There was no revolution in Ukraine. There were protests. Those were violently beaten down, leading to nearly 100 protestors being killed, and 13 policemen.
Then the president, Yanukovich, was abdicated by parliament, and new democratic elections were held. This is not a revolution, this is how a democratic system works. Parliament can send home the government. Over here in the Netherlands, it would be called a 'vote of no confidence'. That is normal.
It is in no way a justification for forming seperatist movements that violently secede, and it most certainly no reason for a foreign power to invade your country.
No they can't. They aren't that sort of democratic system, the are an American style system where the President and Parliament are elected seperately, potentially leading to a situation where opposing parties control the Presidency as do the Parliament. I'll agree it is a bad system but it is the system that prevails in Ukraine.
The Ukrainians *call* it a Revolution of Diginity, even they agree it wasn't just buisiness as normal.
Moving on. There will be a "new international center to enable the prosecution of war crimes committed by Russia during its war in Ukraine", European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised.
https://nltimes.nl/2023/02/02/european-office-gather-proof-war-crimes-ukraine-will-set-hague I hope this means that we don't have to wait 20 - 40 years for any kind of successful investigations and trials.
Fortunately the Russians will take absolutely no notice of it.
You can shove your happy smiles....
No, this is not what happened. You completely ignored my argument that civil war should have been every region in which Yanukovich had voters not only in few areas bordering Russia.
Your argument doesn't make sense. Firstly things don't work in that kind of deterministic fashion and secondly you can drive or fly troops to most places in hours. If the new Ukrainian goverment sends troops to occupy the breakaway places fast enough, which barring an existing organised armed force opposing them they can do, it doesn't really matter much what the people there or their local authorities want.
You cannot simply expect people to conjure up an army out of nowhere, frankly your assumption seems to work on the idea that Ukraine is some kind of medieval feudal system where all the local barons have their own armies and get called up to form a Ukrainian army. It is the modern world, so the civil administrations of Ukraine are not blessed with large pre-existing armies ready to use to fight the new government.
I don't know the exact details of the degree of Ukraine's fragmentation and I am unsure if anyone does. Yet given how quickly modern armies can move the amount of territory initially reconquered by the Ukrainians before military resistance could be organised there was likely considerable, yet since I don't know the exact extent I refrain from making any definite claims. The reason then that Crimea, Donetesk and Luhansk 'got away' would have to do with the fact the Ukrainians had to fight their way through other hostile provinces to get to them.
There is no need for your idiotic probably. There are numerous polls. This area did always have people that wanted to join Russia... in single digits % of the population
Events happen, public opinions change. In any case, what matters here is what the people already in charge of those places decide and not what 51% of the voters want. There are two Donetesk Republics and there are two Ukrainian Oblasts in that area, with the same name and boundaries; this is no coincidence.
Yeah, let us ignore a huge Russian naval military base in Crimea. Nice alternative reality you have there
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You are a liar, plain and simple. Every single word you say is a misrepresentation, falsehood or outright lie. I have no interest in further "discussion" with you until you admit your rather stupid lies
You cannot state conspiracy theories about secret Russian armies as though they were certain, unquestionable fact and call people liars for disagreeing with you.
RD’s position seems to be “I’m not crazy, you’re all crazy!”
I'm not crazy and neither are you. The Ukrainiaks believe in their conspiracy theories because it makes sense to simplify things so that Ukraine can be the innocent victim it wants to be.
Putin's answer was deliberate misinformation to give a venire of plausibility to his self serving narrative.
A year after the fact, in documentary about Crimea capture Putin admitted that decision was made at least a week prior the capture of parament many remember from the media. More importantly, it supports what was shown in other sources about Russian troop movement into Crimea and deployment beyond their allowed areas in advance of that event.
Russia campaign was very well coordinated and executed. They have managed to captured strategic locations isolating Crimea from Ukraine, both physically by land/sea/air and by cutting communications lines; they brought significant amount of troops and pined down Ukrainian forces. They have used the mobilization (initially used to obscure troop movement to Crimea) on Ukraine borders in the East to cow Ukraine under fear of further escalation Meanwhile, politically they have secured the parliament, in the dark and under gunpoint they have rushed a new government headed by a loyalist, which gave them a referendum. They also fantastically utilized information warfare in the media (Ukraine media was disrupted)
It is undeniable that Russia used military force to intervene in Ukraine's sovereign territory and just as bad prevent Ukraine to exercise its rights. In what was certainly a scenario prepared in advanced, an outcome Russia warned Ukraine about months before if the choose to to go with EU economic association plan. Interestingly, this also where Russia use of PMC got solidified, understanding the benefit of plausible deniability, ability to circumvent local law and some international conventions, and lack of accountability at home and concern to losses. They make great use of them in Africa right now.
Edited. rm ** forgot I wanted to write about Russia involvement in the east but this is already in the 'too long didn't read' territory so no need.
Yes, misinformation, Putin is lying etc, etc it is irrelevant to my point. For the sake of argument I was assuming that Putin is lying, it is a scenario designed to test the conspiracy theory of 'little green men'.
The only way for Russia to deploy forces in Crimea, is to land troops from ships or planes, which takes days to organise but the Ukrainians can just drive thousands upon thousands of troops into Crimea in mere hours. In history however Crimea was taken by Russia without any fighting at all, which only makes sense if the Russians can get there more quickly than the Ukrainians can, which for geographical reasons they cannot.
Why do the Ukrainians completely lack any kind of defensive advantage in spite of the fact that Crimea is geographically far more inaccessable to the alleged Russian invaders? Why was there no huge amphibious invasion and apocalyptic fighting between the two parties?
Like a few days ago he was all “oh Yanukovych was democratically elected and was overthrown” and goes into more detail about “opposition parliamentarians” overthrowing him today, and completely fails to realize they were also democratically elected.
It’s post-truth denying reality levels of bullshit.
No, it's called not being totally ignorant of constitutional realities. The parliament is not allowed to overthrow the President, as they are seperately elected bodies and neither is superior to the other (we are talking about the American system of division of powers and not the British system of Parliamentary supremacy here).
Rebels are rebels whether they are democratically elected or not. In the same way a mayor does not remain in his office if he rebels against the president simply because he is seperately elected, parliaments lose their legitimacy if they decide to remove their president.
Yet at least the Ukrainians have the honesty to call what they did a Revolution, rather than the Self-Coup BS the Peruvian rebels against Castillo favour.