Units involved reportedly included paratroopers of the 31 Gvardeyskaya Brigade from Ulianovsk, a crack unit commanded by Col. Gennadiy Anashkin, who had seen action in Bosnia and two Chechen wars, and famously had captured the Vaziani airbase near Tbilisi, Georgia. Also seen were elements of the 22nd Guards Brigade from Krasnaya Polyana, near Sochi; the “blue berets” of the 45th Regiment; and the 346th Brigade.

By March 26, in a swift, largely bloodless occupation, Spetsnaz troops had raised Russian flags over no fewer than 193 Ukrainian military sites across Crimea and passed day-to-day control of the streets and vehicle check-points to pro-Russian militias armed with what appeared to be captured foreign weapons, such as the Polish PZR Grom man-portable, shoulder-launched, anti-aircraft missile, some of which were known to have been looted in Georgia.

In the face of constant Kremlin denials of any Russian participation, positive identification of these units was difficult because the troops carried no insignia, wore ski masks, and did not engage in conversation, except, reportedly, with children. Apparently they had also been stripped of cellphones and personal identification papers before deployment, but some characteristic tattoos were recognized that were closely associated with the VDV Air Force amphibious commandos, and the GRU.

The “anonymous” troops were also exceptionally well equipped, wearing the newest Kevlar helmets, ratnik (warrior) combat gear, the latest 6B43 bullet-proof body armor, and armed with AK-100-series Kalashnikov assault rifles (fitted with grenade launchers, combat optics and night-vision thermal sights) and 12.7 mm sniper/anti-materiel rifles. Conversations with the reticent but well-mannered men suggested they were kontraktniki, or contract soldiers, and not conscripts. Ukrainians referred to them as “little green men,” due both to their unadorned but latest-issue uniforms and their mysterious origins.

Within days of the initial intervention, Russian regulars poured over the narrow Kerch Strait, and by March an estimated 30,000 troops had been established, together with artillery units at Perekop and Grad multiple rocket launchers at Dzhankoy.

By March 26, in a swift, largely bloodless occupation, Spetsnaz troops had raised Russian flags over no fewer than 193 Ukrainian military sites across Crimea and passed day-to-day control of the streets and vehicle check-points to pro-Russian militias armed with what appeared to be captured foreign weapons, such as the Polish PZR Grom man-portable, shoulder-launched, anti-aircraft missile, some of which were known to have been looted in Georgia.

This first phase was then followed by the infiltration of yet more Russian SOF across the border into eastern Ukraine in support of local proxies in Donetsk, Lugansk, and Dnipropetrovsk, and more GRU Spetsnaz took over from the Ukrainians the A-2544 base north of Dzhankoy in the Kherson Oblast. Indeed, the self-styled military commander of the newly proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Col. Igor Strelkov, was identified by Western analysts as a GRU professional with links to the Federal Security Service (FSB) counterintelligence agency.

This astonishing annexation met with almost no armed resistance, in spite of the presence of two Ukrainian SOF units, the 801st Naval Special Operations Battalion at the marine facility in Feodosiya, and the 3rd Special Operations Regiment, both of which were quickly surrounded and disarmed.

Russian success in the Crimea, which was answered by NATO with the imposition of personal financial sanction on members of Vladimir Putin’s regime and on the GRU director, Igor Sergun, most likely would have been repeated in the eastern Ukraine if, on July 17, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 had not been shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile, causing worldwide outrage. The atrocity was probably committed by local separatists who had enjoyed Russian sponsorship, and perhaps without any direct authorization from Moscow – although the Ukrainian authorities released what purported to be very incriminating intercepted cellphone conversations between militia commanders and their Russian coordinators over the frontier, based on an unverified transcript reported in the Kiev Post newspaper.