Exactly! People speak different languages for different historical and social reasons. That alone cannot justify invasions. I'm English speaking Trini. We became an independent country in 1962. Are we artificial? The logic is faulty.
According to the Kiel Institute, the six countries most supportive of Ukraine, measured by share of GDP given in assistance, are all former satellite nations of the USSR. Those countries, in order, are Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. US support ranks 29th. Our total support is biggest because our economy is biggest, but our commitment is far from the strongest. Those who try to reduce this to "a proxy war between the US and Russia" tend to ignore that fact.
If Ukraine is like Ireland, then Donbass is like Northern Ireland (and should therefore belong to Russia). And Crimea is as if Wales was placed in the same administrative division as Ireland sometime during the 1800s for some purely practical purposes. And the current Ukrainian attitude could be compared to hypothetical Ireland claiming that "Wales is Ireland" and that it wouldn't stop fighting the UK before Wales gets under Irish control.
The point is, the Irish state has never been a dick about controlling Northern Ireland. The 1922 Irish Free State Constitution Act allowed Northern Ireland to opt out, and Northern Ireland took that opportunity. The Irish government has always been clear that it is for the people of Northern Ireland to decide if they want to be part of the Irish state. And with that attitude from Ireland, and a series of huge mistakes made by the UK recently, it's understandable that the people of Northern Ireland may want to join Ireland soon.
On the other hand, Ukraine has been a total dick about Donbass, denying even the hypothetical possibility that the people of Donbass could express their views in a fair and free referendum. All that the Ukrainian government has been saying is that Donbass is Ukraine, no matter what the inhabitants want.
Oh, Ukraine has been a dick? What about a huge dick move of having not respected Budapest Memorandum when Russia committed to respect the independence and sovereignty and the EXISTING borders of Ukraine? Northern Ireland since 1922 never has been a part of Free Irish State. Donbas (for further discussion, remember Alyosha, in English there is only one 's' unlike in Russian) has been and still is a part of Ukraine therefore your analogy is invalid.
Ah, so we're getting into whataboutism now. I'm not saying that other countries, including Russia and the UK, haven't made dick moves. But now we're comparing Ireland with Ukraine. And the fact is that Ukraine denied the people of Donbass the possibility to decide about the political future of their region.
PS. Whenever possible, I always try to use names of regions as used by the local population. It's undeniable that the language of Donbass is Russian, so I'm using that spelling out of respect for the local population there.
Focusing on allegedly dick moves on Ukraine's side and omitting real dick moves by Russia makes your stance ridiculous. Naming will to defend its internationally recognized borders dick move and refusing to discuss breaking its own commitments by Russia makes you funny goofy Alosha, nothing more.
There was no independence movement in Donbas before 2014. Pro-Russian protests broke out after Euromaidan and turned into an armed separatist movement in a matter of weeks. It's a bit of a coincidence that this happened just as Russia started openly interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs, isn't it?
Ukraine is democratic and the separatist movement could freely participate in elections and promote the pro-autonomy or even pro-independence agenda. And yet they immediately resorted to violence. Guess why: they didn't care about the self-determination of the people of Donbas, because they weren't a real pro-independence movement, they were just a bunch of thugs sent by Moscow to advance Russian imperial interests. I'm not speculating, we know the names of the leaders of the "separatists" (e.g. Igor Girkin), and they are just Russian turbonationalists with no connection to Donbas.
And because of this escalation by Russia, Ukraine has been at war over Donbas since 2014, so it's hard to blame it for not giving autonomy to a region where a conflict with an external power is taking place.
If the "separatists" had at least tried to pursue self-determination in a democratic way, I would be the first to support them. But that's not what happened.
By the way, if you respect the people of Donbas, you should ask them which spelling they prefer - you might be surprised. I have a friend who is from Donetsk, and although her mother tongue is Russian, she has deliberately chosen to speak Ukrainian. And after what Russia has brought to the region over the last decade, support for Ukraine is likely to be growing there, even among people who identify as Russian.
You are completely wrong here. Ukraine didn't have the opportunity to grant or deny Donbas opportunity to decide about political future of the region, because Donbas never asked for a referendum. If there was substantial political movement asking for referendum and Ukraine said "no" you would be able to blame it on Ukraine.
It's russia that denied Donbas opportunity to decide, by invading in 2014. No referendum was possible after that.
"could express their views in a fair and free referendum"
They did. In 1991 referendum they decided to gain independence from Soviet Union and became free ukrainian state. And until "green guys" in uniforms "you can buy in any shop with uniforms" did cross Ukrainian borders in 2014 nobody really thought about independent Donbas.
Ukraine is like Ireland in language terms, not territorial claims. Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not Russians just like English-speaking Irish are not English.
You are trying to play a dirty trick here: by saying that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not Russians, you are trying to suggest that there are very few Russians in Donbass. And that's completely untrue.
