At the beginning of April, large numbers of Russian troops began to gather along the borders of eastern Ukraine. Stretches of the troubled region have been under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014, the year so-called “little green men” – special Russian military operatives working without the insignia of the Russian armed forces – appeared all over Crimea, annexing the Ukrainian peninsula.
While this time, Russia withdrew its troops, just over a week after they arrived, the episode had sparked fears of a full-scale land war, one in which the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine could be invaded and integrated into a “Novorossiya”, or “New Russia”.
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