The mass
graves and bombed-out cities targeted by Russian forces in Ukraine have
shocked the civilized world, and rightly so. But to millions of Syrian
war refugees, and Syrian-born Americans like myself, Vladimir Putin's
barbaric assault on Ukraine is less a shock than it is a grim reminder
of the overwhelming destructive forces he and his fellow dictator,
Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, unleashed on our home country over a decade
ago.
The West's response to Putin's murderous invasion of Ukraine has been
swift, decisive, and unequivocal. Yet the ongoing Syrian crisis, which
began in 2011 when protesters rose up against Assad's repressive
government, is now, tragically, all but ignored. It's a mistake to see these two conflicts as separate. The failure of
the United States and its allies to stand up to the Russian-backed
Assad government years ago opened the door for Putin to wage all-out war
against Ukraine. And unless Western leaders commit to helping Syria's
opposition topple Assad and achieve the Syrian people's aspiration to
transition to democracy, the world will remain needlessly vulnerable to
the whims of dictators.
In the first years of Syria's civil war, opposition forces made
steady progress, gaining control of large segments of several provinces,
including Aleppo, Idlib, and Deraa. That all changed in 2015, when
Putin came to the aid of Assad. What followed was one of the most
horrific airstrike campaigns in history. Putin's forces didn't just bomb
military targets -- they intentionally bombed schools, hospitals, and
markets, killing 24,743 defenseless civilians, by one estimate, and
leading to the world's largest refugee crisis since World War II.
All told, 6.6 million Syrians have fled their country since the
beginning of the war, and an additional 6.7 million have been internally
displaced.
My own brother, along with his wife and children, were forced to flee
the Damascus suburb of Ghouta to avoid the bombings and a terrifying
chemical attack that killed scores of their neighbors. They joined tens
of thousands of Syrians who fled to overcrowded and unsanitary refugee
camps in Idlib.
These joint Russian-Syrian assaults were critical in helping Assad
stave off opposition forces and remain in power. But for Putin, they
were a proving ground for tactics and technologies he would later deploy
in Ukraine. Not only did the Syria campaigns allow Russia to test out
new weapons systems and refine their disinformation techniques. They
also offered Putin a sense of how the West might respond should he use
these strategies in the future.
And it's here that the connection between these wars is most
critical. Had the United States and other Western countries rallied
behind Syria's opposition, and worked with allies in the Middle East to
help rebel fighters beat back the Assad regime, it would have sent a
strong message to Assad and Putin both. Specifically, it would have
shown these dictators -- and others around the world -- that targeted
assaults on helpless civilians won't be tolerated, no matter where they
occur.
But no such response materialized. In fact, at no point has the
United States ever provided enough support to the Syrian opposition to
even remotely threaten Assad's power, much less Putin's. In effect,
Putin was permitted to perpetrate horrific war crimes against the
civilians of another nation with impunity. Is it any wonder he believed
he could do the same in Ukraine?
Thankfully, the West has finally taken notice, showing solidarity
with those fighting for their freedom in Ukraine, and demanding action
from their leaders in the form of much-needed military support and
economic sanctions. But an effective response to Putin's uncivilized
behavior can't ignore his past and ongoing crimes against the Syrian
people.
It's time for the West to make up for its failure in Syria, and
finally provide my home nation's opposition forces with the support they
need to beat back both Assad and Putin and achieve the Syrian people's
desire to transition to democracy.
Dr. Tarek Kteleh is a practicing medical doctor, president of
Rheumatology of Central Indiana, and a member of Citizens for a Secure
and Safe America, a nongovernmental organization whose mission is to
promote security in the Middle East and democratic progress in Syria. He
is the author of The Six Pillars of Advocacy: Embrace Your Cause and Transform Lives. The views expressed are the author's own.
I will try to critique in 1-2 points of the analyzes of the honest
Marxist Michael Karadjis (When the work leave comes, in a few days or
faster. I am an employee, not a professional intellectual, so show
understanding for my simplistic and sometimes violent way of speaking).
Among the slogans of Iranian retirees: "Neither Lebanon nor Gaza, think of the retirees" .. This
"reactionary" -by the left and Iranianleft criteria- slogan, drips like
a poison in the "anti-Zionist" false consciousness of the (iranian and
west) far left, freezes them, because they see where the Iranian people
are going, and they do not like it. Let leftists be careful, but they
are not careful, and so they will lose again.
