I have been "repeating" by directly responding to various people's studied ignorance regarding rampant paramilitary bigotry in Ukraine. I responded to each person individually.
That Nation article was one of TEN sources in a link that I included in my original post. Here is the link again:
I have been "repeating" by directly responding to various people's studied ignorance regarding rampant paramilitary bigotry in Ukraine. I responded to each person individually.
That Nation article was one of TEN sources in a link that I included in my original post. Here is the link again:
"The October 2021 polls delivered a shock to the presidential team. According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Zelensky’s approval rating as president dropped from 33.3 percent in September to 24.7 percent in October, separated from Poroshenko’s approval rating by fewer than ten percentage points. The Razumkov Center’s poll demonstrates that Volodymyr Zelensky overtook Petro Poroshenko and now has the biggest “anti-rating” among Ukrainian politicians. What has happened to the once beloved leader?
"My answer: at the midpoint of his presidency, Zelensky himself has destroyed his image as an alternative politician. Here is what he did.
"First, Zelensky and his team started promoting the idea that he was “like any other businessperson in Ukraine.” This statement was repeated by everyone on the presidential team in response to the revelations of Zelensky’s offshore holdings, suddenly exposed in the Pandora Papers."
Regarding Zelensky making peace with so-called "neo Nazi's" these radicals were fighting off Russia in Eastern Ukraine... this now is unity Zelensky needed in fighting off Russian aggression. Russia is actually more Nazified than Ukraine, ironically. Putin used this term Nazi to plug into the history from WW2 when the Russians fought off the Nazi's ( after they colluded with them) and this made vulnerable Russians so proud that they are fighting Nazi's again... they were duped and are pathetic.
There has also been criticism of right-wing Ukrainian militia members who were fighting against the separatists in the east of Ukraine earlier this year — above all, the Azov Battalion. Umland said that although it was founded by a right-wing extremist group, it was integrated into forces of the Interior Ministry, the National Guard, in the fall of 2014.
After that, he said, there had been a separation of the movement and the regiment, with the latter still using the former's symbols but no longer being classified as part of the right-wing extremist scene. During military training courses, extremist soldiers had sometimes come to light, he said, but they had then "been revealed and named as a scandal." end quote
(translated from the German)
Schmeeckle your responses are so "off". What are you trying so hard to prove?
Zelensky’s support rose tremendously after he precipitated the Russian invasion. MUCH more to say about that. (By the way, your chosen link doesn't mention his rise in support, although I have no reason to doubt it.)
George Bush's poll numbers were in the dumpster, until he decided on a crime against humanity, the second war against Iraq. Then his support rose tremendously.
You point out that the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was integrated into the Interior Ministry, WHICH WAS BEING RUN BY THE NEO-NAZI POLITICAL KINGPIN ARSEN AVAKOV.
After right-wing extremist thugs put the Maiden Revolution over the top, their political leader Avakov was made Interior Minister, in charge of all the police stations. So right-wung extremists (or "neo-Nazis" if you prefer) started acting as policemen to suppress Russian speaking in Novorossiya -- the Russian area thad been tacked onto little Ukraine in 1921.
So the people started burning down police stations and took control of Kharkiv and Mariupol, starting the civil war that got "frozen" by the Minsk Agreements...
p.s. Writing this post on my cell phone without my reading glasses -- apologize for any typos
Professor Marci Shore very close to what happened in 2014 wrote a book on The Maidan Revolution or The Revolution of Dignity: The Ukrainian Night;An Intimate History of Revolution
and gave this inspiring lecture.
"Right Sector has been described as a right-wing[6][22] or far right[7] nationalist[4][23][24] political party and movement.[25][26][27] Right Sector was the second-most mentioned political group in Russian media during the first half of 2014, and Russian state TV depicted it as neo-Nazi.[7][28] In March 2014, Associated Press declared that it has found no evidence that the group had committed hate crimes.[24]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Sector
Zelensky came into office riding on this wave for dignity, democracy and alliance with the West.
