The invasion of Crimea started with an information attack.

News reports seemingly designed to turn local residents against Ukraine and towards Russia.

So information radiation or information influence or the narratives or the information warfare also influences our hearts and minds.

Then came the proxy forces with pro-Kremlin biker groups and volunteers mobilized to protect

ethnic Russians from what they claimed was a threat posed by Ukrainian nationalists.

These façade groups that we were talking about,

Cossacks, a Russian community of Crimea,

they would create the appearance of a local uprising.

Finally, came the Russian forces,

they were without markings on their uniforms.

They definitely look like some kind of commandos

from a thriller movie.

They were really big men properly dressed.

It did not look like anything of the local self-defense as they were presented.

Analysts called them Russia's Little Green Men,

though President Vladimir Putin initially denied his troops were involved in the unrest.

It created enough of a grey zone to prevent many Western politicians in early 2014

from fully grasping until it was too late what was going on in Crimea, even as these Russia-backed forces

took control of airports, military sites and the parliament.

A referendum was rushed through, in which residents voted for accession to the Russian

Federation.

I had a feeling that someone actually crushed my house, turned it over,

...