Putin's PR coup

摘要

Help is on the way. Or so Russian state television declared on August 12th, as nearly 300 lorries with food, medicine and generators set off from a base outside Moscow for the besieged city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Confusion reigns over what the lorries are carrying, and over how they will cross into Ukraine. As The Economist went to press, the convoy was heading to Rostov, a Russian city close to the border. It is a measure of Ukrainian distrust of Russian machinations that an aid convoy should be widely suspected of being a Trojan horse for invasion. In March Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, sent columns of troops without insignia into Crimea while claiming only local pro-Russian volunteers were at large. Yet the aid convoy is unlikely to be cover for an invasion. Had Mr Putin decided to invade, he would not have needed a stealth fleet of lorries-he has as many as 45,000 troops on the border. Russia does not have to hide arms in aid lorries to get them to its proxy forces.