--
Not only is Ukraine (as a nation and people) moving forever to detached
from Eastern totalitarianism to join the West, but Iran (as a nation
and people) is also moving in that direction. The "west-east" divide
may in fact be an alienative determination/definition, and may have to
be overcome in the future, but at the moment eastern totalitarianism is
the worst, first and foremost for the eastern peoples themselves who
live within its chains.
Strange hypothesis of sociological and philosophical research, based on a strange socio-historical fact:
If we look at the attitude of the vast majority of the world leftism towards the Russian-Ukrainian war, we find that it was fully instrumentalized by Russian imperialism, certainly not in support of the Russian invasion (although there have been such cases) but by following a neutral line.
If we think about this fact more carefully, we will understand that this is exactly what Russia from the leftism wanted [''Neutrality''], and that is what it succeeded.
The Russian imperialists and their mechanisms are not naive, they tried and fully achieved the realistic goal they set in relation to the leftism, and the leftism did what Russian imperialists they wanted.
Therefore?
Neither the conspiracy theories about "secret" centers of power, which manipulate unsuspecting victims, apply, but nor the structuralist or Foucaultian notions (that dominate within the new left), that there are no centers of power and that everything is mainly structures.
The proof that Foucaultian abstraction was not valid is the very attitude of the left, which along with most of anarchism became Putin's neutral puppet.
With my poor knowledge of music, however, I can understand the multitude and complexity of the changes and rhythms in this Iranian folk song. Surely, however, I can understand why a stupid left-wing sectarian when he hears the word ''folk'', can not understand that this (Iranian) ''folk'', for example, can not be compared and paralleled with the ''folk'' that haunts him like a ghost and has led him to ideological spells, like those of the idiot-fool-idiots "autonomous Marxists" who grow in Germany like cabbages with which German-Marxist cabbage soups are made.
Let's look at one aspect of the embarrassing Tsipras-Merkel-Davutoglu agreement in 2015 on the refugee issue.
These 3 bastards, one of whom is also a "leftist", not only decided to close the Greek-northern Macedonia border for the refugees, so that the refugees would not go to central Europe, but they also insisted that they could not (the refugees) to go freely to mainland Greece.
(There
was, as part of the agreement, the term for forcing refugees
rescued at sea in the eastern Aegean to remain in concentration camps on
the islands - until their application for "refugee status" was granted)
But why?
Because if the refugees could go freely to mainland Greece, then they could go to central Europe through illegal circuits.
No "enlightened" anti-capitalist or anarchist reacted for a long time to this joint decision to close the Greek-northern Macedonian border, but also the reactions about the issue of the creating "internal" borders within Greece -so that refugees do not leave in Central Europe- they were modest.
But let's look at things again, and ask:
Why did the Westerners and the Greek anti-capitalists and anarchists not react with due force to the forced "confinement" of refugees in Greece?
The western "comrades", who if they are comrades I am Nebuchadnezzar, were comfortable not to receive any additional pressure from the far right in their country, and their mother Merkel relieved them of this burden.
Also, this way they would be able to moralize again at the expense of the "Balkan" nationalists, if such a need arose, since the guilt of these people is deep, so a Balkan racist is useful to reduce these guilt. .
But why did the Greek anti-capitalists and anarchists not react?
The reasons are not as simple as they seem.
1) First of all, they are also governed by the well-known post-colonial oikophobia, so they saw in the refugee confinement an opportunity to break the ethnic definition/determination of the dominant bourgeois nationalism.
The neo-left ethnic Machiavellianism of the absolute idiot, who thinks in his ideological bigotry that he can play with sudden changes in the ethnic composition of a population.
This is exactly what the Nazi far right would like, in order to sharpen the ethno-nationalist aspects of the dominant nationalism.
The ultra-stupid neo-left and the ultra-ultra-stupid far right, but the last would win the ultra-stupidity contest because of their ability to exploit the fear of the indigenous population.
