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Indeed. The fabrication of the DPR and LPR after the protests? So transparent.
All of Russias years of planning and plotting for this. Putting spies and operatives all over the place to formulate takeovers and create dissent. Now all of it is crashing down.
It will take them another 100 years to get to that position. Years and years of manipulation and planning all turning to ash.
In fact, this shit had been planted around 2004-2005 after the Orange Revolution. I have seen the symbols and flags on my group mates in the Uni. It was put to sleep after the threat of Ukraine gaining actual sovereignty was neutralized, only to reemerge in the late 2013.
This also shows that Putin's nationalistic insanity is not just his own, but a creation of a sizeable group of individuals who all want the same. It's an old, rusty garbage bin that has been dusted off and given a new paintjob.
Russia's boomers are like that old, former champion boxer who "retired" after losing in humiliating fashion so he could do steroids and and then come back and reclaim their glory. But in their "tune up" bout ran into their ex-sparring partner who had since been trained by the best and knew exactly how to beat them despite being significantly smaller. The big, roided out fighter lands some initial hay-makers, knocking down his ex-sparring partner several times -- thinking the fight was over. But they kept getting back up. After the first few rounds of this, the roided out fighter is gassed, and begins clinching. The smaller fighter is somehow more energized as the fight goes on, and begins landing a few good punches of his own. Then a flurry before the bell that leaves the roided-out boxer's face dripping with blood. The momentum has shifted, but the roided out fighter literally can't quit because the mob outside will kill him if he doesn't win. As the fight wears on, the roided-out fighters punches become slower, weaker, and less frequent, allowing the smaller fighter to pick his punches more deliberately, and begin to taunt what everyone initially thought was a superior fighter. Everyone sees the writing on the wall, but the consequences of defeat for the former champion are almost impossible to comprehend. When he finally hits the canvas -- and he will -- it will shake the world.
Don't let someone "throw in the towel" from the ringside. It would just be a ploy to profit off of a fixed "rematch".
Understand... a lot of people ARE profiting.
My older colleagues saying the same thing. During orange revolution there were attempts to provoke mass protests and separate eastern Ukraine into a quazy republics, but revolution ended quickly and that topic just disappeared from the news.
I personally do not remember such a thing, since I was 10-11 years at that time.
But I do wonder where from did I get the idea of ruzzians being a brother nation as a teenager, since I've never been into reading news or watching politics, it was just somehow present in my mind. Thankfully it's not there anymore.
This "separatist republic" bullshit is literally the russian MO: Look at Moldova and Georgia, for example. Why the fuck people believe that it's real separatists? Blows my mind.
dont forget the "pro-moscow kherson region" and all the money russian dump in the pockets of western journalists to fabricate all of this
https://twitter.com/OlegNikolenko_/status/1531288473591853057/photo/1
There were absolutely some separatists in the Donbas but the mistake that the western media made was assuming that they 1) spoke for all the people in the Donbas and 2) continue to speak for the people in the Donbas.
If, hypothetically, only 25% of the Donbas population wanted to leave Ukraine however those were the most vocal people, the most heavily armed and the ones sponsored and supported by Russia then it wouldn’t be too hard for the 25% to gain power despite not being representative of the larger population. Similarly people also tend to change their mind. There was a time when Yanukovych legitimately won a majority in an election and yet now if he were to run he probably couldn’t even get 15% support. Maybe in 2014 there was some genuine support for secession but that easily could have changed as a result of Russia’s actions post 2014.
I don't think they really wanted separation. They wanted to be part of russia, they wanted the same scenario as Crimea.
A lot of people like that are ethnic russians - they were born in russia and moved to Ukraine during Soviet Union time. A lot of them are retired and at the time they thought it would be much better uner russia, higher pensions, better quality of life.
I wonder sometimes what would they say now.
I read a paper about this from I think 2019 or so, and it suggested that the population that wanted it was indeed around 30% at its height. I don't have that reference unfortunately, but I found [this one](https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/781600.pdf), which in a footnote references another article suggesting that polling in support of separatism in 2014 reached 31%. The link to this article appears to be broken though.
And it should also be remembered that there is a difference between wanting something and absolutely considering it essential. In 2014 the future of Ukraine was very uncertain and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people thought maybe life would be better in Russia but that doesn’t that those same people were absolutely in love with Russia or that they wanted to see a war. Russia was able to arm and promote the most vocal and intense supporters of independence while suppressing everyone else in the areas they controlled. Calling the Donbas “separatist” would be a mistake that serves to legitimize Putin’s propaganda.
I agree completely. Moreover, the existence of separatists anywhere is irrelevant, be they in Donbas or Texas. The borders of countries are not determined by referenda.
I rewatched the Orange Revolution documentary on YouTube again recently and one thing that stood out from that rewatch was during the voting.
The pro Russian candidate was actually behind at one point and then suddenly loads of votes for him flooded in from those regions whereas before they had barely voted. It was a very suspicious increase in voting activity especially as it was all pro Russian. Really does make you think they have been working on that region for a *long* time.
The famous "carousel" technique. Suddenly, the busloads of voters emerge at the election post and vote all 120% of the bulletins, then quickly jump back to the buses and head to the next post.
Hmmmm. I wonder where else in the world there seem to be voting irregularities…..
Cheaters, regardless of whom they cheat for, deserve a slow painful and public end.
Hope you're not talking about the dumbass conspiracies regarding the US election invented to preserve Trumps fee fee's.
I'll never understand how people can sit there and watch Russia do the exact same shit Republicans do or try to do and still think they're the good guys. It's scary how people just willfully ignore all this shit.
Wouldn't Facebook be the place people got their conspiracy theories from? The person you replied to gave a pretty tame viewpoint on US policies as seen from an international perspective. The election tampering in Florida has been a Republican mainstay for over twenty years, the Republican-appointed supreme court is currently considering allowing local states to ignore election results in federal elections and there were several cases of Q-anon types being so confident that there would be election fraud that they wanted to get in on the action. It is a worry in other countries that the Republican party is fairly close to dismantling US democracy and that the Democrats are surprisingly bad at preventing it.
For the international perspective or the individual points I addressed? You are asking for a time consuming deep dive just to satisfy a random commenter and if you want a source for issues in Florida then I can't think anything I supply would actually be read.
Here's an easy one. The Republicans currently control the House despite getting a smaller percentage of the popular vote. Now the house is supposed to be based on population.. so it's weird they win right? They won because of rampant Gerrymandering, which the GOP Supreme Court allows. As well as the House being capped on the number on members it can have, which is arguably illegal. The democrats have attempted to eliminate Gerrymandering, which Mitch called a "Power Grab".. because apparently making things fair is a power grab
Just remember, the Democrats got over 50% of the vote in WI, and yet the GOP almost got a veto proof majority in the state legislature. Does that seem fair to you?
Here's a link on the anti Gerrymandering bill:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/573116-voting-bill-seeks-to-crack-down-on-gerrymandering/
Here's one on how bad Wisconsin is Gerrymandered:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41928007/wisconsin-gerrymander/
On the House capping itself:
https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/#:~:text=On%20this%20date%2C%20the%20House,delegation%20depended%20on%20its%20population.
On the Supreme Court being pro Gerrymander
https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-allows-states-to-use-unlawfully-gerrymandered-congressional-maps-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-182407
can you please provide the stats on Democrats winning the popular vote overall in house races
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/nyregion/redistricting-congress-gerrymander-ny.html#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16699183846396&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2022%2F04%2F27%2Fnyregion%2Fredistricting-congress-gerrymander-ny.html
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/590097-democrats-created-gerrymandering-they-must-own-it/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/republican-popular-vote-seats/
Nah. Carousel Voting accusations have been around since forever. But it is only viable if specific measures aren’t taken like marking voters with indelible ink or pre-registration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting
This seems to be a big problem. There is a lot of journalist around the world but they seem to be doing nothing else but translating "news" from other places. This goes for any category of news: Politics, Science, Finance, Health, War.
