Quote (ofthevoid @ 13 Apr 2022 16:37)
Not really, the Donbass includes cities like Mariupol and other cities in the region that in response to them trying to break away Ukraine sent tens of thousands of troops. They then started to de-russify those heavily Russian cities by sending Azov type militias to intimidate and shut down any separatist movements.
I mean i don't really disagree with your last point, it's certainly a war over influence, the west thought it was going to turn Russia's closest satellite state against them, miscalculating the response then Russia in turn miscalculating Ukrainian resistance.
Mariupol doesn't lie in the Donbass, so it's not a contradiction to what I was saying.
It's kinda hard to really tell whether Ukraine sent these troops to the border of the separatist regions in Donbass to reconquer them or to stave off a further invasion of pro-Russian forces. Going by the precedents set in Georgia ('South Ossetia'), Moldavia ('Transnistria') and now in Ukraine (full-scale invasion aiming to take as much land as possible), the latter seems perfectly plausible.
The Russian propaganda narrative that the murderous Ukrainian regime was preparing a genocide against ethnic Russians in Donbass while their country was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Russian troops and desperately pleaded for international help doesn't add up.
Quote (Goomshill @ 13 Apr 2022 16:39)
Far more fled. We had the scenes of refugees being stopped at the border and the men forcibly conscripted. What's our basis for believing that the majority of ethnic Ukrainians are behind a bitter fight on behalf of the west? Their presence on social media? Their state run news outlets and our western journalists credulously repeating their propaganda? There's no doubt a large chunk of the western Ukrainian populist base who have embraced anti-Russian nationalism, else Euromaidan would never have succeeded. They may well be a majority. But once we start looking at the numbers willing to risk their lives, those numbers dwindle. When Ukraine is recruiting child soldiers and shanghaiing refugees and won't swear off its Nazi brigade, we have reason to doubt their army's numbers and morale.
What in the actual fuck? Are you seriously trying to use the fact that Ukraine brought its women and children to safety in the face of an imminent (or already ongoing) war as an argument against their support for the war?
On the contrary: knowing that their mothers, wives and daughters are safe allows the Ukrainian soldiers to fight more freely.
The forced conscription of men aged 18 to 60 is common practice during wartime. Almost all countries have a corresponding clause in their constiution, including your U.S. and my Germany. The attempts to recruit minor soldiers was fucked up, but it doesn't seem to have happened in huge numbers. The "Nazi brigades" are a common talking point of Russian propaganda and blown completely out of proportion.
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Most Ukrainians lived with Russia's grip on their country most of their lives, and in the last countrywide elections to be held, the Russian-aligned candidate won most of the vote. Not just from his native Donetsk and other eastern oblasts, but also the south and Odessa. He still got ~20-40% of the vote in districts in central Ukraine around Kiev, only Lviv and its surroundings went 90%+ to the other side. What happened to all the people who voted for the candidate who got overthrown in a coup? A lot of them seceded, sure. Many still lived in the west and south. And when war came, they probably fled already
The 2010 presidential elections in Ukraine were affected by other policy issues than just the tensions between the Western- and Russia-aligned forces. This election was not a pure referendum on Ukraine vs Russia.
I highly doubt that the way Russian forces shelled cities like Kharkiv, Dnipro or Odessa has endeared their side to the residents of these places, not even the ethnic Russians or the Yanukovych voters living there.