Come and see... the live show of a war going on

[Gonzalez]

This only works if you are reading the post recently after it was made. The fighting has been going for a while and doesn't seem to stop.

Donetsk airport



A part of the city that is regularly bombed for some reason



I've never seen a war LIVE on video before.

EDIT: It seems to have calmed now, but I was able to see how they regularl shot flares in the area where night fighting was going on, and was able to tack the fighting following the flares. Multiple detonations even rockes could bee seen in the night. First time I've actually seen something like this live on youtube, tho I know this is not totally new technology wise.

 

[MutantScalper]

Yep I can hear artillery, and dogs are barking. Sad, really. Must be difficult for people, animals and all living things. And the media is not really even focusing on this anymore, it's become 'normal'. And since the folks dying in this conflict aren't western Europeans the western media is like "Meh, who cares".

A vid showing the rocket batteries in action.

 

[Akratus]

Shared it on my Dutch political/scientific/news fb group. I'm shocked at how I've heard nothing about this over here, in the media and in daily conversations. Then again I don't pay the closest attention to the news or politics.

Could anyone give me a basic rundown on the situation over there?

Some questions:
-Is russia merely operating on the Crimean Peninsula, or have they unofficially invaded Ukrainian mainland?
-Are we seeing mostly Ukraine defending itself here, or is the Ukrainian army on the offensive as well?
-How split is the Ukraine, and in what camps? Just a pro-russian and anti-russian camps? How big are they/how are they doing in general?

 

[Gonzalez]

Well, if western media supports the current Ukraine government they wouldn't want to show them violating the cease fire, so it makes sense.

I found a map that actually explains a lot of what is going on. The protests were in Kiev, not nation-wide, so Kiev protesters decided for the rest of the nation without asking when they overthrown Yanukovich. It's a divided nation indeed. And the fact that one of the first things the people who overthrew Yanukovich did when they took over was to make Russian language illegal did not helped at all.

Voting map

Language map

The conclusion I can get from this is that they are politically and culturally divided, even from before the events at Kiev.

As for Russia, they've always had many troops in Crimea, their Black Sea fleet is there, an entire fleet that is crucial for Russia's national security, located in an strategic part of the planet. If anyone didn't see Russia annexing Crimea (or at least doing something about Crimea) I don't know what world they lived in. There is no way Russia can afford to loose Crimea to a NATO allied nation, that just wasn't going to happen.

The Ukraine army launched a fierce offensive when the revels appeared, they even took back Donetsk, but the revels pushed them back out, this was an important defeat for them. Now it seems they used the cease-fire to regroup and they started offensive actions against the rebels again.

Russia doesn't care about Donetsk and Lughansk, they don't even recognize them as independent states, as long as they can still have Crimea they don't care about the rebels. There is a lot of support from russian people to the rebels tho, many donate money and food and some even go fight as volunteers.

 

[Crni Vuk]

the west is bussy fighting the Islam right now. Can't bother it self with unimportant ukraine.

*sarkasm off*

 

[Akratus]

Maybe I should amend Akratus' law to include Islam.

 

[Gonzalez]

Please be careful what you post here.

Because I can get banned, or maybe I should be afraid of inteligence services?

Apparently what happened was that the rebels captured the new terminal of the Donetsk airport. For the last several months the rebels held the old terminal and the nationalist troops the new one. Now the rebels apparently captured it in a counter-offensive defeating a fierce nationalist resistance. So now that the airport is finally overrun the nationalists are bombing it with everything they got, and making counter-offensives of their own. Each side blames the other for breaking ceasefire as usual. What is clear to see is that both sides are irreconcilable and there is much hate for one another.

On a side note, as I made this post in I could hear sounds of tanks moving around in the feed.

 

[Tagaziel]

The conclusion I can get from this is that they are politically and culturally divided, even from before the events at Kiev.

And?

As for Russia, they've always had many troops in Crimea, their Black Sea fleet is there, an entire fleet that is crucial for Russia's national security, located in an strategic part of the planet. If anyone didn't see Russia annexing Crimea (or at least doing something about Crimea) I don't know what world they lived in. There is no way Russia can afford to loose Crimea to a NATO allied nation, that just wasn't going to happen.

Ridiculous. By that logic, Poland should invade and annex Kaliningrad because it's a threat to its national security.

The Ukraine army launched a fierce offensive when the revels appeared, they even took back Donetsk, but the revels pushed them back out, this was an important defeat for them. Now it seems they used the cease-fire to regroup and they started offensive actions against the rebels again.


