When Russian President Vladimir Putin finally acknowledged that he had sent troops into Crimea ahead of Moscow’s takeover of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, he said one of the reasons for the incursion – though he did not use that word or any other that reflects reality very well, at least in the eyes of Kyiv and the West – was “to avoid bloodshed.”
Russia's War Against Ukraine
RFE/RL: Putin’s bloodshed bugbear and Srebrenica in Donbas
(FromL) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin give a press conference after a summit on Ukraine at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, on Dec. 9, 2019.
