> My question was: I heard claims that Ukraine was murdering Russian-speaking minority in Donbass before the Russian invasion
Define 'minority' in context of Donbas. It's overwhelmingly Russian-speaking.
> and that this was the justification for the invasion.
Well, define 'murdering' then[0]. Both sides would claim the civilian deaths on the opposing side. If you are asking about specific actions of anyone actually murdering people (ie not from the direct circumstances of war) then I can't help you, too much to sift through, though OSCE reports would be the main 3rd-party resource to get this info, especially if you search for 'torture'.
> That's a strange question. There is very little common sense when a war is in progress.
Ukraine did not attack russia. Russia attacked Ukraine and is killing Ukrainians. This war may just be the least morally ambiguous war out there.
Ukrainians are fighting for SURVIVAL. What are russians fighting for? So their pathetic muppet can live out his delusional fantasies? And what do you get for for trying to whitewash genocide here?
What would you think if a region in Europe belonging to a larger country clamored for independence but was crushed by the military and by sanctioned militias which are antisemitic and right wing radicals?
https://civic-nation.org/ukraine/society/radical_right-wing_...
I don't know much, but would be surprised if it's as simple as: Russia = BAD, Ukraine = GOOD.
note that I'm not saying Russia is innocent or justified. Their war is unjustified and an atrocity. But Ukraine is not a beacon of democracy, respect and peace either. They are a country whose government has supported radical and violent tactics against some of its own ethnic groups.
Neither Russian nor Ukrainian civilians deserve any of this.
In my opinion, protests, and sanctions should be very targeted (at leaders, companies and groups participating in these violent attacks: Now Russians ones, a few years ago Ukrainian ones).
> If this were true, why did Moscow not simply cull the entire population of Kiev with a thermobaric carpet bombing on day 1?
Because they want to capture the people too.
> Why have civilian deaths so obviously been minimized
I didn’t knowing that lunching anti aircraft carrier weapons at shopping malls was considered “minimising civilian deaths”.
Russia uses civilian deaths as a weapon of war. They also use forced deportation and filtration camps (which are used to torture and kill civilians) as a weapon of war.
Russia in way minimises civilian deaths in fact they try and maximise them.
> When you start from this outrageously false premise, despite an abundance of evidence suggesting other motives, you concede any chance of accurately diagnosing this conflict.
https://youtu.be/qciVozNtCDM
No one forced Russia to invade, no one forced Russia to rape, no one forced Russia to commit genocide. The decision to do and support these actions lies solely with Russia itself
I’m kinda interested how you explain away the Russian embassy saying that legitimate Ukrainian POW’s should be executed?, war crime, but then again Russia seems to be trying to tick off every war crime it can.
> Are you claiming that shelling ethnic Russians in Donbas
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine diligently documented the use of lethal force and resulting casualties in the low-intensity conflict before the full-scale invasion in 2022 and did not witness anything like what you describe. The number of civilian casualties was in low tens per year, mostly due to landmines and unexploded ordnance.
There was a major decrease in ceasefire violations in 2020 and 2021. Looks like to Russia that sounded like it's time to escalate and fix "the problem" whatever that is, by starting a major war and invading straight to Kyiv of all places. I'm sure poor people of Donbas will benefit greatly from a major escalation caused by Russia, that's going to reverse all this. Whole year of reported civilian casualties by OSCE now happen in a day.
> The Ukrainian people through their government agreed to the Minsk accords which would have prevented this but were then never honored.
Why OSCE SMM observations of agreement violating weapons are consistenly much higher in the separatist areas, by a large margin? (80/20 or so)
> Have bad things happened? Yes. It's a war. Have Russian soldiers done some bad things? Almost certainly. Is there widespread or systemic murder of civilians and rape by Russian troops?.
They literally ask for permission to rape the Ukrainians from their partners.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Russians are easily doing at least the last (forced transfer of children) and are arguably doing the first, and second based on the terrible conditions they leave the cities they level in leaving the Ukrainians to die in the street.
> No, that is not happening. And it makes sense as it would be counterproductive to Russia's aims.
