Yea, that's a bullshit. Ukrainian-Ukrainian here. Russians now claim that they will "protect" the entire Donetsk and Lugansk regions and expand if needed to do so. People die right now MORE than in previous "peaceful" times. They already fucking shelled a kindergarten, school, and killed a civilian (was a rarity before).
The President of Ukraine and all official channels say they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen. Only America says it will happen. We lost Donetsk and Luhansk a long time ago. It's gone now. Hopefully this will end now.
> The President of Ukraine and all official channels say they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
This is part of Ukraine’s lobbying effort for strong preemptive, rather than reactive, sanctions against Russia; Ukraine is arguing that Russia can be dissuade from invasion by tougher pre-general-invasion action, and is acting (whether they believe it or not) like they believe that their lobbying effort to Western powers for this approach will succeed in getting the desired policy which will, in turn, dissuade Russia.
So far, whether or not they are right that it would work, they seem to be largely unsuccessful in lobbying, with the US, especially, offering only limited sanctions for the actions related to the separatist regions but holding back the massive general sanctions threatened in case of a broader invasion as a reactive contingency.
Ukraine’s official channels are very clear that they view decisive factor in Russia’s decision making the strength of immediate Western action.
Viewing the Ukraine statements about not expecting a full-scale invasion without this context is...misleading. They are saying if an invasion happens, it is because the West failed to be resolute in the ways Ukraine expects them to, not that Russia does not intend to invade.
> So far, whether or not they are right that it would work, they seem to be largely unsuccessful in lobbying, with the US, especially, offering only limited sanctions for the actions related to the separatist regions but holding back the massive general sanctions threatened in case of a broader invasion as a reactive contingency.
Well, a couple hours later and this part is outdated, as the US has now announced the first set of general sanctions on Russia and described existing Russian actions as the beginning of the invasion that was always described as the triggering condition for such sanctions.
I think you're reading the sentiment backward. Of course Ukraine wants stronger sanctions against Russia in any case, because an invasion already happened, not because they believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
They explicitly say (including in the tweet from the FM that I cited) that strong action now is important because Russia’s future action depends on what other countries do now.
Yes, they think an invasion already is ongoing, but that's explicitly not the only factor in their call for action. It is directly tied to impact on Russian escalation.
The oblasts are larger than the regions within Russian territory. This is just a straight violation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine. You do not, as a country, get to unilaterally redraw internationally recognized borders just because some people sympathetic to you or who share a language live on the other side.
> You do not, as a country, get to unilaterally redraw internationally recognized borders just because some people sympathetic to you or who share a language live on the other side.
I never said Putin had a right to do it, I'm saying he already did it. Of course it was a totally illegal invasion, but it's done now. What I'm saying is we believe this is the end of the conflict. The official position of the President of Ukraine is that we do not believe a full scale invasion will happen, as do most Ukrainians I know.
It already fell apart once, post-USSR, and it recovered. Russia is like China: it's too culturally coesive over too big an area not to eventually coalesce into a powerful entity sooner or later.
> The President of Ukraine and all official channels say they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen.
First, he is a politician. My rational explanation for his words is to cooldown the emotions. Back in last week, you could see news about many oligarchs departing the country, while others trying to cash out every asset they have. Standing enemies at the borders is economically tragic for the whole country. Trying to sell other, non-catastrophic vision is his duty.
Secondly, there were many variants of the invasion. The full-scale operation often means the Russia forces will attack the entire Ukraine - eastern, central and the western. Many experts say this scenario is highly unlikely, because there will be too many casualties on both sides.
Full-scale might not happen, but it absolutely does not mean any kind of peace. There is no interest for russia to stop daily shelling and keep capturing in small pieces. Russia has zero interest to stabilize the situation they walked away from all the agreements and negotiations.
Brother, I believe it is in their interest to stabilize the situation now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially protected by Russia. Previously the shelling continued for 8 years because of the rebellion.
The assumption is that the actual borders of DNR and LNR will be solved by diplomacy, and Kyiv has hinted that it will try to find a diplomatic solution.
Ukrainian-American here. Depends on how you look at it. Comparing Donetsk to Crimea for instance, Crimea is in much better shape: no active war for the past 8 years.
I second the opinion that this isn't the ending that people wanted, but hopefully it is the ending nonetheless.
For the record, I do not condone the annexation of Crimea, but I also do not support giving it back to Ukraine, as it just creates unnecessary tension at this point.
I understand, how globally we should not just be ok with countries taking parts of other countries, but at the same time the reverse transaction will bring more misery to people of crimea.