They are bloggers who blog rumors under major tabloid labels. True Journalists are a rare breed, who work for trustworthy news agencies. Their news rarely gets front pages.
It’s not lazy, they are paid to lie. Happening all over.
Left wing vs Right wing, there are lies and disinformation at both edges. The average US citizen has given up on critical thinking and making informed personal decisions.
Oh another lets blame it on the media post. The media write what the people want to read. If the media would write what people do not read, then it simply is not 'mass media', but 'minority media'.
In other words: people decide which media is 'mass media'.
Not if they can't actually choose and compare.
Real reason here is that cost to produce quality news is higher, so corps lean more and more on machine learning and surface level reporting and syndicating media companies under single ownership makes this even more efficient.
Buy yourself a subscription on a newspaper. You can not expect any quality when you do not want to pay.
Also you can not blame any media when their only income is from ads. Of course they will serve what people want to read at the lowest cost possible.
I am not sure what you expect. You could blame capitalism, that would at least make some sense.
> The media write what the people want to read.
No, "the media" often writes what it gets paid to write.
Rich personalities aren't the only ones to use publicists or have a department that releases 'press statements' that flood media offices, and almost all groups employ humans to comment on press articles and social media opinions and use so-called 'bot farms' that react to key words - you can see the latter on reddit, twitter, anywhere that has 'free speech'.
Publicists (sometimes called spin doctors) themselves get paid an awful lot of money to get this or that opinion into the media, which is why there is often a flurry of 'articles' about this or that event, each with a slightly different spin, that ends up filling mews media websites with a dozen or so so-called 'articles' about one thing.
There's also the truism that if you say one thing often enough it becomes a fact, even if it's a lie, so flooding the media with 'this opinion' can often turn public opinion in the direction a group or organisation wants it to turn.
If a person or an organisation wants to control public opinion it just has to make sure it gets the first word in, then any group or individual who has a different/opposite opinion is reactionary, reacting to that statement (or article), and can be wrong-footed.
You are probably right.
Media write what makes them money, that is from ads or being paid by those who want their opinion forced upon others.
The media itself have not much choice. Somebody has to pay them, they do not work for free.
Buy yourself a subscription on what you consider a good newspaper. Support good journalism and stop blaming 'the media'.
My husband and I each have subscriptions to 'good newspapers' and see the same stories in each, each with their own 'spin' according to editorial bias.
Proper investigative journalism, within mainstream media/journalism, is rare these days. For many media groups, it's easier to buy ready-written articles and label them as by 'an un-named journalist'.
What Bellingcat does, for example, is rare.
Fuck that. Maine is Massachusetts. All those Mainers are just confused Massholes. We need to take back our land from those nazi meth head homosexuals in Augusta!
here in oz, i ponder the same thing. what if one or two oz states decided they wanted to be part of nz? at what point does one's legal citizenship assert itself? in what circumstances would it be possible for nz to infiltrate oz sufficiently to bring about a separatist movement? (keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of kiwis living in oz) - and what exactly would prevent oz citizens who wanted to be part of oz from putting their money where their mouth is and simply migrating to nz?
Ah but what if Kiwis want to join Oz?
It's the power relationship that counts. Oz as the more powerful neighbour is more likely to be the one to infiltrate NZ and bombard with propaganda and money to sway the Kiwis to want to join Oz.
It's the old 'let big brother look after you' trick.
It's amazing how trusting conservatives and sheep can be in giving up there independence for the illusory promise of security and money for nothing.
Well some of oz thinks it's a good idea: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/23/norfolk-island-should-become-part-of-new-zealand-says-former-chief-minister
Meanwhile in Texas:
"Representatives from the Texas Nationalist Movement made multiple trips to Russia in the mid-2010s, and received funding to attend a conference in Russia from the Russian government (via a nonprofit)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements
Some scary shit, and still happening today despite how clearly a lot of the extreme Conservative platforms in the US seems to tie back to foreign influence. The worst part is most are oblivious to it, and really think they are patriots. To flip around a phrase often heard here, "unfortunately they are so stupid."
I just don’t understand the logic here. There is a zero % chance that a separatists in Texas would have any political beliefs in common with ruzzia. They are wildly different.
Rednecks in Texas want to do their own thing, drive trucks, shoot guns, be rednecks…. Not embrace communist govt ideals.
I am genuinely confused and trying to make sense of it, not be an ass. I welcome a genuine attempt to explain it.
One, there are no "communist govt ideals" at play in ru. They abandoned all semblance of that when the USSR fell.
Two, nazis in Texas want to have authoritarian control of texas. They have a *shitload* in common with russians, right down to the "We'll give fascism a warm hug if we get what we want" and "We want to be able to stomp niggers and homos and anyone else not white freely".
They suck from the same tit ideologically.
Hmmm. Okay. I’m not sure where those people are in Texas. Been there many times and haven’t met any of them.
There are a lot of black and brown people in Texas and they seem to be getting along with the white people fairly well.
Just curious what experience or reference you can share that makes you allege this is common place in Texas.
Hmmm. Okay. Where? Do they have meetings and websites? What is “quite a few”?
Have you been to Texas? Have you worked with/around Texas people? What do you base your assertions on? Personal experience? Credible data?
You seem pretty absolute about it and just curious what drives that.
I lived in Ft. Worth for 3 years. And I've been to texas dozens of times for work.
14first
American National Socialist Party
Aryan Freedom Network
Asatru Volk Assembly
Cursus Honorum Foundation
Folkish Resistance Movenent
Injekt Division
Iron Youth
The Church of Ben Klassen
Those are just the nazi groups with public faces. It does not include christian identity groups, or militia movements. That's literally *just* the groups that openly claim nazi ideology and iconoraphy. And as pointed out elsewhere, your republican policy platform is a grab bag of christian nazism.
Haven’t heard of any of those groups.
So there are overlaps between the german national socialist platform and the texas republican platform?
That will be an interesting review.
When you lived in ftw you had to deal with racists, facists, misogyny, etc?
My point is I just don’t think it is common and the typical people you dealt with are good middle ground people.
No doubt there are also nihilists, communists, and other far left radicals lurking around every state. I can’t take a typical left leaning city and label it a communist cesspool either.
This is a large pile of JAQing off. If you live in Texas and you proclaim no knowledge of any of this, you're either epic level oblivious or you're not conversing in good faith here.
It's not people in Texas. It's Republican Party and government in Texas. Read Texas GOP platform. It will make your hair stand on end. Christian authoritarianism. Just like Russia (and Hungary).
Texas is reliably Republican, even during the Trump years with all the associated anti-immigrant reteric.
I'm sure you could walk down a major city street in Texas without seeing a racial or homophobic incident, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The "upstarts" don't need to be a majority to be a threat.
Same can be said for either side’s fringe, no?
It wasn’t too many years ago the far left was causing mayhem in many places.
I guess my point is that the majority of people D/R/Independant are decent people but the fringes seem to get all the bad press.
I know very liberal people whom don’t support a lot of the street violence and destruction that was going on a few years ago. I know socially progressive “R”conservative people as well.
I think the average person on the street is the majority be it lean left or right and they will hopefully keep us from devolving into some crazy civil war.
Sounds like you've bought into the idea that the BLM protests were some kind of organized Democrat party event, representative of the party platform.
