Quote (Neptunus @ Apr 19 2023 01:39pm)
None of what you described is new to me. Trust me, i think im quite well versed in the Ukraine-Russia issue (mostly on the opinions of Russians on the world). I havent been to Ukraine but ive been to Russia and know some Russians. Youre talking about the Russophones. If youre talking to your Ukrainian uncle from Odessa he's then im guessing hes part of the Russophone population that extends from Transnistria to Donbas along the shore, but you of course know him better. West, North(west), Central Ukraine is the predominantly the Ukrainian region (save for Kyiv). The Russophones are exactly whom Russia is catering to, and while its true that Ukraine has been cracking down on Russian language, its partly because of the Russian hybrid tactics of disrupting the Ukrainian West-leaning wing through a strong Russian foothold in the country. The Russophone population is divided in identity and obviously ultranationalism sucks and does drive polarization and the Russophones towards Russia, but many of them want to identify with Ukraine and choose to speak a Ukrainian style of Russian instead of Standard Russian (mostly evident in pronunciation of g/h). But out of 40 million with almost 20-40(?) % Russophones3 million going to Russia is not a surprising thing, though i would wanna fact check that. There are separatists though and we can agree that that's a fact.
So of course the people speak Russian in Ukraine, just like the older generations speak Russian in the Baltics. It was forced by the Soviet regime and served as the lingua franca. The ordinary person doesnt care, but historh shows thatthe suppression of Ukrainian identity has been there prior to, during and a little bit after the Soviet Union. Now that the well-ingrained Russian language in Ukraine is used to manipulate Ukraine the crackdown on Russian is understandable. I know about Bandera and i find his followers annoying too, we have our own version of them here.
Imo youre on to some truths, but youre making a false equivalence that ultimately serves the aggressor. Ex-Warsaw-Pact-states flocked to the West and ended up doing much better than under Russian influence. Its only natural for Ukraine to have the same aspirations. Nobody who isnt perplexed by Russian media wants to be part of an authoritarian regime that is currently actively jailing the dissidents with arbitrary charges and verdicts. Partly because of democracy, capitalism and the prosperity that ensued.
I'm talking about specifically the ~9million refugees that left the country not the 40+ million. 3/9mm went to Russia, with Russia being the single highest country destination. Out of the Ukrainians that are left a significant part still remain in places in Luhanksk, Dontesk, Zap, etc as well as other parts of Ukraine that probably lean against current pro-west government but obviously not something that can be expressed now as it's legitimately dangerous for these people. Fact of the matter If we look prior to the war it was close to a 50/50 split between west and east. Sure, i agree that the slant towards west was probably going to eventually overtake the pro-east crowd. However I don't really understand this tendency to minimize and rationalize that half the country wanted to remain in the pro-east camp with things like oh they were just brainwashed as Russophones or are old and stubborn or whatever. That's wishful thinking and framing to minimize self-determination--with the side we don't like.
And on the issue of ex communist countries flocking to NATO/EU I've spoken about in the past. Look at when these countries joined NATO. It was during fairly depressed economic times, with obvious economic benefits to join the EU and NATO. I mean think about Poland, you can join the EU, and you can join NATO as well and have these massive western partners come build military bases and station troops which are huge ongoing expenditure projects for decades to come that will literally bring billions to your country. Many of these countries joined when Russia was not a threat and was relatively weak (late 90s early 20s) so what was the actual threat? Did Finland feel threatened by Russia in the 90s? No of course not and that's why there wasn't this aggressive push to join the military alliance. Personally I think EU membership for some of these eastern states to a certain extent was tied to NATO/Military alliance joining expectation.
Ultimately the western model is superior, and Ukraine would have been tilting towards that. Instead we decided to fast track this transition by supporting a coup, which was a huge mistake. Instead of having NATO leaders continuously spam how it's Ukraine's right to join NATO and giving Russia heartache, we could have at least try to take their concerns seriously.
This post was edited by ofthevoid on Apr 19 2023 04:47pm