I give you great reputable sources, or sources that refer to reputable sources. You seek the off, the oppositional and unsupportable. You don't address points that are inconvenient to your narrative which of course is not biased and oppositional for its own sake. You change the subject-- move it, focus it on this now that and expect it to be followed and accepted or perhaps you thrive on the opposition. I am not game anymore. Put your glasses on and read some truth.
And you write that Professor Marci Shore has written a book.
Sergei Glazyev, Russia's Minister of Foreign Economic Relations under President Yeltsin, wrote a book entitled "Genocide: Russia and the New World Order":
"Great reputable sources or sources that refer to reputable sources," as if somebody's reputation is worth more than the facts. You remind me of that quote from former New York Times editor John Swinton:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
"There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.
Schmeeckle... What's your point? What's your goal? Never mind. I am not up for following your out of date arguments on oppositional links, fact checking, pointing to the cherry picking nor correcting your falsities. Now with thIs poison/lie: "Zelensky’s support rose tremendously after he precipitated the Russian invasion" I leave.
Potter, you fail to recall the events leading up to the Russian invasion. Russia had given security guarantees to the breakaway Donbass republics. Zelensky was compelled, by both the nei-Nazis (who ruined his peace initiative) and the IMF (as a condition for the 2014 loan, which Zelensky publicly accepted) to reignite the war in the Donbass. Three days before the Russian invasion, Zelensky began his own pre-invasion bombardment along the line of contact, and he publicly mused about Ukraine re-acquiring nuclear weapons, presenting Russia with the thought of an endless "Cuban missile crisis" on its border.
Russia invaded as a survival imperative.
Now... go drink your Koolaid!
p.s. The American people have been thoroughly and completely beainwashed about what is going on in Ukraine. For an earlier example of news media brainwashing in support of imperialist war-mongering, recall the (later) proven fraud of Saddam Hussein and the Kuwaiti baby incubators:
P.S. This is a pathetic example to cite to make a case that the American people have been thoroughly brainwashed. It's an insult to both the reputable media and the American people. You keep dragging up cherry picked non sequiturs.
Brutal liars like you are inevitably in a state of denial about American government complicity (including Senator Joe Biden) in the most far-reaching genocide in history because the International Monetary Fund (based in Washington, DC) was thoroughly dominated by the United States government.
Quoting senior IMF official Davison Budhoo's resignation letter:
"To me resignation is a priceless liberation, for with it I have taken the first big step to that place where I may hope to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples. ...The blood is so much, you know, it runs in rivers....
"The charges that I make touch at the very heart of western society and western morality and post-war inter-governmental institutionalism that have degenerated into fake and sham under the pretext of establishingand maintaining international economic order and global efficiency....
"Will the world be content merely to brand our institution as among the most insidious enemies of humankind? Will our fellowmen condemn us thus and let the matter rest? Or will the heirs of those whom we have dismembered in our own peculiar Holocaust clamor for another Nuremberg?
"I don’t mind telling you that this matter has haunted me; it has haunted me particularly over the past five years. It has haunted me because I know that if I am tried I will be found guilty, very guilty, without extenuating circumstance...."
Schmeeckle--You really ought to acquaint yourself with the truth instead of coming here to oppose it, resistant to it, to argue with everyone. You are so outnumbered . What credibility do you have other than the sources that you point to that are biased, oppositional and telling oppositional stories with, at best, partial facts? It's an insult. You have demonstrated that you do not have credibility. Why do you keep trying-- for attention? Do you think you are gaining ground?
I am supposed to fall over backward by what you present? I look up every one of your links and find gross faults and bias, a skewed narrative. You talk about about Neo Nazi's but when I show you that the Neo Nazi's, or the ones to call such if you are so interested, are in Russia and Russia has actually turned to being really Nazi now: more totalitarian, more of an outlaw gangster country than ever committing crimes against humanity with a population under repression, you ignore this. Inconvenient to acknowledge. This is Zelensky's Ukraine, now fighting for survival, living a hell. You dare to come here with your opposition garbage blaming Zelensky in the face of this?
About the Ukrainians "breakaway Donbass Republics" you should read the FULL history Schmeeckle. Try Wikipedia, there's lots of it there, but there are plenty of good sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhii_Plokhy. Plokhy just came about with a book on this recent history.
