alanjjohnstone
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Your argument fully applies to the Donetz and Luhansk inhabitants, that they too are right to sacrifice themselves for a life they claim to feel a special affinity with, so much so that they chose to add it to what was previously a foreign nation.
Of course, we are brought up to think where we were born and raised holds a special place in our hearts. We will soon be witnessing a great number of people rooting for their country’s national football team, celebrating or mourning victory or defeat, in total disregard of which team played better or produced the most entertaining style of football. And in common life such ‘loyalty’ in domestic sport becomes tribal. If we wish to be parochial, look at the very different responses between Rangers and Celtic supporters in the same city to the Queen’s death.
With migration, people are willing to adopt new regions as their homeland. Being attached to a particular land is not something we have in our DNA. We can transfer our love of our natural surroundings.
The history of many peoples meant that independence and sovereignty were not essential for the development of culture, traditions and customs.
It was the creation of nation-states in Africa, Asia, and Americas that resulted in the unique characteristics of people being dissolved and disappearing.
Why did Yiddish vanish? The creation of Israel and the imposition of the Hebrew language.
I think Benedict Anderson got it right with his imagined communities hypothesis. Nationality and ethnicity are not innate but taught and can be created anew. On this thread, I have mentioned Indonesia as an example. There are many more. Likewise artificial constructs have collapsed…Yugoslavia.
Go to our African blog and enter South Sudan into its search and discover how such a new nation simply didn’t materialise but civil wars did.
But what is tragic, is that when the Ukraine-Russian war is over, what will actually be gained? Improved living standards? A better quality of life?
We know it won’t be so because it never before has led to such change. Wage slaves, we remained, despite the colour of our passports.
I am not saying people genuinely feel a sense of belonging and patriotism but it is exactly the same as religion… opium to deaden the pain of daily drudgery.
Confirming the previous debunking by the media IAEA inspectors report no preparations for a radioactive dirty bomb.
Your Carnegie link is from April 2021.
I had already said, “It did report preparations for a possible offensive – a full year previously.”
I was discussing the immediate period before the invasion.
I qualified my message with the statement
“Your claim of the Ukrainian build-up could well be in response to the Russian one.”
You cannot deny Russian build-up because Russia readily admitted large-scale military exercises on Ukraine’s borders.
If we wish to question accurate reporting. from Donbas Insider 11/2/22
“Russia’s imaginary invasion of Ukraine”From your own source.
“If Moscow intervened in the Donbass, the military actions would take place hundreds of kilometres from Kiev.” Weeks later Russian forces were at the outskirts of Kiev.
It continues, “if the hysteria surrounding the imaginary Russian invasion of Ukraine is not based on anything concrete, fears of provocations or even an attempted offensive by the Ukrainian army in the Donbass seem justified”
Was the Russian invasion threat all imaginary?
Your linked article ends “It is to be hoped that the meeting of the Normandy Format Heads of State Advisors, which will finally take place in Paris on 26 January 2022, will bring Ukraine to its senses.”
Talks were held and planned to continue. Guess what ended them? Russia’s invasion which goes against your own narrative that Russia exhausted all efforts for a peaceful settlement.
As you appear to respect the integrity of the Carnegie website, did you read other articles from it?
You say the vast amount of shells were falling on the separatist positions…yet the reported CIVILIAN casualties were very light. Again it confirms no genocidal intentions.
Why not directly check the daily detailed OSCE reports that are available on the internet. Here is one for the 22/2/22
https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-22%20Daily%20Report_ENG.pdf?itok=63057
While I concede facts are confused by the fog of war and propaganda, from your posts, you place 100% certainty on the integrity of Russia’s reporting. I trust neither side.
As for the evacuation of civilians by the separatists, I appreciate the concern for the dangers and risk of collateral damage when war breaks out. I note Russia exercises the same in regard to its defence of Kherson by evacuating its civilians.
More than a million of the pre-2022 refugees, mainly from Donbas had gone to Russia between 2014 and 2016.
Since the invasion according to the Russian government figures, 971,417 refugees had gone to Russia by 26 May
Amnesty International reported that Russia’s refugee process known as ‘filtration’ is a violation of international law. Its research shows that many displaced Ukrainians end up inside Russia or Russia-occupied territories involuntarily.
Deportation and forcible transfer of civilians in occupied territory are prohibited by international humanitarian law and can constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. Deportation of protected peoples such as civilians during war is prohibited by Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Human Rights Watch specialist Tanya Lokshina emphasized this point and called Russia to stop this practice.
