Anyone who knows the former Soviet space well understands the crucial difference between “grazdanstvo” – citizenship – and “narodnosc” – nationality. It featured on all identity documents, including passports, in the Soviet Union and on post Soviet national passports, at least until countries joined the EU.
I don’t know if it is currently retained on Ukrainian passports, or if not when it was dropped – perhaps someone might advise.
Everybody in the post Soviet sphere knew the distinction. In Uzbekistan, an inhabitant of Samarkand would almost certainly enter their citizenship – grazdanstvo – as Uzbek and their nationality – narodnosc – as Tajik, for example.
There has been a strange failure to counter the myth that the inhabitants of the Donbass are mostly Russian. They are not, and have not been so for many centuries.
The last census in Ukraine was in 2001, conducted under the pro-Russian president Leonid Kuchma. These are the narodnosc results as percentages for the regions Putin has just annexed.
Donetsk Region
Ukrainians 56.9
Russians 38.2
Greeks 1.6
Belarussians 0.9
Tatars 0.5
Armenians 0.3
Jews 0.5
Azerbaijanians 0.2
Luhansk Region
Ukrainians 58.0
Russians 39.0
Belarussians 0.8
Tatars 0.3
Armenians 0.3
Kherson Region
Ukrainians 82.0
Russians 14.1
Belarussians 0.7
Tatars 0.5
Moldavians 0.4
Armenians 0.4
Crimean Tatars 0.2
Zaporizhzhia Region
Ukrainians 70.8
Russians 24.7
Bulgarians 1.4
Belarussians 0.7
Jews 0.2
Armenians 0.3
Tatars 0.3
Georgians 0.2
In none of the regions Putin has just annexed were Russians a majority in 2001, let alone a 99.7% majority. Apparently 6.4 million Ukrainians have simply vanished.
For completeness here were the 2001 results for Crimea:
Russians 58.3
Ukrainians 24.3
Crimean Tatars 12.0
Belarussians 1.4
Tatars 0.5
Armenians 0.4
Jews 0.2
Poles 0.2
Moldavians 0.2
Azerbaijanians 0.2
There is an extremely important validation of these results available. They only show small changes from the last Soviet census in 1989. In all of these regions (bar Crimea) a majority identified their nationality as Ukrainian in the Soviet census too. So it is not a factor of Ukrainian independence.
Here is the region with the highest concentration of Russians – Donetsk – in the Soviet census in 1989.
Donetsk 1989 Soviet Census
Ukrainians 50.7
Russians 43.6
Greeks 1.6
Belarussians 1.4
Tatars 0.5
Armenians 0.2
Jews 0.5
Azerbaijanians 0.1
As I said, there has never been a Russian majority in the Donbass.
There may have been a slight Russian speaking majority. 14.8% of those, Ukraine wide, who identified their nationality as Ukrainian, gave Russian as their first language. This was higher in the East and lower in the West. But those who self-identify as Ukrainian but speak Russian as their first language, are no different to English speaking Scots. Russian speaking was advantageous in the Soviet Union.
There has never been a Russian majority in the Donbass. Never. The Russian minority in Donbass is mostly derived from the great population movements of 1946, when the Polish city of Lvov became Ukrainian and German cities like Breslau and Posen became Polish.
The Russian minority in Donbass is heavily urban, concentrated in the cities. The Ukrainian majority in the Donbass is heavily rural. The Russians are thus much more concentrated, visible and easy to mobilise. That is why it is genuinely possible to mobilise a pro-Russian demonstration in the cities of Luhansk or Donetsk. It is why journalists visiting those cities get a false impression of the wider population of the region.
That urban/rural split is of course not absolute, and just one factor in patchiness of distribution. Some eastern portions of the Donbass probably did have a Russian majority population.
Farmers cling to their land, and a surprising number of rural Ukrainians remained even within the minority proportion of the lands of the Donbass that became a Russian military enclave post 2014. Most of the land of Donbass, outside the Russian controlled areas, became even more Ukrainian as some population exchange between the areas occurred.
The majority of the territory of Donbass has been conquered by Russia only within the last six months and the population there certainly remains majority Ukrainian. Only in the easternmost areas, the post 2014 enclaves, is there at this moment almost certainly a Russian majority. But even they still have some Ukrainian rural populations.
The notion that the entire Donbass voted 99% to join Russia is just so ludicrous that I don’t know what to say to people who believe it, except that they are so blinded by ideology and hatred of western governments that they have quite literally stopped thinking.
I probably dislike western governments in a deeper and more informed way than they do; it just does not lead me to the ridiculous illogicality of believing that because the west is bad and run by warmongers, rival warmonger Putin and his oligarchs must be better.
You see Vanessa, I do know better. I speak Russian and Polish, have lived in St Petersburg and Warsaw, and have almost certainly both spent more time in Ukraine than you, while I have very definitely forgotten more Ukrainian history than you will ever know.
The idea that in Zaporizhzhia – where 24% of the population self identify as Russian – or Kherson, where 14% are Russian, 97% of the population voted to join Russia is so ludicrous that I can’t believe I find myself explaining it. I have friends in Kherson.
Equally ludicrous is Vanessa Beeley’s idea of election observation. Knowing nothing of the country or its history – and I am quite certain she has no idea of the above census facts – you cannot fly in for a few days and judge a democratic process free and fair.
There are international rules for election observation, long established by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and more recently by the United Nations. These include that observers should not be funded by the host country or by any party involved or be dependent on either for logistics, transport, accommodation and communications. Observers should not be accompanied by any officials when observing.
I have asked Vanessa a few questions on the absolute basics of international referendum observation 101. Let me expand on those a bit here:
What electoral register was used? When was it taken?
What was the supervising body of the referendum? Where are its published rules? How independent was it?
Which people or organisations represented each side of the referendum question? How were they registered?
How long was the campaign period?
What broadcast debates were held?
How was equality of airtime on local broadcast media implemented? how did the observers monitor it?
What were the spending limits for each campaign? How much was spent? How was it audited?
Was each side able to campaign freely without fear and intimidation?
How were the observers dispersed geographically? How many in rural how many in urban areas? For how many weeks?
