Polish language area 1880
Posted on 08/17/2025 10:23:22 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The traditionally Russian-speaking area is at the heart of what the Russian president calls the “root causes” of the war, and taking it over is near the top of his list of territorial and political demands.
The proposal to end the war in Ukraine that emerged from the summit in Alaska between President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia centers on persuading Kyiv to give up the Donbas, the industrial region in the east.
The traditionally Russian-speaking area has been at the heart of what Mr. Putin calls the “root causes” of the war, and taking it over is near the top of his list of territorial and political demands.
Mr. Putin has tried to control the Donbas since embarking on his campaign to control Ukraine in 2014, first through separatist proxies and then by invading and annexing the region in 2022. Since the full-scale invasion, the Donbas has been the site of the war’s deadliest battles, and is the main focus of Russia’s summer offensive.
The Kremlin’s forces and its separatist allies have conquered about 87 percent of the Donbas since 2014, according to data from DeepState, a Ukrainian group that tracks battlefield developments. Russian forces are now chipping away at the 2,600 square miles of the region that remain in Ukrainian hands with very heavy losses. Without a cease-fire, the battle for the Donbas is almost certain to stretch into next year and cost tens of thousands of lives, military analysts say.
The region’s fate could shape the outcome of the war.
The substance of a peace deal discussed by Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin in Alaska on Friday remains murky. The few known details come from the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/msnbc-host-says-karoline-leavitt-044920313.html
Yahoo/MSNBC (”I know, I know”)
“ISW continues to assess that a potential Ukrainian withdrawal from Donetsk Oblast would degrade Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and defense industrial base (DIB) and put hundreds of thousands more Ukrainian civilians under Russian occupation.”
“ISW previously noted that allowing Russia to occupy the remainder of Donetsk Oblast would concede Ukraine’s fortress belt to Russian forces, and this fortress belt also includes significant DIB infrastructure. Russian forces have notably been unable to advance to or envelop the fortress belt since Fall 2022. The Russian military command would almost certainly work to rapidly establish lasting positions throughout the fortress belt and utilize the fortress belt’s DIB for military production if Ukrainian forces withdraw from their positions in Donetsk Oblast.”
“Seizing the remainder of Donetsk Oblast would likely be a difficult and years-long effort for Russian forces rather than a quick effort as Putin likely aims to portray”
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-16-2025
which Angela Merkel later revealed to be a ruse to lull the Russians while building the Ukrainian military for a large offensive and domination of any resistance to the 2014 coup.
Not true. Merkel said that was the result of the Minsk Accords, not the purpose. Nice attempt at a spin, however.
“The traditionally Russian-speaking area has been at the heart of what Mr. Putin calls the “root causes” of the war, and taking it over is near the top of his list of territorial and political demands.”
Germany blamed Poland for starting WWII!
Russian speaking but Ukrainian majority. Ireland is English speaking. That does not make it English.
“Why is Russia hitting all religious sites in Ukraine, churches, schools, hospitals?”
Ukraine is probably the fourth largest arms producer in the world (after the US, Russia and China). In WW2, the US converted its factories for war production.
Ukraine has command centers, barracks, arms depots, etc.
Are we to believe Putin is neglecting weapons production & military targets so as to primarily hit civilian targets?
I think Putin is following the Soviet strategy used in Afghanistan. Terrorize the populace to try and depopulate the country.
When did Poland, France, Britain and Belgium speak German?
You can examine my content history and see that I don’t tolerate any of the neo-Soviet trash that makes up so much of Free Republic since ‘22, but Poroshenko (who was angrily ousted by a super-super-super-majority of Ukrainians, so I have no tolerance for conflating him with Zelenskyy) handled the Donbas crisis with no intention of winning, but only an intention of punishing the insurgents so bad that people in places like Mariupol would be scared to rebel. He was a blood-thirsty tyrant, who forever lost the Donbas to Ukraine.
So the first thing we need to keep in mind when figuring out how to resolve the war is this: no matter what happens, Kiev will never control the Donbas. We could nuke Moscow until there’s nothing but glass from Kalingrad to the Bering strait, and Ukraine could never control the Donbas.
“The traditionally Russian-speaking area has been at the heart of what Mr. Putin calls the “root causes” of the war,”
True.
True.
mucusmaxillary says that is Russian propaganda and you are a Putinista!
pooty poot lies and he still is evil
Polish language area 1880
You’re both wrong. Or right. It costs Putin very little to wreak significant terror on civilian targets. He forces Ukraine to defend the entirety of the country, instead of only the front lines. It’s like Michael Jordan passing the ball to Longley or Kerr; he doesn’t want all five defenders on him and Pippen.
It's always refreshing when the infants chime in.
Wait a minute. I thought Trump was Hitler.
PUTIN’S goal is all of Ukraine. Maybe he takes a break after he gets Donbas, while he builds up his forces
Viktor Yanukovich was ousted during the Orange Revolution after he apparently ordered government troops to fire on protestors. Even Ukrainian courts under Poroshenko (the anti-Russian who succeeded him) have found that this was likely a false-flag operation, meaning Poroshenko’s people killed their own supporters to delegitimize Yanukovich’s Russian-freindly government. Russian-dominated Crimea, which legally had every right to, quickly seceeded. The Donbas, which had none, but was also largely Russian-leaning, tried to follow and revolted. Poroshenko responded with a bloodthirstiness that made clear he had no hope of ever controlling the Donbas, only to terrorize the Russian-leaning Ukrainians outside the war zone to prevent them from supporting insurrection in their own cities.
Am I siding with the neo-Soviets? Hardly. Poroshenko was hated in his own country by the over-whelming majority of Ukrainians who were horrified and repulsed by his savage destruction of his own people. They elected a neutral man, Volodomir Zelenskyy, with the specific hope of somehow finding peace. From his election in 2019, a ceasefire was established, fairly successfully.
Putin used the ceasefire to prepare for war. In 2020, he flooded the U.S. with propaganda in support of the Black Lives Moment, radical homosexual agenda, support for Bernie Sanders, and a plan to blame Donald Trump for this propaganda on the basis that the Sanders propaganda included ridiculously silly anti-Hillary propaganda, designed to be outrageously ineffective.
With a limp-wristed, senile, incompetent, underwear-soiling socialist in the White House, Putin now felt free to invade.
The globalist goal in poking the bear was all of Russia so they can get the natural resources like they used the 2014 color revolution to get Ukraine's natural resources.
“significant terror on civilian targets”
I believe Russia launches about 6,000 Shaheeds a month at Ukraine, which shoots about 85% of them down.
That’s about 900 a month hitting a target.
That, averaged out, would be about one drone with a warhead of up to about 200 pounds hitting a target in a square mile of Kiev about every six days, if the drones were only targeted Kiev.
Now a lot of the shot down drones still land near a target. That, averaged out, would make it about one drone with a warhead of up to about 200 pounds hitting a square mile of Kiev about every two days, if the drones were only targeted Kiev.
Of course, if you live near an arms factory, expect a higher than average per square mile of drones to come towards your area.
Many questions you have frog_zeeper.
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