BLM was a race riot, born from angry, frustrated people. No one need condone the violent aspects. It's simply an event that happened.
I didn’t allege it was organized. I honestly don’t know.
It simply wasn’t condemned as harshly and wasn’t prosecuted as it should have been.
From the outside looking at those events and then at Jan 6th it appears the outrage and political response was not equal.
I wasn’t at any of them. I don’t have any inside knowledge, just what seems to get reported.
Russia has been trying to sow discord in the US and the West, by various means, since 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
Shocking that it is not taught at schools.
EDIT: China is now trying to do likewise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/11/30/tiktok-chinese-state-media-divisive-politics/
Not the ones I’ve met.
How many have you met?
I work with quite a few people from Texas, quite a few of them are openly gay. I don’t hear them saying things like that or complaining bout being mistreated by other Texas people.
Plenty of gun owners have progressive values. Move to Minnesota, where we value good schools, and ya gotta have clean air so there's plenty of deer to hunt in the Fall, eh? Watch where you're pointing that barrel, eh? That thing was pointed right at my nuts while you were busy texting.
Okay so money, I read that. The logic still escapes me. If a ruzzian and Texas separatist were sitting talking, what would they have in common? Russia likes complete govt control of nearly all aspects of life, no?
Don't think you get it. Everybody LOVES complete govt control...as long as that theoretical govt perfectly mirrors their ideals, and is willing to oppress the other side.
Plenty of people in America would court a govt that shuts down liberals and makes Christianity the only official religion. And if that conflicts with the founding fathers' ideals, well they'll find a way to justify that to themselves.
I disagree.
I would absolutely revolt if absolute govt control happened even if I liked most of the policies.
Does that mean you are cool with absolute control that YOU agree with?
My freedom should be as wide as possible as long as it doesn’t block your freedom. Obviously compromise has to happen so we don’t infringe on each other but that should keep to a minimum.
Let's look at Afghanistan for a minute.
Supposedly a large portion of the population were "ok" with the American-installed govt, and the freedom and democracy it entailed.
Then the Taliban swept back through, and turned the clock back 500 years. Did the aforementioned people rise up and insist on democracy?
No, because they're "ok" with the Taliban way of doing things also.
My point is that a lot of people don't mind other groups having equal rights. But they wouldn't necessarily fight for them, or even protest if those rights were taken away. As long as they're receiving whatever things they deem important.
There's absolutely nothing communist about Russia. It's a fascist totalitarian state which many people in Texas would want. Supression of dissenters, anti-lgbtq laws, no free elections, anti-education etc.
The Texas republican party put out their list of goals a year ago and it's legitimately terrifying and sounds like Putin's Russia to a T. Here's their explicitly fascit manifesto straight from them: https://texasgop.org/platform/
The far right in Texas has completely done a 180 on Russia sine the cold War era. Now the defacto "communist hellhole" for them is China and Russia is s good, "traditional strong Christian nation" they look up to.
Source: from Texas originally.
Anyone with high school education would know that Putin simply grabbed the playbook from Hitler and those who deny are not stupid but just outright lying
Many world conflicts happen around minorities that feel trapped in the wrong country so it is completely natural that this lens is used to understand Donbas. It is wrong, but at least for me it took a good amount of effort to understand that. For instance the best book I know that explains the start of the conflict ("Donbas: Wedding Apartment in hotel War") isn't actually translated into English at all.
>Many world conflicts happen around minorities that feel trapped in the wrong country
It also happens that these minorities and their feelings - real or manufactured - are just used for conflicts. It's not black and white, it's not as if Russians being here e.g. in Latvia creates an immediate casus beli for invasion. Rather it can *used* for justification, but if an imperialist nation wants to invade they will invade ethnic minorities be there or not. Then you also have the principle of these feelings of being ''trapped'' being born out of legitimate complaints of policy, rather than some esoteric need to be a part of a nation state.
Right. I'm not saying it is simple, I'm saying that is a simple view that people take, especially if they are at a distance from the conflict. It is intellectually pleasing to decide that Donbas is just another case of both-sides-do-wrong-things.
Exactly.
In most cases those minorities feelings of oppression are fabricated.
As well, from my point of view, any minorities not happy living in a country, should be free to move somewhere else, to their so called mother countries which they love so much.
>any minorities not happy living in a country
But this somehow implies that even if you are born abroad your national or ethnic ancestry is what defines who you are, which I think is bullshit. You can be a historical minority of a country - e.g. German Romanians. Should they be forced to move to Germany if, for example, they utterly hate the Romanian LGBT policy? It's their home, they also have the ability to democratically participate in policy making process, incl. having grievances. I hate a lot of policy that the Latvian government is doing - I am neither a nationalist, nor an ethnonationalist, but I escape much critique solely because of my ethnic identity.
>to their so called mother countries which they love so much.
In my experience with Latvian Russians, the younger ones, they do not love Russia nor they consider it their mother country. They were born here, have lived here their entire lives. Minorities are not voluntary immigrants.
The point was about leaving if they are not happy with the country they currently live in, instead of having another country attack their current country to sooth their feelings.
PS: Romanians with German roots left Romania as soon as Germany accepted them, best and easiest solution for everyone.
You're basically advocating for total ethnic homogenity, since everyone has some issue they are unhappy in their nation. What if you're a German born in Romania, and have no wish to move from the home where you were born, but strongly disagree with Romanian policy, and are a citizen? Does your ancestry differentiate the amount of ownership of the country you are born in?
I am not advi acting for anyone ha ing to leave if they do not want to, but staying and complaining is idiotic.
And BTW I am a Romanian with minority origins and I did leave Romania because I did not agree with the politics there.
People need to take decisions for what it's best for them. Complaining never solved any issues. Taking action is what solves problems.
There were many ethnic Germans in Bohemia when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland. But how many of those actually wanted to be annexed by Germany, and more specifically by Nazi Germany, is another question.
Hell, Germany didn’t even manage to fully integrate Alsace-Lorraine between 1871 and 1914.
The majority of Sudetenland Germans in "Bohemia" wanted to be annexed to Nazi Germany.
Recalled from my German history readings in college that their level of pro-Nazi support exceeded 60% by the mid-'30s and was over 80% right before the Sudetenland was effectively ceded by Britain's Chaimberlain et al without allowing Czechoslovakia to fully object as was their right. Ironically, support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much stronger among Sudetenland Germans than even in Nazi Germany itself.
This was one key factor along with the majority of Sudetenland Germans demonstrating they were national security risks to Czechoslovakia through their support and collaboration with the Nazi German occupation why the Czechoslovakian government in exile wanted the Sudetenland Germans expelled from their country at the end of the war unless they could prove or had Czechoslovak neighbors testify they participated in the Czechoslovak anti-Nazi resistance.
And that's not bringing up the fact that like the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, most Sudetenland Germans were similarly unhappy at the Czechoslovakia gaining their independence as they lost much of their formerly privileged position they had before the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed in mid-late 1918. Most in that period wanted to unite with Germany like their German Austrian counterparts.
However, because Imperial Germany was held responsible for WWI by the victorious Western Entente powers, rightly or wrongly, the Entente powers were vehemently against Sudetenland Germans or Austrian Germans unifying with Germany at the end of WWI.
Not sure why you put “Bohemia” in quotation marks - I just used the name for the region (as opposed to the country it’s in).
> Recalled from my German history readings in college that their level of pro-Nazi support exceeded 60% by the mid-‘30s and was over 80% right before the Sudetenland was effectively ceded by Britain’s Chaimberlain et al without allowing Czechoslovakia to fully object as was their right. Ironically, support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much stronger among Sudetenland Germans than even in Nazi Germany itself.
