[NorseViking #46] Where have you been for 8 years when Ukraine was killing 14,000 people in Donbas?[Belteshazzar #48] What are your sources for this 14,000 number? Give the links. Or, if not on the net, give the citations.
[freeandfreezing #50] According to published sources the actual number of civilians killed in that fighting is nowhere close to 14,000.
[Belteshazzar #54] No article at the link. Also, I don’t recognize the source. Also, that is all you have?
I also found the NorseViking link at #46 to be noted as without textual content at this time.
The claim at #46 refers to people, not civilians. The actual claim of 14,000 deaths appears substantiated and attributable the Ukranian government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
War in DonbasMain article: War in Donbas
The overall number of confirmed deaths in the war in Donbas, which started on 6 April 2014, has been put at 13,100–13,300, by 31 January 2021.[9] According to the Ukrainian government, 14,000 were killed by 13 May 2021.[10]
TOTAL 13,100–13,300 killed
6 April 2014 – 31 January 2021
United Nations[9]TOTAL 14,000 killed
6 April 2014 – 13 May 2021
Ukrainian government[10]Civilians 3,393 killed (312 foreign)
6 April 2014 – 30 September 2021
United Nations[11]UAF, NGU and volunteer forces 4,641 killed[note 1]
6 April 2014 – 23 February 2022
Museum of Military History[7][12][13]DPR and LPR forces 5,772 killed
6 April 2014 – 11 February 2022
United Nations & DPR[9][14]Russian Armed Forces 400–500 killed[note 2]
6 April 2014 – 10 March 2015
US State Department[15]
The Wikipedia source link goes to a TASS article of 13 May 2021 quoting a speech by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba.
This is further attributed by various well known sources. A sampling follows:
More than 14,000 people have been killed in seven years of fighting between Ukrainian troops and the Russia-backed separatists.
Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 after the country's former Russia-friendly president was driven from power by protests. Moscow then threw its weight behind separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the conflict there has killed more than 14,000 people in seven years.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and threw its support behind a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which has devastated also Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said direct talks with Moscow were needed to end the war in the east, which Kiev says has killed more than 14,000 people.
Thank you.
What I wasn’t necessarily questioning was the number. But the statement of NorseViking was: “Where have you been for 8 years WHEN UKRAINE WAS KILLING 14,000 people in Donbas? This conflict didn’t start two weeks ago.”
NorseViking can easily fix this if he restates what he said to line up with the many citations you provided. Let us see if he will. Perhaps, in the emotion of the moment in speaking of this war and the fog that envelopes it, he misspoke.
In the end, facts are stubborn things, and the truth will out. Both Putin and Zelenskiy will go before the tribunal of both history and justice for what they have done, not what some say this or that one did.
But note carefully what NorseViking said:
...when Ukraine was killing 14,000 people in Donbas
All the data you cited shows that what NorseViking said is untrue. Of the people killed in the Donbas fighting many of them both civilians and military were not killed by Ukraine, but were Ukrainian victims of the Russia separatists and their Russian helpers.
Claiming that one side in a conflict is responsible for all of the deaths is ridiculous, and a lie.