The new government was not a "rebel government." There was no armed uprising, except by Russian-integrationists (to call them separatists is to deny their ultimate goal) propped up by the Russian regime. Yanukovich signed an agreement and then fled because his support was collapsing after he killed protestors. The parliament voted to remove the President in absentia.
In historical reality, as opposed to endless Star Wars style fiction governments are seldom overthrown in
"armed uprisings". Maybe it takes the wind out of the sails of the American gun nuts to realise that actually they don't need any guns to overthrow a tyrannical government, but I don't care.
The Soviet Union created the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast in, 1922, explicitly as a part of Soviet Georgia. (Which was a fluid but extant entity, back in the days when countries were so easily fluid, except for the time it was a member of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic/Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic - alongside Armenia+Azerbaijan.)
When the USSR dissolved, it was logical that post-Soviet Georgia retain Soviet Georgian territory (even more so than Ukraine retain Crimea, which in turn still had more reason to be entirely independent than the current effective-exclave of Russia in a move chosen just because of too much preference for a selective fragment of history). Ossetians decided unilaterally to gain independance, which is a tricky proposition (ask Catalonia, Eritrea, Scotland, etc, for various modern experiences related to this), and then ended up effectively a Russian outpost. Not sure that was the intention by the (true) Ossetian patriots, but maybe they prefer to be unofficial vassal and military stomping ground to the huge nation instead of a continuingly autonimous region of the very much smaller one (revoked only in response to the local rejection of being 'merely' autonimous). I don't know what the true mix of current opinion is, and I'm not sure Mother Russia is keen to publicise any incompatible nuances.
The Ossetians goals are to be reunited with the other Ossetians which means being under Russian rule.
The exact same logic you are using to support Georgian rule over Ossetia would also support Serbian rule over Kosovo.
In any case, I am talking about about facts, not the rightness of legal fictions. Georgian rule over Ossetia is a legal fiction, so there is no invasion (except perhaps a legally fictional one
(...I can't parse this. The first "They" is Russia, but I'm not sure the rest of the "they"s and "their"s are also Russia. Or who else 'they' might be. Which grossly changes which alliances were kept/broken in your statement. I have a feeling what you tend towards, based on the rest, but it's such a bad summary that I'm not sure at all.)
First the Donbass republics are part of Ukraine and then they aren't. Can you lot make your minds up?
Russia (and/or the 'independant' nations established with support by Moscow) does not control Donbass, at this point or at any point since 2014, or indeed long before. If you insist upon this definition defining who may or may not presume to control it. The leadership of Ukraine may have changed, as leaderships do, but the continuity of Ukraine (gross Russian or Russia-'sponsored' interventions aside) has every right to consider Donetsk and Luhansk still Ukrainean[1]. Armed separatism is no substitute for a more declararitive political separation (which, as indicated above, has seen its own problems) and delegitimises the move when quite obviously sponsored by the adjacent big bully of the region.
Invading somewhere does not automatically mean you in the wrong Starver. It is factually incorrect to say that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 (as opposed to now) because at no point did they or even their allied forces enter territory controlled by Ukraine IN-FACT.
Facts matter, not just legal rights and wrongs. Ironically the Russian *never* actually disputed the legal fact of the Ukrainianness of the Donbass in 2014 (unlike now), only the Crimea. It is their own local allies that effectively did this and without agreement from the Russian government. The Russian plan was to have them rejoin Ukraine as part of the Minsk agreement, because the Russians at this point only wanted Crimea, not Donbass.
As I think you're wrong/mistaken in much that leads up to this, I'm not sure I can support this and the rest. At best, Russia did not 'invade' until 'invited', but given the prior Russian footfall (upon land which overwhelmingly still cannot be considered legitimately non-Ukrainean, by standards of international law and convention) then even this "friendly vampire" reasoning is dodgy.
Why can you not accept that if someone overthrows a government they do not automatically gain IN-FACT possession of every inch of territory the government they overthrew possessed? Ukraine lost possession of Donbass (and Crimea) when their government was overthrown because said places did not recognise the new government's authority. Therefore they had to invade those places but the Russians came to their aid and they were partly unsuccessful, since much of the territory of those provinces was lost. Thus there is a divergence between the legal claims of Ukraine and the factual reality.
