The less populous and objectively poorer, mountanous West of Ukraine wanted to integrate with the EU (history with Poland / Lithuanian Commonwealrh, ability to claim Polish documents (Karta Polaka) via family history, etc). Westernmost parts of Ukraine (Lviv, Kovel etc) were taken out of Poland and population exchanged after WW2 by Stalin as a post-war concession to ensure there is no more ethnic conflict/cleansings going forward between Polish/Ukranians.

More populous and industrious East (roughly split in half around Kiev area more towards Dnipro River) was fine with the status quo of economic integration (free trade, free movement of labour) with Russia. They did not see the need to break away from Russia like Western Ukraine did. In fact Crimea voted to leave / become autonomous from Ukraine in the 1990s, but Kuchma crushed dissent.

In a perfect world, with the benefit of hindsight, Western areas probably had to be given autonomy and allowed to leave Ukraine if they really wanted to be with the EU. If they would have succeeded and raised their living standards far above those of the East Ukraine - a natural movement would appear as people would see it as the right move for themselves to prosper.

Alas we are here now.

This post was edited by Malopox on Mar 14 2024 12:51am

Thanks for the reply. This does sound like the real long term solutions.

Also this.

I think he claimed 8 years of bombing to provide a very emotional and easy to defeat discussion point so we forget about the real issue. Namely, what the Ukrainians really want. Malopox later replied to the main issue, which kind of shows that Malopox is here to really engage, and ferdia is rather on the side of sowing disruption and propaganda.

This post was edited by Ashirgo on Mar 14 2024 01:32am

They government in Kiev that took over in 2014 did bomb the east of Ukraine and it is not propaganda. It is well documented by various Russian and international sources.

Like wrote above, the putchists that overthrew the democratically elected government ahead of elections - disenfranchised the East of Ukraine (who all overwhelmingly voted Yanukovich and had no desire to disrupt their trade with Russia). New government had to either let them go and be associated with Russia or crush the dissent militarily. The East did not actually want to physically join Russia - they wanted to be sovereign, but keep economic ties like free trade and free movement of labour (akin to EU rules).

US and some of NATO countries helped train the new Ukranian military (ZSU) as well as Nazi / nationalist PMCs like Azov, Aidar and Kraken, supplied them with weapons, volunteers /mercenaries and intel. Russia helped the East with volunteers and materiel. It was a classic proxy war in 2014 and up until 2022 until Russia upped the ante and went in.

This post was edited by Malopox on Mar 14 2024 01:45am

A propaganda stunt.

Worked to a degree, Western MSM lapped it up when the border crossings happened.

And don't forget telling us that this is an insurgency. Some people fool themselves on a daily basis

2014 bombing is not 8 years of cluster bombing that ferdia claims. Anyway he's only doing that to disrupt the discussion. Let's move on.

Man...you are way out of your depth.

I mean if you are trying to get him on a technicality that they didn’t bomb them with cluster munitions EVERY SINGLE DAY for eight years - you have a point.

HRW link that Ferdia posted documents the use of cluster munitions by Ukranian forces against civilian targets in Donetsk as early as 2014 which is a clear no-no.

These days I notice use of cluster munitions has been de-facto normalized as they are plenty of videos of soldiers and materiel getting hit.

This post was edited by Malopox on Mar 14 2024 02:44am

I'm calling him out for distorting the picture.

Neither Ukraine nor Russia signed the cluster munition treaty, so it's whatever; they're using what they've got. Crying about this when you're Russian or Ukrainian is very hypocritical. The Human Rights Watch would gladly see both sides stop using this type of armament. Picking exclusively on one side for using these bombs is strongly indicating that he is not honest.

Lastly, he reduced the entire Ukrainian defense/fight back effort to "bombing," as if that was the only thing they're doing. This again indicates that ferdia takes a strong stance in this discussion, and is far from being objective.

Happy to call you out on your subversions/distortions anytime!

This post was edited by Ashirgo on Mar 14 2024 03:17am

I will completely agree it was a, the, catalyst. If that mollifies you. All I am saying is that there was active outside interference to push it along, which in my opinion was monumentally dumb.



can agree with both of these.



right, nothing happened in eastern Ukraine 2014-2022, also the tooth fairy is real and santa is transgender.



Just look were people fled, I said this yesterday. 1M to Russia and 9-10? million to the west. for sure Western Ukraine aligns with the west and eastern ukraine (to a degree) aligns with the east (russia). It is far more appealing to be western aligned. Your opening the door for a sphere of influence comment. pity the poor cubans for a moment. If you want to ignore that this was a US backed Coup, have at it, even there there is a certain famous call. If you want to deny what happened between 2014-2022 or move the goal posts "Neither Ukraine nor Russia signed the cluster munition treaty" have at it.

all of these conversations have already been had in this topic, if you want that conversation just look over the topic. I agree with ownyaah a better conversation is "what happened during the negotiation / reasons / and then follow up with what happens next".

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 14 2024 03:30am