Almost everyone in Donetsk speaks Russian (just as almost everyone in Belfast speaks English), and the population was about 50% Russian and 50% Ukrainian (just like Protestant vs Catholic in Belfast). So it would be wise to have an agreement similar to the one that makes Northern Ireland part of the UK. If only Ukraine wasn't such a dick about it.
By the way, regarding your comment about respecting sovereignty and EXISTING borders, I suggest that you think again before using that as an argument. If I were to use whataboutism, just as you do, I could point out several cases where the Western world has endorsed changing existing borders without the consent of the state in question.
But I don't have such low standards of discussion. Let's stick with the Ireland comparison: the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence was precisely about changing the EXISTING borders of the United Kingdom, so as to make way for an independent Irish state. Will you also condemn the IRA for violating the sovereignty of the UK, or will you concede that trying to change EXISTING borders is not inherently immoral?
Even assuming that the population in Donbas was about 50% Russian/50% Ukrainian this is not to reason to transfer it to Russia or to justify today invasion. Especially that, unlike the Protestants in Northern Ireland would do, many of Russians probably voted for Ukrainian independence in 1991 in 1991 borders:
Whenever Western world endorses changing existing borders against its own commitments it's a reason to condemn Western world, not to condone Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Had IRA signed something similar to Budapest Memorandum and committed to respect UK borders regarding Ireland? Russia totally voluntarily signed Budapest Memorandum and any recent accusations against Ukraine that it tries to defend its borders are inherently immoral.
Are we talking about legal minutiae, then? Are you condemning Russia just because the Budapest Memorandum was in force? Does that mean you wouldn't complain if Russia had withdrawn from the agreement before launching the military operation? Because in that case Russia would be in the same position as the IRA: without any obligation to respect the existing borders of Ukraine/the UK.
It's the other way round. *IF* there was something like IRA, some kind of "Donbas Separatist Movement", local, grassroots and homebrew, and they would win local elections on a ticket of secession as their ultimate goal, and - already ruling on the local level - they would organize a free and fair referendum with majority of votes for secession - with all the above conditions, I could support their right for self determination. But it never happened like this. What happened is that such party never existed. And still does not - once overrun by Girkin's thugs, they no longer have any party politics.
"legal minutiae (...) just because the Budapest Memorandum was in force"
Oh, it's _just_ legal minutiae to you? Remind us please what Ukraine gave up in return for the guarantees of the Memorandum? Don't you suppose this war might look a little different, had Ukraine still had the third largest nuclear arsenal on the planet?
50/50 split is not a reason to transfer region from one country to another. If we do that we would risk territories moving between countries back and forth.
Why 50% of russians from Donbas should prevail over 50% of Ukrainians?
Just because someone describes themselves as russian, doesn't mean they would vote to join russia in the referendum, so if split was really 50/50 and referendum would take place - Donbas would stay Ukrainian.
And none of it justifies sending your operatives to pose as separatists and break away region.
If you really want to use Northern Ireland as an analogy to Donbas, we would have to consider Irish nationalists going to Norther Ireland, starting insurrection pushing away protestants from the region, demanding referendum and later Republic of Ireland launching full scale war against UK.
About changing existing borders - yes it happens.
But extremely rarely it happens in a way that aggressor uses military to grab a territory from smaller country and is rewarded for it.
Please don't play this silly game. You also did not mean "Northern Ireland" as a part of Ireland that just happens to be on the North. You were refering to a certain political identity, just as I did. "Donbass" as the LNR/DNR (the "separartist republics") was created by invasion of paramilitary troops, coming from Rostov in Russia, led by Igor Girkin.
I'm not playing a game. When I say Donbass in my posts, I mean what most Ukrainians mean by it: roughly, the territories of Donetsk Oblast and Lugansk Oblast, which are clearly different from other parts of Ukraine in terms of political views, ethnicity and language. And that can be seen in countless pre-2014 opinion polls, election results and censuses.
In the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum Donetck Oblast voted 83.90% for Ukraine. Contry-wide 55% of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine voted for independence.
Every model and every analogy has its "limit of applicability". When you try to use model/analogy outside of it, you are either incorrect or dishonest.
To compare Northern Ireland to Donbas, Northern Ireland would have to be part of Republic of Ireland first.
Ukraine is like Ireland analogy is simply broken here.
To anyone using the "1991 referendum" argument: even in the UK, where the government is being a real dick about not letting Scotland decide its own future, even the Conservative government is willing to give Scotland the opportunity for an independence referendum once in a generation. Never mind that many people rightly argue that a major political change, such as Brexit, should warrant organising a new referendum much sooner than in a generation.
The removal of a pro-Russian president from office without following constitutional procedures can rightly be considered a major political change, especially in Donbass, where the pro-Russian sentiment was strongest.
Can you please avoid phrases such as "being a real dick"? Don't be too much, you know what, about it.
Please remember that even being ethnically Russian does not mean someone is pro-Russian - as in, wants to be invaded and "liberated". For you it could mean simply a different flag on the city hall, but for us in Eastern Europe, Russia means poverty and generally lower quality of life (in numerous aspects).
