Yeah that’s cringe but thinking that “Russia is supporting the people of Donbass in their fight against the fascist Ukrainian state” is also a very bad take, Russia doesn’t give a fuck about the people of Donbass, they want to have their naval route to the Mediterranean.
Russia doesn’t give a fuck about the people of Donbass, they want to have their naval route to the Mediterranean.
Massive generalisation, of course the Russian state is acting cynically, it’s a state, but there’s large chunk of the Russian population however who are genuinely worried about the fate their co-linguists in the Donbas under potential Banderite fascism
Besides a few pockets of Russian speakers in places like the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, and Northern Georgia the Russian language is in major decline in all former soviet states outside Russia itself and Belorussia. National language policies in former soviet states have created entire generations who did not have to take Russian in school. Something like less than 30% of citizens of former soviet states have any ability to understand Russian, that demographic skews older, and without younger generations gravitating towards Russian cultural/media/political/science institutions any sort of peaceful influence Russia has in those states is coming to an end.
Putin’s calculus on Donbass is the same as Crimea. With the rapid decline in Russian speakers in former soviet satellite states there will soon be no excuses to invade and obtain a path to the Mediterranean for any future Russian government. War now, deal with the fallout like in Crimea, or never have the chance to secure a warm water port for Russia ever.
Yeah their motives aren’t really just supporting them out of the goodness of their hearts. I agree. I don’t think the post implies that by saying supporting them though, it just doesn’t go into any detail about WHY they’re supporting them.
GaP definitely doesn’t think Russia are the goodies here.
Insufficient hedging detected. A meeting with the People’s Nuance Council has been scheduled. Failure to refrain from excessively hot takes prior to clearance by the council may result in further warnings.
If you have questions or believe that your take was sufficiently nuanced and that we are the true essentialists in this situation, please contact our sister organization, the Nuance Origination Union (NO U).
they want to have their naval route to the Mediterranean
That’s some dumb lib talking point. They already have Crimea, they don’t need the Donbass for that.
Meh, they have crimea already, but donetsk have coal and heavy industry. Anyway that’s irrelevant, because the point is to freeze nato joining via autonomy rights or frozen conflict a la transnistria.
I mean yeah, but the reason they want Ukraine to not join NATO is to 1. be a buffer 2. if Ukraine joins NATO they are obliged by design to send their troops there to take back Crimea and Donbass since the reason NATO was formed is to assure its members territorial integrity. So the main reason is still that they don’t want to let go of the virtually annexed territories.
For Russia, the strategic value of Donbass is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. If Minsk II is enforced, Ukraine will be more federalized and the Donbass territories will be able to prevent joining NATO. The current limbo is almost as good as enforcing Minsk II in that regard
Russia won’t gain greater access to the Mediterranean from Donbass. It already got its main Black Sea deep water port in Sevastopol and Donbass is actually Northeast of it. Also Istanbul, which is in a NATO country, could already block Russia’s access to the Mediterranean any time it wanted.
For Russia, the strategic value of Donbass is to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO
Thanks, someone understood what i wanted to say.
Though i don’t get why everyone thinks that if Russia invades, which is unlikely, they would stop at Donbass. Going as far as Crimea seems to be the logical solution.
Istanbul could block access to Russia but Putin has been doing great favors for Erdogan in Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh in order to not use it. Hungary is also a NATO member but they refused to host US soldiers since this whole debacle started.
How the hell is Donbass going to give the Russians a naval route to the Mediterranean that they don’t already have with Crimea? Russia just wants Ukraine as a buffer state against NATO to protect the Russian heartland.