Russia doesn't care about Donetsk and Lughansk, they don't even recognize them as independent states, as long as they can still have Crimea they don't care about the rebels. There is a lot of support from russian people to the rebels tho, many donate money and food and some even go fight as volunteers.

"Russian people"? Try Russian government and you'll be on to something.

Some questions:
-Is russia merely operating on the Crimean Peninsula, or have they unofficially invaded Ukrainian mainland?

The invasion is ongoing. There's a wealth of evidence of Russian operations on sovereign Ukrainian soil, including Russian tank variants in the hands of insurgents (variants not used at all by the Ukrainian military), recordings of communications by Russian operators in Ukraine, not to mention the mysterious abundance of weapons in the hands of insurgents.


There's also the casus of Crimea, where Russia deliberately invaded a sovereign nation, then set up a sham referendum to annex it into the Russian Federation, and only then officially stated that the troops invading Ukraine where Russians.


Which everyone except for useful idiots knew after a slightly more in-depth examination, like the license plates on vehicles used by Russian troops having Russian military numbers with IDs corresponding to Russian military administrations in the surrounding region.

-Are we seeing mostly Ukraine defending itself here, or is the Ukrainian army on the offensive as well?

It's split. Ukraine launched a major offensive, but the fighting bogged down because (surprise) fighting insurgents backed by a local power is a difficult enterprise.

-How split is the Ukraine, and in what camps? Just a pro-russian and anti-russian camps? How big are they/how are they doing in general?

The vast majority of Ukrainians support one nation, Ukraine, and don't want to see their country partitioned by Russia. The pro-Russian insurgency is a minority and the economic havoc in Russia recently isn't going to make Ukrainians inclined towards it.

 

[Akratus]

If the voting map is to be believed, there is no "vast" anti-russian "majority". Though of course, I say this from a position of ignorance on the subject as a whole.

 

[Tagaziel]

If the voting map is to be believed, there is no "vast" anti-russian "majority". Though of course, I say this from a position of ignorance on the subject as a whole.

Half of my country keeps voting for the opposition party (usually). Does that mean they want to split off into a separate state? No, they obviously don't. Same applies to Ukraine. Whatever sympathies the eastern part of Ukraine has, separating and becoming a vassal state of Russia is not one of them.

EDIT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014–15_Russian_military_intervention_in_Ukraine

Good rundown.

 

[SnapSlav]

Amazing. "They" show up again and INSTANTLY the oppression follows in their wake. They never miss a beat!

 

[zegh8578]

I like to emulate a news-reporter attitude when dealing with these cases.

I would say, Russian involvement in "The donbass" is highly likely, but denied by Russia. An intelligent person can deduct by themselves how a situation can end up looking like that. There have been many eyewitness identifications of Russian cossacks, veterans from the Chechnyan war, as well as all the volunteer fighters (who are non-regulars, therefore Russia can deny official involvement). On top of that there are several accounts of materials in train and truck-loads coming across. These materials are according to Russians only humanitarian, but obviously, there reigns a doubt, especially considering the armament the rebels are in posession of.

There is a significant Russian majority in the south-eastern edges of the "donbass"
[Just google a map, I'm getting problems, and my attempts at posting one here are consistently jinxed]

Now, knowing this, it's very easy for a simple-minded patriot to go "SEE? The Russians are liberating their people! Good for them!" without considering that all of Europe looks like that. There's Germans in Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, there's Dutch and French in Belgium, and "Belgian" doesn't even exist, there's Danish in southernmost Sweden and Lappish in north of Scandinavia, small pockets of Finnish in Norway, Swedish in Finland, Basque in Spain, no such thing as "Spanish" but Catalan, Castellan, Galician, there's Occitan in France and there's Corcica and Cicily and Hungarians in Romania and Hungarians in Serbia and Hungarians in Slovakia and Slovaks AND SO ON

You'd have to be Hitler to use that as an excuse to invade countries. Cough.

 

[Gonzalez]

Any smart person would realize that occupations are nearly impossible to enforce in today's world and that any armed rebellion would have to have the support of local population in order to subsist. But of course this is not the case in Ukraine where russian troops are invading and occupying.

Behold the russian invaders:

 

[SnapSlav]

It's just such a terrible pity that people prefer to listen to sensationalism rather than level-headed news. Someone screams "TERRORISTS" and so much as speaking out against hyperbole labels you a traitor. Someone tosses "SPREADING DEMOCRACY" out into a discussion and criticizing it makes you the Devil. Terrible accent and inconsistent subtitles notwithstanding, those were otherwise great documentary clips.

