Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "U.S. Pokes India; Biden Lectures Modi On Human Rights, Press Freedom At G20 Summit | Watch" video.

  1.  @PerceivedREALITY999  The Minsk Agreements are a basis for political resolution of the conflict in Donbas. They have been violated by the Russian Federation on a regular basis. 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.) Signing of the first documents in September 2014 followed direct incursion of the Russian regular troops in Donbas and intense hostilities near the city of Ilovaysk — the place of one of the most shameful crimes, committed by the Russian Army in Donbas. At least 366 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 429 were wounded there while leaving the city in the so-called “green corridor” under the guarantees of commanders of Russian troops. In violation of the Minsk Memorandum, Russian troops and Russia-backed illegal armed formations seized 8 pieces of land 1696 km² in area, which had to be on the Ukrainian government-controlled territory according to the line of contact, defined by the Memorandum. Debaltseve is one of the most telling examples of how Russia violates the Minsk Agreements. Combined Russian-terrorist forces attacked and seized the city and the outskirts on 16–18 February 2015, immediately after the Minsk Package of measures, establishing the comprehensive ceasefire since 15 February, had been signed.
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  2.  @PerceivedREALITY999  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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  3.  @PerceivedREALITY999  Feb -14 “coup”: 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. The Russian Federation initially denied that these were Russian military forces, but in April 2014 Vladimir Putin finally confirmed the presence of the Russian military. Alexander Borodai, Prime Minister of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, stated that 50,000 RUSSIAN citizens fought in the Donbas up to August 2015. THESE SOLDIERS are the ones that the Ukraninan government fought against, NOT “shelling of innocents in Donbass”, which Russian propaganda will tell you.
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  4.  @PerceivedREALITY999  "Soon after, there was a massacre in Odessa (dozens of people were burned alive)" Russia’s Lie Machine. It is seven 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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  5.  @PerceivedREALITY999  " Who advised against the 2022 peace talks in April? Hint: someone visited Zelensky in Kiev at that time" There wasn't any real peace talks in Turkey. - On 7 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow rejected a draft peace deal from Ukraine, saying that it contained “unacceptable” elements that deviated from proposals that both sides’ negotiators had earlier agreed on. 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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  6.  @PerceivedREALITY999  "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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