|
The Buildup To War In Ukraine – Tuesday, February 15, 2022
After the 2014 coup in Kiev the dully elected President Yanukovich had fled the country. His supporters in parliament were afraid and would no show up for further assemblies. The incoming U.S. selected government immediately set out to suppress the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. The first move of the rump parliament, now dominated by right-wing people from west Ukraine, was to prohibit the Russian language for official business.
The ethnic Russian population in the east and southeast was opposed to the coup and rebelled against it. The new government tried to oppress it by military means. But a lot of soldiers defected to the rebels and soon those won the upper hand. The Ukrainian government troops were decisively defeated, twice. Each time the French, German, Russian and Ukrainian governments set down to come to agreements on how to proceed:
The first, known as the Minsk Protocol, was drafted in 2014 by the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with mediation by the leaders of France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format. After extensive talks in Minsk, Belarus, the agreement was signed on 5 September 2014 by representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group and, without recognition of their status, by the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). This agreement followed multiple previous attempts to stop the fighting in the region and aimed to implement an immediate ceasefire.
The agreement failed to stop fighting, and was thus followed with a revised and updated agreement, Minsk II, which was signed on 12 February 2015. This agreement consisted of a package of measures, including a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government. While fighting subsided following the agreement's signing, it never ended completely, and the agreement's provisions were never fully implemented.
The Minsk II agreement, a "Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements", was endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2205. It is available here. The package includes clearly numbered tasks. An immediate ceasefire is task 1. The 'Launch of a dialogue' about legislation measures the Ukrainian parliament would have to take to recognize a special status for Donbas is step 4. Step 9 is the reinstatement of full control of the state border by the government.
These clearly defined steps later proved to be the reason why the agreement was never fully implemented. The government of Ukraine insisted that step 9 should be taken before step 4. The governments of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics insisted on the original sequencing as giving up any control over the boarder with Russia, and the supplies coming through it, would have taken away their ability to defend themselves before the other steps, specifically the recognition of the special status of the Donbas republics, had been taken.
Over the years several summits were held to push for a fulfillment of the Minsk agreements. But the government of Ukraine, with 'western' support, continued to block the process.
On Tuesday, February 15 2022, following talks with the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, President Vladimir Putin ordered some troops who had been stationed near the border with Ukraine to move back to their barracks.
France 24 listed other headlines of the day:
- Blinken speaks to FRANCE 24: The Ukrainian crisis has 'reinforced transatlantic solidarity'
- NATO chief says 'cautious optimism' over Ukraine crisis
- Ukraine crisis: Blinken says risk of Russian invasion high
- Should I stay or should I go? Ukrainians remain resolute despite a war of nerves
- Scholz welcomes Russian withdrawal of some troops from near Ukraine
- Putin, Scholz begin talks in Moscow over Ukraine security
- Russia says some troops return to base, Ukraine reacts cautiously
- Markets calmer after Zelensky's invasion joke spooks investors
France 24, and many other 'western' media, missed something important that was happening in Russia:
Russia's parliament will vote on Tuesday to decide whether to ask President Vladimir Putin to recognise two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent, the speaker of the Duma lower house said.
…
The idea of asking Putin to recognise the breakaway territories was first floated by lawmakers on Jan. 19 but has taken weeks to get onto parliament's agenda, with the Kremlin declining to comment on whether it likes the idea.
In late January 2022 the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) had analyzed the idea:
On January 19, 11 members of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, registered a draft law to recognize the independence of two separatist statelets in eastern Ukraine that have been warring with Kyiv since 2014 with substantial but undeclared support from Moscow. The document, which was put forward by members of the Communist Party, comes amid rising tensions along Ukraine’s border and in occupied Crimea, as Russia continues its buildup of military forces while demanding that the collective West agree to proposals to reshape the European security order to its liking.
This is not the first time that Russian parliamentarians have sought to provide official recognition to the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (abbreviated as the DPR and LPR, respectively). In 2014, deputies from the party launched an abortive campaign to collect signatures in support of recognizing the territories’ independence, which would have been delivered to President Putin for consideration. Meanwhile, the Just Russia party called for recognizing the statelets’ independence that same year and has included it in subsequent party platforms.
This was not the idea of the major government supporting United Russia party, but of the parliamentarian opposition. Putin had rejected the 2014 attempt towards independence as he did want to keep the Donbas republics within Ukraine.