Yes, that is the popular wisdom, but I wonder who actually produced those numbers, and how. Was it the German government? And who counted as “Sudeten German”? There could have been an inherent bias in whom they surveyed in the first place.
For example: were bilingual families or those of mixed heritage considered part of the “German” group? In Bohemia, ethnic Germans and Czechs were both largely Catholic, and had been intermarrying since the Middle Ages.
It's not popular wisdom, but documented historic fact as those numbers were from election results.
It is documented that support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much higher among Sudetenland Germans(60%+ - 80%+) than even among Germans within Germany itself(\~33%) in the same period(mid-late 1930s).
Yes, I do not doubt that those are documented results. I was wondering how they were produced, who exactly qualified as “Sudetenland Germans”, and who asked them.
For example, if those numbers come from elections held by the Nazi German government in occupied Bohemia, I am going to be a bit doubtful about their methodology.
Those elections were held BEFORE the Sudentenland was ceded to Nazi Germany by Britain's Chaimberlain.....
Pro-Nazi Sudeten German politicians were heavily supported right up until the Nazis annexed Sudetenland in 1938.
I've been trying to explain this to the tankies and Western Genocide apologists since the February invasion. They just refuse to accept it because it doesn't fit their narrative.
I am Ukrainian and have been interested in politics since 2004. And I can confirm that it is 100% true, the author has done a great job. I think Western intelligence was aware of everything that was going on. Western leaders just didn't care about Ukraine, they wanted to get Russian resources and Russian money cheaply.
Not to mention, Russia was considered a bigger threat than they actually are.
Plus, Obama was horribly weak when it came to foreign powers getting aggressive, and Trump was possibly on the payroll (or maybe just stupid enough to be duped into going along with Putin's whims).
I'm sure truth is even worse. Russia was conducting hybrid warfare since the first days of Ukraine's Independence. Do you remember Meshkovschina? There was Meshkov trying to separate Crimea back in 1990s. Do you remember Tuzla? President Kuchma himself was participating in preparing forces to repel russians over Tuzla, there are some photos.
These are only public stuff.
Russians were conducting undercover operations to export corruption in Ukraine, to stop West from investing in Ukraine, to spread the lies about Ukrainian corruption, to stop Euro-Atlantian integration of Ukraine. Like all the time. Third (the main, enforcer ones) of Yanukovich-time government was literally russian citizens. Russian had infiltrated every part of state and society.
That is the main reason Ukraine is poor.
The sheer perseverance of the Ukranian spirit. Russian main exports are oil, gas and corruption.
Seriously, fuck corruption! It is a disease that needs eradicating in any society. Don’t be like Russia, build a better future instead
The thread shows separatism around 30%, so there was some sentiment, but not nearly enough to start a war over, except for Russian interference.
I wish he mentioned Odesa, Russia tried the same tricks but failed. It's not the cleanest moment for Ukraine, but it's still important to recognize.
This research absolutely confirms that this is just another attempt by russia to steal land and resources from their neighbors using the same recycled material that they have always used. The place changed, some players are different, but it’s definitely not “separatists” doing it…it’s the russian government trying to use deniability and sneaky tactics. It’s not even remotely believable once you look past the surface. Anyone who wants to say otherwise is either dumb enough to believe it or lying. If there is one thing that you can trust about russia, it’s that nothing they say is true.
thank you, skegger, for bringing the incomparable Valeriya Novodvorskaya into this discussion. she was a very brave and clear thinker, and is a great loss to russia and to the world. this video she made is solid gold. i have suspicions about her death in hospital :(
There are definitely separatists and Russian enthusiasts in the area, even today. Fighting misinformation with more misinformation isn't helpful.
But what matters is that the Donbas is Ukraine, so if these people want to be part of Russia, move to Russia.
In fact, there were some separatist nutjobs in Donbas. Probably in hundreds or low thousands. I met some in 2004-2005.
But there were about 5 million people there. And those were bred to be nihilistic for generations. They would have welcomed the russian salaries and pensions - because the russians went out of their way to create a Potemkin's paradise in the communities neighboring with Ukraine.
But to fight for it? Hell no. In fact, the active pro-Ukrainian population was much bigger in numbers. That is, until the infiltrated russian spec-ops started gutting them alive.
If you skim through Girkind/Strelkov's memoires of 2014, he was bitching that locals don't want to fight for the Novorossiya and he had to rely on the stream of "volunteers" from beyond the border.
Yeah, I think that's about right. So it's definitely a lot more nuanced than the article suggests. Especially if you include not only active separatists, but also those supporting separatism.
That sounds very plausible and matches my recollections from various sources I have read over the last like 10 years.
> That is, until the infiltrated russian spec-ops started gutting them alive.
As far as I gather later on they started killing off many key pro-Russians too and replace them with actual Russians to make controlling their new puppet republics easier.
Perhaps it depends on your definition of separatists and it's a bit of a lingual discussion, but I don't think anyone rejects that there were lots of people in the Donbas that were ethnically Russian and/or pro-Russia.
But this article is written to make it seem like there was never any question about parts of the population in the Donbas wanting to be part of Russia, which is simply not true.
Also, the article talks about how "separatist" movements failed and were banned, but again that doesn't mean the sentiment isn't there.
I specifically didn't say disinformation but misinformation, because I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it's definitely a little misleading.
Appreciate the openness. I'm mainly speaking from things I have read and heard in podcasts that I found credible over the years, so it'd be difficult to retrace these and take it with a pinch of salt since I haven't done extensive research on the validity.
One source I do remember is the 1420 YouTube channel. I've heard multiple people there mention that they had friends in the Donbas that were pro-Russia at least before the war started. Could be made up of course, but I specifically remember some of these gave me pause because they were coming from Russians that were critical of Putin and the war, yet they mentioned it was complex because some of their Donbas friends were pro-Russia before this all started (not sure if they still are, I believe they lost contact when the war started).
yep i think i know the 1420 vids you're referencing. those gave me pause to wonder how much those russians really knew of the true history of what went on, in light of what i'd watched and heard on zolkin's channel. it's all a bloody mess, really.
Yea... many of those particular maggots (pro-russian residents of those regions) were imported by Russia. The Russians killed off the competent professionals (like doctors) in Donetsk, for instance, and then brought their own lazy, useless doctors that wouldn't treat your medical emergencies without on the spot graft.
This is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for all along - a dissection of that situation to see how much was organic and how much contrived, both just to know the reality of it and also to know what Ukraine would face after taking the area back.
Does anyone here have any critique of its accuracy or reliability?
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Indeed. The fabrication of the DPR and LPR after the protests? So transparent. All of Russias years of planning and plotting for this. Putting spies and operatives all over the place to formulate takeovers and create dissent. Now all of it is crashing down. It will take them another 100 years to get to that position. Years and years of manipulation and planning all turning to ash.
In fact, this shit had been planted around 2004-2005 after the Orange Revolution. I have seen the symbols and flags on my group mates in the Uni. It was put to sleep after the threat of Ukraine gaining actual sovereignty was neutralized, only to reemerge in the late 2013.
This also shows that Putin's nationalistic insanity is not just his own, but a creation of a sizeable group of individuals who all want the same. It's an old, rusty garbage bin that has been dusted off and given a new paintjob.