2) In general, anti-capitalism and anarchy have the weakness or even the non-intention to understand that the modern capitalism of the metropolises "plays" with the issue of immigration-refuge a biopolitical-mechanistic game, which has distorted the older (relative) simplicity of the phenomenon. But if the left-anarchists in the capitalist metropolises themselves have the opportunity to become active parts of this game (as far as their Hegelian religion allows), the left-anarchists on the borders of the big capitalist metropolises, on the borders of the west-east, for example, do not have the same capabilities.
The US, the horrible Germany, and other metropolises still have the potential for biopolitical and economic (again) assimilation of the refugee phenomenon, while countries on the border are in strongly reduced such potentialities.
For the German left-wing idiot, for example, this does not matter, since the absolute symmetry of her/his deranged brain plus her/his unlimited readings (only Adorno she/he reading, is enough to lose much of her/his contact with the real world), does not have a direct impact on the process of assimilation of the refugees from their own countries, despite the problems.
However, the corresponding Balkan or Greek ideological idiot does not have so many possibilities.
Capitalism and the state in which it lives can not do the job so that it can, like a clever fool, peckin the left way the process.
Ιωάννης Τζανάκος
-----
Look at the picture!
The moment of the shameful agreement (in a football event, same day, maybe).
The cunning Turkish nationalist Davutoglu has hidden the Greek flag under the Turkish one, while the ''wild'' left-wing Greek "internationalist" Tsipras makes sure both flags are visible.
If this is the "left ideological moral superiority", forget me.
I see a left idiot, playing the good kid in the Turkish rapist.
With such images you do not become an internationalist, but necessarily a defensive nationalist.
The end of a blackmail. Turkey uses immigrants on the Greek-Turkish
border as a weapon, sometimes at their own risk, but Greek society must
overcome its fear and accept them now all, in a fraternal way, overcoming the
trap of its heterodetermination by the Turkish state trap. But here I must emphasize something: The
only ones who do not have the right to judge us (apart from the Turkish
state, of course) are the "solidarity" westerners (and Greeks)
"solidarity" and extreme leftists who did not say ANYTHING about the
decision of the hegemonic nation-state-vampire in Europe, Germany, which
DECIDED at the critical moment to close the Greek-Northern Macedonian
border, and thus to stop the free flow of migrants-refugees to western
Europe (some would also stay in Greece), converting my country
(especially some islands in the eastern aegean) in a closed-open
concentration camp for immigrants-refugees.
Comrades from the East. Don't be fooled by the western left-right-centrist racists, liars, ideological swindlers.
To open all the borders, but ALL. Your "solidarity" western and Greek comrades, professionals of "solidarity" and ideological adoption (some of them literally, abducted children and adopted them, semi-legally), go only to the Greek-Turkish border, and there practicising their philanthropic ideological ''solidarity'', but they without saying ANYTHING about the reopening (for all) of the road channel that connects Greece with the Balkans and central Europe.
So, they are playing the game of the European far right, blaming a partly guilty bourgeois country, utilizing the fear of its inhabitants, which, however, they co-created with the concealment of the existence of the (secret in all its terms) agreement Tsipras-Merkel-Davoudoglou, for the closure of the Greek-northern Macedonian border (2015).
I want you all, without fear, but this is nothing if we do not understand the conspiracies of all the western racists, right-wingers and ''benevolent'' left-anarchists.
Η
αποτυχία αναβίωσης ενός νεκρού κεντρικού Ονόματος μέσω τής πρόσθεσης
εμβόλιμων και μη-οργανικά συνυφασμένων με αυτό κατηγοριακών
προσδιορισμών, δεν είναι η τελευταία φάση θανάτου του.
Επακολουθεί
για μια στιγμή μια παράκρουση επίκλησης τού Ονόματος αυτού σαν να είχε
από «μόνο» του την «δύναμη» να υπάρξει στην αρχική λαμπρότητά του ως
πάλι «μόνο», κύριε Μπαντιού και λοιποί.