CSIS writes that an eventual recognition of the independence of Donbas was seen by its supporters as a step that might help to avoid a war:
The approach suggested by the Communists offers certain advantages to Russia. First, with negotiations on Russia’s security demands stalled, extending official recognition to the LPR and DPR could give Putin a relatively simple way to shift the status quo in Russia’s favor without (necessarily) involving the 127,000-strong Russian forces currently encircling Ukraine.
The chairman of the State Duma’s committee dealing with relations in neighboring states has already indicated that recognizing the statelets’ independence could be part of Russia’s “plan B” in case talks fail. If Russia would want to allow more time for negotiations to play out, while also escalating pressure to compel the West to accept at least some of its core positions, then recognition of the statelets could be considered in the Kremlin as an appropriate next step. Should Ukraine and the West make substantial concessions at that stage, then Putin would be able to proclaim a victory in the current standoff and draw down his forces rather than risk a spiraling escalation with unpredictable outcomes.
During its February 15 session the Duma adopted the resolution:
Russia's lower house of parliament voted on Tuesday to ask President Vladimir Putin to recognise two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent and the European Union told Moscow not to follow through.
The move by the State Duma, if approved, could further inflame a wider standoff over a Russian military build-up near Ukraine that has fuelled Western fears that Moscow could attack. Russia denies any invasion plans and has accused the West of hysteria.
Recognition of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics could kill the Minsk peace process in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict in the region known as Donbass between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists has cost 15,000 lives.
"Kyiv is not observing the Minsk agreements. Our citizens and compatriots who live in Donbass need our help and support," Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma speaker, wrote on social media.
…
At a news conference in Moscow, Putin declined to be drawn out on how he plans to respond. He said Russians were sympathetic to the residents of the Donbass region, but he wanted the regions' problems to be resolved through the Minsk accords.
…
Four-way peace talks between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany were held last week but ended without a breakthrough.
After the talks, Ukraine said it would not yield to pressure from Moscow to negotiate directly with the separatists, while Russia accused Kyiv of putting forward absurd proposals.
The OSCE Special Observer Mission at the ceasefire line in southeast-Ukraine reported of February 15 that the number of ceasefire violations continued to be below average. The number of explosions, i.e. artillery impacts, was higher than average but mostly limited to one area where they hit on both sides of the ceasefire line:
In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded 24 ceasefire violations, including five explosions. In the previous reporting period, it recorded 17 ceasefire violations in the region.
In Luhansk region, the Mission recorded 129 ceasefire violations, including 71 explosions.
…
The majority of ceasefire violations occurred in areas close to the disengagement area near Zolote (government-controlled, 60km west of Luhansk) (see below). In the previous reporting period, the Mission recorded 157 ceasefire violations in the region, some of which also occurred near the disengagement area near Zolote.
…
During the reporting period, the SMM camera in Zolote recorded four projectiles in flight, while Mission patrols heard 61 undetermined explosions and 37 bursts of heavy-machine-gun fire, assessed as outside the disengagement area near Zolote but within 5km of its periphery.
bigger
Posted by: Zebra | Feb 15 2023 18:49 utc | 66
You attack straw men again. My team is winning, my team is Wagner PMC. I even have the T-shirt.
Sure you do!
Unfortunately they’re almost alone.
I can almost hear the violin. Firstly, the only major attack they carried out on their own was Soledar. Secondly, Wagner is 50,000 strong in Ukraine. They’re not some mom and pop outfit.
Their Chechen partners do good work in the North and their partners in DPR hold the front in the south.
Agree
Their “partners” in Moscow try to castrate them, probably because they take the glory away from Kremlin (sure, Prigozhin is a little bit high on himself these days).
Utter bullshit!
I admit that the Gerasimov doctrine of avoiding contact with the enemy has worked. Keep hundreds of thousands of the Russian armed forces far away from the front line and let Wagner, Chechens and L/DPR forces do the dirty work. And when it all comes crumbling down, call in General Armageddon. When he has pulled back the forces, bombed critical infrastructure and generally fixed the situation, retake the control and, and …. do nothing.
That’s why as I showed above Ukraine is #Winning!
Maybe Moscow could at least provide the fighting forces with drones so that they don’t have to rely on civilians buying them from China?
it doesn’t matter where they get them from as long as they do the job. Take for example the drones from Iran that the Russians are using. They can punch so many holes in the Iron Dome they would have to change the name to the Iron Colander
Maybe provide some communication means so they don’t have to put the tanks in a close convoy when they attack Ugledar?
It was poor tactics not poor communication equipment that led to the tanks being bunched up.
