Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

Are the people in Eastern Ukraine genuinely pro Russian or do they just not want to get shot?

I have never been clear whether the new Russian backed states actually have mass support.

After half the population of the DPR/LPR territories fled (west, not east), anyone else resisting was arrested and a few truckloads of poor Russians were bused in to live there, there might be a pro-russian marjority yes. Prior to 2014? no i hightly doubt it.
 
Are the people in Eastern Ukraine genuinely pro Russian or do they just not want to get shot?

I have never been clear whether the new Russian backed states actually have mass support.
It's interesting. I still don't quite have a clear grasp of how pro-Russian the east is. It seemed many voted for Yanukovych in the past and the Donbas separatists don't just fall out of the sky either.

But take a place like Kharkiv for example which is heavily Russian-speaking. I think the pro-Russian sentiment there won't be as lively anymore after this invasion...
 
I don't think hoping for Russian civilians to die is the right approach. "Non military assets" is a somewhat perverse way of looking at it.
It’s not the right approach but it might be one of the few approaches left. By nom military assets I meant things like bridges, cellphone towers, parliament etc. The best form of defence is attack I heard. Maybe I just got tired of having people support this nonsense. Anyway I hope it works out great for everyone involved
 
For anyone who thinks that economic sanctions are having little effect ... from a Russian in business, living outside Russia in one of the Central Asian Republics:

 
Why though? What turned him? I just don't get it.

Because Vlad invited Stone to Moscow and rolled out the red carpet for him to make a doc about him. It’s actually an interesting doc, but it’s also pretty clear Putin bamboozled Stone in the process .

 
Also rumors of a piece of the True Cross on there ...

Or perhaps a True Double Cross. The FSB should question all of the 50-odd survivors to find out which of them has Ukrainian ancestry and so smuggled a radar jamming device on board.
 
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Are the people in Eastern Ukraine genuinely pro Russian or do they just not want to get shot?

I have never been clear whether the new Russian backed states actually have mass support.
There has never really been a Donbassian identity and so polling on independence or joining Russian never made much sense, but in short the answer is “no” or “not really”. Read something like this for a primer: https://www.historians.in.ua/index....-donbas-how-to-understand-its-past-and-future

We essentially are where are because Igor Strelkov/Girkin entered Ukraine to foment unrest and start armed insurgency, capitalising on the political unrest post-Maidan. It’s not hard to offer people a large increase on their salary to become parts of militias in that part of the world. The escalation of events was driven by a few key maverick protagonists though, mostly Russian, many of whom were then were killed by Russia themselves once they outlived their usefulness.

Of course, there are people living there, mainly of the older generation, who see Russia/Soviet Union as their home and have a warped sense of what has gone since 2014, but the idea of there a burgeoning sepratist movement, as in Scotland or Catalonia is just not supported by any evidence.

Speaking Russian or voting for pro-Russian parties shouldn’t be seen as wanting to be occupied by Russian-backed forces or Russia itself, anymore than being a Remaimer in the UK would mean supporting the EU seizing in the UK. You can be a Russian-speaker, (formerly) Russian-facing, but still identify as a Ukrainian and despise what has happened since 2014. My mother-in-law in Lviv is one such person. You can be a dyed-in-the-wool Communist who was a proud party member, who like Putin thinks the demise of the Soviet Union was a tragedy, and still be aghast at what has happened, now spending everyday bickering with your wife of 50+ years over who is the more Ukrainian. My grandfather-in-law is one such person.

It’s a complicated issue, one you can spend a lot of time researching and reading, but the creation of the DNR and LNR was not an organic process from people living in the area. It was driven by outsiders.
 