The rape and deportation of locals to Russia is par for the course for the USSR's and Russia's conflicts. They did the exact same thing in Chechnya. If you want to learn more about the terrible crimes that Russia has committed in Ukraine and past wars (like Chechnya) look up what a 'filtration camp' is.
This isn't counterproductive to Russia's aims, it _is_ one of Russias aims.
> In short. Unadulterated bullshit.
In short, it's the Russian army doing Russian army things, at this point it seems they are incapable of conducting wars without committing a tonne of war crimes.
> Do you think Russia's funding of terrorist groups in the eastern portions of Ukraine known for atrocities against civilians could've influenced that decision?
You are maybe confused with neo-Nazi Azov battalion and co. also funded and trained by the USA, which have committed documented war crimes against civilians.
> So to protect the people of Donbas, Russia fires missiles at Kiev, Kherson, Odessa, Lvov?
> To protect those people it tries to decimate the energy infrastructure of Ukraine so that people will freeze in the winter and beg their government to stop fighting?
This is the brutality of war — and why Russia tried to make the Minsk agreements work.
> Do you honestly believe that Putin actually has the best interests of the people of Donbas at heart? Do you really think that's what this is about?
Yes — I believe that a substantial reason for this is what happened in Donbas. Russians are angry at Putin for being weak and allowing this violence against ethnic Russians.
I certainly believe that this is more about protecting Donbas and Russia than the past decade of events has been good faith by NATO — Russia’s story makes sense, while NATO is openly lying by pretending this was an unprovoked attack.
- - - - -
You didn’t answer:
What specifically should Russia have done when a decade of diplomacy failed?
>if they really wanted to kill civilians I'd see the entire Ukraine population dead. It's a gradient, not a binary, isn't it.
Please do post your sources for civilian casualty counts so we can better understand this gradient.
My understanding is conflicts in population centers of similar size and density elsewhere in the world (parts of Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan), the civilian casualty counts are much higher than we are seeing in Ukraine.
No. I said they were under Russian control. Not that they're not human. The invading army is under Putin's control, that doesn't imply they're not human (although they regularly commit inhuman acts).
> A lot has happened since 1991. Don't you agree that a poll from 2021 is more relevant now?
The poll is heavily skewed by Russian propaganda in areas under their control.
> An obvious explanation would be that only the areas where enough people wanted to leave Ukraine were controlled by the separatists.
First, area of control is primarily determined by military, not civilians. Second, why would there be such a stark difference in opinion within Donbas? Doesn't make any sense.
> If you mean that it's never moral to support separatists, I disagree completely.
I don't mean that, it depends on the specific situation. But the separatists are just a distraction, it's not what this war is about. Russia invaded the area which was against joining Russia, simply because Putin wanted to subdue Ukraine. He couldn't care less about the separatists, they're just a tool. In fact, he brutally crushes actual organic separatist movements (Chechnya).
> so I feel that this war is about power and imperialism for the US as much as it is for Russia
You feel wrong then. What Russia is doing is bordering genocide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukr...). The US is doing everything to help them. If Ukraine succeeds and becomes a prosperous liberal democracy, it would make the alliance of liberal democracies stronger and the US would benefit from that. That doesn't change that it's mostly right to help Ukraine.
Russia is effectively a dictatorship run by a psychopath who kills his opponents and uses mass torture to achieve his goals. The US is a democracy whose current leadership has a normal level of empathy.
> only 54% wanted to be separate from Russia
That's a majority... In any case, the annexation by Russia was wrong and should be reversed. After that, there may be talks about independence and a proper referendum.
> while I don't know about Ukraine intentionally shelling civilians, I can imagine that at least there were civilians killed as a result of Ukrainian fire in that area since 2014
Ukraine has intentionally shelled urban centers for a decade — and you think Russia is wrong to protect ethnic Russians from that?
> Russia did not take steps to de-escalate the conflict. There were so many things Russia could have done if it was genuinely interested in peace and friendly relations with a sovereign Ukraine.
Do you mean like asking France and Germany to negotiate a peace that protects the people of Donbas while remaining part of Ukraine?
