Quote (Malopox @ 15 Aug 2023 09:50)
Yugoslavia: can you explain why supporting separatist Muslim enclaves in their fight against a genocide by the Serbians is considered a fight for justice, while we now view Crimea and Donbass secessions as illegal separatist puppet states?
The West did not take a unified stance on the secession of Slovenia and later Croatia during the Yugoslav wars. NATO only got involved eventually, in Bosnia, due to the ongoing genocide taking place on the EU's doorstep, so we couldn't look away anymore. Similarly, the West did let Russia get away with the annexation of Crimea and the secession of DPR and LPR. Once again, we only got involved with direct measures (sanctions, overt arms supplies and so on) when Russia crossed a line by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Regarding your question: during the Yugoslav wars, the divides fell neatly along ethnic and religious lines. By contrast, in the case of Ukraine, you have deep divisions within one people. Even majority-Russian places like Odessa or Kharkiv are firmly on the side of Ukraine while Donetsk and Luhansk appear to be firmly on the side of Russia, so even the language divide can't really explain the political divide this conflict is based on.
Oh, and let's not forget that both the annexation of crimea and the secession of the two Donbass provinces were completely astroturfed by Russia. Remember the unmarked soldiers which all of a sudden appeared in the Donbass as soon as they declared their independence? First, Putin resolutely denied that he or Russia have anything to do with it. Then, they admitted that Russian soldiers and mercenaries were among these mysterious soldiers, with the official Kremlin line being that those were "patriotic Russian soldiers who went on an innocuous vacation, brought their uniforms (without badges) and guns with them and then randomly decided to pick up the good fight over there, out of their own volition, during their free time, without any direction or encouragement by the Russian command". Even later, they dropped any pretense and admitted that these unmarked soldiers were sent deliberately to "protect the russophone population of Donbass from genocide at the hands of the Nazi regime in Kyiv".
Truth be told, it's hard to not take sides when one side is so comically full of shit.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 16 2023 12:23am