It may be that Gerasimov is a genius. But he better show it this spring. Everyone is impressed by Wagner. No one is impressed by the Russian general staff.
You really are clueless. Don’t take it from me:
I grew up on Russian military doctrine and still believe that all military science is in Russia. I studied with Gerasimov. I read everything he ever wrote. He is the smartest of people, and my expectations from him were huge,” said Zaluzhny.
Posted by: Down South | Feb 15 2023 19:42 utc | 85
A little concerning seeing how many are willing to weigh in authoritatively on the differences and similarities between Russian and Ukrainian but with drastically different answers. I don’t know that I’m any closer to an understanding than perhaps an amalgamation of what Brother Ma and Revelo have said.
BELOW IS A RE-POST (GLAD I MADE A COPY) OF A PREVIOUS POST THAT WAS DISAPPEARED BY MoA’S SOFTWARE. I HAVE ADDED SPACES TO THE LINKS BECAUSE I BELIEVE THEY ARE WHAT CAUSED THE COMMENT TO BE REJECTED.
Today I decided to try looking for some history on the pre-2022 SMO years using Google translate and Yandex. Using Google for both is a fool’s errand. They have SEO’d and otherwise buried/hidden any information that countervails the official/accepted narrative(s). What I’ve been doing is translating a search phrase into Russian using Google, then searching in Yandex and using my browser’s (either Firefox or Chrome) translate feature (which in the case of Chrome is back to Google, Firefox I’m unsure) to read the articles that result. I’ve gotta say the difference is eye opening as is the volume.
One example search started with “Russian language purged Ukraine” into Google translate which resulted in “чистка русского языка в украине” and then searching at Yandex.
ht t ps:/ /lent a.r u/n ews/2023/02/14/20millionov/ – On the de-Russification of (public) libraries
Many articles on that video Arestovich put out a few weeks ago regarding his (correct) comments that associating Russian language with that of “the aggressor” is faulty logic.
ht tp s:/ /ria. r u/20220610/yazyk-1790620757.ht ml – A general history of the language disputes dating to the Maidan coup (machine translation below):
War ahead of the curve: how the Russian language was destroyed in Ukraine
For millions of people in Ukraine, the language of Pushkin and Tolstoy is their native language. The right to speak and read Russian in Nezalezhnaya is infringed at the legislative level. The Ukrainian authorities ousted the Russian language strategically, ahead of the adoption of regulations.
Repeal of the law on language policy
Open persecution of the Russian language began more than eight years ago. On February 23, 2014, immediately after the Euromaidan, the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition coming to power, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted to repeal the law “On the Fundamentals of the State Language Policy”, which had been in force since August 10, 2012. It provided a special status for the Russian language in those regions where it was spoken by at least 10% of the population.
The intentions of the deputies caused a wave of protests in the East of Ukraine, where mainly those who consider Russian native live. Then the new Ukrainian government suspended the solution of the issue, acting. President Oleksandr Turchynov vetoed the bill. Since 2016, the law “On the Fundamentals of the State Language Policy” has been under consideration by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. On February 28, 2018, the Constitutional Court recognized it as inconsistent with the Basic Law of the country.
After this decision, the language issue was actually regulated only by Art. 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine. That is, at that time it was recognized that Ukrainian was the only state language, but the free development, use and protection of Russian and other minority languages was guaranteed.
Language quotas on radio
On June 16, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the law “On Television and Radio Broadcasting” (which entered into force on November 8, 2016), which established language quotas for radio. From that moment on, the broadcast became 60 percent or more Ukrainian.
In addition, in accordance with the law, at least 35% of the songs on the radio were compositions in Ukrainian, but if the air of the radio station was more than 60% filled with songs in the languages of the European Union, then the “Ukrainian quota” was reduced to 25%. Ukrainian musicians were given the entire prime time: from 07:00 to 14:00 and from 15:00 to 22:00.
It would seem, what’s wrong with supporting domestic performers? But the main goal of these innovations was not the promotion of Ukrainian songs, but the removal of works in Russian from the air.
Thus, Vyacheslav Kirilenko, Deputy Prime Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Minister of Culture of Ukraine, said in 2016:
“In Ukraine, there are domestic FM stations without songs in the Ukrainian language at all. If such a profanity, then the law must be changed and licenses taken away. And immediately.”
At the same time, a group of Ukrainian musicians turned to Petro Poroshenko with a demand to close the airwaves for video and audio production from Russia. In their opinion, all Russian media products carry an element of propaganda: either the exaltation of Russian troops, or the ideas of the Russian world.
