The key issue for me is the right of a people to self determination.
The people who live in the eastern parts of Ukraine are overwhelming Russian speaking and identify as ethnically Russian. They voted three times in various ways for some form of preserving their cultural rights, only to have their expression of Democratic will met with violent militias, shelling, and other violence, and then finally voted once again to secede from Ukraine, largely motivated by the extreme hostility from right wing Ukrainian nationalists who were banning the use of Russian, imposing assimilationist education policies, banning political parties that represented the people there, and even banning the free exercise of religion if that religious practice looked to the Russian Orthodox Church for leadership.
The principle of the self determination of a people to choose their own government demands respect and Ukraine has no right to impose their will on a population that doesn’t want it.
You should look at what the people who actually live there, in the east not just those in Kyiv, have been saying for a decade. They don’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore and it’s because of the extreme violence Ukraine has inflicted upon them since 2014.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results? Just an FYI elections in Russia itself are not free from corruption in any sense of the word. But I'm sure you take putin's word when he says their fair Lol 2014 is when Russian backed separatists began working in Ukraine, Russia has always been the aggressor and could've stopped the violence whenever they choose.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results?
literally the consent "isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?" meme but with America
but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn't recognize them for doing that and they're just like "Well, shucks. I guess we're going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren't ready to accept us yet!"
That's all on you for misunderstanding how being a country works. It doesn't matter that you hold elections but that you hold the monopoly of violence over the population. That's what gets you recognition. Color me shocked that you don't even know how the most rudimentary geopolitics works ..
What are you saying? The Ukrainian state held a monopoly of violence over the people of the Donbass and used it regularly since the coup in 2014. These people in turn declared independence in order to free themselves from this violence, but the Ukrainian state wouldn't have it. The only way to counter violent suppression is with violence. These people know this and it's why they invited Russian military intervention to their cause.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014.
Are you saying they ::gasp:: used violence during a WAR? ThEy UsEd vIolEnCe DuRIng A wAr?!?
This is just copium. Whatever you believe, the result was a fascist Ukranian state that supports literal Nazis shelling civilians. What were they supposed to do, vote harder? Oh right, their voting rights were suppressed and their political parties banned from running in elections. At a certain point, when faced with violent suppression, violence become your only option.
Are you saying they ::gasp:: used violence during a WAR? ThEy UsEd vIolEnCe DuRIng A wAr?!?
You're the one who brought up violence. I'm simply trying to present the world to you as it is instead of through the filter of liberal propoganda that you so happily slurp up daily. That boot is so deep down your throat, maybe you should start an only fans.
You'd have to look at the situation from before the war started, like all the way back to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2004 Ukranian color revolution. NATO instigated the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which made relations between Ukraine and Russia much more tense. That's when Ukraine began more earnestly shelling the Donbas region as well, which is a region of people who've always been more sympathetic towards Russia. The residents there even speak Russian. The situation became more tense to the point Ukraine was floating NATO membership, which would have resulted in Russia being more surrounded than they ever have.
Russian troops could leave, and that would result in the same situation as before and would inevitably erupt into conflict again. NATO encirclement, ethnically Russian people getting shelled, Nazi Ukrainian troops in the region, Ukraine denying self-determination for people within its own borders. It would still be a geopolitical mess with potential for another war.
Russia has in fact called for ceasefires and peace talks multiple times already. Early on in the war Ukraine seemed willing to have talks, but NATO pressured them out of it. The situation now is that despite Russia calling for ceasefires, the position of the US and other NATO allies is that no ceasefire will be accepted unless Russia completely leaves the region. That's pigheaded and wrong. Any stop to the fighting should be accepted. That means NATO is calling for an extension to the war, not Russia.
The best possible way for this conflict to end is Ukraine cuts its losses, Russia annexes Donbas and Luhansk, and the fighting stops. Normal, average working class people are harmed as long as this conflict keeps going and as leftists we should be in favor of war ending, not persisting. Ukraine losing territory and the fight ending is a massively better situation than the fight becoming another decades long quagmire like Afghanistan or Syria.
Classic, Russia acts like a petulant child not accepting the fact that it can't live up to the glory days when it has complete dominance over it's neighbors so it manufacturers a reason why it must invade a country and blame NATO because the Ukrainian get support from territorial aggression. Allowing them to keep their holdings is the same as appeasement a bad idea in front of a conscript army. Please explain why Russia dashed for kyiv of they "just wanted to annex a bit of the east" lol u dummy. Listening to you is like being at the end of the human centipede Putin's at the front and I'm at the back.
Allowing them to keep their holdings is the same as appeasement a bad idea in front of a conscript army
Yeah it is appeasement. Is open warfare better than appeasement? Should they fight until the last Ukrainian? No, that's awful. War between capitalist states is not the realm of the working class or poor people. The victims of this war are people caught in the crossfire, Ukrainian, Russian, or otherwise, and ending the war even through territorial concession would be better than what's happening now.
I think Russia made a dash to Kyiv to flank the Ukranian army from mobilizing in the east so that Russian bases and supply routes could be established, but I have not followed troop movements much since last year. Russia made the correct assumption that Ukraine would focus most of its attention on defending the capital if it were threatened. I think that strategy worked because Russia captured not just Donbas and Lunansk, but Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well. You've made the mistake of thinking I'm defending Russia because I explained how I see the context. Russia shouldn't have invaded, NATO shouldn't exist, the 2014 Ukranian coup shouldn't have happened, people in Donbas and Luhansk should be allowed to exercise self-determination. None of the conflict should have happened and the primary cause of the situation is, like always, neoliberal imperialism. Maybe there were non-violent ways out of this conflict, but they're all imaginary now. We live in reality.
I don't know what people want from me here. Sorry, I don't see this conflict as pure territorial expansion ordered by Putin on this basis of his moral failures or greed or whatever. Because that's not what it is, and me saying that somehow means I've got Putin whispering in my ear like a witch in Salem hearing the voice of Satan. This conflict is one resolution in a long line of unresolved conflicts going all the way back to 1991, it's more than Putin, more than even just Ukraine and Russia.
For reference, is this hegemony in the broad sense where Germany has hegemony over Munich? Or the narrower sense in which we would say the US has hegemony over Puerto Rico or France had hegemony over Burkina Faso? You've demonstrated a propensity to play fast and loose with your terms, so quippy answers aren't that helpful.
Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hegemony
Regional hegemony is a thing too it doesn't have to be global wiki says that in the first 2 sentence of the article. Putin himself said in 2022, "The era of the unipolar world order is nearing its end" hmm I wonder if that means he intends to make his own...
You're a deplorable waste of bones and organs. When this war is over and there's a well armed Nazi militia committing pogroms and wreacking havock across Europe, I hope that you'll reconsider your position.
I don't, but that won't stop you from believing whatever fantasies you find convenient. Explains a lot about how you maintain your delusional worldview.
A group that already has a presence in the UN? I was talking about how recognition works for countries. But low and behold that nuance escapes you. It's not my fault that u & 72 don't understand how international recognition and civil wars work.
It doesn’t matter that you hold elections but that you hold the monopoly of violence over the population. That’s what gets you recognition.
You're contradicting yourself you're contradictinnnggggg yourself hahaha it's okay to admit you exhausted your line of arguing and can't defend anything more. Come to the tankie side, it's not so bad. We're right all the time.
It's not my fault you don't know how occupation works. I'm specifically talking about a separatists Donbas that is able to fend off both Ukraine and Russia assaults could obtain recognition by the international community through securing it's borders. Of course you intentionally misunderstood what I'm saying at all times and declare victory by being a dumbass
Never met a true US civil war Confederate supporter, the south had their own government & constitution and voted to leave the union. I guess according to your logic the northern federal government was in the wrong in order to preserve the union cuz the south had elections & elections.
If Texas today had a vote to secede then they’d have absolutely every right to secede since the current electoral laws allow for the will of the people to be expressed.
The fact you didn’t stop to think about the slaves is because you’re a fucking cracker.
Which electoral law in Texas allows for this? Do you know what the supremacy clause is? Do you have a fucking Clue what you're talking about? Clearly you don't.
Hey by your criteria all you gotta do is have a vote and boom bang beyowza u gotta new country. I suppose since you're a tankie you have to pretend things like national sovereignty just doesn't exist so u can get away with invading your neighbor.
You are changing the question, since Russia's violence does make Donbas part of Russia [to follow your logic] anway, but 72 was talking about democratic legitimacy and you damn well know it.
Democratic legitimacy? By internationallly recognizing any group that holds elections & breaks off a country? My good man, that's a terrible idea. Having a monopoly over violence is just a prerequisite but of course you knew that already since Donbas is occupied until legally resolved via treaty.
Better than murdering them with polonium or putting them away in prison??? What a case of whatttaboutism. Did I ever make the claim that Ukraine was a bastion of democracy? No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads. All you talking heads do is deflect. I say that Cuz I noticed you never made any attempt to claim that the referendums were legit. Which they weren't.
Why does “they voted for it repeatedly for a decade” not compute for you?
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine? Because they don’t, not after a decade of being brutalized by far right militias and seeing their cities shelled by the Ukrainian military and being denied the right to speak their language or practice their religion.
When you talk about “Russian backed separatists” you realize those separatists live there don’t you? You know what the word separatist means right?
Ukraine is using military force to deny them their right to self determination and the only reason you want to call the referendum illegitimate is because the people who live there chose the wrong answer.
You don’t value their views at all. They don’t matter to you. Which makes your position immoral and bloodthirsty.
The one where they voted to secede and the multiple elections over the past decade where they voted for political parties that were then banned by the Ukrainian government which is now also refusing to hold constitutionally mandated elections for fear of how they’d vote again.
You didn’t answer my question:
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine?
I'd say the issue is split between those who want to join and those who want to stay. Your problem is with international law which respects the territorial sovereignty of nations and does not recognize a right of sucession by a group unless their right of internal self determination is compromised. In this case the Ukrainian constitution requires a referendum of all Ukrainian people. Keeping that one mind Here's a question for you:
Are you of the opinion that the people of chechnia wanted to be a part of Russia? Those guys full on declared independence & had elections in 1991 LMFAO
unless their right of internal self determination is compromised
Oh wait what’s that?
Lmao that’s what happened after the Ukrainian nationalists starting arming Nazi militias and banned their political parties you clown.
Banning their political parties and denying them the right to use their own language or practice their own religion or have their own political representation is called denying them their right to internal self determination.
Yeah banning pro Russian parties after Russia invaded them? Kinda a no brainer. + Russia was arming separatists first you chung mungus. I noticed you didn't answer my question
Are you of the opinion that the people of chechnia wanted to be a part of Russia? Those guys full on declared independence & the independence leader got 90% of the vote
I'm a realist because even though it's not morally right I understand that on the international stage might makes right. I don't agree with it but authoritarian countries with strong armies can coerce weaker countries & entities into capitulating (check out findlandization). If you were knowledgeable you'd know that no other countries recognized chechen independence either, perhaps because the ruskies declared the elections illegal the day before they happened... Reminds of another recent situation huh?
It's okay to feel conflicted those contradictions can allow you to analyze why you held certain beliefs to begin with and is the beginning to a more complex understanding of events.
Im glad you acknowledge that Ukraine and the west does not have a moral leg to stand on but I hope you eventually take the next step and recognize that means the hundreds of thousands of dead and permanently injured Ukrainians and Russians makes this a moral travesty and a crime against humanity.
Recognizing the moral right lies with the separatists but choosing to support the use of military force against them because “fuck Russia” makes you the bad guy.
Lol @ Russia apologists trying to defend Russias invasion and genocide of the Ukrainian people + spouting easily debunkable talking points. Can't wait until I get you hear to spill the same watered down trash when the ruskies invade Poland for the 8th time this century.
Since you like relying on evidence and moral bases so much, what is your evidence Russia is committing a genocide in Ukraine? Reminder: a genocide has to be explicit. Killing soldiers of a country you're at war with does not meet the standard to be killed genocide.
Mass graves do not fit in the criteria set by the UN for genocide.
Secondly Bucha was an Azov crime. The mayor just a few days before Ukraine rolled into the city did not mention anything about a killing of civilians. There were recordings made just a few days before they suddenly "found" all the civilians where the streets were completely empty with no bodies.
For Izium there's videos of Russian troops burying people properly and even Ukrainian POWs witnessing the burials. They were likely set up in a mass grave by Ukraine to farm atrocity propaganda.
Oh so now it doen't meet your criteria dude. Typical tankie I bet u don't consider the holodomor a genocide either. You talk about morals and then say killing civilians ain't a crime. Such a lack of self awareness... How do you even breathe.
