Comments by "R Johansen" (@rjohansen9486) on "NATO u0026 Ukraine's Ugly Spat Amid Russian Blitz; 'West Lucky We Are Fighting Putin's Men,' Taunts Kyiv" video.
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@adenubipeace2394 Diplomat W. Sporrer (who participated):
The main reasons for the failure of the Minsk agreements. First, 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.)
The second reason for their failure was the low technical quality of the Minsk agreements. There were far too many provisions for their verification, and the sequencing of various measures also remained controversial to the end, as the agreement itself didn’t specify any.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@julwiezdeghorz5089 And again: THERE WAS NO GENOCIDE IN DONBAS.
Vladimir Putin regularly drone on about the alleged “genocide of the Donbas population”. Today, this myth sits at the core of the Kremlin’s propaganda. Putin has used this myth to justify Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Both Ukraine and the occupied Donbas territories have suffered casualties because of the HOSTILITIES THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION has been conducting there since 2014. But Russia has insisted for these eight years and tried to convince the world that the actions of Ukraine’s Armed Forces in Donbas “are aimed at destroying the population of Donbas” and are not a struggle for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. And despite the UNTRUTHFULNESS of the argument, Russia’s propaganda machine has nevertheless managed to convince the Russian audience of this.
As it happens, official United Nations data suggests that the 14,000 casualty figure that Putin has used does not only refer to civilians. During Russia’s 2014-2021 military operations against Ukraine, 14,500 people died in the Donbas war. Of that 14,000, 3,404 were civilians, 4,400 were Ukrainian servicemen and 6,500 were Russian militants. The figure Putin operates with, is the total number of casualties incurred in the Donbas war by both sides.
Data obtained from the reports of the so-called “Commissioner for Human Rights in the Donetsk People’s Republic” show casualty figures even lower than those of the United Nations. In a 2020 report the total losses of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) since the start of the war in Donbas are estimated to be 4,959. This is the figure that is officially recorded by the DPR “legislature”. The report also claims that the majority of deaths occurred in 2014-2015, when 2,546 and 1,395 died respectively. In subsequent years the number of casualties in the Donbas war has significantly decreased. In 2016, 348 people were killed, in 2017 – 278, in 2018 – 154, in 2019 – 160 people. In 2020, 44 people died, marking the lowest casualty rate for the entire period of the armed conflict.
Although the casualty rate was quite low in 2020, the Kremlin nevertheless began to intimidate its own population with the specter of the “Ukrainian threat” and thereby discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the occupied territories’ residents. Moreover, UN data also clearly shows that since 2014 the number of civilian deaths in the Donbas has steadily declined on both sides. THERE HAS BEEN NO ESCALATION OF THE CONFLICT IN RECENT YEARS, 90% OF DONBAS CIVILIANS DIED IN 2014-2015
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@blackadder3570 This only happens in Russia. There is a campaign trying to rewrite history.
This is part of the Kremlin’s campaign for historical revisionism on WWII in order to boost its legitimacy and deny the USSR’s responsibility in the outbreak of WWII. This message is also consistent with the recurring pro-Kremlin propaganda narrative about anti-Russian policies of the aggressive West.
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about WWII that is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism in order to boost its legitimacy and deny the USSR’s responsibility in the outbreak of WWII.
It accuses European countries of "rewriting the history of the Second World War". According to this policy, the official Russian historiography is the only “true” way of interpreting the historical events about WWII. The European Parliament called the war the bloodiest tragedy of the century, which resulted in millions of victims of authoritarian regimes both of fascist Germany and the USSR. The European Parliament adopted a resolution, describing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 23 August 1939 as a key element causing World War II. The European Parliament also paid tribute to the victims of Stalinism, Nazism and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
At the same time, the Western historians acknowledge the role played by the USSR in defeating Nazism and do not question the Soviet contribution to the victory in WWII and the status of the USSR as a country that had won in WWII. The policy of the US or the EU is not directed against Russia or any other country.
This is an attempt by the Kremlin to erode the historical role of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact by stating that European countries, especially Poland, "had conspired with fascist Germany", so they should blame themselves for the German-Soviet attack in September 1939. The claim that Poland had conspired with fascist Germany goes against available historical documents. Before WWII, Poland had tense political relations with Nazi Germany, which expressed open territorial claims over Poland (revision of the status of the Free City of Danzig and control over the “Polish Corridor”).
Despite intense political pressure from Hitler, Poland consistently refused to become part of the Nazi block.
1
-
1