3129517 Thank you for sharing your perspective.

I must say I'm a bit confused, though. I get that Russia had close ties with Ukraine. Every country has ties with neighboring countries. Most countries also have border disputes. That's nothing out of the ordinary.

What I'm confused about is why does any of this even matter? If Ukraine wants to elect Adolf Hitler himself, it's their right to do so, no?

3129514

It's difficult for me to speak for Russians as a whole. We have various political views, and some Russians are more pro-Western than others.

I will speak for myself.

Euromaidan of 2014 was heavily supported by certain Ukrainian nationalist groups that are virulently anti-Russian, and glorify Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevich, and other members of UPA and UNA-UNSO, who collaborated with Nazis in WW2; for any patriotic Russian, this is already borderline blasphemous. But when Yanukovich was ousted, these groups became very powerful, and were turned into pseudo-death squadrons, and gained a lot of influence in Ukraine. This is even more intolerable, on the level of SS veterans' parades in Baltic states (these never fail to spike blood pressure). And their "decommunization" process, where they try to erase the names of true heroes of Great Patriotic War, like Marshal Zhukov, is also very infuriating. Thus, it wasn't even too much of a stretch to call current Ukrainian government "neo-fascist", when coupled with their anti-Russian policies.

People of Crimea and Donbass, who have very close ties to Russia, and where some of the battles of Great Patriotic War were fought, naturally disagreed with this, heavily. That said, there were dissenters in other places, like Kharkov and Odessa, but in Kharkov the motion didn't gather enough steam, and in Odessa, people were burned alive on May 2nd, 2014, which also took the wind out of the sails. Crimea and Donbass, on the other hand, managed to get themselves organized enough to tell the new Ukrainian government to go fornicate themselves, and declared their independence. Russia helped in Crimea, and thus it organized a referendum to join Russian Federation and bloodshed was largely avoided. In Donbass, however, Russia did not act immediately, and while People's Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk were formed, Ukraine could act free there (unlike in Crimea), which resulted in a war. To be honest, I expected Donetsk and Lugansk to fall, but that didn't happen, the frontline got stabilized. A diplomatic solution was attempted in Minsk Accords, but both Ukraine and Donbass blamed each other for violating them, and West blamed Russia (although it was not even a side in the accords) - it was obvious even back in 2016 that Minsk Accords don't work. When Zelensky became the president of Ukraine, there was hope that some movements toward peace would be made, but no - the war continued. The only conclusion that was left is that Ukraine is not interested in peace - or, more like, that the West (since Ukraine consulted very heavily with the West) is not interested in peace in Donbass.

Sooner or later, this impasse had to end. It ended now.

Did I support the reunification of Crimea with Russia? Despite knowing that we would suffer the consequences for it, yes.

Did I support the recognition of independence of Donetsk and Lugansk? Yes. I personally think this should have been done 8 years ago, to spare the people these 8 gruelling years of enduring the war.

Do I support the current Russian military operation? Given what I said in the beginning, how Ukrainian authorities allow Bandera fans to run free, I have no love for those, and if Russian army can finally give them their long overdue punishment, I am all for it. I do understand that this situation may go south, and I do wish that it didn't come to this... but Putin had said before: "we have nowhere to retreat". Meaning, Russia now had to double down when the shelling of Donbass intensified, or retreat and be rendered into a non-sovereign entity like in 1990s (when we basically had US controlling everything... bad times, those were). Now, we have a repeat of August 2008, when Saakashvili had Tskhinval shelled, and Russia interfered and gave him a good kick. Now it's Zelensky's turn.

Those who think like me, will of course think the same. Those who do not... do I need to contimue?

The whole world is being fed one-sided views and prescribed narratives. It's hard to get any good information from the other side of the conflict (Russia).

I'm interested in the views of the Russian people. Some people in the world consider borders to be sacred, and Russia violated Ukraine's borders. How do the Russians view this expansion of their Motherland?

You seem to be quite knowledgeable on matters of Ukraine. There's a thread that I think could use your input:
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/200615/anti-depression-ponies/thread/490276/ukraine

Any new word on things?