Typical tankie I bet u don't consider the holodomor a genocide either.
The mainstream position among liberal historians (and not pop historians or politicians) is indeed that the famine was not a genocide. Some reading on that topic: https://www.villagevoice.com/in-search-of-a-soviet-holocaust/
The holodomor is a lie created by nazis to downplay the actual genocide of the Holocaust, by spewing this bullshit your engaging in a form of Holocaust denial
China liberating Tibet from a theocracy built on a foundation of slavery and run by pedophiles wasn't a genocide either
All of your boy who cried Adolf garbage is just making it easier for actual fascists and nazis to maintain or regain power and you'll somehow alway find an excuse to support them
I don't know how fascists like you function, don't care either
I ain't fash but you can believe whatever delusions you want. Russia is committing war crimes and committed genocide in the past. And instead you bend over backwards to suck putin's fat dick and engage in revisionist history so you can believe in an ideal of something that never existed. What a shocker... You calling someone who disagrees with you to be a Nazi, I expected you to at least call me a liberal first lol.
"By general consensus, Stalin was partially responsible." That author would've been executed or gulaged in the ussr since it was a crime to mention the holodomor & blame the authorities. I bet to you that sounds exactly like how a responsible government would respond to criticism.
Lol, u pretending to be so moral that you hide behind the strictest definitions of the word genocide. If committing hundreds to 30,000 war crimes isn't bad enough for you to take seriously then yeah I'm guilty of a bit of hyperbole, at least I'm not a genocide denier like you clearly are. The UN takes its sweet time to name atrocities with "genocide" but changing that definition doesn't make the innocent in those mass graves killed by Russian troops any more alive.
I'm using the UN definition of genocide which most states have agreed to. Earlier you said that most states did not recognize the referenda held in the Donbass so they didn't count. You're projecting so much we could watch a movie with the whole 'grad on your forehead bro, have some academic rigour if you're gonna try arguing.
The only thing you contested is that it's not considered a genocide & after which I said I was guilty of hyperbole. But I noticed how you didn't dispute the fact that mass graves show up everywhere the Russian army occupied.
How you can support such barbarity while it's ongoing is past my capabilities to understand, you should teach classes about how to live in denial.
Yeah every atrocity just so happens to be a trick or a plot against the Soviets. Russians have been downplaying every atrocity since they axed the romanovs. I put people like you right next to Holocaust deniers because there's not a piece of evidence that you won't say is faked because you want so desprately to to believe in something that never existed. You'll believe every shred of anti West propaganda .Pathetic. Someday you might realize that every world power commits mass murder now & again but it's not going to be today.
if you actually knew anything about Holocaust denialism you wouldn't even make this comparison because you'd have realized how stupid and uninformed you'd sound. Alas, you are just one more white liberal who thinks their 3 years of high school prepared them to know everything there is to know about the world.
It's about this time that you finally get sweet release and earn your ban, because what you're doing is actual Holocaust denial, trying to downplay it by comparing it to an event that was nothing like it in scope, size, and amount of deaths.
Remember the Molotov ribbentrop pact? Or that time after WWI? You've got a super selective memory. I give you points for almost directly quoting your god emperor putin on that one.
You know France and England signed some pacts with the Nazis is the lead up to the Soviets making a deal with the devil, right? And the Soviets knew the nazis were always going to invade them, because they literally just knew about what the Nazis were publicly stating they'd like to do.
I'm assuming you're talking about the Munich pact? Yeah it might've been a mistake but the allies needed time to build up. I suspect that the soviets would've invaded Germany if they hadn't been attacked first.
I'm assuming you're talking about the Munich pact? Yeah it might've been a mistake but the allies needed time to build up.
In order to attack Germany, right?
I suspect that the soviets would've invaded Germany if they hadn't been attacked first.
This is good.
It seems like all the major allied powers wanted to build up to attack Germany. The only difference was the Soviets saw fascism as an existential threat and the other major allied powers saw them as potential competition.
No, they didn't, unlike the Soviets who were dramatically less developed on account of starting from a war-torn semi-feudal backwater.
I suspect that the soviets would've invaded Germany if they hadn't been attacked first.
What's your point in even mentioning this? To demonstrate that you know that they weren't allies? Invading Nazi Germany is a good thing to do! Especially in the case of a Slavic country that would be subjected to genocide (as the USSR, like Poland, historically was) if they just waited for the Nazis to invade!
Yup, no one's gonna argue that the Soviets can't make a lot of tanks. What's my point in saying that? Just shooting the shit, lol anything I say will be taken out of context and used as justification that I'm a Nazi. So good on you for being another rube.
You mean the areas populated by Belorussians and Ukrainians that was conquered by Poland from Russia in the war of 1922 when Poland took advantage of the civil war to seize a big chunk of Belorussian and ukraine and taken back by Russia when the polish state collapsed following the Nazi invasion of Poland?
None of the Russian parts of the MR pact were populated by mostly polish people, with the exception of Lviv which is still part of Ukraine today.
It’s a selective reading of history to call Belorussians and Ukrainians the rightful property of Poland especially in light of the brutal Polonization campaign they suffered, being reduced to serfdom by Polish invaders.
As it happens I’d actually support restoring that part to Poland, Lviv, and also the Hungarian bit of Ukraine to Hungary since both of those ethnic minorities, along with the ethnic Greek minority, have all been suffering a lot under the rule of the Ukrainian nationalists and have also faced restrictions on their internal self determination such as language rights being suppressed or in the case of the Greek minority also religious persecution.
Ahh considering Poland didn't exist until after WW1 & both sides disregarded the curzon line it's hard to say where Polands eastern border should've been but I do agree that they def pushed too far east. I don't understand your reference to serfdom. I thought that was abolished in the 18th century.
You’re really going to argue the polinization campaign in Belorussia and Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s was a good thing? A moral gray area?
Jesus fucking Christ.
Hopefully you’re a teenager who doesn’t know what you’re talking about because if you do then you need to eat a brick if you’re really going to take that line, and there are plenty of people alive in both belorussia and Ukraine today who would feed it to you if they heard you saying that including the Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi gangs you are here supporting.
One of the more brutal events of the 20th century that is only overlooked due to the fact that Poland soon suffered worse evils than those Poland inflicted on the Ukrainians and Belorussians at the hands of the Nazis - until the Soviets kicked the Nazis out.