The most famous of the signatories was Oleg Skrypka, the leader of the Voply Vidoplyasova group:
“Ukrainians urgently need to learn to resist Russian cultural colonialism. I’m sure there are structures that deliberately destroy the Ukrainian language in Ukraine. I don’t know what these structures are, but their activities have led to the fact that our society is much more willing to swallow “louboutins” with obscenities in Russian than the song “Sichove Viysko”, while we have a war in the east. This is not normal. And this is just a small example to show why the country is now in decline.”
TV language quotas
Then came to television. At the initiative of President Petro Poroshenko, on May 23, 2017, the Ukrainian Rada adopted the law “On Television and Radio Broadcasting”. Now the minimum share of broadcasting in Ukrainian on national and regional television and radio has increased to 75%, on local – up to 60% (between 07:00 and 18:00, 18:00 and 22:00).
The share of TV news programs in Ukrainian has increased to 75%, and for those who do not comply with the norm, a fine of 5% of the total license fee has been introduced.
All companies that broadcast in the languages of national minorities had to provide at least 30% of the airtime in Ukrainian.
The law obliged national TV channels to broadcast foreign films and programs only in Ukrainian, and programs and films created before August 1, 1991 – with subtitles in Ukrainian.
The ban on the Russian language in the field of education
On September 5, 2017, the Rada adopted a new edition of the law “On Education”, which came into force three weeks later. The document provided for a phased ban on the Russian language in teaching. Lessons in schools and classes in higher educational institutions now had to be held exclusively in Ukrainian. The law established that as early as 2018, classes teaching subjects in Russian were preserved only in elementary schools, and from September 1, 2020, education in Russian should be completely eradicated.
Other languages also fell into disgrace, although they received a large “respite”. From September 1, 2023, schools were supposed to switch to the Ukrainian language, where they taught children who speak the languages of the EU countries.
[….several more examples of similar policies in other areas…]
Whistleblowing and fines
In Ukraine, there is a special official who is obliged to monitor the introduction of the Ukrainian language into all spheres of life. He is appointed by the government and is called the “Language Ombudsman”.
“Defender of Ukrainian” monitors the implementation of the legislation on the state language, and also considers complaints against those who do not comply with the law. It is allowed to complain about both legal entities and individuals.
In addition, the Ombudsman is required to report to the authorities on investigations and prosecution of perpetrators.
On November 27, 2019, Tatyana Monakhova was appointed to this post. However, on April 24, 2020, she resigned due to a lack of “proper funding” for her activities. On July 8 of the same year,
Taras Kremin was appointed the new commissioner.
In 2021, Kremin advised citizens of Ukraine who do not like his position and the law on “total Ukrainization” (“On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” – ed.), to go to Russia. He stated this in an interview with one of the Ukrainian TV channels. He posted a video recording of the broadcast on August 6 on his Facebook page * (The activities of Meta – the social networks Facebook and Instagram – are banned in Russia as extremist).
“Therefore, whoever is not satisfied with the presence of a commissioner for the protection of the state language, the language law, who is not satisfied with the Ukrainian state, formulate all this before you are sent to other countries where, in your opinion, you will feel comfortable.”
Also, the language ombudsman demanded that dissatisfied citizens respect the Ukrainian people, “who for centuries fought for their right to independence and continues today to fight the occupier at the front in the east of the country.”
For non-compliance with the norms of the language law, from July 16, 2022, they will be punished with a fine in the amount of 3,400 to 11,900 hryvnias.
From 2024, various penalties will be applied for “public humiliation or insult to the state language.” The perpetrators will be fined a large amount or sentenced to arrest for up to six months or imprisonment for up to three years. The very wording of this offense is so streamlined and vague that now it can be applied in almost any situation when someone decides to speak in their native Russian, native Romanian or native Hungarian.
One seriously wonders how much of the $5bn in “aid” that Vicky Nuland has bragged about went to funding these programs and other more street-level/violent ones.
Some more details: ht tp s:/ /dzen. r u/a/YqP7uILPgXvJgyiC
So while the genocide has been occurring in the east, there has been a concerted ethno-cultural genocide taking place throughout western Ukraine as well. I cannot help but think that the main reason for this – from the Atlanticist perspective – was to thoroughly ‘cleanse’ the mind and collective consciousness of the Russian cultural roots, values and language/arts in Ukraine to ‘grease the skids’ for its entry into NATO, and then the EU (as we all know the former now supersedes the latter).
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 15 2023 20:31 utc | 99
|