There's a funny today's quote from Margarita Simonyan. Please check it out:
Apparently, she can't understand why people don't want to lower their quality of life just to suffer like the rest of slaves. But I can. Can you? Can you understand that someone who is ethnically Russian, might live outside of Russia because of their own choice and they'd rather be Russian minority in Estonia than Russian majority in Russia?
I can certainly understand it. I also understand how (real) Estonians, Georgians or Armenians would rather get rid of those people who are a remnant of Soviet/Russian occupation, and mostly speak only Russian (right?).
What I don't easily imagine is one of those ethnic-cultural Russians (whatever their paper nationality) going to fight for Ukraine's freedom.
It's easy. We have an ancient tradition in Eastern Europe, to fight for the freedom "yours and ours" (I think I shold write a post about it). Jozef Bem is a hero for Poland, Hungary and Syria (!), because when he could no longer fight for the freedom of Poland, he just tried to liberate just about anyone (hoping this is moving forward the Polish cause). Free Ukraine could lead to free Belarus and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Bem
The thing is, there is no clear division between Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians who have lived in Ukraine all their lives. There are clearly many people like Zelensky, who are native Russian speakers, speak Ukrainian only as a second language, and but feel very Ukrainian and are fighting for Ukraine's freedom.
When I asked a Ukrainian friend from Kyiv about the difference between Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, she replied that the main difference was how brainwashed they were by the Russian propaganda. You definitely cannot tell them apart by their mother tongue.
In USSR the ethnicity was recorded in a birth certificate, so plenty of present citizens of Ukraine have it somehow formally defined. So what? For me, it only shows the integral racism strongly existing within the Russian/Soviet culture, reminding about Nazi policy of digging for Jewish roots multiple generations deep. Why should it have any significance for a modern, reasonable citizen of Ukraine, and any influence on his/her personal views? No idea.
If you ask about Russian Legion -russians from russia fighting for Ukraine - well they are people who think their country is wrong there and must be stopped
If you ask about "ethnically russian ukrainian citizen" - well, they are citizens of Ukraine and are going to defend their country, because they want to keep living there.
I can perfectly understand being ethnically X, living away from Xland, and wanting to fight against the tyrant who rules there.
But, just like you cannot assume that being X makes you pro-Xland, you also cannot assume that living away from Xland makes you anti-Xland.
So, Russians born and raised in Baltic republics, in Donbass or in Turkmenistan, can be either pro-Russian or something else. Both options are valid and real.
But, what you are saying is that the majority are pro-something else, like pro-EU+NATO in Ukraine? Is that what you mean?
I don't have an answer to your question, but I would like to point out an important difference. In the Baltic republics you have a Russian minority, and as far as I know it's relatively easy to tell ethnic Lithuanians/Latvians/Estonians from ethnic Russians by their mother tongue. In Ukraine there is no such easy test, because there are a lot of people who are obviously Ukrainian, but mainly speak Russian. And there are still quite a lot of "Soviet people", not in the sense of feeling for the USSR, but in the sense that such a person might have been born, say, in Minsk, spent their childhood in Moscow and all their adult life in Kyiv. If you asked them about their ethnicity, they wouldn't be able to give a clear answer. So before we ask what ethnic Russians in Ukraine are like, we need to ask what we mean by ethnic Russians in the first place.
Well, somehow and ironically, this is actually surprisingly easy. As I wrote before - those born in USSR have ethnicity written on their birth certificate. While the reality is often how you just described, but somehow "official ethnicity" is clear and easy to declare. How useful is that, and how it fits any reality? One of my Ukrainian friends, very well-educated and with a lot of cultural capital, lives in Lviv (whole life, I guess), and has very 'standard Lvivian' views, he strongly supported Poroshenko, etc. If you met him, you would probably take him as the most Ukraine-containing Ukrainian you have ever known.
And he's ethnic Russian, by papers, because his parents both are.
There is also the question of how reliable the ethnicity papers are. One of Russian Imperialism's methods was to register a vast majority of children of mixed Russian-nonrussian couples as Russian. Often the parents themselves preferred this ethnicity for their children, believing it would make it easier to, for example, get into a Moscow university, but a lot of times it was the officials who made such decisions. It was one method of disarming the ethnic-minority bomb that undermined the Soviet Union during its whole existence: there would be more Russians, and fewer non-Russians in the statistics.
Exactly how I see it - that's why I have compared that to Nazi's digging for "untermensch" genes. At least they were more frank and straightforward in what this is all about.
I do. I happen to know in person some ethnic Russians who simply prefer to live in EU. In fact, this is a quite natural choice (if you're not some kind of gas/oil oligarch, Kremlin apparatchik etc.). If you are a regular dude with some skills (IT specialist, truck driver), your life in Warsaw or Belin will be certainly better than in Moscow or Ryazan.