Edit: actually given your world view includes supporting the campaign of Ukrainization and the violent assimilationist policies directed at the ethnic minorities in Ukraine, you have form here. It seems you’re actually very comfortable with violence being used against ethnic minorities given how you’re here supporting multiple instances of it.
But honestly, and I am truly being straight with you here, I think the more likely truth is you’re a bit of a dumbass who doesn’t know your history and you don’t actually realize what you’re supporting here but your ego won’t let you let go.
It’s not well covered in English language history which basically just skips over the fact poland was a viciously fascist state in the 1930s but it does get covered by Timothy Snyder, although he has a pretty firmly anti-Russian slant through his work.
You can see a lot of the works that cover it are in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian
60-70 hangings a day to fight “guerrillas”, floggings and torture to control the population, the Belorussians not having access to the education system, and the use of concentration camps to hold political activists, and trade unionists. Language rights were suppressed and the local population were forcibly “Polonized” / assimilated while also being held in an oppressed state as a cheap labor force for Polish settlers who were given the land as an agricultural fiefdom no different in any sense from the lebensraum concept - especially during the Polish fascist period of the mid to late 1930s.
Today the western part of Belorussia is still less industrialized than the east and the divide clearly falls along the line of polish occupation and colonial-settlement.
Ironically it was the atrocious treatment of the Belorussian minority that Hitler pointed at when claiming the German minority in Poland needed to be “rescued” - although the German minority were actually not treated badly.
You Redditors just love using this term, but invasion and genocide are not actually synonymous. You can call Putin apathetic to civilian casualties, but that's not the same as genocide. Of course Ukrainian jingoists love this kind of language because accusing Russia of genocide has been in the playbook for quite a while now
Hey look here's the news source (village voice) you posted talking about what they're doing in Ukraine right now. Lol nice one
https://www.villagevoice.com/russias-crimes-in-ukraine-against-humanity-and-nature/
"By general consensus, Stalin was partially responsible." That author would've been executed or gulaged in the ussr since it was a crime to mention the holodomor & blame the authorities. I bet to you that sounds exactly like how a responsible government would respond to criticism.
Layers of deflection to avoid just reading a fucking article. No, mentioning the famine was not a crime and you are literally just making that up because you think it fits the vibe of things.
Why are you so unwilling to contend with the actual content of the article?
Even if Russians killed every Ukrainian there'd still be dummies like u in this thread claiming no genocide happened & that it was their fault for resisting.
Since you want to quote laws you should be aware that since parts of the Donbass are occupied by Russia (namely Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts), Ukrainian law does not apply there. The territories, until the referendum was held, fell under UN Occupation Law because it was "actually placed under the authority of the adverse foreign armed forces"(source: https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation).
The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised. A State's territory may therefore be partially occupied, in which case the laws and obligations of occupation apply only in the territory that is actually occupied. When a State consents to the presence of foreign troops there is no occupation.
Ukrainian law does not apply to territories under Russian authority.
Lol is that the Kremlin crackpot loop hole?
Step 1 invade a country
Step 2 have a totally legit election
Step 3 annex after a totally not sham referendum
Step 4 borders? What borders? Partial occupation is fine
Step 5 blame Western powers
Rosemary DiCarlo said it best, "Unilateral actions aimed to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the attempted acquisition by force by one State of another State's territory while claiming to represent the will of the people, cannot be regarded as legal under international law"
Doesn't matter what you think, I'm using the UN definition which you should lap up like the good liberal dog you are. It's not even what I think, it's literally what UN countries have agreed to.
No you're not, u found 2 paragraphs that kinda say what you want and went from there. Do I need to repeat the steps to the crackpot Kremlin loop hole until you see how silly they sound?
Rosemary Anne DiCarlo (born 1947) is an American diplomat who has served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs since May 2018. She previously served as acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations[1] following the resignation of Susan Rice to become the National Security Advisor.
I wonder if the ambassador to the United nations or a tankie on an Internet forum is more educated about UN occupations....
Your problem is with international law which respects the territorial sovereignty of nations and does not recognize a right of sucession by a group unless their right of internal self determination is compromised. In this case the Ukrainian constitution requires a referendum of all Ukrainian people
So when rightists oppose secession because, while they hate the ethnic Russians who want to leave, they don't want those ethnic Russians taking the land, etc. with them, we should be moved by this motivation and not consider the right of self-determination compromised?
No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads.
LMAO you have zero self awareness and its kind of adorable. You aren't in your liberal echo chamber here and no amount of tantrum throwing is going to make anyone take you seriously.
What is your proof the referenda were not legit? You're the one who's going against the grain here, it's you who needs to prove your stance. I won't accept it without evidence.
The key issue for me is the right of a people to self determination.
The people who live in the eastern parts of Ukraine are overwhelming Russian speaking and identify as ethnically Russian. They voted three times in various ways for some form of preserving their cultural rights, only to have their expression of Democratic will met with violent militias, shelling, and other violence, and then finally voted once again to secede from Ukraine, largely motivated by the extreme hostility from right wing Ukrainian nationalists who were banning the use of Russian, imposing assimilationist education policies, banning political parties that represented the people there, and even banning the free exercise of religion if that religious practice looked to the Russian Orthodox Church for leadership.
The principle of the self determination of a people to choose their own government demands respect and Ukraine has no right to impose their will on a population that doesn’t want it.
You should look at what the people who actually live there, in the east not just those in Kyiv, have been saying for a decade. They don’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore and it’s because of the extreme violence Ukraine has inflicted upon them since 2014.
Which referendums are you referring to and does any country besides Russia or North Korea accept the results? Just an FYI elections in Russia itself are not free from corruption in any sense of the word. But I'm sure you take putin's word when he says their fair Lol 2014 is when Russian backed separatists began working in Ukraine, Russia has always been the aggressor and could've stopped the violence whenever they choose.
literally the consent "isn't there somebody you forgot to ask?" meme but with America
but this is also a very funny way of imagining how self-determination and independence movements work a lot of the time. Imagine a world where a newfound country breaks free from an existing one and then that newfound country sees that 90% of the UN, including the country they just broke free from, doesn't recognize them for doing that and they're just like "Well, shucks. I guess we're going back and re-joining the country again, because these people aren't ready to accept us yet!"
That's all on you for misunderstanding how being a country works. It doesn't matter that you hold elections but that you hold the monopoly of violence over the population. That's what gets you recognition. Color me shocked that you don't even know how the most rudimentary geopolitics works ..
