In the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, one subject has repeatedly come up: time.

Most Western voices have chimed on the time element of the invasion by calling it an anachronism in our modern age. “It’s really 19th-century behavior in the 21st century,” United States Secretary of State John Kerry said.

President Barack Obama said it means Putin has wandered backward on the timeline. “Russia is on the wrong side of history,” he said. “Russia’s leadership is challenging truths that only a few weeks ago seemed self-evident. That in the 21st century the borders of Europe cannot be redrawn with force.”

The Western rhetoric sounds progressive, enlightened and authoritative. The words are even poetic.

But over the weekend, in a move that exposed the hollowness of those words, the new leaders of Crimea pushed their clocks ahead by two hours so they would strike midnight on Moscow’s time. “The Russian-speaking peninsula jumped Saturday into the timezone of its new masters,” the afp reported.

The West talks about time—labeling land grabs anachronistic, calling use of force passé, and saying Putin is frozen in the mentality of a bygone age. But Vladimir Putin dismisses the banter and takes action, pushing the clock hands around to accommodate his schedule.

Will Putin grab more of Ukraine, or parts of other former Soviet states? At present, it looks like the West is content to watch the clock, and wait and see.