"According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre from 5–23 April, 18% of eastern Ukrainians were in favour of secession, while 70% wished to remain part of a united Ukraine.[20] (2014)"
After the Maiden revolution other polls are similar ABOUT WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT...not what Russia wants and what Russians there want. Ukrainians in the Donbass do not want Russia or to be with Russia for the MOST part. Let the pro Russians, and the Russian IMPORTs go to Russia. This area is Ukraine. It's obvious why Putin wants it and Crimea. Crimea is now strategically an imperative for Ukraine, not only sovereign Ukraine. Ukraine has been sovereign, internationally accepted as sovereign a since 1991. Ukraine gave up its nukes for the agreement to be protected. Zelensky had and has every right according to international law to fight for it for the survival country. Russia should get the hell out. And.. speaking of hell- this is what Putin is headed for. Now drink your own special mix of Koolaid and please stop this.
And by the way, Potter, I'm pleased to notice that RFK, Jr. is following in my footsteps. Quoting RFK:
"Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian youth have already died because America’s foreign policy establishment manipulated their country into war to fulfill [a] vain and futile geopolitical phantasy. Now, rather than acknowledge failure, [the] Biden administration prepares to sacrifice American lives too.”
Thousands have died, innocent civilians and on purpose, because of Russia's brutal aggression Also children and women and others have been kidnapped to various places in Russia to be "reeducated". Some were taken from 2014 and reeducated on have been fighting as Russians in Ukraine. Some Ukrainians have been given Russian uniforms to do dirty work on the front lines.
RFK JR. is not credible demonstrably, even in today's paper more evidence. David Remnick did an interview with him in a recent NewYorker that reveals more. He's "off." You should not be so proud. (as of May 2023)
Russia relocated children whose parents were dead or missing out of a war zone, and the same western news media that studiously ignores Davison Budhoo's confession of crimes against humanity in "our own peculiar Holocaust" trumpets this as a war crime.
And then there was the Ukrainian anti-missile that missed an incoming Russian missile and landed in Poland, and Zelensky lied to the world about it. That one was a bit too blatant for westerners tobaccept without question, but how many other Russian "war crimes" were actually Ukrainian anti-missiles that came down randomly and exploded in urban areas?
But go chug a gallon of Kool-aid, you need the reinforcement.
Potter, you continue to sneer at my sources without ever actually mentioning a specific disagreement, as if you were a candidate to be an Orwellian McCarthyist thought controller.
In addition, for the second time, your proffered source doesn't say what you claim. You insinuate that your source says that 70% of Ukrainians in the Donbass want to stay with Ukraine, but your source says the opposite, as if you were a dyslexic cross-eyed troll.
HOWEVER, your source mentions a counter-referendum organized by Ihor Kolomoysky, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk district, which is not part of the Donbass. This counter-referendum, held in aras of the Donbass that were under the guns of the Ukrainian military, produced the results that you report. Perhaps you were drinking too much and didn't read your source carefully?
And who was this Ihor Kolomoysky, the governor who organized the counter-referendum? His company gave money to Hunter Biden; he was an oligarch (and an Israeli citizen) who owned the biggest bank in Ukraine; he funded Zelensky’s rise to power (President Poroshenko referred to Zelensky as "Kolomoysky’s puppet"); and he funded the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, perhaps with money from that IMF loan that disappeared from his bank (for which he was eventually purged and driven into exile).
“In late September 2022, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian-installed officials in Ukraine staged so-called referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia.[1][2][3][4] They were widely described as sham referendums by commentators and denounced by various countries. Currently, the validity of the results of the referendums has only been accepted by North Korea and no other sovereign state”
The referendum organizers stated that 2,252,867 voted in favour of self-rule, with 256,040 against, on a turnout of nearly 75%.[57][58] These results could not be independently verified.[57][59]
“Separatists in eastern Ukraine are pressing ahead with their plan to hold a referendum on secession from Kiev, despite even the stated wishes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The move may signal a dangerous escalation of an already deadly conflict. On Thursday, Denis Pushilin, the self-proclaimed chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic, insisted at a news conference that there was a popular will for the vote.
