[aiilns]

I won't pretend to be an expert on the matter, but I do not agree with your view.

For one, I think you are seriously misrepresenting USA's position. It's the biggest military power in the West and possibly the world, a country with military bases and operations all around the world. That the USA does not concern itself with other countries' matters is, sorry to say, laughable.

I also don't agree with your position that this is about the Ukrainian people's right to self determination. I think it's much closer to civil war, with "pro-Russia" Ukrainians, especially in the Donbas region, against "pro-Ukraine" Ukrainians. In 2014 that the pro-Kremlin regime fell, I remember some 50 people were killed in a burning building in Odessa. And the pro-Russia separatists of Donetsk & Luhansk were persecuted by the (corrupt) governments of Yatsenyuk & Poroshenko. Leading among those fighting against the pro-Russia "terrorists" was the Azov battalion, with several ties with neo-Nazis. It received military aid from the US up until 2018. And Ukraine has been receiving significant military aid from the US since 2014.

So to me, what you define as "right to self determination" seems more like nationalism in Ukraine backed by the USA to squash pro-Russia movements and separatists.

Lastly, I don't think that recognizing that big players like the USA, China, Russia can, and do, exert their power and influence to meddle in other countries, means that the peoples of those countries are "regional pawns". But framing it in a way that excludes their influence means you miss the big picture.

[agapon]

This is just a bunch of Russian propaganda bullshit. Starting with completely skewing order of historical events. For starters, Poroshenko was elected a president well after the Russian incursion into Donbas had begun (google for Girkin / Strelkov, Sloviansk).

Either you know shit about Ukraine 2013-2014 or you are just a Russian propaganda tool.

[simonh]

It is true that Ukraine has been historically divided politically between Ukrainian and Russian speakers, but the Russian invasion seems to have pushed that firmly into the past. The are constant, countless Russian speaking Ukrainians speaking out in horror at what is being done - to them! The regions that have suffered worst from shelling of civilian areas and mass murder, mass graves, etc are actually the Russian speaking regions. Putin has initiated a huge demographic shift in Ukrainian population by overwhelmingly massacring Russian speaking Ukrainians, and they are not happy about it.

Social media and the news is full of Russian speaking Ukrainians describing the killing of their family members, destruction of their homes, abuse by Russian troops.