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Most threads focus on Russia and sometimes Kazakhstan. A mix of history, current events, and economics.
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There are no separatists in the Donbas. The War in Donbas was an elaborate russian ploy. Some global media sources keep referencing the so-called DPR and LPR patched russian troops as "pro-russian separatists." In this thread, I aim to explain why it is russian propaganda. 1/
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Asharshylyk, Holodomor in Kazakhstan
The dates of the manmade famine in Kazakhstan perpetrated by Moscow depend on the source. Some say 1931-1933, aligning with the Holodomor in Ukraine. However, most Kazakh sources suggest 1928-1934. Let me be clear: it was a genocide. 1/
ALT Starving mother and child during Asharshylyk, 1930s
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Do you ever wonder why Kazakhstan, territorially 9th largest country in the world, has a population of only 19 million people?
Answer: genocides perpetrated by the russians.
Later today I will post a thread about Asharshylyk, Holodomor in Kazakhstan.
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There will be no "popular uprising" in russia
Hundreds of thousands of ru have perished, their economy continues to degrade, and there are hints of succession planning (e.g. statements by Nadezhdin and Zatulin). 1/
ALT Aug 1991, anti-GKChP protests, Soviet era
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Nazism is mainstream in russia.
What is nazism? Abstract away from the distractions of economics and markets. Nazism is a form of fascism founded on the delusional belief of one group of people, generally based on ethnicity, being superior to another group of people. 1/
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The collapse of 🇷🇺 should not be impeded. Some pundits and politicians currently engage in fascinating thought exercises raising concerns over the hypothetical suffering of the 🇷🇺 people. However, 🇷🇺 cannot become a democratic peaceful country overnight without sacrifices. 1/
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"A Russian school in west London has been teaching its pupils how to assemble guns and throw grenades as part of a strict anti-western curriculum." dailymail.co.uk/news/article…
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The US has a legal claim to islands that are now part of russia.
Wrangel Island beyond the Artic circle probably doesn't make you think twice when you look at the map, but it technically belongs to the US by the discovery doctrine. The island was previously unsettled. 1/
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My worst fear: everyone is looking for a simple solution with russia -- put a new face in the kremlin, slap a nice democratic varnish, pretend that russia is going to change, restart economic integration. All of that would eventually lead to a new ethnofascist regime and war.
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A personal (colonial) story.
I generally loathe disclosing anything about myself. And there isn't much to know. But my personal experiences interacting with the russians should provide some color for some people in the West. This is my personal story. 1/
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"Нам нужем мир, желательно весь!"
An insipid slogan/motto used by the russians in their invasion of Ukraine reflects their national attitudes well. It is seen on their morale patches, equipment, social media, etc.
What does it mean? 1/3
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Daily reminder: if the russians are not content with their government, they will protest. They are okay with the genocidal war against Ukraine.
Image 1: March 10, 1991, anti-gorbachev protests, soviet-era (!)
Image 2: August 21, 1991, anti-GKChP protests, still soviet era (!)
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Here's the census data for Kazakhstan that @DosymSatpayev obtained:
1914: 6+ million Kazakhs (Bukeikhanov)
1926: 3.96 million Kazakhs (USSR census)
1937: 2.18 million Kazakhs (USSR census)
So in 23 years two-thirds of Kazakhs "disappeared." It was done in two main stages. 2/
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russian imperialism and the sense of ethnic russian exceptionalism do not stem from their contemporary propaganda. russian propaganda of the past 20 years only stoked the fires of russian imperialism that were there for centuries emanating from their culture. 1/
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I refuse to spell russia with a capital R. Is it propaganda? Yes. Do I seem childish for doing that? Also yes.
But I will keep doing it because it isn’t just putin.
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Daily reminder: there is not enough space in the gulags for the russians. They can protest in large numbers, but they won't. They are okay with the genocidal war. Image: March 1991 anti-Gorbachev protests in Moscow *before* the fall of the USSR.
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.@TwitterSupport and @elonmusk, could you please lift the suspension from @SpaghettiKozak? He is risking his life fighting for Ukraine and has been a target of kremlin bots for months.
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russian aggression against Ukraine could be broadly broken down into three phases:
1. Hybrid warfare phase, 2009-Feb. 20 2014
2. "Plausible" deniability invasion, Feb. 20 2014-Feb. 24 2022
3. Full-scale invasion, Feb. 24, 2022-ongoing 2/
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The oldest city in russia is Derbent which is very "unrussian."
Founded in 438 AD, Derbent is located on the Caspian Sea in Dagestan. The russians first captured the city in 1796 but later had to retreat. They returned in 1813 and Debent has been occupied by russia ever since. 1/
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Also, the UN is dead. It died on February 24, 2022. Much like the League of Nations died on September 1, 1939.