I agree with the sentiment: I also think that, if I was Russian, I would rather live in EU. But i also know a Russian, who recently acquired Dutch citizenship, but said he did it for his children, and that he would always be Russian.
Those aren't statistics, only anecdotes, don't you think? I'm not saying you aren't right about it, but I don't see it clear.
In the case of the Tallin's war memorial uproar, do you think it was caused by Estonian "Russian leftovers", or did Russia send covert thugs to stir it up?
First of all, I'm against calling them "leftovers". I'm not a nationalist. As long as they are loyal to the state of Estonia, pay taxes, etc., they have right to express their opinion, even by taking it to the street.
Second, the post-Soviet war memorials are controversial these days, but most of them are still standing. Before 2014 dismantling some of them (especially the ones that are combined with a soldiers cemetery or mausoleum) would cause rioting in Poland, too (by 100% Polish Poles!). So I don't think Russia needed to send thugs to Estonia in 2008 (but of course they stirred it by their preferred, covert way of action).
Sorry, I was a bit nasty with the "leftovers" term. I didn't mean it seriously.
The removal of that memorial thing in Tallin was decided and done by Estonians. A pal from my political group said it was done by grandchildren of former Waffen SS members, but he is the kind of guy that seems to think Europe is divided between pro-soviets and fascists, so I don't give him much credit.
Now, how does that translate to the Polish analogy? Who would want to remove a Soviet-ish memorial, to have to face the rioting of regular Poles? I'm fully surpised by that. Hey, I was in Wrocław when they turned "Plac Pierwszego Maja" into "Plac Jana Pawła Drugiego", and everybody was happy with it. I'm sure it's not the same, but still...
Actually, please watch the whole clip. Pundits on Russian TV wonder why nobody wants to be friends with Russia and they are hilariously close to an answer, but they don't dare to say it put loud: Russia means poverty. Even if you are ethnically Russian, you're still better off in Estonia (or pre-2014 Donbas).
1. there is difference between true independence referendum and a plot to transfer part of territory to another country.
2. I even agree with you, that it would be fair to allow Donbas to hold referendum - whether because 30 years passed or because of politics or whatever. We don't hold referenda just in case everywhere in the world, we wait for population to create political movement and ask for them.
There was no political movement for referendum in Donbas, there were russian operatives posing as separatist starting armed insurrection.
The moment shots were fired and thousands of people were displaced, justification for referendum ceases to exist.
Any possibility to learn real opinion of population is erased and the era of forcing some people out and busing some people in to ensure "correct" results of plebiscite is gone for a century already.
[Just as it’s very easy to imagine an Irish nationalist who speaks no other language but English]
Hold on a minute... really? I would expect a self-respecting Irish nationalist to speak Gaelic. I can't imagine a Catalonian nationalist not speaking Catalonian (they would be a laughing stock). OTOH, I know there have been Basque nationalists that did not speak Basque, but that didn't speak very well of their motivations, their evolution and their nationalism.
How nicely you have just shown the poverty of nationalism, in general. So, why simply not just abandon this internally contradictory ideology, which brings only frustration and the mentioned burdening need of learning semi-extinct, often tongue-breaking, useless languages?
Ur mum is useless. Languages enrich human culture, enable different patterns of thinking and different ways of perceiving reality. How boring the world would be if there was only one language. If people are motivated to learn semi-extinct languages, that's clearly a good thing. And nationalism, if not taken too seriously, is just as good an excuse for language learning as any other reason.
Speaking of "enriching culture", please notice that people who are described as "Russian speaking Ukrainians" often don't really speak proper Russian. They might be described as such for simplicity sake, but what they REALLY speak is called Shurzhyk. Which - depending on your politics - is a separate (third) language, or a dialect of Russian, or it doesn't exist.
I think kx was responding specifically to my comment, which could have been understood as expression of disrespect to such languages like Gaeilge, and questioning the reason for learning it. And basically, well - he was right :).
Today I read that, of the 1.9 million people who learn Irish (in Ireland), only 4% of them learn it at home and use it daily. I wonder if IRA got all their "soldiers" from that 4%.
"In the 2021 census, Irish was the main language of 0.3% of the population aged 3 and up, an increase from 0.2% in the previous survey, while 12.4% of that population had some ability in Irish, also an increase from previous census results."
Exactly! People speak different languages for different historical and social reasons. That alone cannot justify invasions. I'm English speaking Trini. We became an independent country in 1962. Are we artificial? The logic is faulty.
Such ingratitude for the people who brought you the Holodomor.
According to the Kiel Institute, the six countries most supportive of Ukraine, measured by share of GDP given in assistance, are all former satellite nations of the USSR. Those countries, in order, are Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. US support ranks 29th. Our total support is biggest because our economy is biggest, but our commitment is far from the strongest. Those who try to reduce this to "a proxy war between the US and Russia" tend to ignore that fact.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
Civic Proofreading (?):
A typo and an unfinished sentence:
It’ss the assumption that “Russian speaking” with “Russian”
If Ukraine is like Ireland, then Donbass is like Northern Ireland (and should therefore belong to Russia). And Crimea is as if Wales was placed in the same administrative division as Ireland sometime during the 1800s for some purely practical purposes. And the current Ukrainian attitude could be compared to hypothetical Ireland claiming that "Wales is Ireland" and that it wouldn't stop fighting the UK before Wales gets under Irish control.
