Putin's Strategy Of Covert War In Eastern Ukraine May Be Blowing Up In His Face ( Copy Right @ The Business Insider)
Russian President Vladimir Putin ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ www.kremlin.ru) The missile that may have brought down a Malaysian Airlines plane was likely fired from inside Ukrainian territory, possibly by militants affiliated with the Donetsk People's Republic. But the militia's force composition, and the likely provenance of the weaponry that may have brought down the plane, both point elsewhere. For the past several months, the rebellion in eastern Ukraine has resembled the Russian doctrine of tainaya voina or "mysterious war" - the practice of using a combination of proxies, covert agents, and misinformation to achieve strategic objectives without the use of conventional force. If it turns out that pro-Russian militants shot down MH17, the incident could trigger significant blowback from from a strategy that Moscow has pursued in eastern Ukraine for months. In early June, the Vostok Battalion, a Russian intelligence-linked paramilitary gro