Because not all of Donbass' population supports the current conflict - in addition to pro-Ukrainians, there are bound to be people who honestly don't care about politics but would rather just see their families and themselves safe, and even if those people comprise just 20% of Donbass' population, that's still a large number. And even among those who do support Novorossiya, some simply don't have an option of fleeing into Russia, or instead have all their friends relatives to whom they might escape living in Ukraine, or just decide to run for the nearest border when the shells start flying, because most Ukrainians are quite moderate and are as willing to help Russian refugees as most Russians are willing to help Ukrainian refugees.
-noted-
Russia is not attacking Ukraine in the usual sense, like the USA attacked Iraq, it is instead merely supporting the Ukrainian Donbass rebels, who do all the fighting. That's an intervention, yes, but not an invasion.
If this was true, there wouldn't be casulties suffered by russians in combat. There have been deaths, and there have been prisoners.
Regarding those pictures, I said that wearing Russian uniform is not a decisive proof of a soldier being Russian, due to those uniforms being supplied to the Donbass rebels. And where was all the blood from the dead soldiers in those pictures? They might be staged, anyway. As for the difference between Russians and Ukrainians, it all depends on self-identification: if a person says they are Ukrainian, they are Ukrainian, if they say they are Russian, they are Russian. All other borders between the two peoples are extremely blurry, so I call people Ukrainians or Russians based on their own opinion in this matter.
...so.. all that Russian soldiers.. would need to do.. to become Russian supporting Ukranian rebels.. is to go to the combat area, and claim that they are not, in fact, russian soldiers? Forgive me for not accepting that definition, it's ridiculous. You could theoretically apply that to hundreds of thousands of men. You could use similar reasoning to defend an invasion of Hong Kong.
It was clear who was in charge from the very beginning - Poroshenko. And also I'm afraid that coups don't guarantee a new strong man in charge by default: you can look up the fall of the Russian Empire to see how a coup may result in a weak, incompetent government.
Usually that is referred to as a pair of revolutions in the west... if you're going to call the entire process a coup, it becomes a meaningless definition as it was an enormously politically messy civil war. I would also question why Poroshenko wasn't in charge after the first time Yanukovitch was removed from power, if he was in fact behind this all.
I'm sorry, I don't see how Yanukovich being ultimately a weak ruler disproves the fact that there was a coup against him. You can oust weak leaders just fine, again, please look up the October Revolution to see that happen with Kerensky.
I'm saying that even a weak leader would make a good figurehead, if the fighters were actually his supporters. If it was a coup by the people in Kiev, when he had many personal supporters in the rebel controlled parts of the country, his simple existance would be a strong, and cheap, tool to encourage resistance against the central government. Oddly, this is not the case..
In the end, there's just too many stories. "It was vacationing soldiers, you can't possibly expect a nation to control it's servicemen!" "We're supporing the rebels against atrocities that were committed by people who look indisinguishable from our soldiers!" "We fail to recognize the existance of this country at all, therefore we cannot be invading a country that doesn't exist!" "They deserve it for oppressing our (again, indistinguishable) civilians who live in that country!" I'm exaggerating for effect, but not by all that much.
If you are telling the truth, you don't need to tell a dozen lies until you successfully cobble together a story that is currently difficult to disprove. If you truly believe what you say, there isno fear in the testing.
The absolute majority of everything Russia, Ukraine and the West say is lies and propaganda. I never denied that Russia is lying through its teeth about why it's supporting the Novorossiya, just like the USA is lying through its teeth about why it's supporting Kyiv.
If you believed that Russia was also lying through it's teeth, I would wonder why your statements fall so well in line with statements by those liars. Technically, that would remain a possibility, though. I do know quite a bit of stuff said by people over here is undeniably true, on the other hand. They didn't lie about sending air squadrons to Poland. There could certainly be stuff going on, but the claims as to what the Russians have been doing are very conservative.. they aren't claiming 40,000 man invasions or tank battalions. Mostly special forces, a few thousand regulars, and sufficient armor and supplies to support the action.
Well, to see myself as wrong about Donbass, I would like some evidence of the general Donbass populace being not predominantly anti-Ukrainian. This would absolutely cause my current understanding of the conflict to crumble. Evidence of most Crimeans, aside from the Tatar minority, being in favour of Ukrainian Crimea would also be devastating, as would be the evidence that Russia is planing the invasion of Poland and the Baltics.
Thank you for supplying them. As for evidence that the Donbass region isn't as described, well I mentioned the (remarkably large) number of refugees fleeing the area, and the conspicuous absence of the pro-russian leader, from that region, who was ousted from power earlier in the year. The actual ratio seems to be about 40% to Ukraine, and 60% to Russia... and it's a large proportion of the population. Admittedly, that's not strong evidence, but collecting strong evidence in a disputed region as to the sympathies of it's inhabitants, depends quite strongly on the man with the gun asking the questions. I would also remind you that you require the same people leaving the area to be the strongly anti-ukrainian people you require as evidence.
I'm not claiming that Russia doesn't have a defenceable case for support in the Crimea at all. In that case, I simply think Putin saw an opportunity and pursued it.
I also don't think that he's planning an invasion of the Baltics. I do think, however, that he has done entirely too much sabre rattling towards those countries recently, with particular emphasis on statements about "countries containing Russian populations.". My interpretation of it is that he is attempting to claim credit for annexing parts of other soverign nations while maintaining the facade of deniability. I don't think he would try it anyway, those countries are significantly harder targets.
As for your peace negotiations plans, I'd say that they are rather sound. Putin would most likely agree to pay some pensions and some reparations and incarcerate a commander or two in exchange for Crimea recognition and a federalised Ukraine.
Those statements were pretty carefully chosen. Public casulty lists just don't seem to happen. Reperations would also go directly against lots of his previous posturing, such as the west is building a wall around Russia. What I actually expect will happen:
Firstly, Russia will keep territory. It might keep just the Crimea, or it might take a chunk of recently depopulated Eastern Ukraine in addition to that. These will be done by annexation, instead of creating a new republic with a puppet leader in place, although the Crimea might be treated as some kind of hybrid economic zone or something.
Secondly, Putin will continue to wave his sabres around a bit and do more posturing towards the west, although the aircraft territorial violations might ease back to the norm. I'd also expect the propaganda will continue.
Of course, all that goes out the window if things change. If a big scandal blows open, for instance, or if the Russian economy collapses, I'd expect a very different settlement.
Putin is waging a hybrid war in Ukraine, I never denied that. As for the threatening, that's all just power posturing - nothing unusual, everybody does it, standard politician practice. As for the national minorities, Russia is not exactly supporting them, it's simply throwing money at the territories with large proportions of non-Russian minorities as a counter-separatism measure (which is wholly unnecessary outside of Caucasus, if you ask me).
That's a neat term, 'counter-seperatism measure'. One of those politic terms for thirty year campaigns of breaking down doors and shooting people. I will also say that in the west, power posturing isn't done by flying transponder-off aircraft in foreign airspace. And yes, we do have our own disputes.. we aren't all one nation, or in agreement over everything. Some of us aren't even American.
I'm also wondering how much of that money is spin-offs for his political supporters to wet their beaks in. There was quite a lot of speculation over the Soichi Olympics, for one.
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Topic: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России (Read 258234 times)