Αν
τα κεντρικά Ονόματα και νοήματα είναι κάτι σαν οι εξουσιαστές ενός
ιδεολογικού-θεωρητικού συστήματος, οι οποίοι δεν προσφέρουν την
ουσιαστική εργασία-διεργασία για να χτιστεί και να συντηρηθεί αυτό το
ιδεολογικό-θεωρητικό σύστημα όπως οι εργαζόμενοι του (διαμεσολαβούσες
έννοιες κ.λπ), τι πιο λογικό από το να σκεφτούν όσοι είναι «δίκαιοι» την
απόδοση τής εξουσίας στις διεργασίες και τούς εργαζόμενους τους;
Ρίχνουν
τον βασιλιά και εξουσιαστή «Όνομα-Νόημα» και περιμένουν να υπάρξει
επιτέλους μια δημοκρατία χωρίς κανέναν άλλον εξουσιαστή, χωρίς κανένα
άλλο ετεροθεμελιωμένο από αυτούς «Όνομα-Νόημα».
Έλα όμως που δεν γίνεται έτσι, και το φάντασμα τού μονάρχη εξουσιαστή είναι σαν να στοιχειώνει τούς εξεγερμένους.
Έλα
όμως που κάποια στιγμή επανέρχεται ένα άλλο «Όνομα-Νόημα» που κι αν
ακόμα δεν έχει «σημειακή συγγένεια» με το αποκαθηλωμένο επιτελεί την
ίδια λειτουργία.
Έλα όμως που
κάποια στιγμή επανέρχεται ακόμα και ένα πρόσωπο, αυταρχικό και
δεσποτικό, το οποίο δεν κάνει τίποτα άλλο από το να υποστασιοποιεί ξανά
αυτή την ίδια λειτουργία.
Δεν
νομίζω πως ο καλύτερος τρόπος να υπάρχει μια διαδοχή Ονομάτων και
φαντασιώσεων, κεντρικών σημασιών και πίστεων, κι ας μην υπάρχει κάποιο
ευτυχές «λογικό τέλος» τους, είναι να μεσολαβεί μια εποχή μαζικών
εξοντώσεων και καταστροφών-αυτοκαταστροφών. Δεν το έχουν κατανοήσει
μερικοί «εκ γενετής αθώοι» ότι μια «αυτοκριτική» και μια «μετατροπή» δεν
αρκεί για να απαλείψει τις ευθύνες και να δικαιολογήσει μια τόσο ακραία
βίαιη διαδοχή των οικείων κεντρικών σημασιών τους. Ακόμα δε
χειρότερο είναι να νομίσει κάποιος από αυτούς τούς «εκ γενετής αθώους»
ότι θα αρκούσε έτσι απλά μια πλήρης αποποίηση ευθυνών για «λάβαρα» και
πρακτικές που οδηγούν μέσω τής πλήρους αφέλειάς τους στο θανατικό χωρίς
καν λόγο, η οποία θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει με μια μεταφορά τής ευθύνης
αυτής στον εχθρό, πάλι.
Κανένας λογικός άνθρωπος, κανένας
άνθρωπος με τσίπα, δεν θα μπορούσε να δεχτεί ότι μπορεί να υπάρξει ένας
«άλλος» εθνικοσοσιαλισμός, αφού το βάρος των εγκλημάτων αυτού τού
τερατώδους δεν μπορεί να αποκολληθεί από το όνομα του, ούτε το όνομα του
μπορεί να αποκολληθεί από το βάρος των εγκλημάτων που έγιναν υπό την
σκέπη του. Όμως, υπάρχουν πολλοί ακόμα στον άγιο οικείο χώρο μας (κομμουνισμός) που
δεν τους έχει περάσει καν από το μυαλό η ιδέα ότι κάτι ανάλογο αν και
ηπιότερο (είναι δόξα αυτό το «ηπιότερο»;) συμβαίνει και σε μας, ή σε
αυτούς (αν δεν με δέχονται στην πίστη τους) όσο ακόμα υπάρχει
προσκόλληση σε ονόματα, σύμβολα, κεντρικούς συμβολισμούς, αλλά και
στρατηγικές ιδέες περί ολικής απάρνησης τού πολιτικού στοιχείου τής
κοινωνίας. Η ενοχλητική προσκόλληση σε σύμβολα και λάβαρα που έχουν
ακυρωθεί αμετάκλητα, και δεν ξεκολλάνε από την κακή τους χρήση όσα
ξόρκια κι αν κάνεις, δεν είναι απλά εμμονή, μαγικοθρησκευτική
προσκόλληση, αλλά εντέλει σημαίνει, ως εμμονή, ένα σημάδι ότι δεν έχουν
εγκαταλειφθεί κεντρικές στρατηγικές ιδέες και βλέψεις που είναι
αυταρχικές.