What campaigning was seen? Where is the observers’ photographic evidence of democratic campaigning by each side?
That is the basic work of any monitoring mission. Democracy is a process, not merely a vote. Only after that do we get to secrecy of the ballot, access to voting, intimidation at polling stations, security of the count etc.
The plain truth is that I resemble a Ducati motorbike more than what happened in Ukraine resembled a democratic process. Anybody who claims otherwise is simply an appalling liar. I was amused by a comment from Eva Bartlett, for whom I generally have much respect, who said she did not meet anybody opposed to the annexation.
If you think carefully, Eva, that is not the win you think it is.
These annexations are deeply unhelpful. They go way beyond anything to which Russia can have the slightest reasonable claim. I could see a negotiated settlement around Ukraine acknowledging Russian sovereignty over Crimea, and perhaps those parts of the Donbass within the control line as at February 2022.
But by declaring as Russian territory large regions of Ukraine to which Russia has no valid claim whatsoever, Putin has made a negotiated settlement almost impossible. He has also bitten off far more than he can chew. As I keep explaining, Russia is not the military superpower NATO wants us to believe in order to keep us fueling the military industrial complex.
Putin is playing into the hands of the United States’ strategy, to bleed Russia and degrade its military whilst expending only Ukrainian lives. Western military technology is vastly superior to Russian. Putin is sending 300,000 conscripts into a meat grinder. As more and more of that western weaponry reaches Ukraine and becomes operational, the Russian conscripts will neither see nor have a chance to fight the person killing them from way over the horizon.
The dangers of escalation towards the nuclear are becoming very real. I fully acknowledge and condemn the toxic nature of much Ukrainian nationalism, the glorification of Nazis, the banning of opposition parties and of Russian language teaching and media. I utterly oppose NATO expansion. Of course it was not Russia who blew up the Nordstream pipeline or shelled the nuclear power station they were themselves occupying.
I absolutely get all of that.
But unless Armageddon appeals to you, and if you have the slightest respect for truth over ideology, the cheering on of Putin has to stop.
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maybe the Ukrainians in the Donbass didn’t identify as nazis. maybe they would rather be a part of Russia, than a subsidiary of the US and NATO. meanwhile. still can’t access Moon of Alabama, a site that has been heavily critical of NATO and the US.
Unlikely given the past history of Russia/Ukraine don’t you think? They may have wanted independence but that’s not what they’ve got and never had a chance to vote for.
All of them? Please stop talking obvious nonsense. Yes, I am worried about Moon of Alabama.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that the more neutrally-minded Ukrainians looked at living conditions within Crimea – annexed by Russia 8 years ago – vs living conditions within their own Oblasts – and decided they’d be better off under Kremlin rule.
The less neutrally-minded Ukrainians have probably fled, and thus their “no” votes weren’t counted.
ie, a kind of “soft” ethnic cleansing, whereby anti-Russians/pro-Kyyvians have left these regions, means that the remaining populace may well rather be ruled by Putin than Zelenskyy.
Is this fair? Or just? Or democratic? No. But it is what it is, as our American cousins would say.
I mean, think about it; would you rather be ruled by the corrupt authoritarian Kremlin, which doesn’t push racist propaganda against your neighbours, or corrupt authoritarian Kyiv, which does? Which is going to lead to a more peaceful, prosperous existence? That is more important to the average person than which brand of brigand is skimming your income via tax.
With regards to the OSCE sending in election observers, I believe they refused to oversee the Crimean referendums, I assume because their masters knew the results would be in favour of becoming part of Russia, and didn’t want to lend the inevitable results their imprimatur.
I can load MoA no problem.
But I live in Switzerland.
There is also the Way Back Machine, and perhaps a VPN would help?
https://web.archive.org/web/20221004112151/https://www.moonofalabama.org/
Moon of A – seems more like a spamming attack than that any authorities have shut him down.
I’m sure he can fix that in time.
Moon of Alabama’s Twitter feed retweeted something anti the government narrative 4 hours ago.
Strange, I can access “Moon of Alabama” no problem, and it is, as ever, publishing a load of cobblers about how Biden cunningly forced Putin to invade in order to wage economic war on Europe. This is the same Biden who comes from the wing of the US political establishment that sees the EU as an extension of NATO and laments Brexit – wanting to impoverish Europe? Really?
(MoA seems to be largely the ideology of the far right “Alliance for Germany” written up for an English speaking audience by a former NVA officer. The quiet bit they aren’t saying out loud is that they believe all this to be a plot by American Jews to flood Europe with brown skinned people.)
Is Putin an idiot who fell into America’s trap? More likely he fell into the same trap Rumsfeld et al did when they thought they could get away with pre-emptive regime change. As for Craig’s latest: better late than never.
You don’t understand a lot about MoA. Perhaps you should read some of the archive to find out.
Moon of Alabama is a mixed bag, and you’re right that “b” is a hopeless Lefty, but I’ve never seen him ever make any kind of mention of the ethnicity (Jewish or otherwise) of the Neocons who have been manoeuvring the chesspieces that would induce Russia to invade Ukraine (as per Rand Corporation’s “Extending Russia” document, published 2019 and (still) available from their website.)
Check out Mearsheimer’s video on “Why the Ukraine is the West’s Fault” . It’s only been available on YouTube for 6 years or so 🙂
I sympathize with you and being politically homeless. Nazis are kind of illegal and you don’t have home. This is my opinion after reading many of your comments. Don’t Worry nazism is returning
Moon of Alabama is back. A server outage, apparently.
Moon of Alabama seems to be fine here – I am in the UK with a VPN that exits in various places in Europe. Today it pops up in The Netherlands.
The Misses Bartlett and Beeley have been shilling for Putin and Russia for years now so this comes as no surprise.
They did valuable work on the White Helmets fraud and on false flags in Syria. But Vanessa refuses to accept there have been any human rights abuses by the Assad regime, which again is somewhat dogmatically counterfactual.
After having faith in her over those incidents, I have been very disillusioned with her stance on covid and now Russia. No more for me, it just goes to show you can’t assume anything on social media, especially perhaps the avid non-stop posters. Luckily my faith in Craig has persevered and been justified.
