UPDATED: Russia Pulls Its Troops From Ukraine Border, Putin Says

[Tommy_Carcetti]

45. That's the weird thing.

Putin claimed he wasn't massing troops at the Ukrainian border. And the Russian supporters and useful idiots all raised claims that the US was faking intelligence to show Russian troops that weren't there. And now Putin says he's pulling them back, without having previously acknowledged their existence.

And then there was Crimea, who shortly after Yanukovych having fled the country, was besieged by mysterious men in camouflage with Russian weapons. Putin swore those were local forces and not Russian military. After Crimea's (questionable and rushed) plebiscite and annexation into the Russian Federation, Putin then congratulates the Russian forces in Crimea that he had previously denied being Russian forces.

Now you have Eastern Ukraine, with similar men in camouflage mixing in with armed militants hostile to the Ukrainian government. Putin has denied that these are Russian......Do you sense a pattern here?

I'd really like to say Putin's acting in good faith here. But everything I know about the man, and his poetic waxings on Novorossiya refuse to allow me to believe anything the man says.