Don't you understand, they were breaking the Minsk agreement by fighting back! As if they were independent political entities that weren't recognized on the international stage or something.
I think the weirdest part of watching this thing is people not understanding how pissed people in Russia were that Russia wasn't giving full military backing to the DNR and LNR. And I don't mean 'oh the government was trying to drum up support for the eventual war'. No, I mean, they were cracking down on 'pro-war' and ultra-nationalists both IRL and online to the degree they could get away with it, people who were calling for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that very year.
This was when the Russian government was literally hosting the Winter Olympics, they were trying to make nice and play the larger political game even after the 'Revolution of Dignity' and the subsequent annexation of Crimea. I think the problem is that we are now at a point where those elements that seek negotiation in Russian society are completely out-weighed by those that want the confrontation, the war, and I completely misjudged how large those elements in Russia were because of the language barrier and Russian censorship. They are still there, in the Russian banking and finance sectors, but the Western attitude and negotiation towards Russia has been cutting their feet out from under them for years. It is always one-step forward, two-steps back diplomacy, never any trust on either side. It was bound to erupt at some point, but I thought it would be preceded by another crisis (which I guess, COVID was?).
Yeah as far as I can tell the opinion is Russia was more overwhelmingly that it was abandoning the Donbas peoples than the opinion of the ROI on their government during the Troubles. The separation is so recent for one, and a lot of Russians still view populations like those in Donbas as part of the Federation, or at least a sort of informal commonwealth
All of these areas were considered to be 'up for negotiation' after the dissolution of the USSR. It was part of the whole 'exercise of freedom' that areas could democratically negotiate where they ended up. Except those negotiations never actually happened for most of the oblasts, nor were there ways for them to do that after the constitutions were established in the 90's (which bang up fucking job they did on those, it's almost like it's just a scrap of paper).
In a classic case of 'freedom' and it's consequences, instead we are stuck with this complete clusterfuck, because this whole idea 'regions democratically negotiating for their own place in the world' doesn't and has never fucking worked once. Idk why we even bother entertaining it politically as an idea of a thing that can actually happen, it never actually works. The best case scenario is something like the annexation of Crimea, where there is already a large military base present and a very pro-military populace far away from the original nations military, but most of them always just end up like Catalonia, where any chance to even have a fair election is fucked by nationalists beating people in the streets. And even then, it's not like Crimea was unopposed, the Majirs still boycotted the referendum (for good reason they were already occupied by that point). We may as well just say "Alright everybody stay where you are. These arbitrary lines are God-Given and we have no right to fuck with them. If you do, we are obligated to kill you on sight."
Don't you understand, they were breaking the Minsk agreement by fighting back! As if they were independent political entities that weren't recognized on the international stage or something.
I think the weirdest part of watching this thing is people not understanding how pissed people in Russia were that Russia wasn't giving full military backing to the DNR and LNR. And I don't mean 'oh the government was trying to drum up support for the eventual war'. No, I mean, they were cracking down on 'pro-war' and ultra-nationalists both IRL and online to the degree they could get away with it, people who were calling for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that very year.
This was when the Russian government was literally hosting the Winter Olympics, they were trying to make nice and play the larger political game even after the 'Revolution of Dignity' and the subsequent annexation of Crimea. I think the problem is that we are now at a point where those elements that seek negotiation in Russian society are completely out-weighed by those that want the confrontation, the war, and I completely misjudged how large those elements in Russia were because of the language barrier and Russian censorship. They are still there, in the Russian banking and finance sectors, but the Western attitude and negotiation towards Russia has been cutting their feet out from under them for years. It is always one-step forward, two-steps back diplomacy, never any trust on either side. It was bound to erupt at some point, but I thought it would be preceded by another crisis (which I guess, COVID was?).
Yeah as far as I can tell the opinion is Russia was more overwhelmingly that it was abandoning the Donbas peoples than the opinion of the ROI on their government during the Troubles. The separation is so recent for one, and a lot of Russians still view populations like those in Donbas as part of the Federation, or at least a sort of informal commonwealth
All of these areas were considered to be 'up for negotiation' after the dissolution of the USSR. It was part of the whole 'exercise of freedom' that areas could democratically negotiate where they ended up. Except those negotiations never actually happened for most of the oblasts, nor were there ways for them to do that after the constitutions were established in the 90's (which bang up fucking job they did on those, it's almost like it's just a scrap of paper).
In a classic case of 'freedom' and it's consequences, instead we are stuck with this complete clusterfuck, because this whole idea 'regions democratically negotiating for their own place in the world' doesn't and has never fucking worked once. Idk why we even bother entertaining it politically as an idea of a thing that can actually happen, it never actually works. The best case scenario is something like the annexation of Crimea, where there is already a large military base present and a very pro-military populace far away from the original nations military, but most of them always just end up like Catalonia, where any chance to even have a fair election is fucked by nationalists beating people in the streets. And even then, it's not like Crimea was unopposed, the Majirs still boycotted the referendum (for good reason they were already occupied by that point). We may as well just say "Alright everybody stay where you are. These arbitrary lines are God-Given and we have no right to fuck with them. If you do, we are obligated to kill you on sight."