Did you know you’re on the verge of a violent secessionist movement? According to Russia’s propaganda agencies, Texas will soon secede, thereby justifying Vladimir Putin’s adventures in Ukraine.

That’s according to Politico. Last week, a state-controlled Russian newspaper chronicled the visit of a representative of the Texas National Movement

“The Kremlin’s famed [Internet] troll farms took the interview and ran with it, with dozens of bots instantly tweeting about a ‘Free Texas,'” Politico’s Casey Michel reported. “For Russians, this was delicious payback. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago, many Russians have come to blame the United States for their plight; a seething resentment over U.S. culpability in the loss of Russian national power is one of the reasons Vladimir Putin is so popular.”

Old Soviet hardliners see a little of themselves in Texas, Michel explains.

“Over the past 15 months there has been a sudden, bizarro uptick of Russian interest in and around the American Southwest, most notably Texas, where secessionist sentiment never seems to entirely die out,” Michel says. “In a rehash of the Soviet Union’s fate, numerous Russian voices have taken to envisioning an American break-up, E Pluribus Unum in inverse — out of one, many.”

This isn’t a new campaign by the Kremlin. Michel points out that last December, Putin brought Texas into the debate about Ukraine.

“We have heard many times from officials that it’s unfair that Siberia, with its immeasurable wealth, belongs entirely to Russia,” Putin reportedly said. “Unfair, how do you like that? And grabbing Texas from Mexico was fair!”

Now, there’s a grain of truth to the propaganda. The Texas Tribune conducted a poll in 2014 asking Texas residents if they consider themselves Texans first or Americans first.

“If polling data is any indication, the proportion of Texas voters who view themselves as Texans is smaller than one might think, but is likely to grow in the coming decades,” the Tribune noted. “A slight majority of those who identify as Texans first are between the ages of 18 and 44 years old. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 40 percent identify as Texans before they identify as Americans, far outpacing any other age group.”

But this isn’t really about Texas. It’s about Russia and Putin. Russia wants a big chunk of Ukraine, and it’s backing separatists in a bloody conflict.

“For those who might have thought the Ukraine conflict was finally fading from the headlines, this week should serve as sufficient evidence to the contrary,” the Daily Signal reported on June 6. “Renewed fighting has left the Feb. 12 cease-fire, as well as towns in eastern Ukraine, shattered, and edged the conflict closer to a full-on war between Ukraine and Russia.”

Ukraine estimates there are as many as 9,000 Russian troops in the country already. Just last week, the Daily Signal reported “Combined Russian-separatist tanks attack Ukrainian positions almost every day. The artillery is virtually nonstop and around the clock.”

Putin has no excuse for Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine.

That’s why he’s trying to get Texas mixed up in the debate.