Point by point.
1. The same politicians who were in party of regions (Yanukovich party) quickly reorganized into new political parties. So there were “pro-Russian” political parties in Ukrainian politics, who participated in parliament elections in 2014 and in 2019, and in presidential elections in 2014 and 2019. So the point that people in Eastern Ukraine were marginalized politically is a lie.
2. Ukrainian forces in 2014-2015 attacked armed forces of separatists and Russian troops, civilians never were the target. More than a million people left separatist republics for Ukraine, why would they do that if they were terrorized?
3. There are training camps for youth in Ukraine, which are funded by political organizations. They are not “Nazi”, similar things exist in Russia as well - like Yunarmiya for example.
The chane in this “feeling of identity “ in Ukraine is indeed very strong in the last 8 years.
4% percent shift is between 1991 and 2001, change between 2012 and 2017 is much more drastic, especially in Southern and Eastern Ukraine.
Separatists in LDPR are defacto living in another country for 8 years, and have an identity of their own.
Let me tell you one thing — Yanukovich would go down, whether US interfered or not, there were enough of internal Ukrainian elites who wanted him to go. The whole US pushed Ukraine talk is delusional. Ukraine is not a pawn, it has it’s own interests which do not always align with the West.
If 2014 invasion was somehow related to Euromaidan protests, this 2022 invasion has no relation to internal Ukrainian politics nor to it’s foreign policy — nothing has fundamentally changed. The only reason why Putin attacked now is because he felt he could get away with it — Ukraine was asking for weapons since October and got only light anti-tank weapons to fight insurgency war. Nobody in the West pushed Ukrainians to fight, what West really wants is business as usual.
Yet now it becomes less and less possible due to Ukrainian information war.
Repeating Russian propaganda narratives is not what makes you a sudden expert on Eastern European politics.
Democratically elected guy killed a hundred of protesters with snipers, and fled the country for the fear of retribution by his own security forces. Yet you call it a coup.
I don’t see how changes to Constitution which limit the power of President could be related to whether or not Ukraine could be neutral.
You need to understand that there at least tens of thousands of Ukrainians here, on HN, who have a firsthand experience on how “Russian army advances “.
Major cities like Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol are shelled with dumb, indiscriminate weapons - Soviet free fall bombs from the 60’s, MLRS with unguided rockets. This stuff is cheap and plenty.
There residential areas where hundreds of thousands lived, now completely destroyed. There are videos, photos, everything. Yet you succumb to nice Russians narrative.
Under Zelenskiy situation in Donbas was de-escalating. Implementation of Minsk agreement the way Russia wanted it to happen was not on his agenda nor it was supported by majority of Ukrainian electorate. Ukraine is a democracy, whether you like it or not.
As a person who was there in Ukraine in 2004, and in 2013-14, as a somewhat neutral observer of Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, the first paragraph already throws you an Oliver Stone -level propaganda jab. Everyone in Ukraine was well aware what political party was supported by the West or by Russia. To say that pro-western and anti-Russia attitude in Ukraine was fabricated by the West is a bit of a stretch, to say the least.
This article plays the favorite game of Russian apologists — engage in bad faith with any pro-Ukrainian argument, and in good faith with any Russian one.
It fails to account for Russian troops in Crimea (when discussing 2014 referendum), it fails to account for Russian influence in Ukrainian politics (billions of funding) and of course there is no agency of Ukrainian people, only NATO and Russia.
And of course “US invited an invasion [of Ukraine]”, sure, lets find a more apologetic way of saying “Putin invaded Ukraine”.
a bit of nitpicking —
but the Soviet Union never really had predominantly Russian leadership, which would be disproportionate to the Russian part of the Soviet population.
Lenin was from a Russian noble but ethnically diverse family.
Stalin was a Georgian and spoke Russian with an incredibly thick accent to the end of his life.
Khrushchev and Brezhnev were Ukrainians, and so on.
But I get your point, and now it makes more sense to me.
I see in Putin more of that monarchist strain — chauvinism from the times of Imperial Russia, which indeed was so much focused on that "RRR-Russian" identity, much more "blood and soil" ideology. And add to that Late Soviet
state "efficiency".
2 of my Ukrainian great-grandfathers died in WW2, many other relatives that I do not know about. Were they Russians?
Soviets did plenty of bad things, I don't get that jab. Many Russians now in Russia hate the Soviet moniker and look at the October Revolution as a catastrophe.
Only for Westerners Soviet == Russian, which puzzles me absolutely.
But it wasn’t the Russians in WW2, there were everyone Soviet, from Ukrainians to Georgians, and Russians of course, but to give the Russians the mantle of only WW2 winners from Soviet side is wrong I think.
Maybe you can try living somewhere else?
You probably can easily work remotely (and part-time), and there are plenty of places where all the typical US things would stop mattering.
“That Putin was lied to by his advosors…” I’m not sure how that’s not accurate, with Beseda and Surkov arrest — two guys who were mainly responsible for coordinating Russian activities in Ukraine in 2014-2021.
There were reports of some limited use of chemicals in Mariupol just days ago.
Second point is not true, even though Ukraine doesn’t have the same capacity for everything, it still produces some tanks and ATGMs. Also civilian planes with Antonov Plant (they weren’t too productive last couple of years though)
I think “production” here is not the most important part, even Russia uses mostly late Soviet era tech, slightly updated.
But $300 could be more than those guys make in month in peace time, literally.
In most of Russia’s regions median (!) salary is closer to 350 US dollars, and that’s before war. Minimum wage is around 100 dollars (not sure if there are many people on min. wage, but still..)
There were reports from Belarus that one guy sent some 440 kilos of “presents” to his family in Russia.
I know the Ukrainian language and I know the context, I've heard the stories (about marauders). "soldiers stole their toilet seats to take home because they could not imagine the magic of flush toilets." — this is just an issue of mistranslation/signal noise:
1) Flush toilet systems are uncommon in poor parts of rural Russia, where a good chunk of their contract soldiers are from. Having proper plumbing for your private house (not an apartment, where the infrastructure is done by the state) is very expensive. That is why soldiers were genuinely surprised to see them in Ukrainian villages. Also, note that Russian propaganda always portrays Ukraine as extremely poor.
2) Expensive ceramic toilet is as good target for marauding as any.
It is not about "flush toilet", is about having a nice, expensive ceramic toilet, which could upgrade a typical "hole in the floor" style lavatory, common to many villages.
Where do you get this bullshit? Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting Russians, half of UA armed forces are Russian-speaking.
>> pro-Russian faction has been marginalized and sideswept
Russia destroyed a lot of goodwill by its actions in Crimea and Donbass. People who supported Yanukovich in 2010, do not support Putin in 2022