4 ms·

The so-called separatists don't represent the people no matter how you approach them. In the earliest days, they consisted of local thugs, the kind of people wh

by mopsi 4y ago

The so-called separatists don't represent the people no matter how you approach them. In the earliest days, they consisted of local thugs, the kind of people who come out just to destroy something at protests. Then intelligence operatives like Igor Girkin were quickly installed to direct the violence against Ukraine and its institutions in a controlled way to achieve Russian goals, and then regular armed forces took over. At no point did it have anything to do with people and their will. Nor would I put much value on polls conducted in conditions where people can get murdered for publicly supporting some of the answers. I wonder what Parisians in 1940 would've answered if they got a phone call asking if they wanted to be a part of Germany - while people were disappearing. > Which isn't that surprising, considering that the elected President they supported was driven out of office by a revolution. That kind of thing would make anyone question their democracy. If you must compare it to Jan 6th, it's as if the Jan 6th riots had lasted for weeks and at the end, the President preferred by the rioters took over. Yanukovych was removed from the office by the parliament. It's as if Congress had voted Trump out of the office after January 6th riots, Trump fled abroad and some unhappy Trumpers stormed further goverment buildings, and then Mexican army rolled in to support "separatists" and occupied Arizona and Texas, and then Mexican intelligence operatives cosplaying as independent freedom fighters asked Mexico to annex Arizona and Texas into Mexico.

leereeves 4y ago
> Nor would I put much value on polls conducted in conditions... That's a fair point - polling is difficult and unreliable in a contested region - but what other evidence can we look to? Perhaps this: "an occupation against a hostile local population requires far more soldiers than a peaceful occupation of territory" as we've seen recently when Russia occupied regions not controlled by the separatists.[1] And the Russian forces in the separatist regions before 2022 were far from sufficient to hold the regions if the local population had been hostile, especially with Ukrainian forces also fighting them. > Yanukovych was removed from the office by the parliament This isn't accurate. "On 21 February 2014, Yanukovych ...left the capital for Kharkiv, saying his car was shot at as he left Kyiv, and travelling next to Crimea, and eventually to exile in Russia."[2] Then, because he had fled, "the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove him from his post...on the grounds that he...effectively resigned."[2] He was not impeached. It's more accurate to say that he was driven out of office by the riots, a fact that Parliament merely recognized. (Also, your analogy to Jan 6th makes no sense, because in any such analogy, the rioters have to end up with the President they want, just as they did in Ukraine.) 1: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/ukraine-assassination-attempts-kherson-resistance-movement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/ukraine-assassinatio... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
- mopsi 4y ago
  The same kind of resistance as described happening in Kherson in the linked article happened in LNR and DNR too. Eventually Russian forces abandoned Kherson not because of local resistance, but because of military factors. Kherson garrison was too close to the frontline and couldn't be protected from HIMARS strikes. If you are trying to use the fact that Russian forces were not driven out of LNR and DNR by local civilian population as an evidence of their views, then I don't find that convincing, because driving Russians out has required grueling coordinated military action even in those regions of Ukraine where the support for Ukrainian independence is universal without any doubt. The key part is Mexican army invading Arizona and Texas under the pretext of separatism, seizing the oppurtunity that internal turmoil offers. The specifics of that turmoil are largely irrelevant.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    > The same kind of resistance as described happening in Kherson in the linked article happened in LNR and DNR too. Do you have sources for that? It's the first I've heard of it and I'd like to learn more. > The key part is Mexican army invading Arizona and Texas under the pretext of separatism Ok. Then to use an analogy that actually happened, perhaps the US invading Cuba under the "pretext" of separatism from Spain? Or the US sending the navy to Panama to support its independence from Columbia (in exchange for the canal zone)? Perhaps the best analogy is the Mexican-American war, in which the US took Texas (already de facto separate from Mexico but still claimed by them) and other territory from Mexico. Anyway, what's the point of this analogy?
    - mopsi 4y ago
      Some examples notable enough to have Wikipedia articles: * Arsen Pavlov, bomb in elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsen_Pavlov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsen_Pavlov * Alexander Zakharchenko, bomb in cafe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zakharchenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zakharchenko * Mikhail Tolstykh, rocket lauched at his office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tolstykh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tolstykh * Aleksey Mozgovoy, car bomb and ambush with machine guns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Mozgovoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Mozgovoy Resistance mostly takes the form of hit-and-run attacks and sabotage against infrastructure. Here's a 2019 video of DNR communications facility being blown up: https://medium.com/dfrlab/blast-highlights-mgb-detentions-in-separatist-held-donetsk-65b7e5520f74 https://medium.com/dfrlab/blast-highlights-mgb-detentions-in... The video was posted on social media with the following message: > This was done with the goal to draw attention to the inhumane torture in the basements of the MGB. Cruel treatment and tying wires with electric current to peoples’ extremities in the “people’s” republics has become the norm. The people of the Donbas must protest against torture, or the fascist republic will remain unconnected. The very effective use of long-range weapons against targets deep inside occupied territories has also been attributed to intelligence provided by locals. Like with Kherson, we can expect detailed stories after LNR and DNR are liberated and it's safe to reveal what went on and how it was accomplished. > Anyway, what's the point of this analogy? The war in Ukraine has nothing to do with separatism. Whatever seeds of that may have existed in the first days, they were hijacked by Russian intelligence services and armed forces very early to prepare the stage for military invasion and occupation. The treatment of representatives of occupied territories as independent leaders even as late as of February 2022 (when they supposedly called Russia for help) is unsupported by facts. You can stage such "separatism" anywhere in favorable conditions when police and armed forces are overwhelmed and won't react fast enough.