If Donbas is like Northern Ireland, then I am looking for Ukrainian Unification of 2024 foretold by Commander Data
The point is, the Irish state has never been a dick about controlling Northern Ireland. The 1922 Irish Free State Constitution Act allowed Northern Ireland to opt out, and Northern Ireland took that opportunity. The Irish government has always been clear that it is for the people of Northern Ireland to decide if they want to be part of the Irish state. And with that attitude from Ireland, and a series of huge mistakes made by the UK recently, it's understandable that the people of Northern Ireland may want to join Ireland soon.
On the other hand, Ukraine has been a total dick about Donbass, denying even the hypothetical possibility that the people of Donbass could express their views in a fair and free referendum. All that the Ukrainian government has been saying is that Donbass is Ukraine, no matter what the inhabitants want.
Oh, Ukraine has been a dick? What about a huge dick move of having not respected Budapest Memorandum when Russia committed to respect the independence and sovereignty and the EXISTING borders of Ukraine? Northern Ireland since 1922 never has been a part of Free Irish State. Donbas (for further discussion, remember Alyosha, in English there is only one 's' unlike in Russian) has been and still is a part of Ukraine therefore your analogy is invalid.
Ah, so we're getting into whataboutism now. I'm not saying that other countries, including Russia and the UK, haven't made dick moves. But now we're comparing Ireland with Ukraine. And the fact is that Ukraine denied the people of Donbass the possibility to decide about the political future of their region.
PS. Whenever possible, I always try to use names of regions as used by the local population. It's undeniable that the language of Donbass is Russian, so I'm using that spelling out of respect for the local population there.
Focusing on allegedly dick moves on Ukraine's side and omitting real dick moves by Russia makes your stance ridiculous. Naming will to defend its internationally recognized borders dick move and refusing to discuss breaking its own commitments by Russia makes you funny goofy Alosha, nothing more.
There was no independence movement in Donbas before 2014. Pro-Russian protests broke out after Euromaidan and turned into an armed separatist movement in a matter of weeks. It's a bit of a coincidence that this happened just as Russia started openly interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs, isn't it?
Ukraine is democratic and the separatist movement could freely participate in elections and promote the pro-autonomy or even pro-independence agenda. And yet they immediately resorted to violence. Guess why: they didn't care about the self-determination of the people of Donbas, because they weren't a real pro-independence movement, they were just a bunch of thugs sent by Moscow to advance Russian imperial interests. I'm not speculating, we know the names of the leaders of the "separatists" (e.g. Igor Girkin), and they are just Russian turbonationalists with no connection to Donbas.
And because of this escalation by Russia, Ukraine has been at war over Donbas since 2014, so it's hard to blame it for not giving autonomy to a region where a conflict with an external power is taking place.
If the "separatists" had at least tried to pursue self-determination in a democratic way, I would be the first to support them. But that's not what happened.
By the way, if you respect the people of Donbas, you should ask them which spelling they prefer - you might be surprised. I have a friend who is from Donetsk, and although her mother tongue is Russian, she has deliberately chosen to speak Ukrainian. And after what Russia has brought to the region over the last decade, support for Ukraine is likely to be growing there, even among people who identify as Russian.
You are completely wrong here. Ukraine didn't have the opportunity to grant or deny Donbas opportunity to decide about political future of the region, because Donbas never asked for a referendum. If there was substantial political movement asking for referendum and Ukraine said "no" you would be able to blame it on Ukraine.
It's russia that denied Donbas opportunity to decide, by invading in 2014. No referendum was possible after that.
"could express their views in a fair and free referendum"
They did. In 1991 referendum they decided to gain independence from Soviet Union and became free ukrainian state. And until "green guys" in uniforms "you can buy in any shop with uniforms" did cross Ukrainian borders in 2014 nobody really thought about independent Donbas.
Ukraine is like Ireland in language terms, not territorial claims. Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not Russians just like English-speaking Irish are not English.
You are trying to play a dirty trick here: by saying that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are not Russians, you are trying to suggest that there are very few Russians in Donbass. And that's completely untrue.
The fact is that Ukraine is like Ireland in terms of both language and territorial claims. And Donetsk is like Belfast. See the demographics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk#Demographics
Almost everyone in Donetsk speaks Russian (just as almost everyone in Belfast speaks English), and the population was about 50% Russian and 50% Ukrainian (just like Protestant vs Catholic in Belfast). So it would be wise to have an agreement similar to the one that makes Northern Ireland part of the UK. If only Ukraine wasn't such a dick about it.