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Navalny wins the Oscar. A House Made of Splinters ran against Navalny is the category. It is a documentary about on a special orphanage in Eastern Ukraine. But a story about fake a russian opposition leader with an ethnofascist past won.
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.@RealScottRitter any reason in particular you follow me? I was born in the 80s just to be clear.
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I don't need to show you the atrocities that russia is committing in Ukraine.
Here is how "integration into the world economy" worked in russia: Gazprom HQ against a foreground of poverty.
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Pride of the russian navy, their flagship Admiral Kuznetsov. Powered by high-tech mazut steam turbines, an advanced ramp because catapults are only for the decadent West, and much more.
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It is not yours to begin with, Misha. Fix your imperialist attitudes and think about YOUR country first. Good "opposition" work you doing there.
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However Nazi Germany was defeated. So too will be the current version of the russian empire. Their nazi worldviews will have to be shattered. The sooner the world realizes it is everyone’s problem, the better.
Ukraine will win as they have no other choice. 23/23
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The hybrid warfare phase commenced in 2009. It did not involve any conventional warfare means. Instead, russia utilized economic blackmail, cyber warfare, psy ops, and info warfare (propaganda) against Ukraine. 3/
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Yet another genuine pro-Ukrainian account suspended, @maggiewillrise. @TwitterSupport and @elonmusk are you trying to be on the wrong side of history?
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Stage 1: Famine of 1919-1922
With the russian "civil" war raging and crop failures in russia proper, the authorities in Moscow looked for ways to resolve the food crisis. They found a solution in Kazakhstan.
tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_new… 3/
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Were there Allied statesmen during WW2 asking for security guarantees for the Third Reich?
Before you comment, no, it is not a false analogy. The only reason russia is not attacking other countries right now is Ukraine. reuters.com/world/europe/mac…
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The livestock was then taken from Kazakhstan to russia to feed the population there. Modern estimates indicate that 2M people died in the famine of 1919-1922 in Kazakhstan, of which 1.75M were Kazakhs.
The second stage of the genocide, Asharshylyk (the Hunger), came in 1928. 5/
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Here's an excerpt from a report by the 21st Century Center for Global Studies:
"...at the end of 2005, the 'Donetsk Republic' project emerged, as a successor of the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Soviet Republic of 1918. The project was unsuccessful, and the organization was banned... 4/
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Much like with the Holodomor, besides Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich and Genrikh Yagoda were the main architects planning the depopulation of non-russians in the SSRs that were deemed "unloyal" to the empire. For Ukraine and Kazakhstan, hunger was chosen as the main genocidal tool. 8/
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After the liberation of Kherson, the domestic political environment in russia is likely to become increasingly unstable. Pinning the failures on the generals cannot keep working forever. Surovikin might be sacked soon. However, the russian public is unlikely to be satisfied. 1/
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Why is it critical to push back on the seemingly innocuous narratives by some Western journalists, politicians, and other media personalities?
A cursory look at some of them might indicate that they are pro-Ukraine. 1/
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The parliamentary system will not work in russia.
It is a doomed-to-fail solution that @navalny offers in his @washingtonpost article as it fails to address the fundamental issue of the russian society - the culture of ethnic russian exceptionalism. 1/
washingtonpost.com/opinions/…
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While the russian sources keep claiming that it was the failed Prodrazvyortska (or centralized "food appointments"), Kazakh academics came to the conclusion that it was targeted livestock appropriation from the mostly pastoralist Kazakhs. en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwi… 4/
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People in the West should listen to the people from the countries that know russia and the russians "intimately." The list of such countries is long but includes all the former soviet colonies, Poland, Finland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.
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Romanticizing russian culture promotes centuries-long russian imperial propaganda.
The written word was heavily censored and monitored by the imperial authorities, both in the 19th and 20th centuries. 1/
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However, when the slogan is read in its entirety the message is clear: "We need the world, preferably all of it!"
This is just another anecdote of their aggressive mentality fueled by ethnic russian exceptionalism. It is not just the russian government. 3/3
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"in Ukraine, but it continued its underground operations with comprehensive support from russia. It was fully reactivated at the beginning of 2009. The 2009 russia-Ukraine gas dispute had far-reaching goals [russia limited natural gas deliveries to Ukraine]... 5/
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While the last name points out that it was indeed a genocide, there is more than one man responsible. Filipp Goloshchyokin, the First Secretary of the KazSSR, was the main executor of the genocide. The genocide itself was planned in Moscow by russian communists. 7/
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Stage 2: Asharshylyk, 1928-1934
There are many names for it: the Kazakh Famine, Asharshylyk, Holodomor in Kazakhstan, etc. However, the most poignant one is the Goloshchyokin genocide. 6/
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As Russia's economic stability degrades, Moscow’s colonial grip over the autonomous republics and regions of the federation will continue to tighten. Everything is to ensure the comfort and prosperity of the metropole and continuous manpower flow to the frontlines. 1/
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So too the russians, who have been absorbed by the culture of their ethnic exceptionalism and historic revisionism promoting their ethnic superiority in all aspects, think that they are more privileged than any other ethnicity or nation. 2/
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Happy russia collapse Year! Hopefully putin and a few (all) others who are in the russian top ranks have gravity issues in the coming year.
