While there was a militia component the backbone militarily and the security services (OMON) were provided by Russia.
Citation needed. There were plenty of Russian volunteers for obvious reasons but the backbone of the DPR and LPR militias were people who signed up for their armies. There is no proof otherwise and not even the biggest pro-Ukraine people believe that the "backbone" of the separatists was Russians. Note that I am not saying Russian units were involved
in certain battles or not, that's a question for 70 years from now when Russia starts releasing classified documents on it.
They could have worked politically to split by plebiscite or something. Armed conflict being the least desirable option here and yet it was the first one chosen.
Would have never worked. Neither side ever abided by any ceasefire, neither side ever showed any sign of wanting the war to really stop. Ukraine was irreparably divided after Euromaidan. Again note that I am not imparting any blame on the pro-EU protestors, since they made objectively the better choice of trying to join the West. No amicable split was possible, a large amount of Eastern Ukrainians were disgruntled enough to take up arms and leave by force. If Ukraine were willing to let them leave, they would have signed an agreement for it in the 8 years after.
Lasted one year. Separatists were never in danger of losing, the Moldovan military was a joke and they were exceedingly well armed after the 14th Guards let them take whatever they wanted from their military depot. Similarly, volunteers flooded in from Ukraine, Russia and some of the 14th Guards even defected to join the Transnitrians. A conflict with less than 1,000 deaths, total.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia
One year conflicts, handily won by the separatists, who had very legitimate grievances, in another conflict borne out of the USSR's habit of relocating ethnic Russians to their Republics, and forcing people who hate eachother to live together. These two didn't want to be Georgian. They got independence another way. Russian military involvement in these two (at least the first wars) was also very limited to non-existent. The large amount of volunteers was enough to tip the scales.
Many atrocities comitted by both sides, attesting to the fact that they hate each other to death and a union between them would have never worked.
They tend to rebel and Russia comes in to save the oppressed minority peoples.
Wow, I wonder why all these tiny ass irrelevant countries rebel from slightly larger irrelevant countries. Maybe it's because they were all part of a giant empire that repressed any nationalist and ethnic spergery (other than Russian) with a hard boot and when all that security, borne out of fear of reprisals from Moscow, was ended by the dissolution, and there was no USSR to put them in place, the two groups inevitably clash, and one of them would rather go back to being in the USSR because at least then they get to be semi-autonomous kind of. And of course, the nice Russians are always there to expand their empire.
The Russians can be opportunistic and fanners of the flame, without being 100% to blame for said conflicts. Moldova didn't have to ban the Russian language. Georgia didn't have to shit on all their ethnic minorities and then get their ass kicked in a war. The USSR's retarded policies leading to the establishment of Russian speaking minorities in places where Russian speakers shouldn't be in such great numbers and their subsequent dissolution directly lead to basically every war Russia has been involved in since.
Russians didn't stop being Russians when the USSR fell and many of them obviously wanted to go back. Obviously, Russia wasn't going to pass on these opportunities.
This division within Ukraine is what is being cultivated. It is artificial. I remind you that Zelensky is a Russian-speaker. He was overwhelmingly voted in by both east and west.
This is just completely untrue, for the first part, and irrelevant for the second.
It's untrue because the divisions between Eastern and Western Ukraine were recorded for years before the 2014 war was even a possibility. Unless you believe that Russia was secretly trucking in tens of thousands of Russians into Ukraine and making them settle down there so they could gayop a conflict 10 years later, there is no way you can believe this with the data we have available. Ethnicities in the post-USSR world clash. This has been proven, again and again, to be inevitable. It isn't cultivated or artificial, it is a natural conclusion of the USSR's immigration patterns and policies and its dissolution.
Zelensky being voted in by West and East doesn't matter because he campaigned on ending the War in the Donbas which was very popular, and didn't happen, and because the separatist republics were already separatists and therefore, didn't get a say for obvious reasons.
me
