Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "China Dampens Ukraine's Peace Talk Plans After Russia Snatches Avdiivka; 'Conditions Not Right'" video.
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The so called “coup” in Feb -14: It already started in nov -13.
First there was an attempted coup by the russians. They put pressure on president Yanukovych to not sign an already negotiated political association and free trade deal with EU. When people heard about this scam, they gathered in the streets. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of Russians and oligarchs, police brutality, and human rights violations. Ressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.
In January and February 2014 further protests resulted in the government’s resignation. On 21 February, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. The next day, 22 February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0.
Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, with “little green men” (Russian masked soldiers). More “little green men” together with Russian armed pro-Russian separatists seized government buildings and proclaimed the independent states of Donetsk and Luhansk, sparking the Donbas war.
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Ever since the early years of his reign, Putin has made no secret of his bitterness over the Soviet collapse, which he has always viewed as a Russian defeat.
In 2005, when he famously referred to the disintegration of the USSR as “the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” he stressed that it was a tragedy for “the Russian people” and the millions of Russians who suddenly found themselves living beyond Russia’s borders in newly independent countries such as Ukraine.
Putin went even further in 2021, lamenting the fall of the USSR as “the collapse of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union.” In other words, he regards the entire Soviet era as a continuation of the Czarist Russian Empire, and sees the settlement of 1991 as anything but final. Putin’s sense of historical injustice has led to an unhealthy obsession with Ukraine, which he insists is an inherent part of historical Russia that has been subjected to artificial separation. He is fond of claiming that Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”), and took the unusual but revealing step in July 2021 of publishing a lengthy essay arguing against the legitimacy of Ukrainian statehood.
This fixation has been further fueled by fears that the emergence of a democratic Ukraine could serve as a catalyst for similar changes inside Russia itself. Putin remains haunted by the pro-democracy uprisings that swept Central Europe in the late 1980s while he was a young KGB officer in East Germany, and views modern Ukraine’s embrace of democracy as a direct threat to his own authoritarian regime. It is no coincidence that in the buildup to last year’s invasion, Putin began referring to Ukraine as an intolerable “anti-Russia.”
Over the past 13 months of full-scale war, Putin’s imperial objectives in Ukraine have become increasingly evident. He has compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great, and has repeatedly spoken of returning historical Russian lands while attempting to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian regions representing almost 20% of the war-torn country. Meanwhile, his army has imposed brutal policies of russification throughout occupied Ukraine, complete with summary executions, forced deportations, the suppression of Ukrainian national symbols, and widespread use of torture against anyone deemed a potential opponent of Russian rule.
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The Minsk agreements did not address the root cause of the conflict. It was stipulated, so to speak, that there was or had been some kind of ethnic conflict between Russians and Ukrainians in Ukraine, and that this was the reason for the outbreak of violence. And by settling this alleged ethnic conflict, the conflict could be pacified. THIS WAS PURE FICTION.
The ethnic conflicts that existed in Ukraine were no more serious than ethnic tensions in many other countries. Moreover, the dividing lines in this conflict, if one insists on understanding them in ethnic terms, are incredibly blurred. This is not about the Russian versus the Ukrainian language or Ukrainian versus Russian national identity.
Nor is it about religion, not even in the slightest. At most, one could find something like an eastern Ukrainian Donbas identity. But this regional identity of the Donbas is not much stronger than strong regional identities in other countries. What this conflict is fundamentally about is RUSSIA WANTING TO EXERT INFLUENCE OVER THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY ORIENTATION OF THE GOVERNMENT IN KYIV.
In the Minsk agreement, however, this fiction of an ethnic conflict was constructed instead, although Russia actually had no particular interest in obtaining any autonomy rights for eastern Ukraine, for Russian-speaking or ethnically Russian Ukrainian citizens.
Russia was not really interested in these issues, but Ukraine was not at all eager to grant such rights either, for fear of a supposed fifth column.
However, Moscow was not only concerned with what was happening in the Donbas, but above all with what was happening in Kyiv. The Ukraine conflict is about the orientation of Ukraine, pure and simple.
But the Minsk agreement addresses completely different issues. That’s why the process didn’t work. Moreover, a major blockage has been Russia's insistence that it is not a party to the conflict and therefore is not bound by its terms. Point 10, for example, calls for the withdrawal of all foreign armed formations and military equipment from the two disputed regions, Donetsk and Luhansk: Ukraine says this refers to forces from Russia, but Moscow denies it has any forces there. (Later Putin admitted there were Russian forces.)
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There wasn't any realistic deal in Turkey.
Johnson said this to his own parliament: There is absolutely no sign that Russia wants to reach a deal with Ukraine, and it could not be trusted even if one was on offer, Boris Johnson has told the Commons.