Russia did that in 2014 — and it was cynically exploited to arm Ukraine for this conflict by NATO, who refused to protect the people in Donbas from Ukrainian shelling.
What should Russia have done to protect the ethnic Russians in Donbas — having tried to negotiate a peace only for Ukraine to shell their cities for another decade?
> I could go on, but the main argument is that when you look past the emotionally charged arguments
You’re the one making emotional strawmen about Banderites rather than focusing on the stated Russian objective of protecting Donbas after a decade of diplomacy failed.
Is that because you learned about the Russian “position” from NATO propaganda rather than directly from RT?
This is the Russian position, according to RT:
> Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
> From a logical standpoint, why would they want Kyiv
You tell me. Russia certainly tried to seize Kyiv in the opening days of the invasion. I think that bloody action carries more weight as a statement of intent, than your question does. Also, I think you were aware of it.
> why is it OK for the West to support regime that kills Ukrainian civilians en masse.
Why do you try to imply that identifying pro-Putin shills is equivalent to supporting "a [Ukrainian] regime that kills Ukrainian civilians en masse"?
Assuming your supposition is true for now, why do you not go further and think to imply that these civilians would not be getting killed en masse if Putin would withdraw forces of the Russian Federation from the sovereign territory [1] of Ukraine?
History shows that the truest way to harm civilians in conflict between groups that are not trying to kill civilians (either directly through systemic action or indirectly through things like famine) is to prolong the armed conflict by interceding on behalf of one side or the other.
But even if you're completely right and not involuntarily affected by propaganda yourself, just because someone tries to keep a comment board free of "shills" of all types doesn't mean someone is necessarily aligned with any side, which is an issue you appear to be conflating here.
Who is they? Do you believe that Putin's regime is a democratic expression of the will of the Russian people?
> my people being exterminated
What the Ukrainian people are going through is absolutely horrible. But it is by no means an extermination.
> They have supported this regime for decades.
Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union for 7 decades. During this time, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. I would still consider Ukrainians victims of the Soviet Union and not supporters.
> Is Russia wrong for starting a war? Yes. Is it completely its fault and totally unprovoked? Probably not. Is the Ukraine completely free of sin? Also probably not.
So tell me exactly, what was the grave sin that Ukraine committed that would justify the invasion and all the atrocities that followed?
Your link says that as many as 354,000 Russian _and_ Ukrainian soldiers have been killed _or_ injured in the Ukraine war, but you present it as a number of people killed in a single country. Why doing that?
> Why do you not go further and think to imply that these civilians would not be getting killed en masse if Putin would withdraw forces of the Russian Federation from the sovereign territory of Ukraine?
Because there are no forces of Russian federation, probably apart from some Spec Ops, logistics and reconnaissance units.
> History shows that the truest way to harm civilians in conflict between groups that are not trying to kill civilians (either directly through systemic action or indirectly through things like famine) is to prolong the armed conflict by interceding on behalf of one side or the other.
So you say that Russia should abandon support of people of Donetsk and Luhansk and leave them at the mercy of Kiev government, who is committing crimes against them? [1]
I actually watch Ukrainian mainstream television and recently one of the experts was openly talking about the need to "physically eliminate about 1.5 million of civilians of Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not able to fit in Ukrainian Nation" [2]. And he didn't get fined or jailed for these words, or even challenged by the TV host. If this is not Fascism, I don't know what is.
Why don't you ask questions such as: who started this mess? What has Russia done to stop it? What has the West done to stop it?
> Ukraine certainly played its part in extending the hostilities that resulted in 14,000 murdered Russian-speaking citizens in its border regions prior to Feb 23.
Do you have a credible source for this?, id be interested to see one if you do.
Define 'minority' in context of Donbas. It's overwhelmingly Russian-speaking.
> and that this was the justification for the invasion.
Well, define 'murdering' then[0]. Both sides would claim the civilian deaths on the opposing side. If you are asking about specific actions of anyone actually murdering people (ie not from the direct circumstances of war) then I can't help you, too much to sift through, though OSCE reports would be the main 3rd-party resource to get this info, especially if you search for 'torture'.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/25... Murder? Casualty of war?
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