The evidence presented in the report of the U.S. Atlantic Council entitled "Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine" forms an undeniable and open to public database confirming Russia's participation in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Director of the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center John Herbst has said.

There is a lot of evidence that this war was triggered and is controlled by the Kremlin, Herbst said during the presentation of the report in Kyiv on Monday.

In his words, the report contains data from open sources and digital forensics analysis of videos and photos of convoys, military equipment and Russian military servicemen in the conflict zone posted on the Internet by Russian soldiers and civilians was used in the preparation of this document. Digital forensics methods are used to determine the place where photo or video was shot – geo-location, which is a powerful tool for tracking people, Herbst said.

According to Herbst, these materials clearly prove that Russia is supplying weapons to the conflict zone, is funding the war, that there are Russian mercenaries and professional soldiers in Donbas, and that the Russian General Staff is directly involved in the war.

Russian propaganda presents the crisis in Ukraine as a civil war, while in fact the conflict in eastern Ukraine has been artificially created by the Kremlin and sustained with the help of weapons produced in Russia, with the participation of Russian soldiers and the support of the Russian authorities, Herbst said.

Herbst said that this report should be published not only in Ukraine, and especially in Donbas, but also in Russia and other countries.

The report has already been presented in the European Parliament and in many European cities.