And he was right, Russia had broken all the agreements so far, including Minsk. The former prime minister warned against a "land for peace" deal, and said he doubted Volodymyr Zelensky or any Ukrainian government would agree to any such compromise.
(While in 2014-2017 the implementation of the Minsk Accords could have led to a negotiated reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine under international supervision, the international situation and Russia’s intentions have changed. In fact, by late 2021 Russian authorities had all but integrated the breakaway republics into the Russian political, military and economic space, precluding any meaningful possibility of the region’s peaceful reintegration into Ukraine. Whilst the Ukrainian leadership pursued a ceasefire in Donbas from the summer of 2020, the Kremlin used it as a bargaining chip to put pressure on Zelensky’s government and to create a flimsy pretext for an invasion. Zelensky’s last-ditch attempts to return to the negotiations in late 2021 were rejected by Putin, who tore up the Minsk Accords by recognising the independence of the breakaway regions. Thus, instead of a roadmap to future peace, the Minsk Accords had largely become a military-diplomatic tool in the hands of Russian leadership to legitimise regime change and the dismemberment of Ukraine.)
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Russia’s Lie Machine Fans Flames of Odessa ‘Massacre’:
It is several years since 48 people died during disturbances and a terrible fire in Odessa. The flames were still smoldering when Russia first began presenting the conflagration as a massacre by Ukrainian nationalists. This has continued regardless of several investigations, by the bipartisan 2 May Group; the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Each has found that the earlier disturbances began when a large group of pro-Russian activists attacked a peaceful march in support of Ukrainian unity. From then on, weapons were used by both sides and six people were killed. Toward evening, pro-Ukrainian activists headed towards Kulikove Pole Square intending to destroy a tent camp set up by pro-Russian activists. The latter responded with gunfire and Molotov cocktails from the roof and windows of the Trade Union building. All independent reports agree that with Molotov cocktails being thrown both at and from the building, it is impossible to determine the source of the fire which caused the death of 42 pro-Russian activists.
Selective coverage was evident from the outset. All Russian video footage treated Ukrainian “radicals” as the perpetrators of the earlier riots. No mention was made of the shooting and Molotov cocktails from inside the building, nor of the pro-Ukrainian activists who risked their safety to rescue people from the building. Russian footage instead showed a pro-Ukrainian activist firing a pistol at the building, failing to note that the man was returning fire coming from the building’s windows and that his pistol contained blanks.
Two years after the Council of Europe’s report, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that, “Ukrainian nationalists drove defenseless people into the Trade Union building and burned them alive”. This knowingly false story has now been peddled around the world, with generously financed exhibitions and carefully selected “witnesses” taken on tours of European countries.
It is a story that is known to have cost even more lives, with many of the young men who volunteered to fight for the Kremlin-backed insurgents in eastern Ukraine citing the alleged “Odessa massacre” as a catalyst.
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All opposition in Russia are either killed or in prison on false charges.
Russia arrests priests:
- "Brothers and sisters in Christ are now killing Christians. It is impossible to live with this fact." For this statement, made in a sermon in the church, the Russian priest Ioann Burdin was arrested.
Zona Media reports that Burdin is one of the first to suffer under a new law, which criminalised calls for the end of the war. The Russian priest says that he finds it irreconcilable that Russian Christians are killing Ukrainian Christians. "For me, this is about the same as if I would come to our Church and stab someone who is praying because I did not like what he was saying. We cannot break the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" so easily."
Burdin is a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian village of Karabanovo in the Kostroma region. During one of his sermons, he announced that he would pray for the war's end. According to him, however, that was not the point of his sermon. "It is a deeper call to people to retain humanity in their hearts; so that they do not feel hatred for either Ukrainians, Russians or the Americans."
Burdin's statements, however, led to his arrest. He was summoned to the police station, heard and charged with "discrediting" Russia's war in Ukraine, Dagen reports. The new law made it illegal to question the Russian invasion. Violating this legislation can lead to imprisonment or a fine.
- A Russian priest now faces up to 10 years behind bars for declaring that troops waging war on Ukraine are going to hell.
The charges against Ioann Kurmoyarov, a former priestmonk of the Russian Orthodox Church and doctor of theology, come as the Kremlin seeks to stifle dissent over the war, with numerous high-profile musicians and writers recently charged under a new law against spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
The charges against him stem from a video he posted on social media in March responding to Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov’s claim that even if the war in Ukraine leads to a nuclear strike, Russians will “go to heaven.”
“I would like to disappoint everyone who believes in this ‘fake,’” Kuromaryov said, adding that those who “unleash aggression” do not wind up in heaven. “Ukraine did not attack Russia,” he said. “You will not be in any heaven, you’ll be in hell.”
