Edit: found someone who finally linked some actual evidence I can observe so I may remove all of this text I crossed out and recant my entire statement depending on how convincing it is.
Edit 2: The War in Donbas, 2014...
Sounds like Ukraine went Tankie Mode to put down separatists, except instead of using literal tanks to do it, they sloppily shelled with artillery at great range. Poroshenko was in charge at the time. It was almost ten years ago but I remember just barely well enough that I still hate his fucking guts even to this day.
Finger pointing abounds as far as who exactly is responsible for all the "Russian Volunteers" who "Appeared" "of their own free will". Truth is, even if someone else may choose to blame Russia about it, my own ethical consistency doesn't let me, because even though there are some certain and concrete differences, I am ok with people who aren't Ukrainian traveling to Ukraine and volunteering to submit themselves under the command of the Ukrainian military. I understand this is going to piss off both sides. It would be hypocritical to be against one side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine while making excuses to permit the other side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine.
The fact remains that Poroshenko's administration handled this extremely fucking poorly to say the least and that handling included the slaughter of over THREE THOUSAND CIVILIANS.
Even IF the actions of the Ukrainian leadership did not directly result in some proportion of those civilian casualties, it still happened on their turf and under their watch.
This is part of why Poroshenko lost to Zelenskyy in 2019. During 2018, Zelenskyy stated in interviews that he wanted to negotiate with Russia to bring peace to the rebellion in the Donbas region instead of blasting it to hell like Poroshenko was. Too little too late. Oh well.
It would have been nice if a neutral party could have swept in, disabled all combat capability from either faction in Donbas, overseen a vote without any guns held to anyone's heads, with full public observability by the entire world - except there are no neutral parties. Everybody is on a side.
Maybe no single nation should be in charge of Crimea and Donbas. Not even Ukraine.
Sadly, I don't think it's likely that the world will come together to oust all armed personnel, whether insurgent or loyalist, from these regions, using UN Peacekeeper forces, until shit calms down enough for the civilians who live there to self-determine their future without being coerced. Except it's highly arguable that this will fucking count as coercion TOO. --
Anyway,
My stance is still that Russia should have stayed the fuck home, and should go back there, and if they JUST did that, then no one else would have to die in the Donbas region.
... Unless the separatists breached the ceasefires AGAIN.
AND AGAIN
AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND...
you say this shit as if anyone enjoys the fact that people who live there are embroiled in a war.
This only became the case when Russia invaded.
Nobody who purports the position that Ukraine was enacting genocide ever shows evidence of ethnic cleansing happening in the Donbas region prior to the Russian invasion. Of course, evidence of it happening after the Russian invasion is everywhere: all the civilians Russia executed in the street, visible from satellite images even before areas are taken back by the rightful sovereignty of Ukraine to whence it belonged prior to the invasion. By Russia.
All people ever tell me is "trust me bro" or try to assert that absence of evidence is evidence of a coverup, which are, notably, the same techniques american conservative fascist GOP-Simps use when trying to convince others that trans people are pedophiles and rapists.
> my source: this propagandistic youtube video
my. how credible.
People will stop dying in Donbas when Russian invaders stop killing the Ukrainians who live there.