By the way, regarding your comment about respecting sovereignty and EXISTING borders, I suggest that you think again before using that as an argument. If I were to use whataboutism, just as you do, I could point out several cases where the Western world has endorsed changing existing borders without the consent of the state in question.
But I don't have such low standards of discussion. Let's stick with the Ireland comparison: the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence was precisely about changing the EXISTING borders of the United Kingdom, so as to make way for an independent Irish state. Will you also condemn the IRA for violating the sovereignty of the UK, or will you concede that trying to change EXISTING borders is not inherently immoral?
Even assuming that the population in Donbas was about 50% Russian/50% Ukrainian this is not to reason to transfer it to Russia or to justify today invasion. Especially that, unlike the Protestants in Northern Ireland would do, many of Russians probably voted for Ukrainian independence in 1991 in 1991 borders:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#By_region
Whenever Western world endorses changing existing borders against its own commitments it's a reason to condemn Western world, not to condone Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Had IRA signed something similar to Budapest Memorandum and committed to respect UK borders regarding Ireland? Russia totally voluntarily signed Budapest Memorandum and any recent accusations against Ukraine that it tries to defend its borders are inherently immoral.
Are we talking about legal minutiae, then? Are you condemning Russia just because the Budapest Memorandum was in force? Does that mean you wouldn't complain if Russia had withdrawn from the agreement before launching the military operation? Because in that case Russia would be in the same position as the IRA: without any obligation to respect the existing borders of Ukraine/the UK.
It's the other way round. *IF* there was something like IRA, some kind of "Donbas Separatist Movement", local, grassroots and homebrew, and they would win local elections on a ticket of secession as their ultimate goal, and - already ruling on the local level - they would organize a free and fair referendum with majority of votes for secession - with all the above conditions, I could support their right for self determination. But it never happened like this. What happened is that such party never existed. And still does not - once overrun by Girkin's thugs, they no longer have any party politics.
I'm certain of Russian meddling in Ukraine, no doubt about it. But, do you neglect or deny USA meddling? Is it irrelevant or nonexistent?
"legal minutiae (...) just because the Budapest Memorandum was in force"
Oh, it's _just_ legal minutiae to you? Remind us please what Ukraine gave up in return for the guarantees of the Memorandum? Don't you suppose this war might look a little different, had Ukraine still had the third largest nuclear arsenal on the planet?
That's a load of crap.
50/50 split is not a reason to transfer region from one country to another. If we do that we would risk territories moving between countries back and forth.
Why 50% of russians from Donbas should prevail over 50% of Ukrainians?
Just because someone describes themselves as russian, doesn't mean they would vote to join russia in the referendum, so if split was really 50/50 and referendum would take place - Donbas would stay Ukrainian.
And none of it justifies sending your operatives to pose as separatists and break away region.
If you really want to use Northern Ireland as an analogy to Donbas, we would have to consider Irish nationalists going to Norther Ireland, starting insurrection pushing away protestants from the region, demanding referendum and later Republic of Ireland launching full scale war against UK.
About changing existing borders - yes it happens.
But extremely rarely it happens in a way that aggressor uses military to grab a territory from smaller country and is rewarded for it.
Donbas isn't like Northern Ireland in your example. Donbas is like Sudetenland in 1938.
Congratulations, you have earned Godwin's law bonus points! Now, pray tell, how exactly is it different from Northern Ireland?
Northern Ireland was not created by invasion of paramilitary troops
Donbass wasn't created that way either. Donbass has existed at least as long as the mines there, and has always had a significant Russian population.
Please don't play this silly game. You also did not mean "Northern Ireland" as a part of Ireland that just happens to be on the North. You were refering to a certain political identity, just as I did. "Donbass" as the LNR/DNR (the "separartist republics") was created by invasion of paramilitary troops, coming from Rostov in Russia, led by Igor Girkin.
I'm not playing a game. When I say Donbass in my posts, I mean what most Ukrainians mean by it: roughly, the territories of Donetsk Oblast and Lugansk Oblast, which are clearly different from other parts of Ukraine in terms of political views, ethnicity and language. And that can be seen in countless pre-2014 opinion polls, election results and censuses.
In the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum Donetck Oblast voted 83.90% for Ukraine. Contry-wide 55% of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine voted for independence.
Every model and every analogy has its "limit of applicability". When you try to use model/analogy outside of it, you are either incorrect or dishonest.
To compare Northern Ireland to Donbas, Northern Ireland would have to be part of Republic of Ireland first.
Ukraine is like Ireland analogy is simply broken here.
To anyone using the "1991 referendum" argument: even in the UK, where the government is being a real dick about not letting Scotland decide its own future, even the Conservative government is willing to give Scotland the opportunity for an independence referendum once in a generation. Never mind that many people rightly argue that a major political change, such as Brexit, should warrant organising a new referendum much sooner than in a generation.
The removal of a pro-Russian president from office without following constitutional procedures can rightly be considered a major political change, especially in Donbass, where the pro-Russian sentiment was strongest.