Russia 2016: Christians in Russia are now banned from discussing their faith outside of churches and other designated places under new anti-terror laws.
From Wednesday onwards it is illegal to preach, teach or share faith outside state-controlled set-tings.
Senior Protestant church leader in Russia, Sergei Ryakhovsky, said the law 'creates the basis for the mass persecution of believers'.
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A Russian journalist was sentenced to six years in a penal colony on Wednesday (15 February) for accusing the Russian air force of bombing a theatre in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol last April where women and children were sheltering. “Patriotism is love for the motherland, and love for one’s motherland should not be expressed by encouraging crime,” Ponоmarenko told the court before her sentencing, according to the RusNews outlet where she worked. “Attacking your neighbour is a crime.” “If it is a war – then call it a war,” she said from a cage in the courtroom. “This is a state crime against the army – it is like spitting on the graves of veterans.”
The Europe and Central Asia coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Gulnoza Said, issued a statement on Ponomarenko’s sentencing. “Russian authorities should be ashamed of the six-year prison sentence given to journalist Maria Ponomarenko, whose sole so-called crime was publishing information about the war in Ukraine that did not conform to the official narrative. “Authorities should not contest Ponomarenko’s appeal, drop all the charges against her, and stop jailing independent voices.” The verdict is the latest in a series of rulings in Russia that ban criticism of the war.
In the early days of the conflict, the Kremlin approved legislation that penalised the spread of “false information” or criticism about the country’s military campaign, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”. Some members of Russia’s political opposition, activists, journalists, and bloggers have previously been convicted and imprisoned under the law.
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Lies: Petro Poroshenko Promised that Children from Donbas would be Sitting in Cellars
On November 14, Russian Channel One informed in its evening news broadcast that, while officially speaking about peaceful settlement of the Donbas problem, in fact the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko was going to strangle Donbas economically and to put Donbas children into cellars. This is not true, and proofs of it were obtained by the Channel One by means of taking Poroshenko’s words out of context and falsely interpreting them from Ukrainian.
In his full speech Poroshenko does not say that Ukraine will put residents of Donbas under pressure, but that the occupation of Donbas by pro-Russian militants makes the locals, who have to live without pensions and to hide in cellars, suffer.
“This war can’t be won with weapons. Every bullet produces two enemies. And every peaceful day Ukrainian state demonstrates on the liberated territories that citizens, who sang praises to false separatist regime a month ago, receive heat, electricity, at last they can send their children to school, they started to receive pensions, survivorship and disablement payments, they have jobs, they have salaries.
“My dear people of Odesa! This is what we avoided thanks to your wisdom, your solidarity. And thanks to – now we all are confident about this – your pro-Ukrainian position. I was full of joy, when after visiting Odesa the delegation of the OSCE made a conclusion that Odesa is a city of harmony, the city of peace. There can’t be a better compliment. I was very happy about it. Thank you for your wisdom, people of Odesa!
“And we win together by means of peace! Because we have jobs, and they have not. We have pensions, and they have not. We have support of children and pensioners, they have not. Our children would go to kindergartens and schools, theirs would be sitting in cellars. Because they do not know anything how to do! That’s how we are going to win this war. Because wars are won in minds, and not on the combat fields! They do not know this, but I know. And I have your support, I need it very much in order we win this war without perished Ukrainians, without perished inhabitants of Odesa.”
It should be pointed out that Poroshenko speaks about the present situation in Donbas, not about situation possible in future. He describes it using the present tense, not the future one used by Russian journalists in their interpretation of his words. That’s why the Channel One not only took his words out of context, but also falsely interpreted them in order to produce wrong impression as if the President says that the residents of the Donbas will not receive pensions in future.
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"Zelensky, Poroshenko, Merkel and Hollande admitted that Ukraine had no intention to honor the Minsk agreements." You are lying again, is it a habit of yours?
Russiapost/republicru: In December 2022, Angela Merkel, in an interview with Die Zeit, said that the Minsk agreements “bought time” for Ukraine to strengthen its army: “it was obvious to us that the conflict would only be frozen without the problem being solved,” though thanks to the agreements Ukraine won “precious time.” Later, the former chancellor was echoed by former French President François Hollande, who noted the strength of the Ukrainian army and attributed that to the Minsk agreements.
Moscow was predictably delighted by these comments, DISTORTING them to make it seem that Merkel and Hollande had perfidiously been preparing Ukraine for a new war with Russia, even though they had only been talking about a well-used window of opportunity by Kyiv. The resurgent topic of the Minsk agreements demonstrates the cognitive chasm separating today’s Russia and the West, which calls into question the durability of any future peace negotiations. Nevertheless, Putin broke the Minsk agreements right after it was signed
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