How on earth would anyone know given that the fake news on Syria started years before anyone was paying attention?
The “I am going to listen to all sides” approach may be great in diplomacy, but not for history, where generally it is twice as bad as one side is saying and the other side is lying 95% of the time.
You are falling down the “half a million Ujghurs in prison” trap.
Well said Michael.
100%. Commited does not sit well with objective reporting. It’s the job of reporting to break down boundaries not reinforce them.
I’d say for some, including myself, it’s not so much the cheering of Putin, that matters, but the slowing down of Nato expansionism that seems the main point. When Nato bombed Bosnia, it ceased to be a defensive alliance, and became a pro-active alliance.
Something like this was bound to happen, if it wasn’t Russia, it would’ve been China in the crosshairs of Nato.
Well, given that Putin has achieved by this nothing but a huge acceleration in NATO expansionism this year, I would say that’s pretty counterproductive.,
But the goal is to stop Ukraine from joining Nato, I doubt even Biden would see that as feasible right now, even though a lot of noise is being made that Ukraine will be fast tracked into Nato. Attacks here and there are on the cards, but I doubt the US or Russia would resort to using nukes, the Russian Doctrine and the USA’s NPR, have been discussed by Scott Ritter on Consortium news.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/09/30/scott-ritter-the-onus-is-on-biden-putin/
The US in my opinion doesn’t need nuclear war, it has already secured its economic goal in Europe.
> I doubt the US or Russia would resort to using nukes
I agree. If Putin pops a nuke, the US doesn’t have to respond in kind; it has a much more effective airforce, smart bombs and so on, and can strike behind Russian lines to support the Ukrainian Army (Ukraine has studiously avoided widespread strikes within Russia). It might even send advanced tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile, what might Putin target with his nuke? A city? A field? That would just create a radioactive bombsite that his conscripts couldn’t pass over.
Of course, he might try to turn the entire country to dust. But I think that would result in his few remaining allies fading away.
So I don’t think he’ll try it; which will make for an interesting lesson: even if you have more warheads than any other country in the world, you can’t actually use them to defend your vital interests. So there’s a chance this war could lead to global nuclear disarmament.
> a lot of noise is being made that Ukraine will be fast tracked into Nato.
It is a rule that you can’t join NATO if you don’t control your own borders. Without such a rule, a country that is at war could accede, resulting in NATO immediately being at war.
Ukraine can’t join NATO without first gaining control of its borders (or coming to an agreement on new borders), and arriving at peace, or at least something less than war.
There is no “fast track”. Accession to NATO requires the consent of all the member states. Do you really think they’ll all agree to immediately go to war with Russia?
+ Sweden and Finland (who will no longer have to protect their own borders and may well cut spending).
– Ukraine which had been a de facto member since 2014
– Turkey to all intents and purposes
– Hungary which is openly pro-Russia
– Italy which is openly very mixed in sentiment
And minus an awful lot of arms of the kind that count in continental land based warfare rather than the naval strengths of US or UK.
And a whole lot of truths emerging about Nato weapons and battle plan effectiveness.
Historians of the future will count this as a much clearer signal of US/Nato incompetence than Afghanistan was.
There will also be sharp contrasts with US in Iraq in 2003.
Michael Droy
I think Finland has stopped Russian tourists from entering the country, and the Finnish government are contemplating on building a fence/wall on their border with Russia.
It isn’t over by half Craig. Russia was always going to have to use force to defend itself against American Caesar and when the day came it was always going be winner take all. That Putin et al. have had twenty years to prepare for this is a diplomatic coup that could determine the history of the next century. I think this matters more than the Nato-RF war because the Russians can’t lose; this could be the saving of us all.
Squeeth,
“Russia was always going to have to use force to defend itself against American Caesar”
Remind me how many ukrainian/American battalions crossed the Russian border during the west’s recent invasion of Russia. And how many Russian cities has NATO raised to the ground?
In what way is Russia defending itself? Russia is clearly the aggressor. Even now, all putin has to do is bring his troops back to Russia and Russia is safe. No one has attacked Russia militarily. The world and his wife can see who the aggressor is here. When people like you say the US is the aggressor and Russia is only defending itself, you’re not helping Russia, you’re just embarrassing yourself and ruling yourself out as a serious commentator. Feel free to keep doing it, but don’t expect anyone of any intelligence to be swayed by such nonsense
“Russia is clearly the aggressor”
Only to those blinkered by prejudice.
Take your blinkers off.
“ the Russians can’t lose; this could be the saving of us all.”
This is completely absurd. You are out of touch with reality.
Or maybe collapse of NATO following complete failure in Ukraine, and deliberate impoverishment of Germany in their proxy war.
The Russians don’t care. Europe has divorced from Russia and thats all. They will have to come to the Russians. The Russians state that they can sort out Ukraine without assistance. The chinese have yet to speak. What will the Americans do to further escalate the global situation. To me, that’s the question. They appear to be digesting European market share.
And the fact that most Russian forces have been withdrawn from the Finnish border to be sent to Ukraine shows just how really very concerned Putin is about NATO expansion.
The fact that most Russian troops on the Finnish border have been redeployed to his Special Military Operation gives the lie to his claim that this was all about NATO expansion. Putin knows that NATO has no intention of invading Russia. He doesn’t care if Finland joins NATO because he doesn’t wish to conquer Finland. Ukraine on the other hand…
Craig is ignoring the last 8 years when the ATO started a continued campaign against E Ukrainians (lead by Nazis and not backed by most Ukrainians). The bullying, murder, rape, apartheid rules, language laws, cutting off water supplies, shelling of civilians has sharply divided Ukraine. None of this is reported on by Western media.
Frankly it is hard to imagine any Ukrainian, of any language or nationality, supporting Kiev right now other than the Nazis.
It is in the interests of every ukrainian to free themselves of the insistence of Kiev (following US instructions) to commit Suicide by Super Power by shelling Russian speakers.
In the last two days there have been 2 shellings of civilian convoys, each killing 30 people. Both convoys were travelling to Russian controlled areas.