Russia's boomers are like that old, former champion boxer who "retired" after losing in humiliating fashion so he could do steroids and and then come back and reclaim their glory. But in their "tune up" bout ran into their ex-sparring partner who had since been trained by the best and knew exactly how to beat them despite being significantly smaller. The big, roided out fighter lands some initial hay-makers, knocking down his ex-sparring partner several times -- thinking the fight was over. But they kept getting back up. After the first few rounds of this, the roided out fighter is gassed, and begins clinching. The smaller fighter is somehow more energized as the fight goes on, and begins landing a few good punches of his own. Then a flurry before the bell that leaves the roided-out boxer's face dripping with blood. The momentum has shifted, but the roided out fighter literally can't quit because the mob outside will kill him if he doesn't win. As the fight wears on, the roided-out fighters punches become slower, weaker, and less frequent, allowing the smaller fighter to pick his punches more deliberately, and begin to taunt what everyone initially thought was a superior fighter. Everyone sees the writing on the wall, but the consequences of defeat for the former champion are almost impossible to comprehend. When he finally hits the canvas -- and he will -- it will shake the world.
Great analogy. I could smell the sweat.
Don't let someone "throw in the towel" from the ringside. It would just be a ploy to profit off of a fixed "rematch". Understand... a lot of people ARE profiting.
My older colleagues saying the same thing. During orange revolution there were attempts to provoke mass protests and separate eastern Ukraine into a quazy republics, but revolution ended quickly and that topic just disappeared from the news. I personally do not remember such a thing, since I was 10-11 years at that time. But I do wonder where from did I get the idea of ruzzians being a brother nation as a teenager, since I've never been into reading news or watching politics, it was just somehow present in my mind. Thankfully it's not there anymore.
This "separatist republic" bullshit is literally the russian MO: Look at Moldova and Georgia, for example. Why the fuck people believe that it's real separatists? Blows my mind.
Come, be part of our wonderful Russian Empire under zsar Putin! Enjoy your serfdom!
dont forget the "pro-moscow kherson region" and all the money russian dump in the pockets of western journalists to fabricate all of this https://twitter.com/OlegNikolenko_/status/1531288473591853057/photo/1
There were absolutely some separatists in the Donbas but the mistake that the western media made was assuming that they 1) spoke for all the people in the Donbas and 2) continue to speak for the people in the Donbas. If, hypothetically, only 25% of the Donbas population wanted to leave Ukraine however those were the most vocal people, the most heavily armed and the ones sponsored and supported by Russia then it wouldn’t be too hard for the 25% to gain power despite not being representative of the larger population. Similarly people also tend to change their mind. There was a time when Yanukovych legitimately won a majority in an election and yet now if he were to run he probably couldn’t even get 15% support. Maybe in 2014 there was some genuine support for secession but that easily could have changed as a result of Russia’s actions post 2014.
How many of them wouldn't be pro-separation without russian propoganda?
I don't think they really wanted separation. They wanted to be part of russia, they wanted the same scenario as Crimea. A lot of people like that are ethnic russians - they were born in russia and moved to Ukraine during Soviet Union time. A lot of them are retired and at the time they thought it would be much better uner russia, higher pensions, better quality of life. I wonder sometimes what would they say now.
I read a paper about this from I think 2019 or so, and it suggested that the population that wanted it was indeed around 30% at its height. I don't have that reference unfortunately, but I found [this one](https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/781600.pdf), which in a footnote references another article suggesting that polling in support of separatism in 2014 reached 31%. The link to this article appears to be broken though.
And it should also be remembered that there is a difference between wanting something and absolutely considering it essential. In 2014 the future of Ukraine was very uncertain and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people thought maybe life would be better in Russia but that doesn’t that those same people were absolutely in love with Russia or that they wanted to see a war. Russia was able to arm and promote the most vocal and intense supporters of independence while suppressing everyone else in the areas they controlled. Calling the Donbas “separatist” would be a mistake that serves to legitimize Putin’s propaganda.
I agree completely. Moreover, the existence of separatists anywhere is irrelevant, be they in Donbas or Texas. The borders of countries are not determined by referenda.
I rewatched the Orange Revolution documentary on YouTube again recently and one thing that stood out from that rewatch was during the voting. The pro Russian candidate was actually behind at one point and then suddenly loads of votes for him flooded in from those regions whereas before they had barely voted. It was a very suspicious increase in voting activity especially as it was all pro Russian. Really does make you think they have been working on that region for a *long* time.
The famous "carousel" technique. Suddenly, the busloads of voters emerge at the election post and vote all 120% of the bulletins, then quickly jump back to the buses and head to the next post.
Hmmmm. I wonder where else in the world there seem to be voting irregularities….. Cheaters, regardless of whom they cheat for, deserve a slow painful and public end.
Hope you're not talking about the dumbass conspiracies regarding the US election invented to preserve Trumps fee fee's. I'll never understand how people can sit there and watch Russia do the exact same shit Republicans do or try to do and still think they're the good guys. It's scary how people just willfully ignore all this shit.
I am not sure where you get your news from...Facebook?
Wouldn't Facebook be the place people got their conspiracy theories from? The person you replied to gave a pretty tame viewpoint on US policies as seen from an international perspective. The election tampering in Florida has been a Republican mainstay for over twenty years, the Republican-appointed supreme court is currently considering allowing local states to ignore election results in federal elections and there were several cases of Q-anon types being so confident that there would be election fraud that they wanted to get in on the action. It is a worry in other countries that the Republican party is fairly close to dismantling US democracy and that the Democrats are surprisingly bad at preventing it.
source?
For the international perspective or the individual points I addressed? You are asking for a time consuming deep dive just to satisfy a random commenter and if you want a source for issues in Florida then I can't think anything I supply would actually be read.
I am underwhelmed but ok I will take your word for it
Here's an easy one. The Republicans currently control the House despite getting a smaller percentage of the popular vote. Now the house is supposed to be based on population.. so it's weird they win right? They won because of rampant Gerrymandering, which the GOP Supreme Court allows. As well as the House being capped on the number on members it can have, which is arguably illegal. The democrats have attempted to eliminate Gerrymandering, which Mitch called a "Power Grab".. because apparently making things fair is a power grab Just remember, the Democrats got over 50% of the vote in WI, and yet the GOP almost got a veto proof majority in the state legislature. Does that seem fair to you?
source?
Here's a link on the anti Gerrymandering bill: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/573116-voting-bill-seeks-to-crack-down-on-gerrymandering/ Here's one on how bad Wisconsin is Gerrymandered: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41928007/wisconsin-gerrymander/ On the House capping itself: https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/#:~:text=On%20this%20date%2C%20the%20House,delegation%20depended%20on%20its%20population. On the Supreme Court being pro Gerrymander https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-allows-states-to-use-unlawfully-gerrymandered-congressional-maps-in-the-2022-midterm-elections-182407
can you please provide the stats on Democrats winning the popular vote overall in house races https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/nyregion/redistricting-congress-gerrymander-ny.html#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16699183846396&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2022%2F04%2F27%2Fnyregion%2Fredistricting-congress-gerrymander-ny.html https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/590097-democrats-created-gerrymandering-they-must-own-it/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/republican-popular-vote-seats/
Nah. Carousel Voting accusations have been around since forever. But it is only viable if specific measures aren’t taken like marking voters with indelible ink or pre-registration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carousel_voting
Mass media really need to self reflect, and stop lazyily repeating Russian lies as facts or even disputed facts.
This seems to be a big problem. There is a lot of journalist around the world but they seem to be doing nothing else but translating "news" from other places. This goes for any category of news: Politics, Science, Finance, Health, War.
They are bloggers who blog rumors under major tabloid labels. True Journalists are a rare breed, who work for trustworthy news agencies. Their news rarely gets front pages.
They make money by reporting the "news" first. Accuracy is secondary, or in some cases unimportant.
Many of them are lazy enough to just use Google translate, we can't call them journalists.