Human rights experts consider the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children for “adoption” in Russia as a genocidal act. The Russian Duma has drafted a law which would formalize the “adoption” of Ukrainian orphaned children.
Finally, the SPGB fully acknowledges the hypocrisy of Ukraine and its Western allies in ascribing culpability to only one side of the conflict.
185 countries on Thursday voted in favour of a non-binding resolution condemning the embargo on Cuba, with the US and Israel voting against and Brazil and Ukraine abstaining.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/3/un-general-assembly-rebukes-us-embargo-on-cuba
It was the 30th time the UN has voted to condemn the US policy
128 scholars have urged the United Nations not to adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism due to its “divisive and polarising” effect.
In a statement published on Thursday, the scholars, who include leading Jewish academics at Israeli, European, United Kingdom and United States universities, said the definition has been “hijacked” to protect the Israeli government from international criticism.
https://media.euobserver.com/9e86df02ddf67c6046d190b65e4380df.pdf
They also called on the UN to instead rely on universal human rights instruments and different resources, such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism.
Marx said that a recession has the roots of recovery within it.
Bank of England warned the UK would face a “very challenging” two-year slump with unemployment nearly doubling by 2025.
It has been a long debate. Longer than any of us thought
Darren’s Socialist Standard archive website has just re-published a 1929 article on banking trying to differentiate the conflicting interests of financial and industrial capitalists, “captain of industry” Versus “king of finance” as the article puts it.
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/11/industry-and-banks-wicked-bankers-and.html
Hopefully, though both books will get a review in the Socialist Standard.
We might not have a very great influence but anything that brings more readers to those two books helps the Thin Red Line, IMHO.
What ever happened to leaving it in the hole when it comes to coal for the sake of the environment?
If countries honoured their climate change policies those mines would be stranded assets.
Robbo, as a relative newcomer to the topic, True Scotsman has explained his screen name a number of times and it has nothing to do with Scotland but refers to the No True Scotsman fallacy.
TS- The war started on February 24th
For a timeline that is relevant, why not review this very thread which began on November 15 2021 with reports of the Russian troop build-ups? Your claim of the Ukrainian build-up could well be in response to the Russian one.
In fact, why not check out the Euromaidan
But I thought I look at Donbass Insider, a separatist website, to see what was in the news.
https://www.donbass-insider.com/
Nothing at all reported by the website at the time of a Ukrainian build-up of 125,000 troops. It did report preparations for a possible offensive – a full year previously.
I also checked with the OSCE monitoring mission website
https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine-closed
An increase in ceasefire violations, but no mention of any special Ukrainian troop build-up.
And the vast majority of restrictions placed on the OSCE observers came from the separatists, not the Ukrainians, which would have been expected if they were preparing for an offensive as you claim.
I suggest your own 125,000 figure stems from RT reporting
https://www.rt.com/russia/541829-ukraine-army-deployed-donbass/
Having said all this, once more I have to repeat the overall SPGB position that the Russian invasion was provoked and Ukrainian intransigence encouraged by Western interests.
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Derogatory puns on posters’ screen names will be considered unacceptable. If it re-occurs I will delete the message.
This is to pre-empt the possibility of escalation and retaliation.
TS- Kiev lost its right to ever again rule over ethnic Russians when it tried to exterminate them.
Exterminate…strong emotive language.
A civil war was going on since 2014, nobody denies it…but Putin describes the Ukrainian policy against Russian-speaking Donbass as genocide.
The number of deaths was just over 200 during the Euromaidan protests with the deadliest being in Odessa with about 50 killed.
UN and OSCE figures for the period from 2014 to December 31, 2021 is between 14,200 and 14,400 victims.
According to the U.N., 10,900 victims were soldiers, of which 4,400 were Ukrainians and 6,500 pro-Russian combatants. Most of the deaths took place between 2014 and 2015.
Civilian victims were between 3,400 and 3,500. Almost 300 deaths being from the Russian or Separatist militia shooting down of the Malaysian airliner. Many of the other civilian casualties were from mines.
Now tell me the number of deaths since the beginning of the invasion.
If these figures should be considered extermination and genocide I suggest a look at the wars going on and ignored in Africa as a comparison.
There is UN definitions of genocide or crimes against humanity that does not equate to killing. Perhaps that is the extermination you refer to. Perhaps you can clarify.
Were Russian-speakers persecuted? If Ukraine had joined the EU, its discrimination against Russian-speakers would have been designated as illegal.