The reason Kiev and western media hate the referendums is that they tell the truth – that large parts of Ukraine hate Kiev. That Zelensky was not elected to fight Russia, he was elected because he wasn’t Poroshenko and he promised to negotiate and bring peace to Ukraine.
Did he ever say to the Nazis – hey guys, it would help my diplomacy if you stopped shelling civilians in Donbas for a while (well he did – it is on youtube, and they threatened to hang him on a lamppost in central Kiev). Did any European or Nato leader suggest a ceasefire on civilians? No never.
That is whey civilian convoys get shelled.
And that in turn is what Craig’s conclusions should be based on – an 8 year campaign to kill civilians and the urgent need to protect them.
In Ukraine this has been open civil war started by Kiev from 2014. These areas (and Odessa) need protection from US weapons wielded at civilians,
Russia is only involved in the higher level war – Russia vs US – nd we all know who started that one.
Btw, add in the 15% who speak Surzhyk ( a mix between Russian and Ukrainian which is always counted as Ukrainian) and the proportion speaking Russian in Ukraine is about 2/3rds before 2022, higher now.
Btw2 – Ukraine is getting slaughtered on the ground, including at Liman where the presence of a few hundred troops allowed artillery shelling of the approaching 10k Ukrainians. 2 Himars destroyed yesterday. Russia can’t believe how stupid Ukraine is to attack it further with too many untrained troops, no leadership, no air power and one tenth of Russia’s artillery might. Little wonder Russia is talking down its successes.
In total agreement.
Michael,
I should be fascinated to learn more of the campaign of terror by Kiev against the overwhelmingly Ukrainian population of Zaporizhzhia that led 99% of them to want to join Russia, Michael.
If I thought you actually believed that I would be worried about you.
99% of them want to join Russia.
Draw your own conclusions about what you have been told.
That is precisely why Kiev hates these referenda – they tell you what you haven’t been told for 8 years.
But google the shelling of a civilian refugee convoy of cars in the City of Zaporizhzhia (on the other side of the Dnieper so still under Ukrainian control). Kiev claimed 30 odd dead, that they were exiting Russian territory and Russia did it. (BBC pretty much reports this with the subtle change to they were travelling TO Russian controlled areas). 2 days ago, there was another one elsewhere 3 days ago.
Everything is in here – Ukrainians of all stripes want out (and 14m left Ukraine, 7m before 2021, 7m afterwards, voting with their feet), Kiev and Nazis are furious about referenda and the reaction is to kill more civilians (traitors), more evidence of the campaign of terror NOT reported in the west.
As for the 99% – you have to recall that this is 99% of registered voters. So that excludes anyone who emigrated to W Ukraine or EU, anyone who lives in the city of Zaporizhzhia or west of the river, and anyone who simply failed to register under the new pro-Russia authorities (so those intending to abstain many who might have voted against ). It includes those who have evacuated (temp or permanent) to Russia who can vote at a number of voting stations in Russia. (I am sure voting stations could have been set up in W Ukraine, but remember those nice people in Kiev made it illegal to vote.) It includes recent arrivals from other parts of Ukraine.
So the number is closer to 100% for these unavoidable technical reasons.
Don’t get upset by the 99%. But you should be shocked by the huge number who voted to joint Russia. It tells the lie – it tells you that all you believed about a reasonable Kiev, no Nazis and a handful of eastern rebels is a lie.
And on top of this you have the Economic factors – with South East Ukraine having subsidised W Ukraine for decades it will now be subsidised by Russia. Some three quarters of Ukrainian GDP comes from Russian dominant areas.
Next Referendum – how many in the Lvov Oblast would vote for accession in to Poland and the EU, thus quitting Kiev.
With the same technical restrictions and allowing EU/UK residents to vote too, I bet you’d get >90% too.
I don’t believe that the population of Zaporizhzhia is overwhelmingly Ukrainian, probably 50% and less Ukrainian speaking. IMuch less if you exclude the large part in the city. I think you have been imbibing in the Kiev propaganda myths.
You seem to be forgetting that traditionally all elections were pro-Russia vs pro-W Ukraine, and split very closely (the last elections where both sides were permitted to stand went pro-Russia in 2008). Even though the pop as a whole declares itself as majority Ukrainian national, the voting patterns were much more even.
I think that it does not invalidate any of the positions articulated above to say that whatever the Kiev government is about, that it is not liberal. Their auxilliaries’ (nato and local) terror against the population is really very harsh. I spoke to a former soviet servicemen based in Kiev after I saw a Kharko(i)v youtube video from the ‘underground’ and he said ‘These guys are professionals’ (the internal security services). There is nothing like that in Kiev and I don’t believe there is anything like that in Kharkov. Dissent is crushed.’
While we can argue about the accuracy of the result, was it 99%, 96% or even 76%, I think Michael’s point that the past 8 years of separatist conflict would suggest the majority of the population in those areas, given the choice of Ukraine or Russia, probably chose Russia. If they wanted to be part of Ukraine, they wouldn’t have spent the past 8 years fighting to leave.
I don’t doubt the result was padded somewhat. But what would have really shocked me is if the vote went the other way.
We should remeber that the Ukrainian government instructed everyone who wanted to be ukrainian not to vote and told them it would be a criminal offence to do so. Perhaps they took that advice.
Also, the Ukrainians might have done things which persuaded many people to prefer Russia.
Hi Craig,
I think there is more than meets the eye.
I am not really surprised about the 97 or 98% approval rate, as almost only those in favor went out to vote. What I haven’t seen, and there the registers you mention come in handy, are the participation rates. And while russian-leaning Ukranians that fled to Russia could vote, Kiev-leaning Ukrainians that fled north and west couldn’t vote.
Also, there is a point that even Kiev-leaning Ukrainians might vote ‘Russia’: Russia builds roads, doesn’t do conscription, pays pensions and maternity leave … People do talk, and for many life might seem better on the Russian side.
Participations rates are high and some have said they are higher than historical pop in the regions.
Yes many people have moved but only some of those can register. So participation % is counted as a % of registration.
There are (unreported) floods of Ukrainians travelling into Russian controlled areas, and not all go on to Russia – I guess they can vote too.