Can you please avoid phrases such as "being a real dick"? Don't be too much, you know what, about it.
Please remember that even being ethnically Russian does not mean someone is pro-Russian - as in, wants to be invaded and "liberated". For you it could mean simply a different flag on the city hall, but for us in Eastern Europe, Russia means poverty and generally lower quality of life (in numerous aspects).
There's a funny today's quote from Margarita Simonyan. Please check it out:
https://twitter.com/Prune602/status/1625185466050920486?cxt=HHwWzIC-4cPk6I0tAAAA
Apparently, she can't understand why people don't want to lower their quality of life just to suffer like the rest of slaves. But I can. Can you? Can you understand that someone who is ethnically Russian, might live outside of Russia because of their own choice and they'd rather be Russian minority in Estonia than Russian majority in Russia?
I can certainly understand it. I also understand how (real) Estonians, Georgians or Armenians would rather get rid of those people who are a remnant of Soviet/Russian occupation, and mostly speak only Russian (right?).
What I don't easily imagine is one of those ethnic-cultural Russians (whatever their paper nationality) going to fight for Ukraine's freedom.
It's easy. We have an ancient tradition in Eastern Europe, to fight for the freedom "yours and ours" (I think I shold write a post about it). Jozef Bem is a hero for Poland, Hungary and Syria (!), because when he could no longer fight for the freedom of Poland, he just tried to liberate just about anyone (hoping this is moving forward the Polish cause). Free Ukraine could lead to free Belarus and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Józef_Bem
The thing is, there is no clear division between Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians who have lived in Ukraine all their lives. There are clearly many people like Zelensky, who are native Russian speakers, speak Ukrainian only as a second language, and but feel very Ukrainian and are fighting for Ukraine's freedom.
When I asked a Ukrainian friend from Kyiv about the difference between Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians living in Ukraine, she replied that the main difference was how brainwashed they were by the Russian propaganda. You definitely cannot tell them apart by their mother tongue.
In USSR the ethnicity was recorded in a birth certificate, so plenty of present citizens of Ukraine have it somehow formally defined. So what? For me, it only shows the integral racism strongly existing within the Russian/Soviet culture, reminding about Nazi policy of digging for Jewish roots multiple generations deep. Why should it have any significance for a modern, reasonable citizen of Ukraine, and any influence on his/her personal views? No idea.
If you ask about Russian Legion -russians from russia fighting for Ukraine - well they are people who think their country is wrong there and must be stopped
If you ask about "ethnically russian ukrainian citizen" - well, they are citizens of Ukraine and are going to defend their country, because they want to keep living there.
I think we are mixing up things.
I can perfectly understand being ethnically X, living away from Xland, and wanting to fight against the tyrant who rules there.
But, just like you cannot assume that being X makes you pro-Xland, you also cannot assume that living away from Xland makes you anti-Xland.
So, Russians born and raised in Baltic republics, in Donbass or in Turkmenistan, can be either pro-Russian or something else. Both options are valid and real.
But, what you are saying is that the majority are pro-something else, like pro-EU+NATO in Ukraine? Is that what you mean?
I don't have an answer to your question, but I would like to point out an important difference. In the Baltic republics you have a Russian minority, and as far as I know it's relatively easy to tell ethnic Lithuanians/Latvians/Estonians from ethnic Russians by their mother tongue. In Ukraine there is no such easy test, because there are a lot of people who are obviously Ukrainian, but mainly speak Russian. And there are still quite a lot of "Soviet people", not in the sense of feeling for the USSR, but in the sense that such a person might have been born, say, in Minsk, spent their childhood in Moscow and all their adult life in Kyiv. If you asked them about their ethnicity, they wouldn't be able to give a clear answer. So before we ask what ethnic Russians in Ukraine are like, we need to ask what we mean by ethnic Russians in the first place.
Well, somehow and ironically, this is actually surprisingly easy. As I wrote before - those born in USSR have ethnicity written on their birth certificate. While the reality is often how you just described, but somehow "official ethnicity" is clear and easy to declare. How useful is that, and how it fits any reality? One of my Ukrainian friends, very well-educated and with a lot of cultural capital, lives in Lviv (whole life, I guess), and has very 'standard Lvivian' views, he strongly supported Poroshenko, etc. If you met him, you would probably take him as the most Ukraine-containing Ukrainian you have ever known.
And he's ethnic Russian, by papers, because his parents both are.
There is also the question of how reliable the ethnicity papers are. One of Russian Imperialism's methods was to register a vast majority of children of mixed Russian-nonrussian couples as Russian. Often the parents themselves preferred this ethnicity for their children, believing it would make it easier to, for example, get into a Moscow university, but a lot of times it was the officials who made such decisions. It was one method of disarming the ethnic-minority bomb that undermined the Soviet Union during its whole existence: there would be more Russians, and fewer non-Russians in the statistics.
Exactly how I see it - that's why I have compared that to Nazi's digging for "untermensch" genes. At least they were more frank and straightforward in what this is all about.