What are you saying? The Ukrainian state held a monopoly of violence over the people of the Donbass and used it regularly since the coup in 2014. These people in turn declared independence in order to free themselves from this violence, but the Ukrainian state wouldn't have it. The only way to counter violent suppression is with violence. These people know this and it's why they invited Russian military intervention to their cause.
It wasn't a coup it was a revolution.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is an ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian-backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014.
Are you saying they ::gasp:: used violence during a WAR? ThEy UsEd vIolEnCe DuRIng A wAr?!?
This is just copium. Whatever you believe, the result was a fascist Ukranian state that supports literal Nazis shelling civilians. What were they supposed to do, vote harder? Oh right, their voting rights were suppressed and their political parties banned from running in elections. At a certain point, when faced with violent suppression, violence become your only option.
You're the one who brought up violence. I'm simply trying to present the world to you as it is instead of through the filter of liberal propoganda that you so happily slurp up daily. That boot is so deep down your throat, maybe you should start an only fans.
It's copium but it's also provably wrong; the US came out and admitted they got Porochenko elected.
but we don't keep up with geopolitics apparently, while this dude is stuck in the 70s lol 🤓
Oh 💯. I was just pointing out that the human rights abuses committed by the fascist Ukranian state are unjustifiable regardless.
You're the ones that think Russia is still a bastion of Marxism. Get a clue, the Soviet Union is gone and it's not coming back anytime soon.
Nobody here thinks that Russia is "still a bastion of Marxism". Like literally nobody. You're a real laugh.
Color me shocked. Communists support non marxist militaristic imperialism over Western economic imperialism & Capitalism wins either way.
I support an end to war and NATO instigated this war and keeps it going.
How do you figure? Despite what you say it was Russian troops crossing the border they could leave at any time.
You'd have to look at the situation from before the war started, like all the way back to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and the 2004 Ukranian color revolution. NATO instigated the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which made relations between Ukraine and Russia much more tense. That's when Ukraine began more earnestly shelling the Donbas region as well, which is a region of people who've always been more sympathetic towards Russia. The residents there even speak Russian. The situation became more tense to the point Ukraine was floating NATO membership, which would have resulted in Russia being more surrounded than they ever have.
Russian troops could leave, and that would result in the same situation as before and would inevitably erupt into conflict again. NATO encirclement, ethnically Russian people getting shelled, Nazi Ukrainian troops in the region, Ukraine denying self-determination for people within its own borders. It would still be a geopolitical mess with potential for another war.
Russia has in fact called for ceasefires and peace talks multiple times already. Early on in the war Ukraine seemed willing to have talks, but NATO pressured them out of it. The situation now is that despite Russia calling for ceasefires, the position of the US and other NATO allies is that no ceasefire will be accepted unless Russia completely leaves the region. That's pigheaded and wrong. Any stop to the fighting should be accepted. That means NATO is calling for an extension to the war, not Russia.
The best possible way for this conflict to end is Ukraine cuts its losses, Russia annexes Donbas and Luhansk, and the fighting stops. Normal, average working class people are harmed as long as this conflict keeps going and as leftists we should be in favor of war ending, not persisting. Ukraine losing territory and the fight ending is a massively better situation than the fight becoming another decades long quagmire like Afghanistan or Syria.
Classic, Russia acts like a petulant child not accepting the fact that it can't live up to the glory days when it has complete dominance over it's neighbors so it manufacturers a reason why it must invade a country and blame NATO because the Ukrainian get support from territorial aggression. Allowing them to keep their holdings is the same as appeasement a bad idea in front of a conscript army. Please explain why Russia dashed for kyiv of they "just wanted to annex a bit of the east" lol u dummy. Listening to you is like being at the end of the human centipede Putin's at the front and I'm at the back.
Yeah it is appeasement. Is open warfare better than appeasement? Should they fight until the last Ukrainian? No, that's awful. War between capitalist states is not the realm of the working class or poor people. The victims of this war are people caught in the crossfire, Ukrainian, Russian, or otherwise, and ending the war even through territorial concession would be better than what's happening now.
I think Russia made a dash to Kyiv to flank the Ukranian army from mobilizing in the east so that Russian bases and supply routes could be established, but I have not followed troop movements much since last year. Russia made the correct assumption that Ukraine would focus most of its attention on defending the capital if it were threatened. I think that strategy worked because Russia captured not just Donbas and Lunansk, but Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as well. You've made the mistake of thinking I'm defending Russia because I explained how I see the context. Russia shouldn't have invaded, NATO shouldn't exist, the 2014 Ukranian coup shouldn't have happened, people in Donbas and Luhansk should be allowed to exercise self-determination. None of the conflict should have happened and the primary cause of the situation is, like always, neoliberal imperialism. Maybe there were non-violent ways out of this conflict, but they're all imaginary now. We live in reality.
I don't know what people want from me here. Sorry, I don't see this conflict as pure territorial expansion ordered by Putin on this basis of his moral failures or greed or whatever. Because that's not what it is, and me saying that somehow means I've got Putin whispering in my ear like a witch in Salem hearing the voice of Satan. This conflict is one resolution in a long line of unresolved conflicts going all the way back to 1991, it's more than Putin, more than even just Ukraine and Russia.
What constitutes imperialism in Russia?
Invading & Maintaining a hegemony over their neighbors.
For reference, is this hegemony in the broad sense where Germany has hegemony over Munich? Or the narrower sense in which we would say the US has hegemony over Puerto Rico or France had hegemony over Burkina Faso? You've demonstrated a propensity to play fast and loose with your terms, so quippy answers aren't that helpful.
Is that also your definition of imperialism? What do you mean by hegemony? There's only one hegemony in the world and it's the US.
Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hegemony Regional hegemony is a thing too it doesn't have to be global wiki says that in the first 2 sentence of the article. Putin himself said in 2022, "The era of the unipolar world order is nearing its end" hmm I wonder if that means he intends to make his own...
oh my god you actually linked to wikipedia you're so precious I could squeeze you
Lol you'd say a dictionary is Western propaganda. Sorry you learned English from tankie shit posts.
Can I adopt you please? I promise to feed you and brush you and take you on walks and
Only as long as I get to take a dump in your shoe.
Removed by mod
You're a deplorable waste of bones and organs. When this war is over and there's a well armed Nazi militia committing pogroms and wreacking havock across Europe, I hope that you'll reconsider your position.