by mopsi 4y ago

leereeves 4y ago

> Nor would I put much value on polls conducted in conditions... That's a fair point - polling is difficult and unreliable in a contested region - but what other evidence can we look to? Perhaps this: "an occupation against a hostile local population requires far more soldiers than a peaceful occupation of territory" as we've seen recently when Russia occupied regions not controlled by the separatists.[1] And the Russian forces in the separatist regions before 2022 were far from sufficient to hold the regions if the local population had been hostile, especially with Ukrainian forces also fighting them. > Yanukovych was removed from the office by the parliament This isn't accurate. "On 21 February 2014, Yanukovych ...left the capital for Kharkiv, saying his car was shot at as he left Kyiv, and travelling next to Crimea, and eventually to exile in Russia."[2] Then, because he had fled, "the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove him from his post...on the grounds that he...effectively resigned."[2] He was not impeached. It's more accurate to say that he was driven out of office by the riots, a fact that Parliament merely recognized. (Also, your analogy to Jan 6th makes no sense, because in any such analogy, the rioters have to end up with the President they want, just as they did in Ukraine.) 1: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/ukraine-assassination-attempts-kherson-resistance-movement/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/01/politics/ukraine-assassinatio... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych

mopsi 4y ago
The same kind of resistance as described happening in Kherson in the linked article happened in LNR and DNR too. Eventually Russian forces abandoned Kherson not because of local resistance, but because of military factors. Kherson garrison was too close to the frontline and couldn't be protected from HIMARS strikes. If you are trying to use the fact that Russian forces were not driven out of LNR and DNR by local civilian population as an evidence of their views, then I don't find that convincing, because driving Russians out has required grueling coordinated military action even in those regions of Ukraine where the support for Ukrainian independence is universal without any doubt. The key part is Mexican army invading Arizona and Texas under the pretext of separatism, seizing the oppurtunity that internal turmoil offers. The specifics of that turmoil are largely irrelevant.
- leereeves 4y ago
  > The same kind of resistance as described happening in Kherson in the linked article happened in LNR and DNR too. Do you have sources for that? It's the first I've heard of it and I'd like to learn more. > The key part is Mexican army invading Arizona and Texas under the pretext of separatism Ok. Then to use an analogy that actually happened, perhaps the US invading Cuba under the "pretext" of separatism from Spain? Or the US sending the navy to Panama to support its independence from Columbia (in exchange for the canal zone)? Perhaps the best analogy is the Mexican-American war, in which the US took Texas (already de facto separate from Mexico but still claimed by them) and other territory from Mexico. Anyway, what's the point of this analogy?
  - mopsi 4y ago
    Some examples notable enough to have Wikipedia articles: * Arsen Pavlov, bomb in elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsen_Pavlov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsen_Pavlov * Alexander Zakharchenko, bomb in cafe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zakharchenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Zakharchenko * Mikhail Tolstykh, rocket lauched at his office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tolstykh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tolstykh * Aleksey Mozgovoy, car bomb and ambush with machine guns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Mozgovoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksey_Mozgovoy Resistance mostly takes the form of hit-and-run attacks and sabotage against infrastructure. Here's a 2019 video of DNR communications facility being blown up: https://medium.com/dfrlab/blast-highlights-mgb-detentions-in-separatist-held-donetsk-65b7e5520f74 https://medium.com/dfrlab/blast-highlights-mgb-detentions-in... The video was posted on social media with the following message: > This was done with the goal to draw attention to the inhumane torture in the basements of the MGB. Cruel treatment and tying wires with electric current to peoples’ extremities in the “people’s” republics has become the norm. The people of the Donbas must protest against torture, or the fascist republic will remain unconnected. The very effective use of long-range weapons against targets deep inside occupied territories has also been attributed to intelligence provided by locals. Like with Kherson, we can expect detailed stories after LNR and DNR are liberated and it's safe to reveal what went on and how it was accomplished. > Anyway, what's the point of this analogy? The war in Ukraine has nothing to do with separatism. Whatever seeds of that may have existed in the first days, they were hijacked by Russian intelligence services and armed forces very early to prepare the stage for military invasion and occupation. The treatment of representatives of occupied territories as independent leaders even as late as of February 2022 (when they supposedly called Russia for help) is unsupported by facts. You can stage such "separatism" anywhere in favorable conditions when police and armed forces are overwhelmed and won't react fast enough.