I do. I happen to know in person some ethnic Russians who simply prefer to live in EU. In fact, this is a quite natural choice (if you're not some kind of gas/oil oligarch, Kremlin apparatchik etc.). If you are a regular dude with some skills (IT specialist, truck driver), your life in Warsaw or Belin will be certainly better than in Moscow or Ryazan.
I agree with the sentiment: I also think that, if I was Russian, I would rather live in EU. But i also know a Russian, who recently acquired Dutch citizenship, but said he did it for his children, and that he would always be Russian.
Those aren't statistics, only anecdotes, don't you think? I'm not saying you aren't right about it, but I don't see it clear.
In the case of the Tallin's war memorial uproar, do you think it was caused by Estonian "Russian leftovers", or did Russia send covert thugs to stir it up?
First of all, I'm against calling them "leftovers". I'm not a nationalist. As long as they are loyal to the state of Estonia, pay taxes, etc., they have right to express their opinion, even by taking it to the street.
Second, the post-Soviet war memorials are controversial these days, but most of them are still standing. Before 2014 dismantling some of them (especially the ones that are combined with a soldiers cemetery or mausoleum) would cause rioting in Poland, too (by 100% Polish Poles!). So I don't think Russia needed to send thugs to Estonia in 2008 (but of course they stirred it by their preferred, covert way of action).
Sorry, I was a bit nasty with the "leftovers" term. I didn't mean it seriously.
The removal of that memorial thing in Tallin was decided and done by Estonians. A pal from my political group said it was done by grandchildren of former Waffen SS members, but he is the kind of guy that seems to think Europe is divided between pro-soviets and fascists, so I don't give him much credit.
Now, how does that translate to the Polish analogy? Who would want to remove a Soviet-ish memorial, to have to face the rioting of regular Poles? I'm fully surpised by that. Hey, I was in Wrocław when they turned "Plac Pierwszego Maja" into "Plac Jana Pawła Drugiego", and everybody was happy with it. I'm sure it's not the same, but still...
Actually, please watch the whole clip. Pundits on Russian TV wonder why nobody wants to be friends with Russia and they are hilariously close to an answer, but they don't dare to say it put loud: Russia means poverty. Even if you are ethnically Russian, you're still better off in Estonia (or pre-2014 Donbas).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKMOcGP8r28
1. there is difference between true independence referendum and a plot to transfer part of territory to another country.
2. I even agree with you, that it would be fair to allow Donbas to hold referendum - whether because 30 years passed or because of politics or whatever. We don't hold referenda just in case everywhere in the world, we wait for population to create political movement and ask for them.
There was no political movement for referendum in Donbas, there were russian operatives posing as separatist starting armed insurrection.
The moment shots were fired and thousands of people were displaced, justification for referendum ceases to exist.
Any possibility to learn real opinion of population is erased and the era of forcing some people out and busing some people in to ensure "correct" results of plebiscite is gone for a century already.
[Just as it’s very easy to imagine an Irish nationalist who speaks no other language but English]
Hold on a minute... really? I would expect a self-respecting Irish nationalist to speak Gaelic. I can't imagine a Catalonian nationalist not speaking Catalonian (they would be a laughing stock). OTOH, I know there have been Basque nationalists that did not speak Basque, but that didn't speak very well of their motivations, their evolution and their nationalism.
How nicely you have just shown the poverty of nationalism, in general. So, why simply not just abandon this internally contradictory ideology, which brings only frustration and the mentioned burdening need of learning semi-extinct, often tongue-breaking, useless languages?
Ur mum is useless. Languages enrich human culture, enable different patterns of thinking and different ways of perceiving reality. How boring the world would be if there was only one language. If people are motivated to learn semi-extinct languages, that's clearly a good thing. And nationalism, if not taken too seriously, is just as good an excuse for language learning as any other reason.
Speaking of "enriching culture", please notice that people who are described as "Russian speaking Ukrainians" often don't really speak proper Russian. They might be described as such for simplicity sake, but what they REALLY speak is called Shurzhyk. Which - depending on your politics - is a separate (third) language, or a dialect of Russian, or it doesn't exist.
Maybe it doesn't exist, but at least it has a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surzhyk
I think kx was responding specifically to my comment, which could have been understood as expression of disrespect to such languages like Gaeilge, and questioning the reason for learning it. And basically, well - he was right :).
I don't really know, but perhaps this sketch could have been about an Irish nationalist... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydSNgr97gSY
Today I read that, of the 1.9 million people who learn Irish (in Ireland), only 4% of them learn it at home and use it daily. I wonder if IRA got all their "soldiers" from that 4%.
Of course not. Language has nothing to do with it, really.
And in Northern Ireland it's even less:
"In the 2021 census, Irish was the main language of 0.3% of the population aged 3 and up, an increase from 0.2% in the previous survey, while 12.4% of that population had some ability in Irish, also an increase from previous census results."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language_in_Northern_Ireland