Cool
Yeah we all know you think nazis are cool, that's why you suck so much
I don't, but that won't stop you from believing whatever fantasies you find convenient. Explains a lot about how you maintain your delusional worldview.
Who has the monopoly of violence in Luhansk and Donetsk currently...?
A group that already has a presence in the UN? I was talking about how recognition works for countries. But low and behold that nuance escapes you. It's not my fault that u & 72 don't understand how international recognition and civil wars work.
You're contradicting yourself you're contradictinnnggggg yourself hahaha it's okay to admit you exhausted your line of arguing and can't defend anything more. Come to the tankie side, it's not so bad. We're right all the time.
It's not my fault you don't know how occupation works. I'm specifically talking about a separatists Donbas that is able to fend off both Ukraine and Russia assaults could obtain recognition by the international community through securing it's borders. Of course you intentionally misunderstood what I'm saying at all times and declare victory by being a dumbass
But Donbass doesn't want to fight off Russia, they voted to join them, remember?
Your trolling is weak, please do better. You're entertaining but you need to step up your game.
Never met a true US civil war Confederate supporter, the south had their own government & constitution and voted to leave the union. I guess according to your logic the northern federal government was in the wrong in order to preserve the union cuz the south had elections & elections.
DID THE SLAVES VOTE IN THOSE ELECTIONS?
If Texas today had a vote to secede then they’d have absolutely every right to secede since the current electoral laws allow for the will of the people to be expressed.
The fact you didn’t stop to think about the slaves is because you’re a fucking cracker.
What does it matter if they did or not?
Which electoral law in Texas allows for this? Do you know what the supremacy clause is? Do you have a fucking Clue what you're talking about? Clearly you don't.
Much better, but you've activated my trap card
Whataboutism
Hey by your criteria all you gotta do is have a vote and boom bang beyowza u gotta new country. I suppose since you're a tankie you have to pretend things like national sovereignty just doesn't exist so u can get away with invading your neighbor.
You are changing the question, since Russia's violence does make Donbas part of Russia [to follow your logic] anway, but 72 was talking about democratic legitimacy and you damn well know it.
Democratic legitimacy? By internationallly recognizing any group that holds elections & breaks off a country? My good man, that's a terrible idea. Having a monopoly over violence is just a prerequisite but of course you knew that already since Donbas is occupied until legally resolved via treaty.
You think democracy is a terrible idea?
Of course they do. Libs hate democracy
Do you think every group that breaks off should be internationallly recognized dumbass? I like democracy but even the Greeks knew it has problems.
“That referendum and those elections don’t count because the USA said no” truly the voice of democracy and freedom.
I guess it was Putin that forced Zelenskyy to ban the political opposition? Because the damn Putin bots kept voting wrong.
Better than murdering them with polonium or putting them away in prison??? What a case of whatttaboutism. Did I ever make the claim that Ukraine was a bastion of democracy? No! your fevered brain is just rattling off talking points that you heard parroted in other threads. All you talking heads do is deflect. I say that Cuz I noticed you never made any attempt to claim that the referendums were legit. Which they weren't.
Why does “they voted for it repeatedly for a decade” not compute for you?
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine? Because they don’t, not after a decade of being brutalized by far right militias and seeing their cities shelled by the Ukrainian military and being denied the right to speak their language or practice their religion.
When you talk about “Russian backed separatists” you realize those separatists live there don’t you? You know what the word separatist means right?
Ukraine is using military force to deny them their right to self determination and the only reason you want to call the referendum illegitimate is because the people who live there chose the wrong answer.
You don’t value their views at all. They don’t matter to you. Which makes your position immoral and bloodthirsty.
Imma put this simply since you've started repeating yourself ad nauseam. Which 3 specific referendums are you referring to?
The one where they voted to secede and the multiple elections over the past decade where they voted for political parties that were then banned by the Ukrainian government which is now also refusing to hold constitutionally mandated elections for fear of how they’d vote again.
You didn’t answer my question:
Are you of the opinion that the people in the east want to be part of Ukraine?
I'd say the issue is split between those who want to join and those who want to stay. Your problem is with international law which respects the territorial sovereignty of nations and does not recognize a right of sucession by a group unless their right of internal self determination is compromised. In this case the Ukrainian constitution requires a referendum of all Ukrainian people. Keeping that one mind Here's a question for you:
Are you of the opinion that the people of chechnia wanted to be a part of Russia? Those guys full on declared independence & had elections in 1991 LMFAO
Oh wait what’s that?
Lmao that’s what happened after the Ukrainian nationalists starting arming Nazi militias and banned their political parties you clown.
Banning their political parties and denying them the right to use their own language or practice their own religion or have their own political representation is called denying them their right to internal self determination.
Yeah banning pro Russian parties after Russia invaded them? Kinda a no brainer. + Russia was arming separatists first you chung mungus. I noticed you didn't answer my question
Are you of the opinion that the people of chechnia wanted to be a part of Russia? Those guys full on declared independence & the independence leader got 90% of the vote
You: let’s talk about something else because I’m feeling really fucking stupid right now
I guess you’re saying you fully support Putin’s crackdown on Grozny then right?
Get your deflecting moronic ass out of here and have a think about what you are actually supporting right now and today in Ukraine.
Because you’re not supporting democracy and freedom. Not at all.
I'm a realist because even though it's not morally right I understand that on the international stage might makes right. I don't agree with it but authoritarian countries with strong armies can coerce weaker countries & entities into capitulating (check out findlandization). If you were knowledgeable you'd know that no other countries recognized chechen independence either, perhaps because the ruskies declared the elections illegal the day before they happened... Reminds of another recent situation huh? It's okay to feel conflicted those contradictions can allow you to analyze why you held certain beliefs to begin with and is the beginning to a more complex understanding of events.
Im glad you acknowledge that Ukraine and the west does not have a moral leg to stand on but I hope you eventually take the next step and recognize that means the hundreds of thousands of dead and permanently injured Ukrainians and Russians makes this a moral travesty and a crime against humanity.
Recognizing the moral right lies with the separatists but choosing to support the use of military force against them because “fuck Russia” makes you the bad guy.
Lol @ Russia apologists trying to defend Russias invasion and genocide of the Ukrainian people + spouting easily debunkable talking points. Can't wait until I get you hear to spill the same watered down trash when the ruskies invade Poland for the 8th time this century.
I wish they'd invade your house. Not your country, just your house specifically.
