Comments by "Aristocles Athenaioi" (@aristoclesathenaioi4939) on "Russia-Ukraine War - Referendums In LPR, DPR, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia - September 20th" video.

"Reunify?" The oblasts were never separate sovereign countries. Ukraine is not a federated government like the US or Russia. Ukraine is unitary like France. Russia is carving out something that was not separate. Also who gets to vote? The people who Russians forced to give up their Ukrainian and take Russian passports.
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That logic applies for all of Ukraine. "Do you want to join the country that invaded you, or do you want to keep your sovereignty?" Ukraine is NOT a federation like Russia or the US; therefore, you can't carve little pieces out of it and say that piece stands separate. You could break up the US into separate sovereign states, and that was tried once before although without success. The Provinces in Canada could separate into independent countries as the Quebecoise tried to do in the 1990s. Germany could split up into separate countries for each German State as was the case before unification in the 19th Century. France, Sweden, Finland and Norway are unitary countries, and that is what Ukraine is. So don't go pretending that there is some kind of separation of Ukraine into autonomous republics for each oblast. It was even tried and rejected in the past within Ukraine and by Ukraine, and without some bully boy forcing people. This aggression by Russia is every bit as bad as the US interventions into countries in Central America and the Carribean. Just let your neighbors go about their own business, and keep yourself off their property.
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@lefttomboy3068 oh I agree, and it satisfies Putin vision of himself as an historic figure for him to restore Russkiy Mir that Catherine the Great had previously annexed. Nevertheless, this facade of referendums in supposed separate Republics flies in the face of the political structure of Ukraine which is a unitary government rather than a federated one.
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I have friends who are Russian speaking but consider themselves Ukrainian and fled Crimea rather than live under Russian occupation. While the Russian let people vote with their feet and leave after the stage managed referendum?
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@polarissilvertree it really is the same dynamic of the big kid on the block making the little kids give him their lunch money. Neither Russia nor America should be allowed to do that. Just let your neighbors live in peace. If you don't want to do business with them or do business with anyone who does do business with them then that is your choice. I admit that sounds a bit like someone taking home the sports equipment they own because they don't like the behavior of other players. However that is neither stealing nor breaking and entering. It rather antisocial behavior but I would want to know how the others players behaved to cause someone to take back the sports equipment. If it was because some players were playing dirty and punching other players then stopping the game and forbidding use of the sports equipment sounds like justified behavior.
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@B5152g let's get a lot more specific. If you mean Lviv oblast for example then there was internal political within Ukraine when the Lviv oblast wanted to separate, but that was worked out within Ukraine. If you want to start walking backwards in history when Lviv was Lwow and part of the Polish - Lithuania Empire then we are back into a time when nation-states invaded one another. I thought Europe had matured beyond that. Although even if Europe has them Russia maintains its lawless indecent, barbaric and inhumane conduct. Russia has put itself on the same level as Germany in the most recent World War, and Russia will take at least a generation maybe more to wash the blood off. Of course Russia will probably continuing to contribute to Global Warming which will kill all of us. Putin of course thinks Global Warming is great because more Russia thaws out and the Artic ice retreats. As usual Putin and his oligarchies just want to steal from everyone else. Disgusting group of criminals.
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@polarissilvertree I called out the US simply to forestall the inevitable, "but the US did it" defense that the pro-Russians give as if because the US did it then it is okay for them to do it. Russia is a repeat offender indeed. One could argue that the UK has been to some degree by joining the US in Afghanistan along with other NATO countries. Afghanistan is such complicated tribal and religious affair with Britain having fought and lost 2 Afghan Wars in the 19th Century then joining the US in the 21st Century. As for 20th century the serious offenders have been past colonial powers, Britain, France, Belgium, along with the US in Philippines and the entire Southern part of the Western Hemisphere as well as Central America and the Carribean, and the other offenders are the two who have racked up the most war crimes, atrocities, crimes against humanity in the 20th Century: Germany and Russia.
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@pfroudzdo I offer no defense for the actions of transnational corporations who do as much damage here in the US as they do in other places of the world. I have friends who fled Crimea and who only speak Russian but consider themselves Ukrainian and are learning Ukrainian because they never wanted to live under Russian authority. By the way, the other part of the family stayed in Crimea because they preferred it. To top all this off, her Grandfather emigrated to Crimea from Poland and now she and her husband and child live in Lviv, almost full circle back to Poland. She considers herself Ukrainian despite her native language bring Russian. Some people don't want to live under Russian authority just as some people don't want to live under US authority. I suggest people be allowed to live where they want without being pushed around by neo-colonial, neo-imperialist dictators.
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I have friends who are native Russian speakers who fled Crimea because they did not want to live under Russian rule, and part of the family stayed behind. If you want to change your President in Ukraine then vote him out. You can't do that in Russia under Putin.
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@mattsmith-ri3lp They fled because the alternative was to be forced to take a Russian passport and renounce their Ukrainian citizenship, and my friend is a Ukrainian patriot as she calls herself. She refused to return when her family asked her to do so because she was afraid that she and her son would never be able to leave. I call that fleeing from an invader just as she does.
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And the Amish are pacificists. They are Deutsch not Nederlander or Hollander.
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Yeah and often they would stop you from even voting with your feet and leave. I have Ukrainian friends who had to flee before the border closed back in 2014.
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@lefttomboy3068 I fear that Russia will claim the Ukraine is invading Russia after those stage managed referendums.
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Not true. Do more research before you say that. In fact the Europeans are more sympathetic to the idea, and nobody in Congress has expressed any support for it. In fact the US Treasury has argued against it unless their International, not just US laws changed.
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Romania and Hungary have played tug of war with Transylvania for close to 2,000 years and there is a lot of hard feeling about it. By the way it was Stalin who assigned Transylvania to Romania most recently. I know nothing about historical disputes over borders between Romania and Ukraine or Hungary and Ukraine, but I would like to learn if there are. My Romanian friends will complain bitterly about the Hungarians, but I have never heard any of them complain about Ukraine. Complain about the Soviet Union, yes. Complain about Russia, yes. Complain about Ukraine, never heard any.
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@pfroudzdo I agree with your point about stopping countries from interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but what was the CIA and MI6 plan of which you speak?
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@pfroudzdo Oh the Polish remember. I grew up in a part of the US with very large Polish American and Ukrainian American communities, but they got along despite the history. They all saw Russia as a more serious and immediate threat, and they were right to do so as we have seen.
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Probably only those people who took a Russian passport when they were forced by the Russians to surrender their Ukrainian passport. The outcome is a foregone conclusion. Putin would only hold a referendum if he could put his thumb on the scales to determine the outcome he wanted. What a farce.
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Who gets to vote? The people that the Russians forced to surrender their Ukrainian passport and to take a Russian passport? This "referendum" is more like a passport check.
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