Officially no, they just sent in troops to protect Russian militia. They will do this again if it looks like Ukraine will retake Donetsk from said militia.
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This is wrong. There is good reason to consider the EU’s Eastern Partnership program (which seeks to strengthen the EU’s ties with former Soviet states) was targeted specifically against Russia, described to US officials as designed, among other things, to ‘stem growing Russian influence’ (sound familiar). When US-led factions didn’t get what they wanted (Viktor Yanukovich refused), protests began, chaos ensued, his eventual overthrow, the annexation of Crimea, and war in Donbass. In other words, it wasn’t Russian aggression nor influence which led to the conflict in Ukraine, but rather an effort by the EU to expand its own sphere of influence and ‘counter Russia’s influence’ – in effect, the exact opposite of what you claim.
That’s wrong as well.
Btw was it US or EU? 
The point is that such a course of actions carries an extremely high risk. What Russia should ideally do (i.e. fuck off) doesn’t really matter. What matter is how both parties react. Russia will not fuck off and they will not allow Ukraine to take back the Separatist enclaves without intervening. This is a red line for them.
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It was an EU-led (Polish I think?), the US bit was a Wikileaks cable between the two discussing their shenanigans… Could probably internet search for it…
Let’s be clear on this.
Are you insinuating/stating that the US directly instigated the protests and that they were therefore non-organic/did not reflect the views of the people?
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They took Crimea officially with the Green Men invasion. In Donbas they sent in some GRU officers and ex-GRU officers to instigate and later aid, a rebellion. They then sent in massive amounts of hardware (i.e. tanks and artillery, as well as petrol and transport vehicles, as well as anti air and Ewar equipment later) and began organising volunteers. Many of these volunteers were serving soldiers and officers given holiday leave for fighting in Ukraine. They also sent in actual Spetznas in to reinforce. Later on, at the Battle of Ilovaisk where Russia destroyed the Ukraine army, they used regular Russian units at the border, shelling Iloviaisk area from inside Russia with massive artillery and thermomobaric bombardment. Russia never used its air force, nor it’s strategic weapons, for reasons of plausible deniability, although the use of regular Russian artillery units was obvious at the Battle of Ilovaisk.
Since then, Russia has assassinated a few of the Separatist commanders, cleaning up, removing the most “difficult” of them and forced former GRU officer Igor Gurkin (Tzarist who started the insurrection in Donbas and was the Minister of Defence of the Donetsk Republic, a competent but rather insane man who signed off field executions using laws from Stalin’s era in the 1930s) to resign since he had a role concerning the downing of the Malaysian airliner (many of these were mysteriously assassinated, the rest have gone on permanent holiday in Russia mostly).
As for the referendum in Crimea, it was not free and fair and numbers for secession are way too high, but at the same time, like Flobs said, the majority there are loyal to Russia due to ethnic and cultural reasons.
Ps. By the way, whenever there is a major flare up, you will see trains of T-62s and T-72s as well as artillery pieces around Rostov-an Don on the border. These are not supposed to be used by Russian regulars in Russia. In 2014 they were shipped to Ukraine at night and the “farmers and coal miners of Donbas” found themselves to have one of the largest armoured armies in Europe.
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That sounds an awful lot like Russia took territory that it now controls.
So hard to know who to believe, eh?
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Let’s not forget that many if not most of the ‘russians’ in that region were encouraged to settle it during the USSR era. A political move i see as similar to what France did notably in Alsace. An unhealthy migration imo.
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Russia has, if you ignore International Law and go only with what the majority of the people who live there want, a sort of " half-decent" reason for annexing Crimea.But Donbas is purely sabotage (Crimea is also sabotage but also a strategic annexation of very strategic territory) to hack of pieces of Ukraine and keep it down in the gutter as long as it doesn’t return to the Russian sphere. Absolutely, the only way ever the Donbas will return to Ukrainian control is if there is another , pro-Russian, revolution in Kyev.
You’ll note that it’s rather impossible for Ukraine to change it’s security status, to join an alliance etc., as long as it has “disputed territories”. NATO will not let the join then for instance. So the point is to have a permanent state of low-intensity conflict inside Ukraine, thus rendering Ukraine incapable of geopolitical maneuvers. Also, to solve it, the road goes not to Washington or Brussels, but mainly to Moscow, which is how the Russians wants it. It forces Ukraine to deal directly with Moscow. Moscow’s goal is also to force Ukraine to deal directly with the Separatist enclaves and thus give them legitimacy.
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I guess it is worth to note: Obviously, Russia would never have been able to instigate the Donbas rebellion if there was no discontent with the Maidan revolution there. To instigate an armed rebellion, you have to have something to work with of course. In the beginning, extremely early days, before actual war broke out, it was Igor Girkin and his band of brothers going on the offensive and taking towns with very few men. It also took them some time to persuade Donbas citizens to take up arms and be trained etc. So in the very early days, it was small unit conflict between squad sized units, though this changed fast. Russia also had some incredibly high ranked moles in the Ukrainian army. For instance, the commander of the Ukrainian Spetzas Alpha unit and many of his men quickly sided with Girkin. This was of course planned and it is just an example of many desertions that Russia had planned (because the revolt was well planned and Ukraine was infested with Russian moles in 2014) and that took place. The Ukrainian response to basically everything that happened in 2014 was telegraphed to Russia almost as soon, or at times as soon, as it was planned. They had many high ranking Ukrainian officers reporting to them and Ukraine never managed to get rid of all the traitors in 2014, although it did manage to arrest some of them. Some are likely there still.
A thread from an excellent source. This PHD student has systematically and most methodically reported on Russian military and geopolitical movement for several years and unlike many who write in the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as Politico and the Economist on the subject; he actually knows what he is talking about. Rob Lee is a terrific source and I can only recommend following him if you are interested in Russian geopolitical movements.
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This is getting hyped in the US media sphere, but all it (supposedly, because sometimes the US lies or exaggerates) really shows is that the Kremlin wants military options for large scale intrastate war should other (including other military) options fail them in the event of Ukraine crossing their red lines:
Worrisome ? Yes, but still likely part of an intimidation campaign.
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LOL! US intelligence just “stumbled” on secret Russian invasion plans? You’d have to be rather naive and/or slightly dense to believe that… Considering that all in house info like that is completely shut off from the world. I should add that all modern warfare IS basically information warfare. Over and over again.
I love the black and white photos with fourescent green squares, so modern. 
So, you’re saying they weren’t involved?
Didn’t realise Russians used English in their internal documents…
Am I missing something?
Just up above love…
Nope, I still don’t get it/follow.
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