• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    But many do, and did historically, as it was part of Russia prior to the USSR.

    But I have a genuine question: suppose that the majority of people living in Donbass genuinely wanted to break off and become part of Russia. Should they be allowed to, and if so, what steps should they have taken to make it happen, in the context that the government banned major opposition parties that were sympathetic towards Russia? What are you supposed to do, exactly, when the country is moving in a direction that you disagree with and shutting the opposition out of the political process, after seizing power through force?

    A downvote is not an answer, btw.

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Hey let’s switch examples and see if your logic stands up. The name Los Angeles is Spanish. Because Spanish speakers have been there longer than English speakers. If the Spanish speakers don’t like the president of the United States, does that mean it’s perfectly acceptable for the Mexican government to provide Spanish speaking protesters in LA with artillery systems and missile batteries? Or is that fucking weird?

      A downvote is not an answer btw.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        18 hours ago

        There is a mild secessionist movement in CA. People of all ethnicities in the city can dissaprove of the oppression taking place. Pre-2022, ask in Donbas was just autonomy from nazis shelling it relatively indiscriminantly. CA even if it were to ask for military help from Mexico or China, wouldn’t have as first choice to join as one of their provinces. In both cases, independence is more about humanist self determination rather than ethnic loyalties even if the fascist oppression is centered on extermination of ethnic/liberal “sub humans”

      • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 hours ago

        Who is upvoting this racist lib fantasy? smh.

        Everyone should rise up against this disgusting empire regardless of their “language”.

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        It’s funny because the Russians in the donbass were being ethnically cleansed and you picked an example where that’s also happening and they’re equally justified in using violence to defend themselves.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        20 hours ago

        Yes. I wish they would.

        Especially if the government said that those people were not allowed to participate in the political process, but given that the US political process is a joke and a sham, I don’t have any sort of belief in “upholding its territorial integrity” or anything like that.

        Legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed, does it not?

        See how I was able to immediately provide a very clear answer to your question? Now do mine.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            So, do you remember how British colonists Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin went to France to negotiate for French military aid against the British, and how Lafayette arriving with that aid was vital to the success of the American Revolution? Well, I happen to be of the opinion that when people say that Trump is a fascist or is acting like a king, and that “in America, we don’t do kings,” that those words actually have meaning and aren’t just empty slogans.

            The real question is, why do y’all think it would be bad for people resisting fascism to have access to artillery systems and missile batteries? 🤔

            Btw, still no answer to my original question.

    • Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml
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      22 hours ago

      It’s a complicated issue to solve, and I’m not the person to solve it but the Russian state’s approach has basically been in every single way wrong.

      The Russian ethnic minority and it’s treatment is a domestic issue. It is not a suitable pretext for Russia to invade a country, bomb schools and hospitals, and force Ukrainians into either a smaller portion of their country or to live under an ethnostate that does not represent them. Putin has naked imperial ambitions not just in Ukraine but also in Georgia.

      I’m now gonna block you, as I do everyone with pro-Russia views. Because anyone that can excuse Russia’s actions is not worthy of my attention.

      • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        The Russian ethnic minority and it’s treatment is a domestic issue.

        Hey that’s exactly what Candice Owens said about how Hitler treated the jews

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        20 hours ago

        It’s a complicated issue to solve, and I’m not the person to solve it

        Im now gonna block you… anyone that can excuse Russia’s actions is not worthy of my attention.

    • Historically the acceptable answer if you want to live in a different country would be to, you know, move to that country, instead of trying to move that country to you through war.

      Btw, the Donbas is not a historically majority Russian region. It was subject to russification starting under tsarist Russia and intensified under the Soviets. But it was majority Ukrainian, home to the Ukrainian cossacks and major settlements were also deeply intertwined with the Ukrainian economy.

      • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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        20 hours ago

        This is completely false. It was seat of Crimean Khanate, vassal of Ottoman Empire, which was also hostile to Poland, Russia AND cossacks. And “deeply intertwined with the Ukrainian economy” was mostly looting, kidnapping, raping and murdering Ruthenian peasants (ancestors of both Ukrainians and local Russians) as part of one of biggest historical slave trades which Russia ended when it conquered that blight of humanity Khanate was.

        Your post is deeply ahistorical, disgusting and borders on slavery apologia, and you should be ashamed.

        • That’s even further back. I’m talking about the period when the Russian empire controlled the territory. During that time (+100 years), there was far more economic integration with the Ruthenians than there was with Russia proper. It made more logistical sense, it’s the same reason for which Crimea was ceded to Ukraine by the Soviets, Kiev due to its positioning was better suited to administratively control it.