 

[Gonzalez]

Also it astonishes me how I'm immediately branded as a Putin supporter and a fascist when in fact my view of the matter is more something like this.

As I already stated in another thread I never said that what Russia did in Crimea was legal. But god forbid presenting a more neutral version of reality where Putin/Russia is not a vicious evil horned devil rapist nazi.

 

[Tagaziel]

Any smart person would realize that occupations are nearly impossible to enforce in today's world and that any armed rebellion would have to have the support of local population in order to subsist. But of course this is not the case in Ukraine where russian troops are invading and occupying.

Yeah, the local population must love the people who institute war communism, bend over to Russian interference, and got their region devastated by war by starting an insurgency. Sorry, not buying separatist bullshit.

 

[SnapSlav]

The complete absence of self-awareness always gives me a healthy chuckle. =)

 

[zegh8578]

Sorry, not buying separatist bullshit.

The separatists are locals, so, inherently, local opinion matches separatist opinion. Otherwise, there would be nothing to fuel separatism (each local fighter probably has a whole family supporting him, easily expanding the "pro-Russian" demographic).
Even if text-book 5th-collumn-ism, when bad blood tactics are employed, they tend to work. Real damage, real death, real carnage creates genuine causes for individual people - many individuals. So what seems like a thin and shallow cause from afar, has been sealed by deep and real feelings of revenge and liberation and you-name-it for people in the area, on both sides alike.

Also, when it comes to technicalities such as communism or democracy, people aren't really that picky. They have their preference, but again, one must be careful not to dismiss countries that are "doing it wrong", as if they don't even exist. The ammount of countries that are doing it wrong, still count as examples of what entire populations are perfectly willing to put up with. That makes for a whole bunch of communism, for one, dictatorship, theocracy, police states. I mean, say there are some protests in China, say there's even a big one now and then, we can safely say that the majority of Chinese people bend over gladly, on a daily basis, eat their cereal, do their morning Mao gymnastics, and go to work, with out ever contemplating rebellion.

 

[Tagaziel]

The separatists are locals, so, inherently, local opinion matches separatist opinion. Otherwise, there would be nothing to fuel separatism (each local fighter probably has a whole family supporting him, easily expanding the "pro-Russian" demographic).
Even if text-book 5th-collumn-ism, when bad blood tactics are employed, they tend to work. Real damage, real death, real carnage creates genuine causes for individual people - many individuals. So what seems like a thin and shallow cause from afar, has been sealed by deep and real feelings of revenge and liberation and you-name-it for people in the area, on both sides alike.

I wouldn't be that quick to state that the separatists are locals. If so, why are dead Russian soldiers being transported back into Russia (Cargo 200)? The insurgency in Eastern Ukraine was astroturfed by Russia after Euromaidan. It's in RusFed's self-perceived interest to keep Ukraine as a buffer state and it's going after it with the most blunt possible instrument.


Ukraine is a nation that has been dealt a very bad hand historically and was fucked over by pretty much anyone in the past, Poland included. As a result, I'm hesitant to accept separatist propaganda that they enjoy overwhelming support. Yeah, having your house bombed, your nation invaded, denied access to basic living amenities, and being governed by warlords is totally what people in Eastern Ukraine want!


Furthermore, if Eastern Ukraine wanted to secede, why didn't it start doing so in 2004, when the Orange Revolution ousted Kuchma and Yanukovych? And if it's such a popular movement, why is the insurgency limited to the Donbass, which is about a half of what's commonly considered Eastern Ukraine by language and political affiliation (one quarter if you also factor in Southern Ukraine)?

Also, when it comes to technicalities such as communism or democracy, people aren't really that picky. They have their preference, but again, one must be careful not to dismiss countries that are "doing it wrong", as if they don't even exist. The ammount of countries that are doing it wrong, still count as examples of what entire populations are perfectly willing to put up with. That makes for a whole bunch of communism, for one, dictatorship, theocracy, police states. I mean, say there are some protests in China, say there's even a big one now and then, we can safely say that the majority of Chinese people bend over gladly, on a daily basis, eat their cereal, do their morning Mao gymnastics, and go to work, with out ever contemplating rebellion.

The political and economic system of a given country is not a technicality. Especially when you replace a democratic state with a system governed by warlords.

 

[Gonzalez]

Tagz, if you want to live in denial and keep believing that Donbas population are nothing but Putin's hostages hoping to be liberated by Poroshenko then keep doing so, I'm not going to try to convince you otherwise because reality won't change if I do, whatever you choose to believe reality remains the same.

EDIT:

The residents are not fools, they know where the bombs come from, an I don't think bombing them is generating any love for the nationalists.