Cool
Since you like relying on evidence and moral bases so much, what is your evidence Russia is committing a genocide in Ukraine? Reminder: a genocide has to be explicit. Killing soldiers of a country you're at war with does not meet the standard to be killed genocide.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-0aced874ccf203a5219ad37c2ed3f636
You want more? I can probably find a few more atrocities. Ope found another one
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/16/ukraine-mass-grave-with-440-bodies-discovered-in-recaptured-izium-says-police-chief
Seriously... It's not hard to find this stuff, your ignorance is willing.
Mass graves do not fit in the criteria set by the UN for genocide.
Secondly Bucha was an Azov crime. The mayor just a few days before Ukraine rolled into the city did not mention anything about a killing of civilians. There were recordings made just a few days before they suddenly "found" all the civilians where the streets were completely empty with no bodies.
For Izium there's videos of Russian troops burying people properly and even Ukrainian POWs witnessing the burials. They were likely set up in a mass grave by Ukraine to farm atrocity propaganda.
Oh so now it doen't meet your criteria dude. Typical tankie I bet u don't consider the holodomor a genocide either. You talk about morals and then say killing civilians ain't a crime. Such a lack of self awareness... How do you even breathe.
The mainstream position among liberal historians (and not pop historians or politicians) is indeed that the famine was not a genocide. Some reading on that topic: https://www.villagevoice.com/in-search-of-a-soviet-holocaust/
The holodomor is a lie created by nazis to downplay the actual genocide of the Holocaust, by spewing this bullshit your engaging in a form of Holocaust denial
China liberating Tibet from a theocracy built on a foundation of slavery and run by pedophiles wasn't a genocide either
All of your boy who cried Adolf garbage is just making it easier for actual fascists and nazis to maintain or regain power and you'll somehow alway find an excuse to support them
I don't know how fascists like you function, don't care either
I ain't fash but you can believe whatever delusions you want. Russia is committing war crimes and committed genocide in the past. And instead you bend over backwards to suck putin's fat dick and engage in revisionist history so you can believe in an ideal of something that never existed. What a shocker... You calling someone who disagrees with you to be a Nazi, I expected you to at least call me a liberal first lol.
"By general consensus, Stalin was partially responsible." That author would've been executed or gulaged in the ussr since it was a crime to mention the holodomor & blame the authorities. I bet to you that sounds exactly like how a responsible government would respond to criticism.
Where in the UN definition for genocide do mass graves count as genocide?
Lol, u pretending to be so moral that you hide behind the strictest definitions of the word genocide. If committing hundreds to 30,000 war crimes isn't bad enough for you to take seriously then yeah I'm guilty of a bit of hyperbole, at least I'm not a genocide denier like you clearly are. The UN takes its sweet time to name atrocities with "genocide" but changing that definition doesn't make the innocent in those mass graves killed by Russian troops any more alive.
I'm using the UN definition of genocide which most states have agreed to. Earlier you said that most states did not recognize the referenda held in the Donbass so they didn't count. You're projecting so much we could watch a movie with the whole 'grad on your forehead bro, have some academic rigour if you're gonna try arguing.
The only thing you contested is that it's not considered a genocide & after which I said I was guilty of hyperbole. But I noticed how you didn't dispute the fact that mass graves show up everywhere the Russian army occupied. How you can support such barbarity while it's ongoing is past my capabilities to understand, you should teach classes about how to live in denial.
I disputed them in my earlier comment.
Honestly it's for comments like this that we don't ban you, you're very entertaining in a certain way.
Yeah every atrocity just so happens to be a trick or a plot against the Soviets. Russians have been downplaying every atrocity since they axed the romanovs. I put people like you right next to Holocaust deniers because there's not a piece of evidence that you won't say is faked because you want so desprately to to believe in something that never existed. You'll believe every shred of anti West propaganda .Pathetic. Someday you might realize that every world power commits mass murder now & again but it's not going to be today.
if you actually knew anything about Holocaust denialism you wouldn't even make this comparison because you'd have realized how stupid and uninformed you'd sound. Alas, you are just one more white liberal who thinks their 3 years of high school prepared them to know everything there is to know about the world.
It's about this time that you finally get sweet release and earn your ban, because what you're doing is actual Holocaust denial, trying to downplay it by comparing it to an event that was nothing like it in scope, size, and amount of deaths.
Of course we don't consider the holomodor a genocide because its nazi propaganda
You mean when the USSR pushed the Nazis out of Poland and liberated Auswitch is that the event you’re talking about?
Remember the Molotov ribbentrop pact? Or that time after WWI? You've got a super selective memory. I give you points for almost directly quoting your god emperor putin on that one.
Liberals will never forgive the USSR for not letting the Nazis just have Poland.
You know France and England signed some pacts with the Nazis is the lead up to the Soviets making a deal with the devil, right? And the Soviets knew the nazis were always going to invade them, because they literally just knew about what the Nazis were publicly stating they'd like to do.
I'm assuming you're talking about the Munich pact? Yeah it might've been a mistake but the allies needed time to build up. I suspect that the soviets would've invaded Germany if they hadn't been attacked first.
In order to attack Germany, right?
This is good.
It seems like all the major allied powers wanted to build up to attack Germany. The only difference was the Soviets saw fascism as an existential threat and the other major allied powers saw them as potential competition.
No, they didn't, unlike the Soviets who were dramatically less developed on account of starting from a war-torn semi-feudal backwater.
What's your point in even mentioning this? To demonstrate that you know that they weren't allies? Invading Nazi Germany is a good thing to do! Especially in the case of a Slavic country that would be subjected to genocide (as the USSR, like Poland, historically was) if they just waited for the Nazis to invade!
Yup, no one's gonna argue that the Soviets can't make a lot of tanks. What's my point in saying that? Just shooting the shit, lol anything I say will be taken out of context and used as justification that I'm a Nazi. So good on you for being another rube.
I'm a rube for being confused by an aside?
Ur a rube for calling me a Nazi, at least call me a neoliberal or Western spy first. But no u gotta jump right to Nazi first.
I never called you a Nazi
Ahhh ur right my b. It was the other guy.
You mean the areas populated by Belorussians and Ukrainians that was conquered by Poland from Russia in the war of 1922 when Poland took advantage of the civil war to seize a big chunk of Belorussian and ukraine and taken back by Russia when the polish state collapsed following the Nazi invasion of Poland?
None of the Russian parts of the MR pact were populated by mostly polish people, with the exception of Lviv which is still part of Ukraine today.