Makes for interesting strategies for a country wishing to expand.
If you go in fast and settle the issue quickly, it's a fait accompli and anyone seeking to "reverse the transaction" is just bringing misery.
If you can't settle the issue quickly, support a local insurgency until the international community stops paying attention and then go in. Everybody will be grateful.
It's kind of how the Soviet Union and the west divided up Europe after WWII.
"It's kind of how the Soviet Union and the west divided up Europe after WWII." - first question: "define Europe", 2nd question: "who exactly is west?", 3rd question: "did you just compare WWII to what exactly?"
Note how the western allies (The US and UK, mostly, plus France, Belgium, Netherlands, and so forth) controlled Italy, France, the Low Countries, and the western half of Germany. The USSR controlled Finland through the Balkans and eastern Germany.
The person they are replying to identified themselves as a Canadian citizen living in Ukraine.
The person who described themselves as "Ukrainian-Ukrainian" is implying that their own assessment of the situation is likely to be more accurate since they are not just an expatriate.
There are at least four kinds of Ukrainians. Russians with Ukrainian citizenship (a lot of these in Crimea and L/DNR), Russian-speaking Ukrainians, Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians and Western Ukrainians, who did not live in the Russian Empire or Soviet Ukraine before 1944, and have Roman Catholic-controlled faith based on Orthdox rituals.
The first three groups form a continuity and is not perfectly correlated with loyalty to Ukrainian state.
Romanians form with ~500K the third biggest minority in Ukraine. Again, a situation where USSR conquered and draw the map as it wished, since they live in teritory formely belonging to interbellic Romania.
One fact which people forget: Ukraine decided to end support to minorities, as such there is no longer possible to study in native language. This type of nationalism should not be supported at all. Ukraine is no saint.
This is not true. In 2020-2021 curriculum year in Ukraine there were 874 schools that that had languages of minorities as a language of instruction.
In 9 different languages - Russian, Bulgarian, Crimean Tatar language, German, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Moldavian.
I had a friend who I referred to as "my Russian friend". When my uncle married a Russian woman, I showed her a picture of my Russian friend from one of his kids birthday parties, and she said, "I think he is from Ukraine". I asked why she thought that and she said because of the lettering of the sign in the background - apparently they have a different (but similar enough to my non-Russian reading eyes) alphabet, too.
Just FYI - like you, I grew up hearing it called "the Ukraine" (like "The Philippines" or "The Netherlands") but apparently that's changed and it's just "Ukraine" now.
I'm Canadian as well but I'm in Canada. I was led to believe the biden warnings of imminent russia invasion were war mongering and not true. Clearly not true anymore. Russia is an aggressor.
From my point of view, it seems Canadians are team Russia here, especially our prime minister.
What led you to believe those things (the idea that the Biden Administration's claims of an imminent invasion were war mongering, and the idea that Canada has aligned itself with Russia)?
>What led you to believe those things (the idea that the Biden Administration's claims of an imminent invasion were war mongering,
That's a great question, but I don't know if I know the answer.
Overall, the US as world police, Obama and his nobel peace prize and 7 wars, and virtually entire existence of the USA they have been at war. It's kind of easy to see this point of view.
However, I would generally say our media was saying the invasion wasn't imminent. Largely reporting the Ukraine government denied any invasion was coming.
This I would say as well was the story across political lines.
The only thing really covered was how Trudeau was being actively excluded from diplomacy by Biden.
It is public knowledge that the liberal party are members of the WEF. So is Putin. Both Putin and Trudeau have done keynotes. They are publicly linked.
It's a whole different thing to say this is some evil cabal or some diplomatic war-supporting effort. For all I know Trudeau is a mole and we are still complete allies to the USA, if not protectorate.
But frankly, I look at the last week. Russia invaded and Canadians are under an unjustified national emergency with the government seizing bank accounts with no due process or redress. We do have political prisoners and global celebrities from across the political spectrum are calling out Trudeau as Hitler.
>Your PM just got a taste of authoritarian despotism so it would make sense.
I'm going to show my left-wing bias but Bill Maher and Jimmy Dore both called Trudeau Hitler. They are objectively right, but what happened?
Canada had some ineffectual blockades, but at the time of the emergency being invoked. Those were gone. So the emergency was ONLY the protest in Ottawa.
The justification for the emergency is the military occupation and they used the givesendgo hacked data to analyze that around 50% of the raised money was from the USA. The allegation is that the USA is somehow doing this? This is absurd but why is Trudeau overreacting to all this? What did he fear?
