Well that depends on your interpretation of what justifies war. If you think nothing does, than obviously nothing will. I don’t think Russia is justified, but that their position is understandable. The Ukrainian military shelled Russian speaking civilians in Donbas. They also, deliberately or not, fired over the border and killed Russian citizens in Russia. They dammed a river supplying 80% of the fresh water into Crimea which had rebelled and join the Russian Federation. Ukraine was also seeking NATO membership, which would mean that anything that could have constituted an attack on Ukraine by Russian would have triggered war with all of NATO, meaning that unless Russia acted now Ukraine could have continued to kill Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity with impunity under NATO’s protection. Basically with Ukraine in NATO, the US could trivially engineer a full scale war with Russia at any time.
Parts of Ukraine are heavily populated by people of Russian decent, who speak Russian, they are discriminated against by the government and by ethnic Ukrainians. Before the invasion Ukraine had made it mandatory for all public servants to speak Ukrainian for example. The US assisted right wing militia to coup the Ukrainian government in 2014 because the president was seen as pro-Russia.
There was an ongoing civil war, drawn along ethnic lines. The US always intended to escalate this conflict as a way to hurt Russia and Putin decided to strike before he had to face a NATO protected belligerent on the border. You might not agree that this is justification, but I think it puts paid to the suggestion that the war was merely territorial aggression by an inherently militaristic government against a peaceful one.
Oh it’s not that it’s justified, it’s just insane to call a country “normally peaceful” when they had an illegal coup followed by a civil war for the last 7 years, mind you the current government is the result of the illegal coup and the breakaway regions supported the legitimate government.
So, just looking over what happened on Wikipedia, it looks like there were violent protests over the leader not joining the EU. A majority of parliament removed him after a lot of chaos. That decision feels understandable given the circumstance. Parliament is elected, which feels like a more democratic decision than one guy’s choice even if you or I disagree. Is there more context I’m missing that would suggest it was a straight up coup?
They removed him immediately after the security forces retreated and the whole government fled the capital, that’s paperwork at that point. It’s not about whether the legislature can do it - legislatures very often make these kinds of decisions during or after the process of getting physically run out of their chairs by armed men. And that’s generally what a coup entails.
This is Wikipedia we’re talking about, but it’s worth mentioning that the right wing spearhead of the riot viewed it as an insurgency, as was mentioned incidentally in articles like this one:
It’s also worth noting that the event that escalated the protests and led to the government fleeing was a massacre of civilians which was blamed on the police and the government. The evidence seems to indicate that this was a false-flag attack since the civilians were killed by snipers that were in a building that was occupied by the ultra right wing parties involved in the protesters. For an in-depth discussion on the matter I would recommend this article. The author is a Ukrainian political scientist.
Zelensky may have been elected president, but the positions of governors are unelected in Ukraine. And the more you look at the ministers and governors in Ukraine, the more you see they are oligarchs or backed by oligarchs from the government immediately post-Maidan. Also as president, Zelensky has outlawed opposition parties and socialist parties. Nothing is binary, Ukraine can have presidential elections and still be undemocratic.
Alright, I’ll bite. As someone who’s somewhat ignorant of the situation, what led up to the invasion that would justify it?
Well that depends on your interpretation of what justifies war. If you think nothing does, than obviously nothing will. I don’t think Russia is justified, but that their position is understandable. The Ukrainian military shelled Russian speaking civilians in Donbas. They also, deliberately or not, fired over the border and killed Russian citizens in Russia. They dammed a river supplying 80% of the fresh water into Crimea which had rebelled and join the Russian Federation. Ukraine was also seeking NATO membership, which would mean that anything that could have constituted an attack on Ukraine by Russian would have triggered war with all of NATO, meaning that unless Russia acted now Ukraine could have continued to kill Ukrainians of Russian ethnicity with impunity under NATO’s protection. Basically with Ukraine in NATO, the US could trivially engineer a full scale war with Russia at any time.
Parts of Ukraine are heavily populated by people of Russian decent, who speak Russian, they are discriminated against by the government and by ethnic Ukrainians. Before the invasion Ukraine had made it mandatory for all public servants to speak Ukrainian for example. The US assisted right wing militia to coup the Ukrainian government in 2014 because the president was seen as pro-Russia.
There was an ongoing civil war, drawn along ethnic lines. The US always intended to escalate this conflict as a way to hurt Russia and Putin decided to strike before he had to face a NATO protected belligerent on the border. You might not agree that this is justification, but I think it puts paid to the suggestion that the war was merely territorial aggression by an inherently militaristic government against a peaceful one.
Great answer, I appreciate you taking the time to explain.
There’s always lots of stuff on the news megathread as well, if you’re interested
Oh it’s not that it’s justified, it’s just insane to call a country “normally peaceful” when they had an illegal coup followed by a civil war for the last 7 years, mind you the current government is the result of the illegal coup and the breakaway regions supported the legitimate government.
So, just looking over what happened on Wikipedia, it looks like there were violent protests over the leader not joining the EU. A majority of parliament removed him after a lot of chaos. That decision feels understandable given the circumstance. Parliament is elected, which feels like a more democratic decision than one guy’s choice even if you or I disagree. Is there more context I’m missing that would suggest it was a straight up coup?
They removed him immediately after the security forces retreated and the whole government fled the capital, that’s paperwork at that point. It’s not about whether the legislature can do it - legislatures very often make these kinds of decisions during or after the process of getting physically run out of their chairs by armed men. And that’s generally what a coup entails.
This is Wikipedia we’re talking about, but it’s worth mentioning that the right wing spearhead of the riot viewed it as an insurgency, as was mentioned incidentally in articles like this one:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/zmjjey/what-the-hell-are-ukrainian-fascists-doing-in-the-hong-kong-protests
It’s also worth noting that the event that escalated the protests and led to the government fleeing was a massacre of civilians which was blamed on the police and the government. The evidence seems to indicate that this was a false-flag attack since the civilians were killed by snipers that were in a building that was occupied by the ultra right wing parties involved in the protesters. For an in-depth discussion on the matter I would recommend this article. The author is a Ukrainian political scientist.
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Zelensky may have been elected president, but the positions of governors are unelected in Ukraine. And the more you look at the ministers and governors in Ukraine, the more you see they are oligarchs or backed by oligarchs from the government immediately post-Maidan. Also as president, Zelensky has outlawed opposition parties and socialist parties. Nothing is binary, Ukraine can have presidential elections and still be undemocratic.
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https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/the-buildup-to-war-in-ukraine-february-13-2022.html
continues for every day up until Feb 22
https://youtu.be/LL4eNy4FCs8
You know, I listened to this once without taking much of it in, and I’m glad you pointed it out for another watch. Thank you.