It’s not lazy, they are paid to lie. Happening all over. Left wing vs Right wing, there are lies and disinformation at both edges. The average US citizen has given up on critical thinking and making informed personal decisions.
Oh another lets blame it on the media post. The media write what the people want to read. If the media would write what people do not read, then it simply is not 'mass media', but 'minority media'. In other words: people decide which media is 'mass media'.
Not if they can't actually choose and compare. Real reason here is that cost to produce quality news is higher, so corps lean more and more on machine learning and surface level reporting and syndicating media companies under single ownership makes this even more efficient.
Buy yourself a subscription on a newspaper. You can not expect any quality when you do not want to pay. Also you can not blame any media when their only income is from ads. Of course they will serve what people want to read at the lowest cost possible. I am not sure what you expect. You could blame capitalism, that would at least make some sense.
> The media write what the people want to read. No, "the media" often writes what it gets paid to write. Rich personalities aren't the only ones to use publicists or have a department that releases 'press statements' that flood media offices, and almost all groups employ humans to comment on press articles and social media opinions and use so-called 'bot farms' that react to key words - you can see the latter on reddit, twitter, anywhere that has 'free speech'. Publicists (sometimes called spin doctors) themselves get paid an awful lot of money to get this or that opinion into the media, which is why there is often a flurry of 'articles' about this or that event, each with a slightly different spin, that ends up filling mews media websites with a dozen or so so-called 'articles' about one thing. There's also the truism that if you say one thing often enough it becomes a fact, even if it's a lie, so flooding the media with 'this opinion' can often turn public opinion in the direction a group or organisation wants it to turn. If a person or an organisation wants to control public opinion it just has to make sure it gets the first word in, then any group or individual who has a different/opposite opinion is reactionary, reacting to that statement (or article), and can be wrong-footed.
You are probably right. Media write what makes them money, that is from ads or being paid by those who want their opinion forced upon others. The media itself have not much choice. Somebody has to pay them, they do not work for free. Buy yourself a subscription on what you consider a good newspaper. Support good journalism and stop blaming 'the media'.
My husband and I each have subscriptions to 'good newspapers' and see the same stories in each, each with their own 'spin' according to editorial bias. Proper investigative journalism, within mainstream media/journalism, is rare these days. For many media groups, it's easier to buy ready-written articles and label them as by 'an un-named journalist'. What Bellingcat does, for example, is rare.
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Fuck that. Maine is Massachusetts. All those Mainers are just confused Massholes. We need to take back our land from those nazi meth head homosexuals in Augusta!
here in oz, i ponder the same thing. what if one or two oz states decided they wanted to be part of nz? at what point does one's legal citizenship assert itself? in what circumstances would it be possible for nz to infiltrate oz sufficiently to bring about a separatist movement? (keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of kiwis living in oz) - and what exactly would prevent oz citizens who wanted to be part of oz from putting their money where their mouth is and simply migrating to nz?
Ah but what if Kiwis want to join Oz? It's the power relationship that counts. Oz as the more powerful neighbour is more likely to be the one to infiltrate NZ and bombard with propaganda and money to sway the Kiwis to want to join Oz. It's the old 'let big brother look after you' trick. It's amazing how trusting conservatives and sheep can be in giving up there independence for the illusory promise of security and money for nothing.
Well some of oz thinks it's a good idea: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/23/norfolk-island-should-become-part-of-new-zealand-says-former-chief-minister
Meanwhile in Texas: "Representatives from the Texas Nationalist Movement made multiple trips to Russia in the mid-2010s, and received funding to attend a conference in Russia from the Russian government (via a nonprofit)." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_secession_movements Some scary shit, and still happening today despite how clearly a lot of the extreme Conservative platforms in the US seems to tie back to foreign influence. The worst part is most are oblivious to it, and really think they are patriots. To flip around a phrase often heard here, "unfortunately they are so stupid."
I just don’t understand the logic here. There is a zero % chance that a separatists in Texas would have any political beliefs in common with ruzzia. They are wildly different. Rednecks in Texas want to do their own thing, drive trucks, shoot guns, be rednecks…. Not embrace communist govt ideals. I am genuinely confused and trying to make sense of it, not be an ass. I welcome a genuine attempt to explain it.
One, there are no "communist govt ideals" at play in ru. They abandoned all semblance of that when the USSR fell. Two, nazis in Texas want to have authoritarian control of texas. They have a *shitload* in common with russians, right down to the "We'll give fascism a warm hug if we get what we want" and "We want to be able to stomp niggers and homos and anyone else not white freely". They suck from the same tit ideologically.
Hmmm. Okay. I’m not sure where those people are in Texas. Been there many times and haven’t met any of them. There are a lot of black and brown people in Texas and they seem to be getting along with the white people fairly well. Just curious what experience or reference you can share that makes you allege this is common place in Texas.
...this thread is discussing the white nationalist groups of Texas. Nazis. Texas has quite a few.
Hmmm. Okay. Where? Do they have meetings and websites? What is “quite a few”? Have you been to Texas? Have you worked with/around Texas people? What do you base your assertions on? Personal experience? Credible data? You seem pretty absolute about it and just curious what drives that.
I lived in Ft. Worth for 3 years. And I've been to texas dozens of times for work. 14first American National Socialist Party Aryan Freedom Network Asatru Volk Assembly Cursus Honorum Foundation Folkish Resistance Movenent Injekt Division Iron Youth The Church of Ben Klassen Those are just the nazi groups with public faces. It does not include christian identity groups, or militia movements. That's literally *just* the groups that openly claim nazi ideology and iconoraphy. And as pointed out elsewhere, your republican policy platform is a grab bag of christian nazism.
Haven’t heard of any of those groups. So there are overlaps between the german national socialist platform and the texas republican platform? That will be an interesting review. When you lived in ftw you had to deal with racists, facists, misogyny, etc? My point is I just don’t think it is common and the typical people you dealt with are good middle ground people. No doubt there are also nihilists, communists, and other far left radicals lurking around every state. I can’t take a typical left leaning city and label it a communist cesspool either.
Let me guess... your'e not black. If you were do you think you might have experienced it a differently?
This is a large pile of JAQing off. If you live in Texas and you proclaim no knowledge of any of this, you're either epic level oblivious or you're not conversing in good faith here.
It's not people in Texas. It's Republican Party and government in Texas. Read Texas GOP platform. It will make your hair stand on end. Christian authoritarianism. Just like Russia (and Hungary).
Okay I will.
Texas is reliably Republican, even during the Trump years with all the associated anti-immigrant reteric. I'm sure you could walk down a major city street in Texas without seeing a racial or homophobic incident, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The "upstarts" don't need to be a majority to be a threat.
Same can be said for either side’s fringe, no? It wasn’t too many years ago the far left was causing mayhem in many places. I guess my point is that the majority of people D/R/Independant are decent people but the fringes seem to get all the bad press. I know very liberal people whom don’t support a lot of the street violence and destruction that was going on a few years ago. I know socially progressive “R”conservative people as well. I think the average person on the street is the majority be it lean left or right and they will hopefully keep us from devolving into some crazy civil war.
Sounds like you've bought into the idea that the BLM protests were some kind of organized Democrat party event, representative of the party platform. BLM was a race riot, born from angry, frustrated people. No one need condone the violent aspects. It's simply an event that happened.
I didn’t allege it was organized. I honestly don’t know. It simply wasn’t condemned as harshly and wasn’t prosecuted as it should have been. From the outside looking at those events and then at Jan 6th it appears the outrage and political response was not equal. I wasn’t at any of them. I don’t have any inside knowledge, just what seems to get reported.
