[nickysielicki]

It’s making me crazy to see so many in this thread attempt to have a conversation about the motivations of the Russians without talking about the central point of this conflict: the independence of the Donbas, their natural right to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian confederation, and their recent pleas to the Russians for recognition of their state and military defense.

The Russians did not just simply decide to up and bomb Ukraine. The world is not that simple. A majority of Russians support Russian support for the Donbas region. They are culturally and ethnically Russian in the region.

I’m not defending Russia here but if you don’t talk about the core of the conflict you’re not coming any closer to a real understanding.

[jacquesm]

Oh please. You can't seriously make this argument, the whole Donbas independence movement was a Russian ploy from day #1 to create the pretext required to do exactly what they are doing today.

What makes me crazy is that there would be people that fall for such an obvious ploy.

A majority of Russians is not the same as a majority.

What's next? Latvia splitting in half?

For some background reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas

[nickysielicki]

I can’t have a reasonable conversation about this with someone who believes that the Russians are puppet masters pulling strings and setting narratives and that I’m just stupid for believing them.

The fact that Russia says it’s true is not a good reason why it cannot be true.

This has been going on for 8 years and we had peace and stable lines for the last 4. What changed?

[jacquesm]

> I can’t have a reasonable conversation about this with someone who believes that the Russians are puppet masters pulling strings and setting narratives and that I’m just stupid for believing them.

I don't know where the puppet masters and the narratives came in, you were the one bringing this bullshit in here, I didn't see any Russians. Where you got your ideas only you know.

> The fact that Russia says it’s true is not a good reason why it cannot be true.

I read it in Pravda. What's written there must be true, right? Just like they wrote last week: Russia will not invade Ukraine, so therefore I am right now hallucinating.

> This has been going on for 8 years and we had peace and stable lines for the last 4. What changed?

Russia went to war. And there was maybe peace in your book but for the people in Ukraine there wasn't peace and now there won't be for a much longer time.

[nickysielicki]

> I don't know where the puppet masters and the narratives came in, you were the one bringing this bullshit in here, I didn't see any Russians. Where you got your ideas only you know.

You suggested very literally that the separatist movement in east Ukraine was a Russian ploy from the start to justify war. Somehow to you that’s more reasonable that just assuming it came about organically.

> Russia went to war. And there was maybe peace in your book but for the people in Ukraine there wasn't peace and now there won't be for a much longer time.

Objectively, the lines hadn’t moved and people stopped dying. We had peace and the conditions for a peaceful resolution and new borders.

Then all of a sudden, things escalated. A big important gas pipeline blew up. Then Russia came in and got involved.

You can believe one of two things:

1. Russia wanted so badly to curb stomp their economy that they blew up their own important pipeline to justify war.

2. Either the CIA or the neonazi militias, or both working together, are responsible for these attacks.

Neither makes a ton of sense, but one has to be true.

[jacquesm]

> You suggested very literally that the separatist movement in east Ukraine was a Russian ploy from the start to justify war.

It is. This was a response to Russia's puppet being ousted. I'll forgive you if you haven't been following Ukraine since 2010 or so. But then stop making out like you have some special knowledge about what has been happening there for the last 12 years because it is a bit silly.

> Somehow to you that’s more reasonable that just assuming it came about organically.

No, I know that it did not came about organically, as do most people that are informed about Ukraine. This is not subject to discussion, nor is it subject to your fantasy story suddenly becoming true, in fact this is exactly the propaganda line coming out of the Kremlin.

> Objectively, the lines hadn’t moved and people stopped dying. We had peace and the conditions for a peaceful resolution and new borders.

There was at best an unresolved situation, and this is what is happening today: the furthering of the same goal that was in view when this whole thing escalated the first time. Consolidate, move forward. Consolidate, move forward. Putin is not making the same stupid mistake that Hitler made, he is taking his time to consolidate, which makes him far more dangerous.

> Then all of a sudden, things escalated. A big important gas pipeline blew up. Then Russia came in and got involved.

What a coincidence.

I'm going to stop responding to you, if you want to take that as a victory of sorts be my guest but I don't have the energy to continue to debate this, it makes no sense, but if you want to persist in it be my guest.

[mvc]

Seeing a few accounts parotting lines like these in here, and on LinkedIn.

Scary stuff.

[nickysielicki]

For the record, we’re ultimately on the same side here. I’m just trying to push back on what I see as an overly simple narrative around the Russian motivations for this. But I’m ultimately rooting for an independent Ukraine and anyone fighting for that.

[tremon]

A lot of people in Eastern Ukraine identify themselves as Russian (source: a friend of mine near Poltava). They speak Russian first, Ukrainian second. Trying to argue which came first is rather moot, the tug-of-war between eradication and strengthening of the Ukrainian identity has been going on for more than a century (see [1] and [2]). There's nothing obvious about that cultural conflict, except perhaps to Putin, who is clearly more interested in Rusifikatsiya than in Korenizatsiya.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainisation

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification

[jacquesm]

Sure. Ditto Latvia. But that doesn't mean that those provinces had a majority in favor of secession before all this started sliding, that's just the pretext used to invade after the Russian puppet was voted out.

[CapricornNoble]

>>>You can't seriously make this argument, the whole Donbas independence movement was a Russian ploy from day #1 to create the pretext required to do exactly what they are doing today.

Isn't that pretty much the argument Russia made, when the US supported Kosovo independence from Serbia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%27s_reaction_to_the_200...

[jacquesm]

Russia making an argument doesn't necessarily mean that there is truth to that argument.