."People want the referendum," he said. "And it’s not just a few people; it's millions of people who want the referendum, who need to give this vote for their ideals."
But according to a new poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a vast majority of those living in Ukraine -- both in the restive east and more nationalist west -- want the country's borders to remain the same, despite the many political and social tensions that have come to the surface in recent months.”
And Zelensky won the election with a big majority, because he campaigned on a promise to "bring swift peace" to the Donbass. But Zelensky the tragic coward made a mockery of his mandate by reneging on his campaign pledge and capitulated to neo-Nazis war-mongers, bringing ruin to Ukraine:
Potter,
I have been "repeating" by directly responding to various people's studied ignorance regarding rampant paramilitary bigotry in Ukraine. I responded to each person individually.
That Nation article was one of TEN sources in a link that I included in my original post. Here is the link again:
https://substack.com/profile/85178460-john-schmeeckle/note/c-17693509
After that article from The Nation, here is a good one to examine (with embedded links serving as footnotes):
"How Zelensky Made Peace with Neo-Nazis"
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
And here is a quote from a third article:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/just-all-others-end-zelensky-alternative
"The October 2021 polls delivered a shock to the presidential team. According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Zelensky’s approval rating as president dropped from 33.3 percent in September to 24.7 percent in October, separated from Poroshenko’s approval rating by fewer than ten percentage points. The Razumkov Center’s poll demonstrates that Volodymyr Zelensky overtook Petro Poroshenko and now has the biggest “anti-rating” among Ukrainian politicians. What has happened to the once beloved leader?
"My answer: at the midpoint of his presidency, Zelensky himself has destroyed his image as an alternative politician. Here is what he did.
"First, Zelensky and his team started promoting the idea that he was “like any other businessperson in Ukraine.” This statement was repeated by everyone on the presidential team in response to the revelations of Zelensky’s offshore holdings, suddenly exposed in the Pandora Papers."
The third article quote from polls 2021 and before prior to the Russian invasion Feb 2022. Zelensky's support rose tremendously
Here it from the SAME author this year:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/constitutional-process-wartime-ukraine
---------------------
Regarding Zelensky making peace with so-called "neo Nazi's" these radicals were fighting off Russia in Eastern Ukraine... this now is unity Zelensky needed in fighting off Russian aggression. Russia is actually more Nazified than Ukraine, ironically. Putin used this term Nazi to plug into the history from WW2 when the Russians fought off the Nazi's ( after they colluded with them) and this made vulnerable Russians so proud that they are fighting Nazi's again... they were duped and are pathetic.
Read:
https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2022/opinion/russias-long-history-of-neo-nazis
https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/13/when-russia-calls-others-nazis-it-should-be-taking-a-hard-look-at-itself
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism_in_Russia
****
From https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-there-any-truth-to-russias-ukrainian-nazis-propaganda/a-63970461 :
"What about the Azov Battalion?
There has also been criticism of right-wing Ukrainian militia members who were fighting against the separatists in the east of Ukraine earlier this year — above all, the Azov Battalion. Umland said that although it was founded by a right-wing extremist group, it was integrated into forces of the Interior Ministry, the National Guard, in the fall of 2014.
After that, he said, there had been a separation of the movement and the regiment, with the latter still using the former's symbols but no longer being classified as part of the right-wing extremist scene. During military training courses, extremist soldiers had sometimes come to light, he said, but they had then "been revealed and named as a scandal." end quote
(translated from the German)
Schmeeckle your responses are so "off". What are you trying so hard to prove?
Potter,
I wish I had time for a longer rebuttal.
Zelensky’s support rose tremendously after he precipitated the Russian invasion. MUCH more to say about that. (By the way, your chosen link doesn't mention his rise in support, although I have no reason to doubt it.)
George Bush's poll numbers were in the dumpster, until he decided on a crime against humanity, the second war against Iraq. Then his support rose tremendously.