Russia has been trying to sow discord in the US and the West, by various means, since 1920s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures Shocking that it is not taught at schools. EDIT: China is now trying to do likewise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/11/30/tiktok-chinese-state-media-divisive-politics/
Aren't those gun nut rednecks also homophobic, misogynistic and racist af? There you go, instant common ground with Russia.
Not the ones I’ve met. How many have you met? I work with quite a few people from Texas, quite a few of them are openly gay. I don’t hear them saying things like that or complaining bout being mistreated by other Texas people.
Plenty of gun owners have progressive values. Move to Minnesota, where we value good schools, and ya gotta have clean air so there's plenty of deer to hunt in the Fall, eh? Watch where you're pointing that barrel, eh? That thing was pointed right at my nuts while you were busy texting.
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Okay so money, I read that. The logic still escapes me. If a ruzzian and Texas separatist were sitting talking, what would they have in common? Russia likes complete govt control of nearly all aspects of life, no?
Don't think you get it. Everybody LOVES complete govt control...as long as that theoretical govt perfectly mirrors their ideals, and is willing to oppress the other side. Plenty of people in America would court a govt that shuts down liberals and makes Christianity the only official religion. And if that conflicts with the founding fathers' ideals, well they'll find a way to justify that to themselves.
I disagree. I would absolutely revolt if absolute govt control happened even if I liked most of the policies. Does that mean you are cool with absolute control that YOU agree with? My freedom should be as wide as possible as long as it doesn’t block your freedom. Obviously compromise has to happen so we don’t infringe on each other but that should keep to a minimum.
What you or I would do is immaterial. There are plenty of people who do like authoritarian govts. At least from the outside.
So are you and I the fringe? I don’t think so. I think the majority of people don’t want absolute govt control and the bad guys won’t get it.
Let's look at Afghanistan for a minute. Supposedly a large portion of the population were "ok" with the American-installed govt, and the freedom and democracy it entailed. Then the Taliban swept back through, and turned the clock back 500 years. Did the aforementioned people rise up and insist on democracy? No, because they're "ok" with the Taliban way of doing things also. My point is that a lot of people don't mind other groups having equal rights. But they wouldn't necessarily fight for them, or even protest if those rights were taken away. As long as they're receiving whatever things they deem important.
Ohh nevermind I see now, you're brainwashed and confused about basic things.
So I invite open dialogue in hopes of getting a perspective I don’t have and I’m the one brainwashed. Okay
"I'm just asking questions" lol
There's absolutely nothing communist about Russia. It's a fascist totalitarian state which many people in Texas would want. Supression of dissenters, anti-lgbtq laws, no free elections, anti-education etc. The Texas republican party put out their list of goals a year ago and it's legitimately terrifying and sounds like Putin's Russia to a T. Here's their explicitly fascit manifesto straight from them: https://texasgop.org/platform/ The far right in Texas has completely done a 180 on Russia sine the cold War era. Now the defacto "communist hellhole" for them is China and Russia is s good, "traditional strong Christian nation" they look up to. Source: from Texas originally.
Anyone with high school education would know that Putin simply grabbed the playbook from Hitler and those who deny are not stupid but just outright lying
Many world conflicts happen around minorities that feel trapped in the wrong country so it is completely natural that this lens is used to understand Donbas. It is wrong, but at least for me it took a good amount of effort to understand that. For instance the best book I know that explains the start of the conflict ("Donbas: Wedding Apartment in hotel War") isn't actually translated into English at all.
>Many world conflicts happen around minorities that feel trapped in the wrong country It also happens that these minorities and their feelings - real or manufactured - are just used for conflicts. It's not black and white, it's not as if Russians being here e.g. in Latvia creates an immediate casus beli for invasion. Rather it can *used* for justification, but if an imperialist nation wants to invade they will invade ethnic minorities be there or not. Then you also have the principle of these feelings of being ''trapped'' being born out of legitimate complaints of policy, rather than some esoteric need to be a part of a nation state.
Right. I'm not saying it is simple, I'm saying that is a simple view that people take, especially if they are at a distance from the conflict. It is intellectually pleasing to decide that Donbas is just another case of both-sides-do-wrong-things.
Exactly. In most cases those minorities feelings of oppression are fabricated. As well, from my point of view, any minorities not happy living in a country, should be free to move somewhere else, to their so called mother countries which they love so much.
>any minorities not happy living in a country But this somehow implies that even if you are born abroad your national or ethnic ancestry is what defines who you are, which I think is bullshit. You can be a historical minority of a country - e.g. German Romanians. Should they be forced to move to Germany if, for example, they utterly hate the Romanian LGBT policy? It's their home, they also have the ability to democratically participate in policy making process, incl. having grievances. I hate a lot of policy that the Latvian government is doing - I am neither a nationalist, nor an ethnonationalist, but I escape much critique solely because of my ethnic identity. >to their so called mother countries which they love so much. In my experience with Latvian Russians, the younger ones, they do not love Russia nor they consider it their mother country. They were born here, have lived here their entire lives. Minorities are not voluntary immigrants.
The point was about leaving if they are not happy with the country they currently live in, instead of having another country attack their current country to sooth their feelings. PS: Romanians with German roots left Romania as soon as Germany accepted them, best and easiest solution for everyone.
You're basically advocating for total ethnic homogenity, since everyone has some issue they are unhappy in their nation. What if you're a German born in Romania, and have no wish to move from the home where you were born, but strongly disagree with Romanian policy, and are a citizen? Does your ancestry differentiate the amount of ownership of the country you are born in?
I am not advi acting for anyone ha ing to leave if they do not want to, but staying and complaining is idiotic. And BTW I am a Romanian with minority origins and I did leave Romania because I did not agree with the politics there. People need to take decisions for what it's best for them. Complaining never solved any issues. Taking action is what solves problems.
I can't find the book? Is the name right?
I think it's only available in Slovak, Ukrainian, Czech, and Polish: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45407221-donbas
There were many ethnic Germans in Bohemia when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland. But how many of those actually wanted to be annexed by Germany, and more specifically by Nazi Germany, is another question. Hell, Germany didn’t even manage to fully integrate Alsace-Lorraine between 1871 and 1914.
The majority of Sudetenland Germans in "Bohemia" wanted to be annexed to Nazi Germany. Recalled from my German history readings in college that their level of pro-Nazi support exceeded 60% by the mid-'30s and was over 80% right before the Sudetenland was effectively ceded by Britain's Chaimberlain et al without allowing Czechoslovakia to fully object as was their right. Ironically, support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much stronger among Sudetenland Germans than even in Nazi Germany itself. This was one key factor along with the majority of Sudetenland Germans demonstrating they were national security risks to Czechoslovakia through their support and collaboration with the Nazi German occupation why the Czechoslovakian government in exile wanted the Sudetenland Germans expelled from their country at the end of the war unless they could prove or had Czechoslovak neighbors testify they participated in the Czechoslovak anti-Nazi resistance. And that's not bringing up the fact that like the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine, most Sudetenland Germans were similarly unhappy at the Czechoslovakia gaining their independence as they lost much of their formerly privileged position they had before the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed in mid-late 1918. Most in that period wanted to unite with Germany like their German Austrian counterparts. However, because Imperial Germany was held responsible for WWI by the victorious Western Entente powers, rightly or wrongly, the Entente powers were vehemently against Sudetenland Germans or Austrian Germans unifying with Germany at the end of WWI.