Everyone checking on this thread for the updates please continue supporting Ukraine (if you have means). The charity I recommend personally: https://blue-yellow.lt/en/. These guys have been in operation since the 2014 invasion and are mostly focused on supplying the necessary equipment to the front line fighters. Many Lithuanians who have gone to fight for Ukraine have been singling them out as the ones who provide crucial support for the units in red zones. Also, moral and financial support really makes them going, the Lithuanians who have returned from front lines say that Ukrainians are currently highly motivated as they feel the world is behind them with the support messages they’re receiving through various platforms at the moment and the worry for them is that as the war drags some other topics will become dominant in the western countries and the level of support will dramatically decrease. The importance of morale can’t be underestimated as they’re constantly under a huge amount of stress.
 
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Everyone checking on this thread for the updates please continue supporting Ukraine (if you have means). The charity I recommend personally: https://blue-yellow.lt/en/. These guys have been in operation since the 2014 invasion and are mostly focused on supplying the necessary equipment to the front line fighters. Many Lithuanians who have gone to fight for Ukraine have been singling them out as the ones who provide crucial support for the units in red zones. Also, moral and financial support really makes them going, the Lithuanians who have returned from front lines say that Ukrainians are currently highly motivated as they feel the world is behind them with the support messages they’re receiving through various platforms at the moment and the worry for them is that as the war drags some other topics will become dominant in the western countries and the level of support will dramatically decrease. The importance of morale can’t be underestimated as they’re constantly under a huge amount of stress.
Yes. I am literally a "house" giver both in the city of Constanta as well as in Mamaia in hotels. The money that comes back from that has nothing to do with many things that are popular, nor should they.

Just my opinion here, If somebody want's to help financially, do it through the red cross. I've seen super rich people with Porsche getting a save for this or that while the ones that actually need help are left in the dark.

Donate to the Red Cross. If you want to help.
 
"More than 7,000 dead Russian soldiers are being stored in morgues and refrigerated rail cars across Ukraine, Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the head of Ukraine's presidential administration, previously told The Washington Post.

"They said, 'We don't believe in such quantities. We don't have this number. We're not ready to accept them,'" Arestovych told the paper about the reaction of the Russian authorities.

More than 1,500 dead Russian soldiers are held in morgues in Dnipro, Ukraine, its deputy mayor Mykhailo Lysenko said on the TV channel Current Time on April 13."

https://www.businessinsider.com/700...left-in-morgues-ukraine-says-2022-4?r=US&IR=T
 
Yes. I am literally a "house" giver both in the city of Constanta as well as in Mamaia in hotels. The money that comes back from that has nothing to do with many things that are popular, nor should they.

Just my opinion here, If somebody want's to help financially, do it through the red cross. I've seen super rich people with Porsche getting a save for this or that while the ones that actually need help are left in the dark.

Donate to the Red Cross. If you want to help.
Please donate through various channels, I’m just recommending the one that I trust to deliver 100% of donated funds directly and swiftly to Ukrainian soldiers by obtaining them necessary equipment (drones, plate carriers, etc.).

Also, in the context of this war Red Cross have shown a very poor form:

 
"More than 7,000 dead Russian soldiers are being stored in morgues and refrigerated rail cars across Ukraine, Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to the head of Ukraine's presidential administration, previously told The Washington Post.

"They said, 'We don't believe in such quantities. We don't have this number. We're not ready to accept them,'" Arestovych told the paper about the reaction of the Russian authorities.

More than 1,500 dead Russian soldiers are held in morgues in Dnipro, Ukraine, its deputy mayor Mykhailo Lysenko said on the TV channel Current Time on April 13."

https://www.businessinsider.com/700...left-in-morgues-ukraine-says-2022-4?r=US&IR=T

I fail to see how this isn't seeping into the Russian public, even with all the propaganda and clamping down of news sources, this should still be available on the likes of Telegram and other places.
 
I fail to see how this isn't seeping into the Russian public, even with all the propaganda and clamping down of news sources, this should still be available on the likes of Telegram and other places.
They can sense the scale by now and still call them fallen heroes and defenders. It’s totally fecked up country at this point.