You point out that the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was integrated into the Interior Ministry, WHICH WAS BEING RUN BY THE NEO-NAZI POLITICAL KINGPIN ARSEN AVAKOV.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/23/ukra-j23.html
After right-wing extremist thugs put the Maiden Revolution over the top, their political leader Avakov was made Interior Minister, in charge of all the police stations. So right-wung extremists (or "neo-Nazis" if you prefer) started acting as policemen to suppress Russian speaking in Novorossiya -- the Russian area thad been tacked onto little Ukraine in 1921.
So the people started burning down police stations and took control of Kharkiv and Mariupol, starting the civil war that got "frozen" by the Minsk Agreements...
p.s. Writing this post on my cell phone without my reading glasses -- apologize for any typos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg_CLI3xY58
Professor Marci Shore very close to what happened in 2014 wrote a book on The Maidan Revolution or The Revolution of Dignity: The Ukrainian Night;An Intimate History of Revolution
and gave this inspiring lecture.
"Right Sector has been described as a right-wing[6][22] or far right[7] nationalist[4][23][24] political party and movement.[25][26][27] Right Sector was the second-most mentioned political group in Russian media during the first half of 2014, and Russian state TV depicted it as neo-Nazi.[7][28] In March 2014, Associated Press declared that it has found no evidence that the group had committed hate crimes.[24]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Sector
Zelensky came into office riding on this wave for dignity, democracy and alliance with the West.
I give you great reputable sources, or sources that refer to reputable sources. You seek the off, the oppositional and unsupportable. You don't address points that are inconvenient to your narrative which of course is not biased and oppositional for its own sake. You change the subject-- move it, focus it on this now that and expect it to be followed and accepted or perhaps you thrive on the opposition. I am not game anymore. Put your glasses on and read some truth.
And you write that Professor Marci Shore has written a book.
Sergei Glazyev, Russia's Minister of Foreign Economic Relations under President Yeltsin, wrote a book entitled "Genocide: Russia and the New World Order":
https://www.amazon.com/Genocide-Russia-New-World-Order/dp/0943235162
And Ramsey Clark, Attorney General under President Carter, wrote a book entitled "The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf War":
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-This-Time-U-S-Crimes/dp/1560250712
"Great reputable sources or sources that refer to reputable sources," as if somebody's reputation is worth more than the facts. You remind me of that quote from former New York Times editor John Swinton:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
"There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.
Schmeeckle... What's your point? What's your goal? Never mind. I am not up for following your out of date arguments on oppositional links, fact checking, pointing to the cherry picking nor correcting your falsities. Now with thIs poison/lie: "Zelensky’s support rose tremendously after he precipitated the Russian invasion" I leave.
Potter, you fail to recall the events leading up to the Russian invasion. Russia had given security guarantees to the breakaway Donbass republics. Zelensky was compelled, by both the nei-Nazis (who ruined his peace initiative) and the IMF (as a condition for the 2014 loan, which Zelensky publicly accepted) to reignite the war in the Donbass. Three days before the Russian invasion, Zelensky began his own pre-invasion bombardment along the line of contact, and he publicly mused about Ukraine re-acquiring nuclear weapons, presenting Russia with the thought of an endless "Cuban missile crisis" on its border.
Russia invaded as a survival imperative.
Now... go drink your Koolaid!
p.s. The American people have been thoroughly and completely beainwashed about what is going on in Ukraine. For an earlier example of news media brainwashing in support of imperialist war-mongering, recall the (later) proven fraud of Saddam Hussein and the Kuwaiti baby incubators:
https://shabait.com/2009/10/19/did-saddams-soldiers-throw-babies-from-incubators-in-kuwait/
P.S. This is a pathetic example to cite to make a case that the American people have been thoroughly brainwashed. It's an insult to both the reputable media and the American people. You keep dragging up cherry picked non sequiturs.
Brutal liars like you are inevitably in a state of denial about American government complicity (including Senator Joe Biden) in the most far-reaching genocide in history because the International Monetary Fund (based in Washington, DC) was thoroughly dominated by the United States government.
Quoting senior IMF official Davison Budhoo's resignation letter:
"To me resignation is a priceless liberation, for with it I have taken the first big step to that place where I may hope to wash my hands of what in my mind’s eye is the blood of millions of poor and starving peoples. ...The blood is so much, you know, it runs in rivers....