Absolutely the Economic argument is strong. Ukraine is as much of an Economic catastrophe as a military catastrophe (unreported are the 100k or so military deaths fighting for Ukraine) or a democratic one.
The real question is who on earth would not prefer a Russian accession.
> Participations rates are high and some have said they are higher than historical pop in the regions.
Doeesn’t surprise me at all that participation rates exceed the regional populations! (Is that really what you meant to say?)
You haven’t responded to any of Craig’s questions about how the referendum was monitored. Was there any campaigning? Which organisations campaigned for Nyet? How long was the campaigning period? Were Nyet campaigners given access to TV stations? As I recall, Putin announced the annexations and referendums about 7 days before he announced the results. There was zero campaigning in Ukraine-held regions, and canvassing in the middle of a battlefield against the occupying power seems – risky.
Come on – nobody needed to be told what would happen in the vote, or to campaign – there is 8 yearrs of history that tells those in Ukraine what you and Craig have managed to avoid.
Access to TV stations is really quite funny in Ukraine.
Accession was announced only after the referendums, though it was implied.
I wouldn’t waste much time worrying about disproving the elections. The legality of it all is fair and important to the Russian system (unlike the UN or Nato).
But the purpose was 1. to draw a line – if you attack these regions you will be treated as if you attacked Moscow (hence the “mobilisation” of 1.2% of reserves).
and 2. to tell the likes of you and Craig that YES, every evil thing you have hears (or mostly not heard) about the Nazis, apartheid, rapes, murders shelling, was TRUE.
Little wonder it is disliked so much by Kiev.
> nobody needed to be told what would happen in the vote
Of course not! Everyone knew in advance.
Incidentally, can you cite *any* plebiscite that has turned out a >90% vote for one side, that wasn’t held in a dictatorship (or on a battlefield)? A plebiscite with >90% for one side is the mark of a dictatorship. More – it specifically shows that the dictator is scornful of international opinion, and regards the plebiscite as a joke. Clearly Putin regards it as a joke. Do you have no sense of humour?
How about the Norwegian Union Dissolution Plebiscite of 1905, Jimmeh – 99.95% voted in favour on an 85.4% turnout.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Norwegian_union_dissolution_referendum
Jimmeh –
“Can you cite *any* plebiscite that has turned out a >90% vote for one side, that wasn’t held in a dictatorship (or on a battlefield)? A plebiscite with >90% for one side is the mark of a dictatorship…”
The October 2017 Catalan Referendum – 92% yes on 43% turnout.
Thank you Michael Droy the points you raise seem very plausible: the very high numbers reported for these plebiscite to join the Russian Federation are entirely explicable. Meanwhile even if all the proper electoral processes Craig Murray lists and cites as not being followed, had been followed, the result – a yes vote for accession to Russia – would be the same.
Maybe some additionally need to forget the 8 years of history of civil war in which more than 14,000 were killed in the East by Kiev, to also avoid noticing that “dictator” Vladimir Putin has enjoyed overwhelming majority approval throughout his 22 or so year career as an uncontested duly elected President: highest c89% in 2015 to lowest c59% May 2020 rising to 77% September 2022 ?
Obama managed a 57% high – lower than Putin’s lowest! – with Biden sinking below 41% in June 2022.
Or are these data to be dismissed too, as bent “plebiscites”, since Putin is obviously also a “dictator”?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-rating-russia/
https://www.statista.com/chart/19541/approval-ratings-obama-trump/
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=how+popular+is+Putin+in+Russia%3F&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+popular+is+Biden+in+USA+graph+data%3F&t=ffsb&ia=web
I wasn’t surprised by the 97-99% approval rates either. What I am surprised at is that anyone considers them to be anything other than the fraud they so obviously are.
They weren’t conducted to convince you, so it doesn’t matter if you think they are a fraud, nor anyone else in the West. How hard is it for you and people like you to realise that Russia doesn’t give a shit what you or anyone else in the West thinks? None of them are ever going to say that they, the Russians, are the good guys. That’s the problem with demonising people, sooner or later they realise they have no reputation to lose.
So why did they bother if it wasn’t to try and give legitimacy to a blatant land grab?
To convince their own population and their friends in the SCO. I would have thought that was obvious. No-one in the West votes for Putin.
I quite agree that I thought the annexation was wrong, and a strategic error. I thought it might have been done for legal reasons, e.g. that it permits, in Russian law, the use of conscripts in the Donbass, which I believe is supposedly not authorised if it’s a foreign territory.
Nevertheless, it suggests a very old-fashioned way of doing things which recalls Soviet methods, with which Putin was brought up. You can do things more subtly now. Crimea was understandable, as a vital Russian interest. Donbass is not that.
The US never annexes, and some of the time has no troops on the ground (ignoring for the moment the 760 odd US bases around the world), but what it does do is to have personnel in the command and control centres telling the country in question (Ukraine in this case) what to do. It’s why Iraq has had no government for over a year. Muqtada al-Sadr won the election, but he’s not being allowed to take office as PM by the American embassy representative who is there in the room during Iraq govt meetings about the appointment of a new PM. Although there’s no right of the US to be in such a meeting. The US wouldn’t like an Iraqi nationalist in power who wasn’t dependent on the US.
The Russians should have been a bit more subtle.
US never annexes! Tell that to the Mexicans. Tell it to the US pampered pets the Israelis,too.
Bit of a while ago, the 1840s. Things are different now. That was my point. Israel, that’s another country, not the US.
> e.g. that it permits, in Russian law, the use of conscripts in the Donbass, which I believe is supposedly not authorised if it’s a foreign territory.”
I understand that’s correct: conscripts can’t be sent to foreign territory. Annexation also enables conscription within the Donbas.
It seems that Putin is rather legalistic; he seems like a barrack-room lawyer, trying to construct legal tricks to evade a court martial. But he has no legal training. So I don’t know why he plays these games – there is no chance of him ever being hauled before a Russian court, so why does he care about complying with Russian law?
He’s playing to the third world (non golden billion audience). The Russian critique of the international system is fundamental and Russias interests are simply sidelines by wolves yapping on its western border.