Cataclysmic
destruction of Russian-speaking Ukrainian city Mariupol by Russian
invasion; Putin claims, ironically, that his invasion aims to “liberate”
these people from “genocide”.
We’ve all heard it time and time again. Whether it is an argument in
support of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, or just as often, opposed
to it but claiming both sides are equally at fault, we hear that that
“the Ukrainian army killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbas between 2014
and 2022.”
Here’s just one example among thousands of examples regurgitated,
with never a simple fact-check, all over the left and right media:
According to pro-Putin writer Max Parry, “For what the late Edward S.
Herman called the ‘cruise missile Left,’ the 14,000 ethnic Russians killed in Donbass by the Ukrainian army since 2014 are ‘unworthy victims,’ as Herman and Noam Chomsky defined the notion in Manufacturing Consent.”
The purpose of this claim is to argue that, while Putin may have
over-reacted by going all the way to invading, it was the Ukrainian army
most at fault before the invasion. Even if it is admitted that Putin’s
invasion is criminal and may have imperialist goals and is only using
the plight of the Donbas Russians as an excuse, the claim is that this
excuse is genuine.
Therefore, even many of those who oppose the Russian invasion equally
oppose the Ukrainian resistance, and in particular its receipt of arms,
because if Ukraine gets the upper hand, it will just continue to do to
the “ethnic Russians” what it was previously doing, the same as what
Russia is now doing to “the Ukrainians.”
While not quite as colourful as Putin’s claim that Ukraine was
committing “genocide” against the ethnic Russians in Donbas, these
claims are nevertheless serious and merit clear examination.
…………………………………………………
Let’s look at the claim again:
“The Ukrainian army killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbas between 2014 and 2022.”
Is any of this true?
Yes – the 14,000 figure. Yes, 14,000 lost their lives in the conflict
in Donbas between 2014 and 2022. That’s a terrible figure, and of
course many times that number have been wounded, the entire region is a
dead zone covered by landmines, and some 3.5 million people have fled
the region. But what of the rest?
“The Ukrainian army killed.”
Wrong – two sides were involved in the armed conflict – the Ukrainian
army, and various irregular Ukrainian militia (often composed of people
uprooted from their homes) on one side, and the Russia-backed and armed
separatist militia of the two self-proclaimed ‘republics’ in eastern
Donbas on the other, backed by Russian troops and mercenaries. Both
sides shoot; both sides kill.
“ethnic Russians”
Ethnic Russians are a minority of around 38-39 percent of the population in Donbas,
so it is unlikely that all or most killed are “ethnic Russians,” but
that is not the point of this part of the assertion. The reason this
fiction is inserted is to imply that people were killed “by the
Ukrainian army” simply for being ethnic Russians, in a war of targeted
ethnic extermination, rather than being victims of the cross-fire
between the two sides shooting at each other.
So, let’s be clear: we are talking about 3,404 civilians, killed by both sides, over 2014-2022.
However, what about the last part:
“between 2014 and 2022.”
Well, yes, if we make the small change to 2014-2021, then this is correct in the abstract.
But implication here is that there was a continual, ongoing bloody
conflict (allegedly all caused by the Ukrainian army incessantly
“shelling ethnic Russians”) right up to the Russian invasion. The
invasion, in a sense, is simply the continuation of the ongoing
bloodshed, at a perhaps slightly higher level.
In reality, almost all the 14,000 deaths, including almost all
the 3,404 civilians, were killed when the conflict was raging from 2014
till the ceasefire in mid-2015 – that is, during a time when no-one
seriously denies the direct involvement (ie, invasion) by the Russian
army. Let’s just look at the OSCE Status Reports from 2016-2022.
The year by year figures were 87 fatalities in 2017, 43 in 2018, 19 in 2019, and 12 to September 2020.
TheOSCE report as of 11 January 2021 reports “The total number of civilian casualties in 2020 stands at 128: 23 fatalities and 105 injuries.”
The OSCE Status Report as of 13 December 2021reports “since the beginning of 2021, the SMM has confirmed 88 civilian casualties (16 fatalities and 72 injured)” in 2021.