"The charges that I make touch at the very heart of western society and western morality and post-war inter-governmental institutionalism that have degenerated into fake and sham under the pretext of establishingand maintaining international economic order and global efficiency....
"Will the world be content merely to brand our institution as among the most insidious enemies of humankind? Will our fellowmen condemn us thus and let the matter rest? Or will the heirs of those whom we have dismembered in our own peculiar Holocaust clamor for another Nuremberg?
"I don’t mind telling you that this matter has haunted me; it has haunted me particularly over the past five years. It has haunted me because I know that if I am tried I will be found guilty, very guilty, without extenuating circumstance...."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oJzvpfFzIKu76oE1CkzZlarRiVpYIggFMFzSt6OgHx0/mobilebasic
Schmeeckle--You really ought to acquaint yourself with the truth instead of coming here to oppose it, resistant to it, to argue with everyone. You are so outnumbered . What credibility do you have other than the sources that you point to that are biased, oppositional and telling oppositional stories with, at best, partial facts? It's an insult. You have demonstrated that you do not have credibility. Why do you keep trying-- for attention? Do you think you are gaining ground?
I am supposed to fall over backward by what you present? I look up every one of your links and find gross faults and bias, a skewed narrative. You talk about about Neo Nazi's but when I show you that the Neo Nazi's, or the ones to call such if you are so interested, are in Russia and Russia has actually turned to being really Nazi now: more totalitarian, more of an outlaw gangster country than ever committing crimes against humanity with a population under repression, you ignore this. Inconvenient to acknowledge. This is Zelensky's Ukraine, now fighting for survival, living a hell. You dare to come here with your opposition garbage blaming Zelensky in the face of this?
About the Ukrainians "breakaway Donbass Republics" you should read the FULL history Schmeeckle. Try Wikipedia, there's lots of it there, but there are plenty of good sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhii_Plokhy. Plokhy just came about with a book on this recent history.
What polls say, in 2014, even with MAJOR Russian interference : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums
"According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre from 5–23 April, 18% of eastern Ukrainians were in favour of secession, while 70% wished to remain part of a united Ukraine.[20] (2014)"
After the Maiden revolution other polls are similar ABOUT WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT...not what Russia wants and what Russians there want. Ukrainians in the Donbass do not want Russia or to be with Russia for the MOST part. Let the pro Russians, and the Russian IMPORTs go to Russia. This area is Ukraine. It's obvious why Putin wants it and Crimea. Crimea is now strategically an imperative for Ukraine, not only sovereign Ukraine. Ukraine has been sovereign, internationally accepted as sovereign a since 1991. Ukraine gave up its nukes for the agreement to be protected. Zelensky had and has every right according to international law to fight for it for the survival country. Russia should get the hell out. And.. speaking of hell- this is what Putin is headed for. Now drink your own special mix of Koolaid and please stop this.
And by the way, Potter, I'm pleased to notice that RFK, Jr. is following in my footsteps. Quoting RFK:
"Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian youth have already died because America’s foreign policy establishment manipulated their country into war to fulfill [a] vain and futile geopolitical phantasy. Now, rather than acknowledge failure, [the] Biden administration prepares to sacrifice American lives too.”
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230715/rfk-jr-reams-establishment-for-manipulating-ukraine-into-conflict-fears-america-is-next-1111894771.html
Thousands have died, innocent civilians and on purpose, because of Russia's brutal aggression Also children and women and others have been kidnapped to various places in Russia to be "reeducated". Some were taken from 2014 and reeducated on have been fighting as Russians in Ukraine. Some Ukrainians have been given Russian uniforms to do dirty work on the front lines.
RFK JR. is not credible demonstrably, even in today's paper more evidence. David Remnick did an interview with him in a recent NewYorker that reveals more. He's "off." You should not be so proud. (as of May 2023)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/29/i-was-so-scared-the-ukrainian-children-taken-to-russia-for-financial-gain#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Ukrainian%20government,missing%20could%20be%20an%20underestimate.
https://www.rferl.org/a/inside-russian-system-taking-ukraine-children/32437567.html
And this:
https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/ukraine-missing-children-taken-by-russia-kherson/index.html
"Proud"??
