Quote (ferdia @ Jul 16 2023 10:22am)
What is your definition of a legitimate democracy ?
It was a country being pulled by both Russia and NATO interests and yet the pre-maidan elections and government were recognized as legitimate and democratic by
both the US and Russia. As opposed to only the US recognizing the post-Maidan government and only Russia recognizing the separatist referendums, and the obviously undemocratic overthrow of the government and disenfranchisement of half the country by force. Now that's not to say Ukraine had some stable and well established democracy, the elections just prior to that were thrown out as illegitimate, but its pretty undeniable that the US and Russia agreed Ukraine had a legitimate democracy before the US helped overthrow that legitimate democracy.
Quote
What is your source to support the claim re: separatist regions ? I presume you dont mean crimea (in that agree that crimea overwhelmingly supported being part of russia)
Even if we don't trust the results of the referendums its just a natural product of them being ethnic Russians steeped in Russian language and culture and history, who had been fighting a civil war since 2014 at that point.
There's no reason to doubt the overwhelming support for the separatism / annexation, its not like ethnic Ukrainians being dragged along were in the majorit.
Quote
What metric did you use to support the notion that ultra-nationalists are predominantly in eastern Ukraine ?
I'd probably draw a distinction between ultra-nationalist in general, and Nazi in specific. All the reporting on extremism showed the rise of Nazism among those then-middle-now-east regions, including the election of Bandera-istas. And besides the Azov Battalion existing around the Azov sea and being overt about its Nazi ideology, the fact that we're over 500 days into this conflict and even with the Azovs whittled down or outright destroyed, we're still seeing war footage posted to social media with Nazi tattoos and insignias painted on vehicles (while committing war crimes, of course). Yet I don't see any of that in the relative peace of Kiev or Lviv or whereever far from the front. So I can say that it was mostly in the east, but also that its still clearly in force and not erased by any NATO machinations to tamp down on it for PR or whatever. Actual Nazis still post their war footage online proudly, its not Russians framing them.
Quote
What is your definition of "will be for nothing" ? I don't think that Russia (say, Putin), sees the war as being "for nothing", He is seeking to retain Russian security against Nato Aggression. That is not "nothing".
I look at it as the simple product. If fighting was stopped 6 months ago, and fighting stops 6 months from now, and the results would be the same in either case, then one whole year of a war accomplished nothing for either side. Just a whole lot more people dead, more cities razed, more land mines being a hazard for decades to come. Over the past few weeks we've been hearing how Ukraine went on a supposed counteroffensive, and then how Ukraine is now 'probing' attacks to find weaknesses, and all the war footage just reflects an entrenched battle with advances made impossible by land mines, artillery and drones. And now the media line has become more of a 'Ukraine isn't breaking through but thats okay because...'
And its sure clear Russia isn't advancing either and hasn't been since Bakhmut and doesn't plan to either