Brian Whitmore: How to manufacture a war

Before the guns of April, came the protests of February and March. Before the armed conflict, came the unarmed uprisings. Before there was a war in the Donbas, there was the so-called Russian Spring.

There has long been scant doubt about the Kremlin's deep involvement in -- and instigation of -- the war in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that began in April 2014.