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"It was supposed to spark an internal political conflict in Ukraine along the East-West line. The idea was that in the event of a complete cessation of gas supplies (for domestic consumption + transit to the EU), the authorities in Ukraine will not be able to ensure the... 6/
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russian propaganda is characteristic of a fascist state.
Outside observers are still dumbstruck by the contradictory, grandiose, fatalistic, conspiratorial, primeval, irrational, and elitist narratives that russia keeps producing for domestic and foreign consumption. 1/
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Over the past week, we have witnessed the Armed Forces of Ukraine providing humanitarian aid and treating with respect Russian civilians in the occupied territories of Kursk Oblast. The same civilians that Moscow abandoned. 1/
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The only off ramp for russia is decolonization.
An actual breakup of the federation eliminating moscow’s access to a vast resource base, including people.
The rest of the solutions are just bandaids.
The russian “opposition” is just noise.
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The russians think that no rules apply to them. They think that they can do whatever they please because they are exceptional.
When the USSR collapsed the new russian government fought very hard to become a successor state to the Soviet Union. 3/
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"supply of gas from the main underground gas stores facilities located in the west of the country to the main industrial centers in the east, which would be left without heat. Thus, it was supposed to provoke, according to the plan of russian strategists, 'a social... 7/
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The russian bolsheviks revealed their plans before the first genocide of 1919:
"Kirghiz are economically weak by the principles of Marxism and must disappear in any case. That is why it is more important to use the resources not to combat hunger but to support the fronts." 9/
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A total victory by Ukraine is critical. The russian invasion of Ukraine has global implications. It is not a "local conflict."
The outcome of the war might not change the world order but it will set the tone for international relations and domestic politics in many countries. 1/
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Stalin's principle of "no man, no problem" was applied on a grand scale to an entire ethnic group of Kazakhs (the same was happening in Ukraine). Kazakhs who were caught farming independently or owning livestock were punished by death. Such executions were legalized in 1932. 14/
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"unrest in the east and south of Ukraine.' In 2009, the russian Foundation for Strategic Culture worked out the so-called 'semi-hard' scenario, which included an emergency intervention of russian military contingents with the "interim government" Ukraine,... 8/
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The russian plan was to destabilize Ukraine's political system sufficiently for the country to abandon its EU membership aspirations and join the Eurasian Economic Union, russia's tool for economic extortion and political influence. 13/
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Anyone who questions the victory in WW2 the ethnic russians appropriated will face self-righteous anger and a flurry of insults from them. However, it is unclear why the world should be grateful to them: the USSR was allied to Germany till the very first day of Barbarossa. 17/
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Germany was zombified by nazi propaganda for 12 years. The russians were on their path to nazism for decades if not centuries. There are no easy fixes. There will be no protests. Changes in the russian government would solve nothing. The road ahead will be long and difficult. 22/
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Transnistria was acceptable, while Chechen separatism, a liberation movement, was unacceptable to the russians. The russians apply no rules to themselves. You see, they think they are special, exceptional, and superior to the rest of the world. 8/
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In 1931 the manmade famine had reached an apocalyptic scale. Many tried to flee Kazakhstan. Some succeeded in making it to Mongolia, China to the east, to Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and beyond to the south, and Siberia to the north. However, that was against the Moscow plan. 15/
ALT Kazakhs fleeing the famine, early 1930s
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Now is not the time to negotiate with Moscow. It is not in the best interests of Ukraine and, paradoxically, of the russian people.
First, I’ll discuss what would happen if there were “successful” negotiations with russia and then why the fear of escalation is misguided. 1/
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Looks like the world still needs this reminder: the only viable opposition to the Kremlin are the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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Surkov's pre-April email hacks include a 22-page document outlining a plan to destabilize Ukraine using ethnic russian nationalists and pro-russian figures financed by the Kremlin. The hacks also include a description of a "novorossiya" project. foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/25… 19/
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The attempts in the Donbas also failed due to an overwhelming pro-Ukrainian sentiment. Thousands of Ukrainians rallied in Donetsk throughout March and April of 2014 in opposition to the provocations conducted by the russian intelligence services. blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/… 28/
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Protests become more likely but there will be no revolution aimed at democratic reforms.