Jimmeh,
“In 1975, Putin graduated from the law department of the Zhdanov Leningrad State University (now the St. Petersburg State University) with a major in international law.”
https://tass.com/society/1332575
Col. MacGregor opines that approximately 150,000 regular troops currently assigned to other regions of Russia will be reassigned to the Ukraine war, and the 300,000 reserves that are currently being called up will backfill them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrcfrNFqT_U
Thank you John; I didn’t know he did law.
Putin studied law, and been a president for 22 years. That strikes me as plenty of legal training, especially given he has any advice he wants.
Yes – as far as the west is concerned the legalities mean nothing – but that is a problem with the West, not Putin.
To quote the man himself only yesterday
In his address, Putin said, “All we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.”
“(ignoring for the moment the 760 odd US bases around the world),”
Why? in what way are they not “troops on the ground”?
My point was about annexation, not a lengthy discussion of whether American bases in Germany amount to a military occupation (which it may well do, but it’s another subject).
Why choose “annexation” to describe an internal Russian process to enable a requested rescue mission?
“I quite agree that I thought the annexation was wrong, and a strategic error.”
In what way is it a strategic error?
Craig,
As a general rule, I don’t have a lot of time for you. Far too emotional, far too leftist. But I stick around because sometime, when you’re arguing from your head instead of your heart, you belt the ball right out over the bleachers and into the car park. Today is one such day. Keep it up, kid. You’ll go a long way.
Craig isn’t a leftist, he’s a liberal.
I don’t distinguish.
Yes you do.
@Athanasius
Well, if you don’t distinguish, you will be deliberately misinforming yourself – but hey, maybe that’s what you are aiming for.
O’Sullivan’s Law of Politics — any institution which is not actively right-wing, will eventually become left-wing. The Athanasius Corollary — same applies to people.
Thank you Craig; very informative.
There are no good guys in this conflict. Only bad guys and worse guys. I found Craig’s comments informative.
What would we like the result to be?
What can the citizens of the so-called “democracies” do to make 1 and 2 more likely? Nothing. We’re not really democracies, or anything close.
In Europe, we lost our independence. Foreign policy of European countries is decided in and dictated from Washington. I’d prefer my country to be truly independent, but if I can’t have that wish, then at least I want there to be countries in the world not under Washington’s rule. It seems to me that Russia and China are the best hopes for that.
Mr. Murray, my Russian passport has no ‘nationality’ line, nor my international one has. My son’s certificate of birth has lines for mother’s and father’s nationality and is filled only if the parents want it, not obligatory.
It was obligatory in the USSR, and kids could choose either mom’s or dad’s nationality when getting their first passport at the age of 16.
Nationality is not ‘narodnost’ it is ‘ethnicity’.
Narodnost is a term for scientists, means ‘a people, small in number’.
Beautful. Agreed.
Ukrainian passports also have no ‘nationality’ line, according to photo in Wiki. I don’t know for how long they have this form of passports, but the same Wiki says Ukrainian passports first time ever appeared in 1917. Because they had no their national state before bolshevicks helped them to. They only had 9 regions then, and I’m afraid it maybe what Putin had in mind in his speech about de-communisation.
With my respect, that I expressed often and still feel to you Mr. Murray, the referenda didn’t ask people of their ethnicity or language. The question was if they want to join Russia.
Mr. Murray, you may be surprised to hear a Kurdish man saying ‘we are Russians too’, and my husband and myself even found it extremely funny a phrase to hear from our obviously ethnically non-russian friend. We didn’t know then why Kurdish people may want to move here and hold Russian passport.
As a Russian person, I’m not in a position to discuss credibility of the figures, hope you understand. Just in defence of journalists reporting from there – I watched many, filming people in the streets during referenda. People, many many of them, said they want to vote ‘yes’ for Russia to finally stop the war.
It has nothing to do with ethnicity or language, the people who stayed in those lands, they want to put an end to the war.
I believe, those residents who fled to Ukraine must support Zelensky and his constant requests for more weapons. That is why I’m not on their side.
The Ukrainian passports first issued to former Soviet citizens did not have a nationality line, and names with Russian spellings were routinely rendered into their Ukrainian equivalents without the individual’s consent (Tatiana became Tetiana, for example). I well remember the difficulties some of my friends had with international travel when their passport names weren’t identical to the names on their other identification.
Russian Federation passports certainly did have the narodnosc and gradjvanstvo distinction carried over from Soviet days. Don’t know when that stopped. But you know the distinction perfecty well – the narodnosc of a Russian citizen may be Russian or it may be Tatar, Dagestani, Chechen or a great many others. You know precisely what the Soviet census survey and first Ukrainian survey was asking.
I don’t mind you being here, whoever you (singular or plural) really are, because you argue with grace and humour. But if you are going to start lying you can go away for good.
Oh and it very firmly means nationality. Narod precisely means nation, with all the cultural associations that has.
Craig,
the list of “narodnosc”s in your own post – containing as it does, “Jews” – indicates that it must be more akin to ethnicity than to nationality, as I understand those words. Not that I can see why it is such an important point.
It seems odd, given your comment, that only a week or so ago you were wondering why people were stopping supporting you.
And it’s not at all clear what the “lying” is that you apparently allege.
Some of the other comments – if the facts stated are true – seem to provide much more likely reasons for a person to vote a particular way than one’s “nationality” – whatever that means – or ethnicity.
Mr. Murray,
in my understanding, the term ethnicity refers to the breed, if this word is applicable to people. This means belonging to a certain group of people, genetically related, by a common root, which inevitably entails a commonality of phenotype and culture. The term nationality reflects whether this ethnicity has (had) its own national territory, the degree of sovereignty varies. The term citizenship reflects to which government this individual is a subject, pays taxes and has to obey the national law.
The following lines are optional, but I cannot leave your words without comment. I’m a person, no multiples. Everything I have ever written is solely the result of my intellectual efforts, with the exception of quotations. I never lied and have no intention to lie, if anytime I said something that is not true, that was not intentional and I come back to acknowledge my errors and ask people to educate me.
I could feel offended by your words that allow otherwise, but I do not suffer from megalomania and do not think that you should have followed my every comment thoroughly to be sure that I am a person and not a team of trolls.
