“They see Russia is advancing and don’t want Russia eliminating them. So they pretend to welcome the Russians.”
Anything’s possible, but their performances top-notch if they’re acting, and they don’t look like actors.
“Remember the turncoats in France who welcomed and worked with the Germans.”
Depends where in France. If it was a German area in France, maybe they weren’t turncoats.
“These cities are pretty far from the rebel occupied territory and I don’t believe there was much fighting in those areas since 2014. I can’t find any references to fighing in Sievierodonetsk that is before the war started in 2022.”
Probably the case - The Neocon-run Ukraine rolled over this Russian-speaking area, and life has sucked then. And then you have the Azov-types that the Russian-speakers have to deal with.
“I think these scared elderly people are saying what the Russians want them to say because they have been occupied by the Russians.”
If and when Russia makes it to Ukrainian-speaking areas, that will have more likelihood.
“International observers said the Russian claims about Ukraine shelling civilians in the rebel occupied areas weren’t true. Which again makes me think these are bogus claims made under duress in order to survive the Russian occupation.”
The above claims were published throughout the Western media BEFORE 2022 (when there wasn’t a clear-cut bias), so given the credibility of the West and the media since this war started, I wouldn’t trust ‘International Observers’ one bit at this point.
Invading a territory, bombing their cities into rubble, driving 99.9% of the civilian population out of the area, and then trotting out a handful of remaining civilians to say they support Russia is not an acceptable justification for anything.
Where did the civilian population flee too? The vast majority went to Western Ukraine or Europe. Very few went to Russia.
Even if the remnant that is left in those areas actually support Russia, it’s not a justification for what has been done to Ukraine, or a reason to be okay with shifting the territory to Russia.