Every time some Russian general nowadays boasts about how he commanded operations by Russian regular troops and unofficial mercenaries such as the Wagner Group against Ukraine in Donbas in 2014–2015 (and even casually admits to committing war crimes by mistake), I feel like sending my warmest regards -- to all those who stubbornly denied Russia’s direct aggression against Ukraine back then, parroted the Kremlin’s lies about “we are not there,” the “Donbas people's militia,” and the so-called “rebels” in the name of their cherished “balance of views,” while condescendingly lecturing us about our lack of “objectivity.”