I know what tools exist here to discipline the participants in the discussion, and I understand very well under what conditions I am allowed to speak here. Thank you.
I’d just like to say that I find your comments informative and helpful.
Generally they are. But “Tatyana” pretending not to understand what the Soviet and Ukrainian census meant by narodnosc – and I am pretty sure the Russian census will still ask the same question – was dishonest.
Mr. Murray, I did not comment on either the Soviet or Ukrainian census in any way. I took the data you provided in the article on faith. The reason for my comment was this excerpt from your article:
“/…/ difference between “grazdanstvo” – citizenship – and “narodnosc” – nationality. It featured on all identity documents, including passports, in the Soviet Union and on post Soviet national passports, at least until countries joined the EU.
I don’t know if it is currently retained on Ukrainian passports, or if not when it was dropped – perhaps someone might advise/…/”
I took it as an invitation. My remarks concerned terminology and modern passports. You are free to interpret this as a bore. But you are categorically wrong in using my personal name in quotation marks. I can send you a video of me with my passport in my hand, maybe then you can consider changing your tone, since your comments with veiled suspicions I find indecent. Moreover, I am extrapolating your attitude towards me to the entire current confrontation between Western and Eastern mentality. And this does not speak in your favor. I know exactly who I am. You don’t. Nevertheless, you consider it quite acceptable to proceed from the alleged dishonesty of the interlocutor. It’s bias, Mr. Murray.
Craig, are you really trying to mansplain to a native Russian speaker how to use her own language? That’s certainly what it looks like.
Roger, I agree and I find Tatyana does her research and is in no way dishonest. I assume Craig is the same, maybe mistaken but not dishonest – I don’t agree with everything he says or how he interprets things. I like this blog because many of the participants are very intelligent, thoughtful, humane and collegial..
Yes. Bad show Craig. Your standards have certainly slipped here with regard to Tatyana.
CM than in your next post explain differences between clans tribes ethnicity nationality people demos populus citizens etc.
CM for Tatyana obviously ethnicity means something different than to you or even more different to me(BS)
I assume Tatyana is max in 40’s and you expect her to know about CCCP Passport questionnaire?
You accused her of deliberate lying!( Only one accused of lying in last couple of years)
Of course 16 year old child was paying attention about ethnicity and should remembered it.
Txs for warning me that it is not Tatyana but Tatyanas or Tatyana’s team!Good team? always respectful, responding to a comment. After arguing about an issue while ago we are still in the same forum commenting!
CM posts are great but comment section is better!
Personally, I appreciate your comments and point of view, Tatyana (and visited your storefront way back when you had it going), and I look forward to the day you have your own blog.
Tatyana, thank you for being so polite and conciliatory. You set a fine example.
I value your input Tatyana and I am certain ‘grace’ here means compassion, goodness. kindness and love so stand strong and project intention.
If I were not a critic of western “democracy” that would be most apposite, Squeet. As it is, your defence of Putin is utter crap.
The RF and China are proving a countervailing force against the American empire; that is certainly not crap and could be the saving of us all. Rub your eyes again. ;O)
Russia knows westerners haven’t a leg to stand on objecting to this. Least of all the British. How much democratic legitimacy attended the carving off of “Kosovo”, let alone the entity the British deem “Northern Ireland”?
there were referenda after the Good Friday in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. Both were passed overwhelmingly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Northern_Ireland_Good_Friday_Agreement_referendum
The sectarian statelet was established in directl defiance of the results of two all Ireland general elections. How would the BBC and “the international community” justify the creation of “Northern Ireland” today?
“Putin is sending 300,000 conscripts”.
No, not raw recruits, but reservists, or are you trying to create a different impression?
Obviously regular official observers were not there. For me Vanessa far has far more credibility.
Self-identification is a very slippery concept. Just look at Northern Ireland, where choice categories lurch plus/minus 10% between censuses. Subsequent history since 2001 may have made Russia a far better option for many russian speakers (small ‘r’ as Kyiv propaganda puts it).
Sometimes, Craig, you try to be too clever, with ‘killer-facts’.
Self-identification is a very useful guide to how people will vote on their national identity. As it is in Northern Ireland. The census shows Catholics are now a majority in Northern Ireland. If you tell me Northern Ireland has voted 99% to remain in the UK, I will tell you where to get off. Yes indeed, there may well be 10% variation, as you suggest. But 100% variation? Fuck off.
I certainly will! So uncharacteristic of you Craig, to use language like this. But first correct your ‘conscripts’ error.
“Self-identification is a very useful guide to how people will vote on their national identity.”
I’d be interested to know the figures for Scotland, i.e. what percentage of the population identified as Scottish and what percentage voted for Scottish independence.
I have seen no evidence that, in general, people resident in the Russian Federation (which includes many nationalities/ethnicities) who self-identify as being of Ukrainian nationality/ethnicity are discriminated against by the State (no doubt, unless they become significant anti-war activists, that is). On the other hand, the State appears to very strongly and severely discriminate, as a matter of State policy, against anyone who might self-identify as Russian (or even dares to speak Russian) in Ukraine – and the same attitude, sadly, has been encouraged to spread into the EU and the rest of the West.
The technical context – the ongoing ‘smouldering’ civil war since 2014 with Western ‘meddling’, with recent Russian intervention – in which these certainly imperfect referendums have been conducted are, I think, quite accurately summarised by Michael Droy above and go a long way towards explaining the results. Quite clearly, formal ‘campaigning’ can hardly be deemed to have been necessary on an issue which must surely have been at the forefront of everyone’s mind in these regions since 2014.
I understand that the court ruling that supported Kosovo’s independence from Serbia is the legal precedent that substantiates these referendums. Those complaining about the four regions choosing to leave Ukraine have little ground to stand on unless they were on record complaining about the Kosovo verdict.
This whole discussion completely misses the point. Essentially, it comes down to one simple point – nato on Russia’s borders is out of the question. Putin has been trying to communicate this for many years. Due to acute deafness, he is now doing it militarily. You can think this is a devastating mistake or understandable – it doesn’t matter, this is the way it is now. The annexations are necessary for domestic political or rather internal Russian legal reasons. In the aftermath, Russia will formally declare war on Ukraine and attack with the full strength of its army. The West then has two options – it can watch as the Ukrainian state is finally crushed, or abandon the fiction of non-participation, which would finally trigger the third world war.
