Here's how Ukraine was being reported by the West before the war.
Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.
These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.
Five years after Maidan, the beacon of democracy is looking more like a torchlight march. A neo-Nazi battalion in the heart of Europe
If you whitewash NAZI POGROMS just because you want to beat Russia, fuck you. Siding with far-right fascists to defeat far-right fascists doesn't make you the good guy. There is no lesser of two evils here.
If you dismiss any criticism of Ukraine as Russian propaganda, you might want to ask why the rest of the world, including the West, was concerned about Nazism in the area and then suddenly changed their tune only after the war started.
We should be getting both sides into peace negotiations, not prolonging the bloodshed and providing Nazis with illegal cluster bombs
I mean if you're getting shelled from enemy territory then the way you stop it is by shooting at the enemy artillery in enemy territory. Do you not support the right of Ukrainians in Donbas to defend themselves?
They were fighting against the wholesome Banderite Nazi government of Ukraine. There is no sympathy for them.
it's factual the separatists did cease-fire violations, we shouldn't sweep inconvenient facts aside & tarring everyone pointing them out as banderites. the rhetoric around here is getting way too dogmatic to start denialism because it slightly complicates the overall narrative of NATO aggression
no reasonable person would ever think a dozen LPR guys taking some potshots at ukrainian positions justifies NATO arming neonazis but putting our fingers in our ears about separatist/russian misbehavior makes us look like idiots
Sure, but the majority of cease-fire violations on the separatist side were in response to being attacked by Kyiv military or paramilitary forces. It doesn't count as breaking a ceasefire if the other side hasn't ceased fire.
Do you not support the rest of Ukraine's? And what about all the people in the Donbass that relocated to parts of Ukraine still under control of Kyiv? After the separatists took power there many people went to western Ukraine. Do those people not have a right to one day return to their homes?
Ukraine could have stopped their war against Donbas at any time. In fact they were legally obligated to according to the Minsk agreements that they signed. Ukraine had no legal or moral right to continue attacking Donbas after they signed a ceasefire.
Not a lot of people went to western Ukraine. Most people went to either Russia or other parts of eastern Ukraine. Western Ukraine is pretty far away from the conflict.
With all ceasefires, both sides claim that the other violated it. I have no reason to give the Donbas separatists the benefit of the doubt anymore than I do Ukraine. It's not like either side is openly communist, Russia isn't some left wing workers state anymore, it's not like they're trying to reverse the economic and political changes of 1991, only the borders.
For a self-styled Marxist, you don't seem to appreciate the idea of states being historically progressive or reactionary beyond "is it socialist or not?" Starting in 2014, Ukraine started moving in the direction of ethnonationalist policy. Palestine isn't socialist, but I think socialists usually understand that if they are going to give one side benefit of the doubt, it's the insurgency trying to resist the supremacist military trying to dominate them.
Removed by mod
We were talking about the ceasefires, which were prior to the invasion (though some say there was one during the war that Ukraine immediately betrayed, idk, if that's true). It's further a false equivalence because Russia is not a supremacist state, it's multi-ethnic and has multiple times cracked down on the fascist opposition trying to make a Russia's policy ethnonationalist.
Removed by mod
Do you think only Ukraine violated the agreement? Why is on them to honor it when the rebels weren't?
People in the political minority in Eastern Ukraine went to Western Ukraine so they'd be in the majority, in the period between the ouster of the Kremlin-prefered leadership in Kyiv and the rebels getting organized. This was in the news back in like 2014, so it's likely been buried in the more prevalent discussions about the Minsk agreements and the subsequent invasion of the wider country.