Mister Terrific
Itâs in the name
Not they arenât. Also breaking their defense or has Ukrainian defenses collapsed? Those are different things.
You provided a paper that says nothing about Ukrainian being a dialect.
Iâm happy to be proving wrong. Please quote the passage of the article that shows Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian
Also in regards to the book quote the passage where Ukrainian is called a dialect of Russian
False
Myth 5: The Ukrainian army bombed the Donbas for 8 years before the Russian invasion, killing 14,000 ethnic Russians between 2014 and 2022.â
As I have already fully dealt with this before, this will merely be a summary of main points; the article provides the detail.
The purpose of this claim is to argue that, while Putin may have overreacted by going all the way to invading, it was the Ukrainian army most at fault before the invasion. Even if it is admitted that Putinâs 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.
Is any of this true?
Yes â the 14,000 figure. Yes, 14,000 were killed in the conflict in Donbas between 2014 and 2022. Thatâs a terrible figure, and of course many times that number were wounded, the entire region is a dead zone covered by landmines, and some 3.3 million people fled the region (ie before the millions who have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion). But what of the rest?
âThe Ukrainian army killed.â
Wrong â two sides were involved in the armed conflict â the Ukrainian army, alongside 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 ârepublicsâ in eastern Donbas on the other, backed by Russian troops and mercenaries. Both sides shoot; both sides kill.
For example, according to a January 2015 report by Human Rights Watch, âOn January 24, unguided rockets, probably launched from rebel-controlled territory, killed 29 civilians and 1 soldier in Mariupol and wounded more than 90 civilians. One rocket struck the courtyard of a school. On January 13, unguided rockets, also probably launched from rebel-controlled territory, killed 12 civilians and wounded 18 at a checkpoint near Volnovakha.â Donât these 41 civilian lives count? What of the fact that, following the first Minsk Accord in September 2014, the âseparatistâ militia immediately violated it by launching a 6-month battle, with hundreds of deaths, to seize the Donetsk airport from the government? How was that the Ukrainian armyâs fault? What of the 298 people killed when the âseparatistsâ shot down a civilian airline in July 2014?
âethnic Russiansâ
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 âethnic Russians,â 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 âby the Ukrainian armyâ 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.
But the other problem with the assertion is the implication that these were 14,000 âethnic Russianâ civilians â after all, when you are fighting a military force, you donât usually describe the ethnicity of the troops killed. For example, now, when the Russian and Ukrainian armies are in combat, no-one refers to the numbers of âethnic Russiansâ or âethnic Ukrainiansâ dying, when referring to military deaths. So it clearly means âethnic Russian civiliansâ.
In reality, according to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), the numbers killed in Donbas from 14 April 2014 to 31 December 2021were:
4,400 Ukrainian troops
6,500 Russiaâowned separatist troops
3,404 civilians (of whatever ethnicity)
So, letâs be clear: we are talking about 3,404 civilians, killed by both sides, over 2014-2021. And these 3,404 civilians would have included âethnic Russiansâ and âethnic Ukrainiansâ, who both live in Donbas.
However, what about the last part:
âbetween 2014 and 2022.â
Well, yes, if we make the small change to 2014-2021, then this is correct in the abstract.
But the implication here is that there was a continual, ongoing bloody conflict (allegedly all caused by the Ukrainian army incessantly âshelling ethnic Russiansâ) 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; a reaction to it, even if perhaps an overreaction.
In reality, almost all the 14,000 deaths, including almost all the 3,404 civilians, were killed when the open conflict was raging from 2014 till the ceasefire in mid-2015 â that is, during a time when no-one seriously denies the direct involvement (ie, invasion) by the Russian army. According to the OSCE Status Reports from 2016-2022, even taking into account that the Russian-owned armed forces shoot and shell as much as do the Ukrainians, and that perhaps half if not the majority of deaths were due to landmines and unexploded ordinance, laid by both sides, here are the numbers of deaths in the years before the Russian invasion:
2016 â 88 deaths
2017 â 87 deaths
2018 â 43 deaths
2019 â 19 deaths
2020 â 23 deaths
2021 â 16 deaths, including:
â 11 deaths (Jan-June)
â 4 deaths (June-Sep)
â 1 death (Sep-Dec)
2022 â 0 deaths (before Russian invasion).
As we can see, the rate of death continually declined until it reached zero. The Russian invasion, which resulted in thousands of deaths and untold injuries, destruction and dispossession, was âin responseâ (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.
Please stop this. Hitler already tried that play
No you didnât
Proved what? Youâre a mental retard?