You're as bad as your sources.
Russia relocated children whose parents were dead or missing out of a war zone, and the same western news media that studiously ignores Davison Budhoo's confession of crimes against humanity in "our own peculiar Holocaust" trumpets this as a war crime.
And then there was the Ukrainian anti-missile that missed an incoming Russian missile and landed in Poland, and Zelensky lied to the world about it. That one was a bit too blatant for westerners tobaccept without question, but how many other Russian "war crimes" were actually Ukrainian anti-missiles that came down randomly and exploded in urban areas?
But go chug a gallon of Kool-aid, you need the reinforcement.
Potter, you continue to sneer at my sources without ever actually mentioning a specific disagreement, as if you were a candidate to be an Orwellian McCarthyist thought controller.
In addition, for the second time, your proffered source doesn't say what you claim. You insinuate that your source says that 70% of Ukrainians in the Donbass want to stay with Ukraine, but your source says the opposite, as if you were a dyslexic cross-eyed troll.
HOWEVER, your source mentions a counter-referendum organized by Ihor Kolomoysky, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk district, which is not part of the Donbass. This counter-referendum, held in aras of the Donbass that were under the guns of the Ukrainian military, produced the results that you report. Perhaps you were drinking too much and didn't read your source carefully?
And who was this Ihor Kolomoysky, the governor who organized the counter-referendum? His company gave money to Hunter Biden; he was an oligarch (and an Israeli citizen) who owned the biggest bank in Ukraine; he funded Zelensky’s rise to power (President Poroshenko referred to Zelensky as "Kolomoysky’s puppet"); and he funded the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, perhaps with money from that IMF loan that disappeared from his bank (for which he was eventually purged and driven into exile).
That's Ukrainian politics for you.
See "How One Ukrainian Billionaire Funded Hunter Biden, President Volodymyr Zelensky, And Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion," at https://greatgameindia.com/hunter-biden-zelensky-neo-nazi/
PUBLIC OPINION (2014): According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre from 5–23 April, 18% of eastern Ukrainians were in favour of secession, while 70% wished to remain part of a united Ukraine.[20] https://web.archive.org/web/20140509001422/http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2014/05/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Ukraine-Russia-Report-FINAL-May-8-2014.pdf
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_annexation_referendums_in_Russian-occupied_Ukraine
“In late September 2022, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian-installed officials in Ukraine staged so-called referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia.[1][2][3][4] They were widely described as sham referendums by commentators and denounced by various countries. Currently, the validity of the results of the referendums has only been accepted by North Korea and no other sovereign state”
Quoting from the first source you provided:
The referendum organizers stated that 2,252,867 voted in favour of self-rule, with 256,040 against, on a turnout of nearly 75%.[57][58] These results could not be independently verified.[57][59]
NEW POLL …Washington Post May 8 2014
“Separatists in eastern Ukraine are pressing ahead with their plan to hold a referendum on secession from Kiev, despite even the stated wishes of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The move may signal a dangerous escalation of an already deadly conflict. On Thursday, Denis Pushilin, the self-proclaimed chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic, insisted at a news conference that there was a popular will for the vote.
."People want the referendum," he said. "And it’s not just a few people; it's millions of people who want the referendum, who need to give this vote for their ideals."
But according to a new poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, a vast majority of those living in Ukraine -- both in the restive east and more nationalist west -- want the country's borders to remain the same, despite the many political and social tensions that have come to the surface in recent months.”
And Zelensky won the election with a big majority, because he campaigned on a promise to "bring swift peace" to the Donbass. But Zelensky the tragic coward made a mockery of his mandate by reneging on his campaign pledge and capitulated to neo-Nazis war-mongers, bringing ruin to Ukraine:
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/04/how-zelensky-made-peace-with-neo-nazis/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/03/06/regional-polls-show-few-ukrainians-russians-want-a-united-single-state/
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-12-2023/comment/20853496