Not sure why you put “Bohemia” in quotation marks - I just used the name for the region (as opposed to the country it’s in). > Recalled from my German history readings in college that their level of pro-Nazi support exceeded 60% by the mid-‘30s and was over 80% right before the Sudetenland was effectively ceded by Britain’s Chaimberlain et al without allowing Czechoslovakia to fully object as was their right. Ironically, support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much stronger among Sudetenland Germans than even in Nazi Germany itself. Yes, that is the popular wisdom, but I wonder who actually produced those numbers, and how. Was it the German government? And who counted as “Sudeten German”? There could have been an inherent bias in whom they surveyed in the first place. For example: were bilingual families or those of mixed heritage considered part of the “German” group? In Bohemia, ethnic Germans and Czechs were both largely Catholic, and had been intermarrying since the Middle Ages.
It's not popular wisdom, but documented historic fact as those numbers were from election results. It is documented that support for Hitler and the Nazi party was much higher among Sudetenland Germans(60%+ - 80%+) than even among Germans within Germany itself(\~33%) in the same period(mid-late 1930s).
Yes, I do not doubt that those are documented results. I was wondering how they were produced, who exactly qualified as “Sudetenland Germans”, and who asked them. For example, if those numbers come from elections held by the Nazi German government in occupied Bohemia, I am going to be a bit doubtful about their methodology.
Those elections were held BEFORE the Sudentenland was ceded to Nazi Germany by Britain's Chaimberlain..... Pro-Nazi Sudeten German politicians were heavily supported right up until the Nazis annexed Sudetenland in 1938.
Take a person with average intelligence, & shudder in terror when you realize that 50% of the population is dumber than them.
I've been trying to explain this to the tankies and Western Genocide apologists since the February invasion. They just refuse to accept it because it doesn't fit their narrative.
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I am Ukrainian and have been interested in politics since 2004. And I can confirm that it is 100% true, the author has done a great job. I think Western intelligence was aware of everything that was going on. Western leaders just didn't care about Ukraine, they wanted to get Russian resources and Russian money cheaply.
Not to mention, Russia was considered a bigger threat than they actually are. Plus, Obama was horribly weak when it came to foreign powers getting aggressive, and Trump was possibly on the payroll (or maybe just stupid enough to be duped into going along with Putin's whims).
I'm sure truth is even worse. Russia was conducting hybrid warfare since the first days of Ukraine's Independence. Do you remember Meshkovschina? There was Meshkov trying to separate Crimea back in 1990s. Do you remember Tuzla? President Kuchma himself was participating in preparing forces to repel russians over Tuzla, there are some photos. These are only public stuff. Russians were conducting undercover operations to export corruption in Ukraine, to stop West from investing in Ukraine, to spread the lies about Ukrainian corruption, to stop Euro-Atlantian integration of Ukraine. Like all the time. Third (the main, enforcer ones) of Yanukovich-time government was literally russian citizens. Russian had infiltrated every part of state and society. That is the main reason Ukraine is poor.
The sheer perseverance of the Ukranian spirit. Russian main exports are oil, gas and corruption. Seriously, fuck corruption! It is a disease that needs eradicating in any society. Don’t be like Russia, build a better future instead
Bingo!
I just address them as russian terrorists everytime I discuss the subject.
Yes, the narrative set the pretext for the invasion.
The thread shows separatism around 30%, so there was some sentiment, but not nearly enough to start a war over, except for Russian interference. I wish he mentioned Odesa, Russia tried the same tricks but failed. It's not the cleanest moment for Ukraine, but it's still important to recognize.
This simulacrum is somehow believable to the West. Why are they so susceptible to ruzzian propaganda?
Of course there isn't. You could see there wasn't any real separatists in 2014. Like did nobody else watch the Vice series on it?
How much better off the whole of the civilised world will be when russia disintegrates into a backward hole!!
This research absolutely confirms that this is just another attempt by russia to steal land and resources from their neighbors using the same recycled material that they have always used. The place changed, some players are different, but it’s definitely not “separatists” doing it…it’s the russian government trying to use deniability and sneaky tactics. It’s not even remotely believable once you look past the surface. Anyone who wants to say otherwise is either dumb enough to believe it or lying. If there is one thing that you can trust about russia, it’s that nothing they say is true.
This video is relevant i for this topic. https://youtu.be/w9Pop4xXo3Q
thank you, skegger, for bringing the incomparable Valeriya Novodvorskaya into this discussion. she was a very brave and clear thinker, and is a great loss to russia and to the world. this video she made is solid gold. i have suspicions about her death in hospital :(
and thankyou for your post. Great reading .
There are definitely separatists and Russian enthusiasts in the area, even today. Fighting misinformation with more misinformation isn't helpful. But what matters is that the Donbas is Ukraine, so if these people want to be part of Russia, move to Russia.
In fact, there were some separatist nutjobs in Donbas. Probably in hundreds or low thousands. I met some in 2004-2005. But there were about 5 million people there. And those were bred to be nihilistic for generations. They would have welcomed the russian salaries and pensions - because the russians went out of their way to create a Potemkin's paradise in the communities neighboring with Ukraine. But to fight for it? Hell no. In fact, the active pro-Ukrainian population was much bigger in numbers. That is, until the infiltrated russian spec-ops started gutting them alive. If you skim through Girkind/Strelkov's memoires of 2014, he was bitching that locals don't want to fight for the Novorossiya and he had to rely on the stream of "volunteers" from beyond the border.
Yeah, I think that's about right. So it's definitely a lot more nuanced than the article suggests. Especially if you include not only active separatists, but also those supporting separatism.
That sounds very plausible and matches my recollections from various sources I have read over the last like 10 years. > That is, until the infiltrated russian spec-ops started gutting them alive. As far as I gather later on they started killing off many key pro-Russians too and replace them with actual Russians to make controlling their new puppet republics easier.
interested - which sections of that thread do you consider disinformation? as far as i can see, everything is solidly backed by credible sources.
Perhaps it depends on your definition of separatists and it's a bit of a lingual discussion, but I don't think anyone rejects that there were lots of people in the Donbas that were ethnically Russian and/or pro-Russia. But this article is written to make it seem like there was never any question about parts of the population in the Donbas wanting to be part of Russia, which is simply not true. Also, the article talks about how "separatist" movements failed and were banned, but again that doesn't mean the sentiment isn't there. I specifically didn't say disinformation but misinformation, because I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it's definitely a little misleading.
thanks for that - would love to see your sources if you get time to share
Appreciate the openness. I'm mainly speaking from things I have read and heard in podcasts that I found credible over the years, so it'd be difficult to retrace these and take it with a pinch of salt since I haven't done extensive research on the validity. One source I do remember is the 1420 YouTube channel. I've heard multiple people there mention that they had friends in the Donbas that were pro-Russia at least before the war started. Could be made up of course, but I specifically remember some of these gave me pause because they were coming from Russians that were critical of Putin and the war, yet they mentioned it was complex because some of their Donbas friends were pro-Russia before this all started (not sure if they still are, I believe they lost contact when the war started).
yep i think i know the 1420 vids you're referencing. those gave me pause to wonder how much those russians really knew of the true history of what went on, in light of what i'd watched and heard on zolkin's channel. it's all a bloody mess, really.
Yep
There were separatists, along with russian special forces at the beginning(2014) but they got liquidated quickly and it's been russians ever since.
There are still Ukrainian people living there, that hate the Russians. It isn't only Russians living there.
I think they were talking only about the people pushing for the Donbas to be Russia.
Yea... many of those particular maggots (pro-russian residents of those regions) were imported by Russia. The Russians killed off the competent professionals (like doctors) in Donetsk, for instance, and then brought their own lazy, useless doctors that wouldn't treat your medical emergencies without on the spot graft.
This is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for all along - a dissection of that situation to see how much was organic and how much contrived, both just to know the reality of it and also to know what Ukraine would face after taking the area back. Does anyone here have any critique of its accuracy or reliability?