Of these 16 fatalities in 2021, 11 were from the first half of 2021: according to the OSCE Status Report as of 14 June 2021, “Over the past two weeks, the SMM corroborated four civilian casualties, all injuries due to explosive objects. This brings the total number of civilian casualties that occurred since the beginning of 2021 to 37 (11 fatalities and 26 injuries). The majority of the casualties (27) were due to mines, unexploded ordnance and other explosive objects.”
Meanwhile, the OSCE Status Report as of 6 September 2021 reported “a fatality, bringing the total number of confirmed civilian casualties since the beginning of 2021 to 62 (15 fatalities and 47 injuries).” Hence, of the 5 fatalities in the second half of the year, 4 were before September.
From these three 2021 reports, we see a continual decline in fatalities in Donbas: 11 in January-June, 4 in June-September, 1 in September-December.
This trend continued into 2022. The OSCE Status Report as of 7 February 2022
reports “The Mission corroborated reports of a civilian casualty: a
56-year-old man suffering a leg injury as a result of small-arms fire on
29 January 2022 in the western part of non-government-controlled
Oleksandrivka, Donetsk region. This is the first civilian casualty corroborated by the Mission in 2022.” In other words, to 7 February 2022, 2 weeks before the Russian invasion, there had been zero fatalities in Donbas.
Therefore, this is the trend in what Putin calls the “genocide” of
the ethnic Russians in Donbas, even taking into account that the
Russian-owned armed forces shoot and shell as much as do the Ukrainians,
and that the majority of deaths were due to landmines and unexploded
ordinance, laid by both sides:
2016 – 88 deaths
2017 – 87 deaths
2018 – 43 deaths
2019 – 19 deaths
2020 – 23 deaths
2021 – 16 deaths, including:
– 11 deaths (Jan-June)
– 4 deaths (June-Sep)
– 1 death (Sep-Dec)
2022 – 0 deaths (before Russian invasion).
As we can see, the rate of death has continually declined until it
reached zero. The Russian invasion, which resulted in thousands of
deaths and untold injuries, destruction and dispossession, was “in
response” (allegedly) to the zero deaths in Donbas in 2022.
The total number of civilian fatalities from 2016-2022 was therefore 276, about half due to landmines.
Of course any number of deaths is far too many, and neither the
Ukrainian side nor the Russia-owned side should be excused for
violations and war crimes that resulted in civilian deaths.
But as there were 3,404 civilians killed from 2014 to 2022 before the Russian invasion, that means that 3128 of these (92%) occurred in 2014-15,
when no serious observer denies the direct intervention of the Russian
armed forces, mercenaries and heavy weapons in the conflict.
…………………………………………………………….
The aim of this is not to let the Ukrainian government and army off
the hook. Both the Ukrainian army and the Russian-backed separatist
militia have committed war crimes (mostly in 2014-15).
There is also room for criticism of the post-2014 Ukrainian
government’s virulent Ukrainian nationalism, as a major factor leading
to opposition among parts of the Russian-speaking population in the
east; the fact that the Maidan was confronted by an anti-Maidan in the
east was in itself an entirely valid expression of democratic protest.
What was not valid was the almost immediate militarisation of the
anti-Maidan by Russian-backed militia, armed by Russia, involving the
direct intervention of Russian armed forces, mercenaries and heavy
weaponry, arbitrarily seizing control of parts of eastern Ukraine.
Simon Pirani argues that neither the Maidan nor the anti-Maidan
should be stereotyped as reactionary and in fact the “social
aspirations” of the two “were very close,” but “it was right-wing
militia from Russia, and the Russian army, that militarised the conflict
and suppressed the anti-Maidan’s social content.”
It is important to understand that the Donbas is ethnically mixed;
according to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 58% of the
population of Luhansk and 56.9% of Donetsk; the ethnic Russian minority accounts for 39% and 38.2% of the two regions respectively.
