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Putin. War (Russian:Путин. Война) is a report based on materials prepared by the Russian opposition politicianBoris Nemtsov about the2014–present Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Published on the websitePutin. Itogi on 12 May 2015, it covers the preparations for theannexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the involvement of Russian troops in thewar in Donbas. The report includes testimonials of Russian soldiers taken prisoner in Ukraine and photos of Russian military personnel who died in the hostilities.[1][2][3]
Boris Nemtsov began working on the report at the end of January 2015. AfterNemtsov's assassination, his close associateIlya Yashin headed a team of opposition journalists and activists, who continued writing the report and prepared it for publication.[4]
Theepigraph of the report is a post by Boris Nemtsov in Facebook on 31 January 2015:[5]
The task of the opposition today is education and truth.
And the truth is that Putin is war and crisis.
The report consists of a preface, 11 chapters and a conclusion. It has 65 large-format pages with 46 color photographs and 8 charts.
Chapters:
Chapters cover the events from the beginning ofEuromaidan when theKremlin developed plans for the "annexation of Crimea" up to the start of 2015. The report includes information from relatives of Russian servicemen who died in Ukraine. The authors write that Putin's "hybrid war" involvesdoublethink, falsehoods and сowardliness, concluding:
The cowardly and despicable war unleashed by Putin will cost the country a lot. We will be paying for this adventure with the lives of our soldiers, economic crisis and political isolation.
We will pay with enmity from our long-time allies. No people are closer and more like kin to the Russians than the Ukrainians. These are our brothers - without any pathos -- and the war betweenRussians and Ukrainians in Donbas is impossible to characterize in any other way except as fratricide.
This war is the shame of our country. But the problem will not go away by itself. Putin must be stopped. And this can only be done by the Russian people themselves.
Let us stop this war together.
A special issue of theEuropean Union Foreign Affairs Journal (EUFAJ) from Germany includes an English translation of the entire report as well as the original text inRussian (publication date 21 May 2015).[6]
An AmericanNGO, the Free Russia Foundation, also published a translation of the report into English.[7] It was presented on 28 May 2015 at theAtlantic Council inWashington, D.C.[8][9][10]
In Russia, 14 printing companies refused to publish the report.[11]PayPal blocked an account raising funds for the report.[12]
The head of the NGO "Officers of Russia" Anton Tsvetkov sent a statement to theProsecutor General of the Russian Federation with a request to verify the reportPutin. War for the presence of false information. Tsvetkov said that the facts in the report are based on distorted and anti-Russian sources.[13]
