O/T:- Ukraine [Incorporating 'Congrats to Russia' thread]

[drillerpie]

I find this post to be disingenuous. It erroneously suggests that Ukrainians are a political (and ethnic) monolith that sought closer ties with Europe in order to distance themselves from the ever corrupt Russia.

Ukraine is politically, ethnically and linguistically diverse. Western Ukrainians, who are predominantly Polish and Ukrainian, typically look to seek closer ties to Europe. Eastern Ukrainians, who are predominantly Russian, tend to look to seek closer ties to Russia. Ukraine also has minority groups that consider themselves Hungarians, Romanians, Belarusians, and others.

In most Ukrainian national elections, the voting patterns typically follow these lines accordingly.

Zalensky, himself an ethnic Russian, came to power in 2019. By then the civil war had been raging for 5 years. By Feb of this year, it had claimed the lives of approximately 14,000 people, the majority of whom were ethnic Russians killed by Ukrainian government and ultranationalist forces.

Despite the patently false common western narrative, Russian president Vladimir Putin did not seek to pull the ethnic Russian regions away from Ukraine and absorb them into Russia - despite his own parliament wishing him to do so. As maddogslater’s article attests, Putin was long opposed the early independence referendums conducted in these regions. Instead, Putin sought an end to the civil war in the context of a peace accord (The Minsk II agreement) that would keep these regions *as part of Ukraine*. Recently, the Ukrainian president at the time, Petro Poreshenko, has admitted that Ukraine never intended to adhere to the very peace agreement that they signed, and which was brokered by France and Germany - but rather he saw it as a means to buy time to build the Ukrainian army and smash the ethnic Russians in the Donbas.

As mentioned, Zalensky came to power in 2019. He won over 70% of the popular vote in a landslide victory. This meant that he had a tremendous opportunity to put an end to the civil war and unify the country. What’s more, this is exactly what he campaigned on. His platform had two central themes: crack down on corruption, and end the civil war by means of direct negotiations with Russia. He had the popular mandate to do this.

When he got into power, he did neither of these. And his popularity rating quickly found itself in the toilet. What’s more is that in the two weeks prior to the Russian invasion, Ukrainian government shelling of their own people in the Donbas *increased* dramatically. It went from less than 50 shells being fired per day to over 1,400.

In March and April of this year, Russia and Ukraine engaged in direct peace negotiations, brokered by Turkey. As we know, they reached an agreement in spirit and we’re about to conclude when Boris Johnson suddenly made an appearance in Kiev and torpedoed any hopes. Some of the relevant details of that have agreement emerged, namely that Ukraine would remain militarily neutral (ie. they would not join NATO), but they could pursue membership in the European Union if they so desired.

Hi, Andy.

As I mentioned last time, I will respectfully decline any invitation to debate this with you. For what it's worth, and again respectfully, I find all your posts on this topic to be disingenuous (and more).

If anyone else reading this is interested, I would encourage you to read up on the numerous articles and academic papers in political science and foreign policy journals covering the 2019 elections (plural because there were presidential elections then parliamentary elections several months later).

There you can find a thorough analysis of the platforms the various candidates ran on and the type of politicians (or not politicians) they are, the controversies, what was said in the debates, and the declarations on foreign policy made by the new president before/after each of the two elections.

[Old_pie]

Hi, Andy.

As I mentioned last time, I will respectfully decline any invitation to debate this with you. For what it's worth, and again respectfully, I find all your posts on this topic to be disingenuous (and more).

If anyone else reading this is interested, I would encourage you to read up on the numerous articles and academic papers in political science and foreign policy journals covering the 2019 elections (plural because there were presidential elections then parliamentary elections several months later).

There you can find a thorough analysis of the platforms the various candidates ran on and the type of politicians (or not politicians) they are, the controversies, what was said in the debates, and the declarations on foreign policy made by the new president before/after each of the two elections.

I suspect Andy is merely seeking debating issues for his lectures.

However I do expect him to be in full support when France attacks (British) Canada with the view of freeing Quebec from Western Nazism.

[andy6025]

A good documentary just came out on the Ukrainian civil war from the perspective of people living in the Donbas being shelled indiscriminately by their own government. Worth a watch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JM0VYkL_UI4

[Jampie]

A good documentary just came out on the Ukrainian civil war from the perspective of people living in the Donbas being shelled indiscriminately by their own government. Worth a watch.

No it isn't, it's Kremlin propaganda.