How ironic that Putin supporters justify the flagrant Russian
annexation of Crimea by pointing to the 58% ethnic Russian majority
there, when Ukrainians are the same size majority in Donbas! The ethnic
Ukrainian population is then evenly divided between primary Ukrainian
speakers and Russian speakers, but language does not equal ethnicity,
and neither language nor ethnicity equal political opinion. Surveys
carried out in 2016 and 2019 by the Centre for East European and
International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin found that in the
Russian-controlled parts of Donbas, some 45% of the population were in
favour of joining Russia, the majority against. Of the majority against,
some 30% supported some kind of autonomy, while a quarter wanted no
special status. But in the Ukraine government controlled two-thirds of
Donbas, while the same percentage (around 30%) favoured some kind of
autonomy within Ukraine, the two-thirds majority favoured just being in Ukraine with no special status(almost none supported joining Russia).
Hence neither ethnic composition nor opinion shows these are
“Russian” regions that favour separation or even necessarily autonomy;
they are very mixed in all aspects. The bits that have been seized
therefore (the fake ‘republics’) are entirely arbitrary – there was no
basis for these seizures in terms of any “act of self-determination;”
and since the armed conflict took off after these seizures, neither can
they be justified as being in response to some violent wave of
government repression of the anti-Maidan.
The foreign-backed militarisation of the anti-Maidan on the one hand
polarised views on the edges, while on the other driving away the
middle, including a large part of the original anti-Maidan civilian
population; and the more the far-right and fascist Russian-backed, or indeed actual Russian, political figures and militia came to dominate these ‘republics’, imposing essentially totalitarian control and massively violating the human rights
of the local population, the less this had anything to do with any
genuine expression of valid opposition to the Ukrainian government’s
policies. Alienation from this reality, combined with the war itself,
led to literally half the population fleeing Donbas – 3.3 million of the
original population of 6.6 million – either to other parts of Ukraine,
or to Russia.
In this context, it was entirely valid and expected that the
Ukrainian armed forces would attempt to regain these regions conquered
by separatist militia backed by a foreign power. Of course, one may
criticise Ukraine’s reliance on military means to regain these regions,
almost inevitable given that its virulent Ukrainian nationalism
precluded a more political approach. But to lay most blame on this
military response rather than the foreign-backed military aggression it
was responding to is hardly logical. Whatever the case, the continual
and decisive reduction of fatalities, injuries and ceasefire violations
between 2015 and 2022 – from 3128 civilian fatalities in 2014-2015 to 0
in early 2022 – puts the lie to not only Putin’s claim that his bloody
invasion, with its countless thousands of deaths, millions uprooted and
cataclysmic destruction, was in response to “genocide” of “ethnic
Russians,” but also to the more subtle plague on both your houses case
that the Ukrainian army was waging a relentless war against “ethnic
Russians” in Donbas.
The structure of distribution, the distribution as an element of the general structure of production (as Marx has shown us), concerns not only the distribution of the products of the production but also the distribution of the means of production (also this has been shown to us by Marx).
One of the most common myths about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is that in 2014 a full-scale civil war broke out in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbass region. People who do not have access to Russian-language media have probably fallen victim to far-right or Stalinist pro-Putin misinformation.
There is a huge amount of data (ie even the heroes of these events themselves claim this) that show that the early stages of the conflict were not provoked by the Donbass residents themselves, but by far-right paramilitary groups composed mainly of Russian citizens.
In essence, in 2014, Russia presented the first stage of the plan:
In the initial stage, it seeks to create semi-autonomous entities ("people's republics") within Ukraine, through which to control the policies of the Ukrainian state.
And when the first stage failed, it moved on to the second, which involved annexing parts of Ukraine.
But let's start over - the war in Donbass was started by a paramilitary group of far-right fighters from Russia, which, led by Igor Strelkov Girkin (former Russian FSB officer), captured the city of Slavyansk in the Donetsk region.
A quick look at their YouTube appearances, available since April 2014, would be enough to establish that they are far-right people. At least a very large number of "separatists" who invaded eastern Ukraine for the first time from Russia can undoubtedly be described as anti-Semites, racists, monarchists, Orthodox fundamentalists, supporters of the restoration of the Russian Empire and even neo-Nazis who carry out their fantasies. with the help of the weapons they receive from Russia, and with the support of the Russian secret services.
According to Alexander Borodai (the first prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, whom I will discuss in more detail below), between 30,000 and 50,000 Russian volunteer fighters have passed through the People's Republic's armed forces. Examples of this can be found in the many extreme nationalist, often overtly neo-Nazi, armed groups such as the Russians, the Varyag, the Russian National Unity, and the Imperial Legion, which recruit far-right elements from all over Russia. There are also several interviews and videos of volunteers from Russia, in which they admit that the "people's militias" are composed mainly of Russian citizens. And although the number of "separatist" confessions that have emerged since then has only increased, many leftists still adhere to the "civil war" version.
