After a review of the press, official public releases and reports, as well as European court rulings, the Bundestag's experts have described the outcome with the German phrase, ohne belastbares Faktenmaterial - "without reliable fact material."
The Bundestag report, which runs to 17 pages and was completed on December 9, has been noted in the German-language media. To date, however, it has been ignored by the Anglo-American press, including the alt-media.
The new German report is entitled "Intervention in civil war zones: The role of Russia during the east Ukraine conflict". It was prepared by the foreign, international law and defence department (WD-2) of the Scientific Services Bureau of the Bundestag.
In a preface to the report, the authors say they "support the members of the German Bundestag with mandate-related activity. Their works do not express the view of the German Bundestag, its individual organs, or the management of the Bundestag." Responsibility for the research reporting is "the technical responsibility of the authors...as well as the department management." No authors have been identified by name.
The full German report can be read at the official website link. No official English translation is available.
"For five years Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian separatists have been fighting against each other in the Donbass/Donets Basin," the report says.
"The territorial conflict shows classical identifiers of a non-international (internal) armed conflict. About the extent, quality and magnitude of the military involvement of Russia during the Ukraine conflict, there are few reliable facts and analyses aside from the numerous speculations, part-contradictory reports and press announcements, and denials from different sources. Altogether, however, the picture of the situation is not unequivocal."The report summarizes western media reports, social media posts, as well as NATO press releases in order to cast doubt on their veracity. "Reliable information about the parts of the region of the Ukrainian-Russian border not controlled by Kiev is rare." The German researchers are also sceptical of claims published by the monitoring mission of the area from the Organization for Security and Economic Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which "has, in spite of its comprehensive mandate, only limited access to this area."
"Also, the Federal [German] Government holds no reliable knowledge, according to its own information apparently, on how much influence today Russia actually exercises on the separatists in the East Ukraine that can be described as credible."
For background details of the anti-Russian leadership of the OSCE's special monitoring mission (SMM) in Ukraine, read this.
"The question of whether pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region are currently under control and directed from Moscow, or whether regular Russian troops still remain on Ukrainian territory cannot be answered without reliable factual material, in particular without the appropriate and reliable secret service intelligence."
Comment: Which Putin has been saying all along. The dispute between Ukraine and its breakaway provinces are an internal matter. That the Kiev government is getting the worst of the war is not an indication the Russian government is actively involved. They've restricted their overt activities to easing the humanitarian crisis created in the region by the government of Ukraine, while their covert activities - whatever they are - remain undetected, a far cry from 'Russia has invaded Ukraine with 10,000 troops'...