There will be, however, a coup toppling the current regime. 2/
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Ethnic Kazakhs were deemed "unworthy" of employment. Two, many Kazakhs who were employed by the kolkhozes were still paid neither in food nor money. It was all part of the extermination plan to russify Kazakhstan. (Source: euromaidanpress.com/2015/02/…) 13/
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"the dynamic deployment of local governments in the occupied territories based on the 'support forces' prepared in advance - marginal groups, critical of the authorities in Kyiv, the creation of 'independent quasi-state entities.' It is no coincidence that on... 9/
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The reality is that the russians demand the former colonies to be grateful for the misery, death, destruction, starvation, and sometimes assimilation. Such is the russian way to “civilize” the “savages.” 15/
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So why do I and so many others from the neighboring countries and non-ethnic russians from russia dislike navalny so much? Well, there are a lot of good reasons. Let's look into the man's past.
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The coup will be done under the smoke screen of a "revolution" following a "popular uprising," aka mass protests. The show would be put on for both domestic and foreign audiences to create a false sense of change in russia. A "new" russia would be open to negotiations. 4/
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Daily reminder: the Russian Federation is just another iteration of the Russian colonial empire, much like the USSR was.
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Without the succession, russia would have had become equal to the former colonies, such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc. That was simply unacceptable to the russians. They also maintained their centuries-long militarism, as it all feeds into their russian exceptionalism worldview. 5/
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Through instability and political machinations, a pro-russian dictator was supposed to take over in Ukraine effectively turning the country into another Belarus. Yanukovych was supposed to be that pro-russian dictator, who "won" the elections in 2010 with russia's assistance. 14/
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"January 12, 2009, publications appeared in the russian media on the topic of 'reviewing borders' in the CIS and statements by russian politicians: 'Deputy of the State Duma of the russian federation Konstantin Zatulin does not exclude that russia' at the right time... 10/
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This is a quote by I. Tobolin, head of the Bolsheviks in the Turkestan Central Electoral Committee. Kirghiz is the name the russians used for Kazakhs refusing to distinguish the two ethnic groups and emphasizing the distinction from Cossacks. (Source: kazneb.kz/ru/bookView/view?b…) 10/
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Again, under the guise of collectivization and establishing kolkhozes, the russians started first by targeting the most well-off Kazakhs by taking their livestock in 1928. This immediately started food shortages in Kazakhstan. 11/
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The russians expect their former colonies to be grateful. Grateful for what? In their perverted and revised historical view they did "so much" for the former colonies, they "civilized" them. 13/
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Should I even mention the brutal russian occupation of Eastern Europe following the end of WW2? The russians expect gratitude for that too.
The russians demand gratitude from the world and from the former colonies, they are special, they are exceptional. 18/
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The catastrophic levels were reached in 1930. Many settlements had multiple funerals daily. Without any livestock, many Kazakh communities started to seek employment in the kolkhozes. But there was a catch. One, the russians did not take everyone in. 12/
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Concurrently with the occupation of Crimea, the GRU started a massive disinformation campaign (washingtonpost.com/world/nat…). russian propaganda claimed that the revolution in Ukraine was a "coup" by Ukrainian "nationalists, fascists, and nazis" financed by the West. 24/
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The russians also demand the rest of the world to be grateful to them for the victory over Nazi Germany. In their worldview it is the ethnic russians *alone* who defeated German Nazism in 1945. “The Great Patriotic War” became one of the pillars of russian exceptionalism. 16/
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Much like the USSR became a successor state to the original russian empire, the russian federation had to become a successor state to the USSR. Ideologically it was critical to them to preserve imperial continuity of exceptionalism and cultural and historical superiority. 4/
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western russia, and Belarus simulating an invasion into an unspecified neighboring country with the aim to "protect an oppressed russian-speaking population." (web.archive.org/web/20220718…). 16/
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Now Donbas.
Some sociological surveys first. The chart below shows that the percentage of the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts) population wishing to join russia was far from the majority. Note that ru propaganda was hard at work there for at least 5 years by that point. 25/
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Again, russian “separatism” is acceptable, Chechen separatism is unacceptable, because rules do not apply to the russians.
They are exceptional. They allow themselves to do what is unimaginable to them if others do it. That is the essence of russian nazism. 20/
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"special role of interregional relations within the CIS, the integration core of which is the CSTO and the EAEU, became the basis for such statements."
I recommend you read the report in full here: geostrategy.org.ua/en/analys…
Photo: members of the "Donetsk Republic," Aug. 2009 12/
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Despite having pro-russian Yanukovich as president of Ukraine, russia started preparing contingency plans to occupy parts or all of Ukraine as early as summer 2013. In September of 2013 russian and Belarus conducted joint military exercises in the Kaliningrad Oblast,... 15/
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"will give a sign 'to the southeastern regions of Ukraine to join russia.' Probably, the results of the joint meeting of the Security Council and the State Council of the russian federation on December 25, 2008, where the emphasis was placed on the... 11/
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