And what will happen when all these fascist elements begin to occupy territories in Donbass? Among others, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the self-proclaimed "people's mayor" of Slavyansk (appointed by the "separatists"), openly admits that he ordered pogroms against the Roma on the outskirts of the city. According to human rights activists, non-Orthodox Christians in Slavyansk were expelled, tortured and killed during the occupation. The "secular mayor" also called on Ukrainian-speaking residents of Slavyansk to "report" to the "authorities". All this makes the new "people's" authorities very unpopular with the local population, as evidenced by Girkin's desperate appearance in a video in which he complains that he cannot gather even a thousand people under his command and calls the entire male population of the region cowards.
It is also worth watching the videos from the conquest of Kramatorsk (the closest big city to Slavyansk) by a special unit, apparently composed of Russian civilians. After the occupation of the administrative buildings, several Kramatorsk residents gathered in front of them to find out who the armed men were. Shouts of "disappear" and "Ukraine" were heard from the crowd. When one of the squatters said it was "for Donbass", the residents replied: "Did you ask us? After all, we are Donbass. Who invited you here? ” As Denis Kazanski, a journalist from Donetsk, points out, the people in this video are so brave because they still don't believe that these people can shoot them.
The Russian citizen Girkin became the first Minister of Defense of the "People's Republic" of Donetsk and with each of his actions and statements made it clear that he was an Orthodox fundamentalist and monarchist who dreamed of returning Russia to its natural borders. is. within 1939. ". Girkin's goal was the realization of the Hitler-Stalin pact. The alleged "anti-fascist" Girkin spoke positively of the counter-revolutionary White Guard and adored Russia's Nazi collaborators during World War II. It is enough to know Russian and use an Internet search engine to find that Girkin is a war criminal who can boast of a long career: he fought for the Russian "separatists" in Moldova in 1992, participated in the war in Bosnia in 1994 (on the Serbian side) and finally took part in the two Chechen wars.
Girkin's articles from the Second Chechen War, which he wrote for the Russian nationalist magazine Zavtra, show that he harbored gross racial prejudices against Chechens. How many of them killed Girkin is not known; According to Russian human rights activists from the Memorial organization, the then FSB officer was involved in the abduction and murder of at least four people. An idea of his ideas about proper warfare can be found in an article he co-authored with Borodai, in which the two openly gloated over the destruction of a Dagestani village with heavy missiles.
Like Girkin, Alexander Borodai is a citizen of the Russian Federation who did not set foot in Donbass before 2014. But that will not stop him from becoming the first prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic. And Borodai politically belongs to the Russian far right: he is a monarchist, Orthodox fundamentalist and supporter of the restoration of the tsarist empire. In the 1990s, he was the director of the Russian nationalist newspaper Zavtra, and in 2011 he founded the nationalist Internet channel Den-TV, where he often gave a platform to far-right voices such as anti-Semite Konstantin. Дусенов.
Borodai also has a long "separatist" career.
In 1992, like many other Russian citizens, he will be among the "separatists" who, with Russian military support, have placed Transnistria under Russian control. Of course, in 1992 the "reason for the invasion" was the protection of the "endangered Russian-speaking" population from "Moldovan fascism". As in the case of Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014, few moralists have bothered to look for the real reasons, but instead have chosen to believe Russian propaganda nostalgic for the USSR.
When things worsened in August 2014, the two separatist leaders returned to Moscow; The "offices" they left in the "people's republic" were occupied by local puppets. At that time, however, the war was in full swing and Russia had already deployed its tactical units on Ukrainian territory. In their own country, a luxurious life awaited them as a reward for their services. Borodai was even elected a member of the Russian parliament (the Duma) by Putin's United Russia party.
All this does not mean that before 2014 in Donbass everything was perfect, it is obvious that there were problems, but they were social and class in nature, rather than racial (as Putin's propaganda claims). And it is somewhat logical that all this zeal for the integration of the region in Russia comes not from the people, but from paramilitary far-right elements of the Russian Federation itself.