Nobody liked Yanukovich and he fled Ukraine on two occasions, not one. He had no credibility as any kind of leader with anyone. Russia were using him because they had nobody else, with the few chosen people from the Donbas proving too independent minded for them, prompting their assassination by Russia at a later date.
Basically he's a total coward, which appeals to Russia, but said total cowardice made it impossible for him to be credible or effective. Anyone who actually wanted to fight against Ukraine would have been able to create a powerbase outside of total Russian control, which made them unacceptable and eventually got them murdered.
Insulting the character of people you don't know, tsk tsk....
Yanukovich won the democratic election so he had plenty of credibility with someone. Yet despite having won the democratic election, he was overthrown by Euromaiden backed by the EU and the USA. If you overthrow an in-fact government that makes you a rebel (more facts). So factually speaking the regime in Ukraine invading Donbass are rebels and that is why have to invade the places in the first place. Yanukavich controlled those places (Crimea as well) and they were devoted supporters *of* his rule.
The folly in my opinion is that the Russians did *not* simply invade Ukraine in 2014 in order to reinstate Yanukovich and crush Euromaiden. They would found the job far easier then, but now they invade after giving them many years to consolidate their control of Ukraine.
Yeah, no. Russia had attacked territory well beyond the Feb 24th lines, and had suffered significant reversals on the battlefield at various occasions. They also sent thrusts well into territory they never held, including around several key cities in ways reminiscent to various thrusts in 2022. The fighting was serious and back-and-forth. This is just nonsense.
Russia isn't directly involved Devastator. The war is between the new Ukrainian government and the provinces of Luhansk/Donotesk which do not accept said new government's authority over them (and never have).
There's something going on here that I've seen before. I think I'll call it the "Bad Faith Trifecta." It's a hallmark of pro-Russian advocacy around the internet.
First, you tell a lie. The lie right here is at the beginning. Russia spent eight years stating it didn't use Russian forces invading the Donbas and Crimea. Eight years of denying it constantly, in general and in specifics.
Second, you blame the victim. "It's the West's fault they believed our invasion to be an invasion! Not that our soldiers seized key areas with non-uniformed forces and launched a large conventional invasion to follow that up." Always say it happened because of something done by someone else, not the person(s) who actually made the decision to invade.
The third is to change the subject. You don't care about the legal basis of military command, and neither does Russia, but it's a much better topic to talk about rather than who did what. It also admits, quite frankly, that the invasion of 2014 was an invasion done by Russian forces.
You can call inconveniant facts lies all you wish. There was no invasion, because Russian forces (or possibly just weapons) never crossed any borders that Ukraine controlled at the time.
Russia also did not use Russian forces, other entities *used* Russian forces (to some extent or another) and weapons in order to defend themselves against the Ukrainian government whose authority over them they do not recognise (and never had). If I lend you a hammer to bash nails, it is not the person lending that hammer that bashed the nails but the person to whom the hammer is lent.
It isn't the same Ukraine it was before, because that is what happens when you have rebellions. You do not gain control automatically of all territory of a country simply because you overthrew the government of said country.
I am saddened to see it all around me here in the Netherlands as well. A lot more people than I'd like seem to be mindwashed by second hand or third hand Russian desinformation. There's a large overlap, the people who were most strongly protesting corona lockdowns and vaccinations now are in the pro-Russia camp.
Plus there's the alt-right anti-EU movements that all too happily jump on the bandwagon, as long as it makes the EU look bad. (1)
I am most saddened by the fact that it's not just low education folks either. All too often I find myself flabberghasted to hear people of decent scientific background spout horsehit that in my line of education would classify as persistent delusion, possibly case of psychosis.
(1) it's ironic. Putin accuses Ukraine and the West of being nazis. While in fact, the handful of nazis that we have, are Putin's strongest supporters.
Paranoia seems to be common among the pro-Ukrainian lot. Somehow a powerless, marginalised minority in Western countries has, in true Witchunting fashion an immense propoganda/media machine, despite the fact said machine is banned in those countries and even when it wasn't had marginal following.
I haven't read any Russian propoganda for ages because that is all censored to death. I am just clever and non-guillable enough to distinguish fact from fantasy, de-facto from de-jure. Everything Western propogandists rely on their miseducated population being unable to do.
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Topic: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Personal Diary & Mutual Support (Read 119160 times)