BTK (Barrelling Toward Kiev)

It’s probably inappropriate to compare Vladmir Putin to Dennis Rader. One is a heartless psychopath who gains psychological satisfaction from dominating and killing people he deems inferior. The other installed burglar alarms.

But when I read about this, I immediately thought about BTK, who was famously caught because of metadata on a floppy disk he’d sent to the media. (“During his interrogation, Rader expressed his anger at police for lying to him about his floppy disk being traceable.”)

Metadata from the messaging app Telegram indicates that pro-Russian separatist leaders created videos ordering "emergency" evacuations from eastern Ukraine two days ago, but posted them on Friday, Bellingcat first reported and Axios can confirm.

Why it matters: U.S. officials have for days now accused Russia of preparing to fabricate a pretext to invade Ukraine. The two-day-old metadata from the leaders of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics could undermine claims that they orde…