Quote (Goomshill @ May 3 2024 04:05pm)
Every few hundred pages of this thread I feel obligated to return to the fundamental point we started with 10 years ago
How can anyone argue that the Maidan was legitimate? That the post-revolutionary regime is anything but a minority of foreign-backed usurpers who overthrew a lawful and legitimately elected and representative democracy, putting in place a puppet regime?
Ukraine had its fraught elections before Yanukovych, but the 2010 elections were recognized by east and west as legitimate, recognized by NATO and Russia and the EU and every other country, no matter Tymoshenko's sore loss. The Donbas is more populous and the majority of Ukrainians opposed a pro-EU future in favor of the RU-leaning path. The people voted and had their own representative self-determination. And that was overthrown by force, a bitter minority who refused to accept Yanukovych's continued administration rioted and revolted, committing a coup d'etat. A democracy was replaced by an autocracy, there were massacres of the opposition like in Odessa, a civil war erupted, the most popular and lawfully ruling party was banned and those that opposed the US/EU backed revolutionary regime were violently suppressed by actual Nazi death squads like it was 1939 all over again.
Its the simple fact, a democracy either is, or isn't. If the people are ruled by their elected representatives, you have a democracy. If they are ruled by a man with a gun who has put himself in charge without the people's consent, it isn't.
Agree with the above just gonna add that Zelensky's five-year presidential term expires on May 20, 2024
No democratic elections and most opposition parties banned anyways, autocracy confirmed
Yet he enjoys unconditional support from the West, funny how that works