence returns to the world. Relax dudes. This ain’t even close to the big one, 😕 If Putin is messin’ with any heads it’s only because people have not been paying enough attention and/or were born after the cold war ended. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-russian-troops-in-crimea-right/683169/11 "2014-03-09T03:43:24Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > Putin could be messin’ with Western heads, and he’s playing it well. He’s not “playing it well”, he’s basically doing the geo-political version of “mfno mummy I diffnt take fhe cookief”. Angela Merkel, who spoke with him directly, [apparently thinks he might have thrown a sprocket](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10673235/Ukraine-crisis-Angry-Angela-Merkel-questions-whether-Putin-is-in-touch-with-reality.html).