It’s a selective reading of history to call Belorussians and Ukrainians the rightful property of Poland especially in light of the brutal Polonization campaign they suffered, being reduced to serfdom by Polish invaders.
As it happens I’d actually support restoring that part to Poland, Lviv, and also the Hungarian bit of Ukraine to Hungary since both of those ethnic minorities, along with the ethnic Greek minority, have all been suffering a lot under the rule of the Ukrainian nationalists and have also faced restrictions on their internal self determination such as language rights being suppressed or in the case of the Greek minority also religious persecution.
Ahh considering Poland didn't exist until after WW1 & both sides disregarded the curzon line it's hard to say where Polands eastern border should've been but I do agree that they def pushed too far east. I don't understand your reference to serfdom. I thought that was abolished in the 18th century.
You’re really going to argue the polinization campaign in Belorussia and Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s was a good thing? A moral gray area?
Jesus fucking Christ.
Hopefully you’re a teenager who doesn’t know what you’re talking about because if you do then you need to eat a brick if you’re really going to take that line, and there are plenty of people alive in both belorussia and Ukraine today who would feed it to you if they heard you saying that including the Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi gangs you are here supporting.
One of the more brutal events of the 20th century that is only overlooked due to the fact that Poland soon suffered worse evils than those Poland inflicted on the Ukrainians and Belorussians at the hands of the Nazis - until the Soviets kicked the Nazis out.
Edit: actually given your world view includes supporting the campaign of Ukrainization and the violent assimilationist policies directed at the ethnic minorities in Ukraine, you have form here. It seems you’re actually very comfortable with violence being used against ethnic minorities given how you’re here supporting multiple instances of it.
But honestly, and I am truly being straight with you here, I think the more likely truth is you’re a bit of a dumbass who doesn’t know your history and you don’t actually realize what you’re supporting here but your ego won’t let you let go.
Where could one read more about this?
It’s not well covered in English language history which basically just skips over the fact poland was a viciously fascist state in the 1930s but it does get covered by Timothy Snyder, although he has a pretty firmly anti-Russian slant through his work.
You can see a lot of the works that cover it are in Polish, Ukrainian and Russian
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarusian_minority_in_Poland
60-70 hangings a day to fight “guerrillas”, floggings and torture to control the population, the Belorussians not having access to the education system, and the use of concentration camps to hold political activists, and trade unionists. Language rights were suppressed and the local population were forcibly “Polonized” / assimilated while also being held in an oppressed state as a cheap labor force for Polish settlers who were given the land as an agricultural fiefdom no different in any sense from the lebensraum concept - especially during the Polish fascist period of the mid to late 1930s.
Today the western part of Belorussia is still less industrialized than the east and the divide clearly falls along the line of polish occupation and colonial-settlement.
Ironically it was the atrocious treatment of the Belorussian minority that Hitler pointed at when claiming the German minority in Poland needed to be “rescued” - although the German minority were actually not treated badly.
When did I say I supported that? Curzon line it's fine with me. You're the dumbass who fits words into other people's mouths lol
You Redditors just love using this term, but invasion and genocide are not actually synonymous. You can call Putin apathetic to civilian casualties, but that's not the same as genocide. Of course Ukrainian jingoists love this kind of language because accusing Russia of genocide has been in the playbook for quite a while now
Hey look here's the news source (village voice) you posted talking about what they're doing in Ukraine right now. Lol nice one https://www.villagevoice.com/russias-crimes-in-ukraine-against-humanity-and-nature/
"By general consensus, Stalin was partially responsible." That author would've been executed or gulaged in the ussr since it was a crime to mention the holodomor & blame the authorities. I bet to you that sounds exactly like how a responsible government would respond to criticism.
Layers of deflection to avoid just reading a fucking article. No, mentioning the famine was not a crime and you are literally just making that up because you think it fits the vibe of things.
Why are you so unwilling to contend with the actual content of the article?
I'll believe yours if you believe mine lol
I'm not asking you to believe things because belief is involuntary, just that you read the article.
And an extra
for saying "ruskies"
Even if Russians killed every Ukrainian there'd still be dummies like u in this thread claiming no genocide happened & that it was their fault for resisting.
The only ones who want to fight to the last Ukrainian are bootlicking libs duped by propaganda like you
Don't give those Russians ideas, they'd love to do it & the chuds here would still blame the West.
I don't recognize the result of this referendum 🤓
I hope you meant that ironically lol Neither did the Russian government, they declared it illegal the day before the vote.
Since you want to quote laws you should be aware that since parts of the Donbass are occupied by Russia (namely Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts), Ukrainian law does not apply there. The territories, until the referendum was held, fell under UN Occupation Law because it was "actually placed under the authority of the adverse foreign armed forces"(source: https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation).
Ukrainian law does not apply to territories under Russian authority.
Lol is that the Kremlin crackpot loop hole? Step 1 invade a country Step 2 have a totally legit election Step 3 annex after a totally not sham referendum Step 4 borders? What borders? Partial occupation is fine Step 5 blame Western powers
Rosemary DiCarlo said it best, "Unilateral actions aimed to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the attempted acquisition by force by one State of another State's territory while claiming to represent the will of the people, cannot be regarded as legal under international law"
Doesn't matter what you think, I'm using the UN definition which you should lap up like the good liberal dog you are. It's not even what I think, it's literally what UN countries have agreed to.
No you're not, u found 2 paragraphs that kinda say what you want and went from there. Do I need to repeat the steps to the crackpot Kremlin loop hole until you see how silly they sound?
Rosemary Anne DiCarlo (born 1947) is an American diplomat who has served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs since May 2018. She previously served as acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations[1] following the resignation of Susan Rice to become the National Security Advisor.
I wonder if the ambassador to the United nations or a tankie on an Internet forum is more educated about UN occupations....
Surely a US politician wouldn't lie to us!
Lmao You think a UN ambassador doesn't know how the UN works?
Did you respond to the wrong comment?
So when rightists oppose secession because, while they hate the ethnic Russians who want to leave, they don't want those ethnic Russians taking the land, etc. with them, we should be moved by this motivation and not consider the right of self-determination compromised?
LMAO you have zero self awareness and its kind of adorable. You aren't in your liberal echo chamber here and no amount of tantrum throwing is going to make anyone take you seriously.
What is your proof the referenda were not legit? You're the one who's going against the grain here, it's you who needs to prove your stance. I won't accept it without evidence.