There is no ‘intervention’, Ukraine is at war with Russia

On the 23rd of February 2014 Russia began its assault on Ukraine under the semblance of Crimean separatists. By the 19th of March, in 24 days, Russia had successfully invaded Ukraine. In spite of the fact Russian officials continue to asseverately deny involvement, it is widely believed by the international community that Russia is directly supplying troops with military paraphernalia. Russia has even been suspended from the G8 and heavily sanctioned as ramification. Evidence also preponderantly supports the case of Russian involvement: from a retired admiral’s statement, to soldiers carrying guns exclusive to Russian military personnel, to Russian soldiers admitting on camera they are under orders to invade.

Despite this, the Huffington Post despondently employs the wording 'Russia-Ukraine Conflict’, Wikipedia titles its page '2014-15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine’, and the BBC designates its section the 'Ukraine Crisis’. The BBC discusses the Ukraine-Russia War in the same perverted vein as it does the ‘migrant crisis’ at the Eurotunnel entrance in Calais. United States Commander Ben Hodges has put the appraisal of Russian soldiers on Ukrainian soil at 12,000, 29,000 on the recently-annexed Crimean soil, and withal 50,000 stationed on the Russian side of the border. That is a mobilised army almost the size of the full time UK armed forces (91,000 vs 145,000).

Putin has amended the list of state secrets, now making the losses of troops "in peacetime during special operations" a state secret for all intents and purposes confirming Russian involvement in Ukraine. Susan Rice’s tweet of Russia’s ‘military incursions into Ukraine’ and of ‘significant escalation’ is tactful and diplomatic, but not unreservedly truthful. Since when did the stationing of air defence systems, tank units, artillery, and 12,000 personnel stop constituting a war and start constituting simply an ‘incursion’, an ‘intervention’, or ‘crisis’ on the scale of a migrant movement?

Whilst 91,000 Russian soldiers stand on the border of Ukraine, NATO makes yet another diplomatic move… in Poland. A 5,000 strong avant-garde force will be available to deploy anywhere in Europe within 48 hours. Yet this does not help Ukraine who’s city of Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine is currently under pro-Russian control with 'a number of rocket systems based inside the Donetsk city football stadium.’

In 2014, Russia managed to invade a sovereign European country without major repercussions; it was a Machiavellian paragon of the modern invasion. Former Ukrainian Crimea is consequently a part of the Russian Federation and Eastern Ukraine has become a tense, sporadic warzone on the constant verge of collapsing into a full on war frontier. The impetus should be on the media to stop pretending that this is a simple ‘crisis’ similar in sentiment to a migrant crisis in Calais. It is not, it is a war and the media ought be propelling coverage into the political and public spheres as a salient issue in the modern world.