“Ukraine was part of Russian for most of the past century, they share common bonds, culture, history, and many, some areas a majority of their population is Russian.”
Said it before and I’ll say it again. Talk to some actual Russian people from that area, when they are able to talk freely, and you’ll see how retarded your statement is. Most Americans speak English and grew up with a shared culture with the UK - would that mean you’d take the UK’s side if it invaded America in an attempt to reacquire its former colonies?
I have two Ukrainian Russians from Donbass in my house right now. Both fled west, not east. I’ve also helped out with a family from that area, who fled west to Zaporozhye in March. And I’ve worked with people in east Ukraine.
It is abundantly obvious to anyone who’s actually had contact with the NGOs who’re helping the four million or so displaced people from Ukraine, that a good 70% of people from eastern Ukraine are NATIVE RUSSIAN SPEAKERS (many of whom can’t even speak a word of Ukrainian!) that they don’t see what was going on in their home towns as a civil war, more a brawl between two equally nutty groups of weekend hardasses. Wasn’t even worth the effort of moving town, let alone yomping to safety across an entire continent.
Which invites an obvious question: WHY DID THEY NOT FLEE EAST IF THEY LOVED RUSSIA SO MUCH?
Just think it through. What our Ukrainian Russian couple did was spend a long slow month trekking through six countries and sleeping in youth hostels and railway station platforms to get as far away as they could from RUSSIA. If they’d been remotely in favor of the Russian sponsored takeover, they could’ve stayed put and welcomed the army with flowers (they laughed like drains when I asked them if that had been an option - “Only in Putin’s head!”), and if things had gotten too hot with Azov they could’ve driven a short distance miles east into Russia.
The ones I know personally were happy to stay in Donbass until February this year and what they’d been hoping for was devolution NOT a Kremlin takeover (in much the same way that a lot of Welsh people are quite happy to get more autonomy, but don’t want to leave the United Kingdom).
The Russian family that went to Zaporozhye was so *not* scared of Azov that when Russia invaded, a 17 year old daughter and her dad both signed up to the NGU and ended up in a group with a few nazis in it. They got a bit of stick for being Russians, from a couple of those guys, but after complaining to the CO the non-Azov NGU read the riot act to the nazi guys, and arranged for the family to head west. But they’re all still fighting for Ukraine. Nazis and Russians don’t like each other, that’s obvious, but the one thing they both hate more now is Russia.
About 40% of the Donbass civilian conflict-connected deaths in 2020 and 2021 were due to complete misadventure- like stepping on a landmine or getting run over by a yahoo in either separatist or Azov uniform not watching where he was driving. Our Russian guests snigger every time Putin puffers talk about recent genocide in Ukraine - to them it’s as retarded a statement as saying, if a bus crashes and thirty Russians die in the crash, THAT’S GENOCIDE.
Well, once peace is achieved, send them home. And feel free to send them your money, yourself, your kids, but leave the rest of us out of it. Ukraine is not our concern, not a security risk to us. Europeans can address it if they want, but not involve NATO. Actually, maybe we should end NATO now before folks use it to force us into direct hostilities with Russia. And, by the way, as I’ve asked others supporting Ukraine, what have you done to halt cheap labor from India and cheap products from China, which are both funding Russia? Are you serious enough about addressing Russia to call for ending commerce with these two?