          The tsar sought to increase his influence over the region and began the process of russification, to tie the valuable region to Russia proper. The Soviets accelerated this, as they did in most of the other Soviet states.

          Also thanks to ml mods to shut down any discussion. Come on, you’re better than just censoring comments.

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            15 hours ago

            The soviets did not expand russification, it was the opposite. They preserved and made official tons of minority languages (yiddish comes to mind), even establishing publishing houses in these languages. In addition to the SSRs that preserved the national identities and cultures of the given republics, the soviets instituted protections for minorities within these ssrs.

            • Initially this is absolutely true! Under Lenin particularly this was very much promoted “indiginenisation” iirc it’s best translated as in English. But particularly under Khrushchev and later Breznhnev this very much changed, focusing on the single Soviet identity.

              They didn’t really prosecute these minorities mind, just very much promoted the Soviet culture and Russian language in a large variety of ways.

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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            18 hours ago

            You dont get to post vibes base ahistoric nonsense (like you again did) then cry about mods “censoring” you.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            19 hours ago

            The Soviets accelerated this

            Do you have any supporting evidence whatsoever for the claim that Russiafication was worse under the Soviets than under the tsar? Because if not, the mods are well within their rights to remove your unsupported claims as misinformation.

            • Sure, here’s a source: https://archive.org/details/acrossmoscowrive00brai

              The Soviets pursued korenization initially, which actually revived efforts towards Ukrainization. But this was later stopped and reversed to pursue a single Soviet identity with the Russian language. Ukrainian culture was suppressed and even Ukrainian membership of the communist party declined sharply. Russification intensified under Khrushchev and later Brezhnev.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                16 hours ago

                Sure, here’s a source: https://archive.org/details/acrossmoscowrive00brai

                That’s an entire book, about an entirely different topic, written by the British ambassador working in the last few years of the USSR.

                Do you at least have a page number where he compares Ukraine during the USSR compared to Tsarist Russia? It is specifically the claim that Donbass was was more heavily suppressed than in Tsarist Russia that I’m disputing.

                • Page 151 has what you’re looking for:

                  The reality was, of course, that Russian and later Soviet imperial rule was at least as brutal as that of other imperial powers. In their campaigns of Russification the Tsars imprisoned and exiled Finns, Ukrainians, and others who dared to practise their national language and sustain a national culture. The Communists continued the practice even more brutally under the guise of eradicating ‘bourgeois nationalism’. Large numbers of intellectuals, especially in Ukraine and the Baltic States, were killed or exiled by Stalin. Under his successors the executions were fewer but the pressures continued. Communist Parties, with their own local First Secretaries, existed in all the fifteen constituent republics of the Union save for Russia itself. Russians saw this as discrimination. In fact it was a sign that the Russians did not need their own party, since they dominated the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and exercised effective central control over the republican parties. Throughout the Soviet period discontent flared up from time to time in one or other of the constituent republics, and was brutally suppressed.

                  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                    14 hours ago

                    The reality was, of course, that Russian and later Soviet imperial rule was at least as brutal as that of other imperial powers. In their campaigns of Russification the Tsars imprisoned and exiled Finns, Ukrainians, and others who dared to practise their national language and sustain a national culture. The Communists continued the practice even more brutally under the guise of eradicating ‘bourgeois nationalism’.

                    So the British ambassador asserts that the Soviets did the same thing as the Tsars but it was “more brutal.” What, specifically, does “more brutal” mean here? As in, more people affected? What were the numbers? Where did he get those? Am I just expected to take his word for it?

                    Large numbers of intellectuals, especially in Ukraine and the Baltic States, were killed or exiled by Stalin. Under his successors the executions were fewer but the pressures continued.

                    This is kind of interesting considering that you’ve claimed that the repression was most severe under his successors.

                    Communist Parties, with their own local First Secretaries, existed in all the fifteen constituent republics of the Union save for Russia itself. Russians saw this as discrimination.

                    Where does this information come from? Were there polls on whether Russians saw this as discrimination? Or is it anecdotal/vibes based, something that the British ambassador simply assumes the Russians must have felt?

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        20 hours ago

        Interesting how “russiafication intensified under the Soviets” when the Soviets are the ones who gave the territory to Ukraine 🤔

        • The Ruthenians had been a people for centuries at that point, culturally similar but distinct from the Russians. History did not begin with the Soviet Union, nor are people defined by their borders, especially not in an age of empires and often shifting borders.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            19 hours ago

            Non sequitor?

            The claim you made was “Russiafication of the Donbass increased under the Soviets.” The same Soviets who granted the Donbass to Ukraine. Nothing in your comment seems at all relevant to that.