Debates on Russia

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Vigano and Some Other Right Wing Christians Don't Get Eastern Europe · Debates on Russia · New blog on the kid: Ukraine vs Russia : More Christian, Fewer Abortions

I

8:41 "we know Zelensky's values in Ukraine"

That he has such bad values personally is possible.

They are not yet the values of the Ukraine as a society or as a state with laws.

And the society and the state with laws, not Zelensky's personal opinions, is what the Ukrainean forces are fighting to defend.

Eddie Schwab

For nearly a decade ethnic Russians in the eastern part of Ukraine have been persecuted by the Ukrainian military auxiliary's that have had full tacit support of the regime in Kiev.

Everybody just looks at February of last year as if Putin started the fight. The fight has been going on since 2014 when the United States put a friendly in charge of the government to put Ukraine in the western orbit. And remember Putin previously said that if Ukraine wanted to join the European union he had no objections to that. Membership in NATO for him was the only Red Line.

But ever since the Maidan revolution, ukrainians in the western part of the country have been firing on people settlements in the eastern part of the country that is heavily Russian by population, many of those areas are majority Russian including Crimea and the Donbass. More importantly the government in Kiev was forcing ethnic cleansing upon the Russian majority in the East trying to force them to their version of Orthodoxy as well as force them to speak Ukrainian.

The Maidan revolution is a modern offshoot of the moment by Stepan Bandera, which incorrectly believe that ukrainians were the descendants of the so-called Volga Germans that came into the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great. Individual ukrainians notwithstanding that has been largely disproven as many of the Volga Germans ended up in the caucuses as well as in the steppe between Russia and Kazakhstan (Bishop Athanasius Schneider is himself a descendent of the Volga Germans hence his name).

Ultimately the big difference between the ukrainians in the west and the Russians in the East versus the Poles and the lithuanians to the west and North in the case of them versus the ukrainians linguistically very similar spoken language but the ukrainians adopted Orthodox religion and Cyrillic alphabet obviously in Poland and Lithuania they use the Latin alphabet and are mostly Catholic. Small minority of the population notwithstanding but that is the large majority of the Russian population is orthodox and uses the Cyrillic alphabet so you can say they're cross cutting connections between the Russians and ukrainians on one side as well as the ukrainians versus the Poles and lithuanians on the other side, aside from that Ukraine historically has always been ethnically Russian in the east as well as long the Black Sea it's only the western part of the country that has had a separate cultural identity. A culture they've been trying to force upon the Russians in the eastern part of the country.

Plus the reason for the original special military operation was Putin was very careful to avoid civilian casualties. Even if it was riskier for the military. However the ukrainians are so determined to essentially Drive Russians out of their soil even though that is their Homeland that they are willing to risk nuclear war to do it. No rational people could possibly accept such an evil proposition. And the fact that our criminal government in Washington d.c. seems willing to up the ante even up to that point makes me believe that this government in Washington d.c. must be brought to an end, by any means necessary., even if it involves a military coup d'etat in Washington DC.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie Schwab "More importantly the government in Kiev was forcing ethnic cleansing upon the Russian majority in the East trying to force them to their version of Orthodoxy as well as force them to speak Ukrainian."

I don't think this holds true.

Russian nationality was well tolerated in the East, up to the breakaway.

You have bought the Russian narrative about what happened in the Donbass.

Eddie Schwab

@Hans-Georg Lundahl it's 100% true bro. Don't take my word for it check Patrick Lancaster's channel. I was sympathetic to the Ukrainian position until I saw that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie Schwab Is he a journalist on the field?

Bc, if not, he may have been reading some Russian propaganda.

Eddie Schwab

@Hans-Georg Lundahl yes he's in the field where it's all happening. Frequently interviewing people caught in the middle of it whether civilian or military...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie Schwab I looked him up, here is one:

Child victims of Russia - Ukraine War In Donetsk
Patrick Lancaster, 16.III.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRsiQi1JYT0

But missiles hitting civilians, including underage ones in Donetsk doesn't seem very different from Russian ones hitting civilians in Kyiv and that Northern suburb ...

Has he been there before the war, so he can personally testify Russians in Donbass were targetted for ethnic cleansing, or is that what he heard from them later on?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

follow up

@Eddie Schwab I checked his videos to answer the question myself.

It seems actually that when the war broke up he was in Armenia, so for Don-Bass conflict prior to war, he might be relying on the version given by his hosts.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

9:13 NATO provoked this?

If you want to know the Russian interest in Ukraine, check out a city called Sevastopol, on Crimea. It's the largest and best naval base of the region, possibly of all the Black Sea.

Russia started to get really excited in favour or separatists suffering in Ukraine when a certain lease, leaving Russia the military access to Sevastopol, was going to expire and the new régime in Ukraine was lots less likely to let them continue the lease.

And in fact, as Mearsheimer was stating the other day, a certain time ago, NATO and Putin were friends.

Johan Trenier

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That’s the most reasonable explanation I’ve heard. Thank you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Johan Trenier It can be added, already in 2020, Russian government needed sth to deflect from the old age pensions controversy that had caused rallies for over 4 months in 2018.

They are a bit similar to the ones in France, which may be better known.

Eddie Schwab

The status of Sevastopol was essentially a lifetime lease for the Russian Federation because that being their Naval port on the Black Sea. Otherwise they would have to based at a port in the sea of Azov, which could be easily blockaded in. Even more easily than Turkey blocking the Bosphorus.. but they had functionally a lifetime lease on the port of Sevastopol, plus the Crimea was heavily Russian by population anyway. I've got friends from college days that live in Simferopol, which is not too far from there and none of them identify as ukrainians they identify as Russians. But back to the lifetime lease that was negotiated after the breakup of the Soviet Union since obviously Russia had a substantial Navy, Ukraine not so much. But the terms of such a lifetime lease are it is theirs as long as they want it and at the time certainly it was advantageous because the Russians were paying a pretty handsome amount to the government in Kiev for its use. The same sort of arrangement that the United States has in Cuba with Guantanamo Bay. The only official dealing for many years was the United States sending the check to Castro for the rent for the bass, Chester might have said death to America or anything like that but you bet he took the money and ran...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie Schwab "But the terms of such a lifetime lease are it is theirs as long as they want it"

I have heard a radically different story about the terms of the lease.

The Hidden Reason Ukraine Is Optimistic about Crimea
William Spaniel | Dec 1st 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIE1g8kqIpk