Quote (Black XistenZ @ Oct 4 2024 12:14pm)
This is a completely one-sided account of the events. Also, it's kinda laughable to claim that the Euromaidan was the initial act of aggression when Russia literally tried to assassinate a pro-Western presidential candidate back in 2005.
You guys make it sound as if Ukraine was a united, peaceful, happy and stable place before some nefarious Western puppeteers decided to sow chaos in an attempt at forcibly wresting the country out of the loving embrace of mother Russia. The reality is that the tug-of-war between pro-Western and pro-Russian groups inside Ukraine had been going on for a long time and that Ukraine was a deeply and narrowly divided country.
Pro-Russian Yanukovych had very narrowly won the presidential race, the pro-EU forces had a narrow majority in parliament. Then, in late 2013, these two branches of government locked up, the situation escalated. Yanukovych, in a brazen violation of his campaign promises, vetoed the ratification of the EU-Ukraine association agreement at the 11th hour, very clearly at the behest of his Russian overlords. Pro-EU protests broke out, put pressure on him. Yanukovych eventually loses his nerves and has his Berkut secret police brutalize the protesters. The protesters begin fighting back, using violence of their own. Escalating fights in the streets ensue, in the end, Yanukovych loses control of the situation and flees to Russia. The next day, an overwhelming majority of parliament, including most MPs from Yanukovych's own (pro-Russian) party, agree that Yanukovych has abdicated. (This is the part which you guys tend to leave out in your "violent coup" narrative.)
After these events, pro-EU forces control both branches of government, which prompts Russia to move in, annex Crimea and have their proxies in Donetsk and Luhansk secede the regions from the rest of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government sees the way it came to power as fully legitimate, the annexation of Crimea as a landgrab and the secession of the Donbas regions as illegitimate. The governments of the Russian-aligned regions see the way the Ukrainian government came to power as fully illegitimate and their own secession as the only logical reaction to a violent coup in Kyiv which left themselves without democratic representation. Fights break out on the outer perimeter of the Donbas, with the people's republics trying to capture the full Donbas and the Ukrainian military trying to retake the separatist regions. These fights continue for 8 years without either side gaining notable ground, and with rather low intensity for most of those 8 years. Then, after 8 years and for no immediately obvious reason, Russia decides to pull the trigger on a full-scale invasion in 2022.
I don't mean to be one sided, but to take a rational unbiased observation of all events possible to determine a truthful conclusion. I recognize some terms in my post here had pro-Russia framing such as violent coup when I should have just said coup again here. And about the alleged attempted 2005 assassination, how many Russians have the Ukrainians assassinated or tried? Without that information, it's a meaningless discussion.
I generally agree with the chronological events as you have described them, but I have issues with your framing as you are guilty here of being one-sided as well. Labelling legitimate & lawful police officers as "secret police" is an unfair framing that attempts to delegitimize them, they were a lawful tactical police force who were enforcing the laws & obeying the lawful government. There are many instances in your post of one-sided framing - violating a campaign promise isn't an act of war and isn't illegal - it's standard practice literally everywhere. He had lawful veto powers, period. Saying it was at the behest of his "overlords" is a clear example of biased illogical framing - you have no proof that he did those actions in service of an overlord. To your bolded sentence, this was under violent coercion. No shit they all voted one way, or else they and their families get the bullet. Events as you have described them accurately explain why democracy failed in this situation: the country was incredibly polarized with relatively equal representation. However, Yanukovych was lawfully elected and the coup was illegal, this is a matter of fact. And he was forced out of the country not via the ballot box, but through violence, where he was coerced. This isn't democracy, it's just the natural law of the human condition. After all, Otto von Bismarck was right, the important questions are not solved via a parliament but in the crucible of war, blood and iron.
However, since the new Ukrainian regime was okay with using violence to get its way instead of through the ballot box, Russia is responding in kind. You logically cannot fault them for that, if one side decides the rules of the game don't matter then you can't fault the other player for responding in kind. And given the right of conquest, Russia has full rights to conquer the land if they have the ability and will to do so. And it is very clear to me that Russia decided to attack in 2022 because of the hilarious botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Blood in the water, then was the time to strike.
All in all to say, the Ukrainian-Russia fight is their fight, not ours. They want to fight the Russian bear, have at it. Many have tried and many have failed, I'm not interested. Russians can be bad guys but the Ukrainian nationalists are literally classical Nazis. But don't expect me to be fine with sending my money there. They are a semi-foreign civilization. The Orthodox church hasn't been in communion with the Western church(s) for a long long time. The only reason to be involved is to maintain an Imperial hegemony, nothing else. Which I would be okay with if we actually had a proper Imperial regime with proper dynastic rule, but we don't, we have a degenerate oligarchy run by gay pedophiles.
This post was edited by El1te on Oct 4 2024 01:49pm