“Western military technology is vastly superior to Russian.”
This is arrogant nonsense. But there is no point in arguing about it. It will probably turn out in the foreseeable future how it stands.
To avoid misunderstanding – I now and always have been of the view that the Western Empire and Russia / China should resolve their differences through negotiations. However, the West does not want that, on the contrary, it is proceeding very aggressively. (Which side is the aggressor is already clear from the question whether Russia has moved close to nato or vice versa nato has moved close to Russia). If the west does not change this attitude, we will very soon end up in a planetary destruction of life as we know it.
“This whole discussion completely misses the point. Essentially, it comes down to one simple point – nato on Russia’s borders is out of the question.”
Totally agree with that, I did say that further up the stream, or words to that effect, that the end result for Russia is that Ukraine will not be a Nato member, and when Zelensky made noises about Ukraine hosting nukes again it sent alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin, and something had to be done.
> when Zelensky made noises about Ukraine hosting nukes again
Yes, his utterances on NATO membership, and particularly on hosting nukes, are astonishingly stupid. He generally aims rather good PR at western audiences, but:
– You can’t join NATO if you don’t already control your own borders.
– Nobody wants a nuclear war with Russia.
Those remarks can only have been targeted at a domestic (Ukrainian) audience, because they will have caused western audiences to be less willing to send arms.
– Nobody wants a nuclear war with Russia.
Are you sure? There are influential people in the USA who want Washington to control the entire planet – and they seem willing to take some risks to bring that about.
Perhaps they think they can “win” a thermonuclear war with Russia. Perhaps they have intelligence sources that tell them that Russia’s nuclear missiles have been poorly maintained and won’t work. Perhaps they have moles in the Russian army who will sabotage Russia’s control systems. Perhaps they’re just lunatics.
But they seem to be doing all they can to provoke WW3.
When Zelensky made those remarks about nukes at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 19, Kamala Harris was in the audience. You can bet his whole speech was cleared with the Americans, who were desperate to provoke a Russian attack.
Pnyx: I understand what you mean by “nato on Russia’s borders is out of the question”, but, strictly speaking, NATO has had borders with Russia since 2004 in the case of Latvia and Estonia, since 1999 in the case of the Polish border with the Kaliningrad exclave, and since 1949 in the case of NATO founder member Norway’s border with the former Russian republic of the USSR.
Ukraine is a special case because of its size, its location, its history, its ethnic diversity and its current violent nationalism.
Pnyx,
“Essentially, it comes down to one simple point – nato on Russia’s borders is out of the question”
Though not as out of the question as Putin’s current clusterfuck. Or do you approve of the murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians?
Of course you’ll answer with some whataboutery concerning iraq or Afghanistan etc. Anything to shift the focus from what Putin has done to Ukraine. But what has Ukraine done to Russia? How many battalions did Ukraine send across the border? How many Russian cities did Ukraine bomb to smithereens to deserve this shit?
Kudos to Craig for keeping some perspective. He has good personal reasons for hating the West, but he still knows a greater evil when he sees it.
Putin’s cheerleaders who have made this blog their home, simply betray, with comment after comment refusing to condemn Putin for the horrors he has unleashed on both Ukraine citizens and his own Russian boys, their own loss of perspective caused by their all consuming hatred for all things American. Time and time again they condemn America for doing this stuff to other countries, but when putin does it, it is all ok. The double standard is breathtaking
It’s a pity this blog has attracted such a bunch of warmongering extremists.
I have been here coon’s age Neil and I know not of ‘warmongering extremists’ -unbounded words served with temerity.
Hi Craig, That makes perfect sense. But I would like to add to it. I see that for every story of Russian stories pumped out in the western media, there is a rebuttal and increasingly, I would argue that the pro russians get there first: Zaparozhe being a prime example (those guys were quite possibly fleeing towards Russian lines, like Mariupol). I also speak Russian and have lived in St. petersburg and central asian Russia. I would add a couple of things as well.
The economics and public services in Ukraine are horrendous especially the further one gets from Kiev. Also whatever the sins of the Russian givernment are, they are not rhetorical ethnocentrism. I would tend to focus on secular aspects and possibly moral aspects informing voting decisions not to mention that a lot of Ukrainian symapthisers will simply leave, probably to Europe. It’s stressful being in a monoethnic state that encourages vigilantes to beat people up in public. Ukrainians I have spoken to are not ideological, they are fatalists and secular. That may have changed especially in the west of Ukraine. (I’ve met a lot of Ukrainians who are nationalists because they think they can work in Europe. (Very secular to the point of agnosticism)).
But what concerns me is western censorship and the conviction that the war is being used to justify reform and obedience. Truss quotes it…. The Ukrainianisation of Europe proceeds but Russia won’t invade because it’s not their problem. The Baltics with their waffen SS marches and ‘Alien’ passports and decommunisation: well, if it gets that bad, Russia needs more people but who cares geopolitically about those economic moonscapes. Let them do what they want. What people don’t get is that Russia inevitably views Europe as a dramtic sideshow… Russia is doing a lot more in say, Samarkand than it is on the front or with the west.
Are you actually stating the 2001 census results as relevant in 2022, given all that has happened in the last 21 years ? I’d say that the makeup of these regions has undoubtedly changed. I’d suggest, for example, many Russian ‘nationals’ from the West of the country may have fled to the East to avoid the genocidal Nazis.
Regardless, the greater majority voted to join Russia. So, maybe some Ukrainians would actually be part of Russia rather than the looney tunes western circus !
I may be uninformed and armageddon doesn’t appeal to me but IMO it’s not Putin aiming to take us there and that’s obvious even to a blind man.
IMO – the reality is that regardless of what the polling figures are, some people will never be able to accept them. A phenomenon we’ve seen in the UK recently !
Indeed, what the f*ck does what people say about their citizenship and nationality on a census have to do with whether they want to live under the rule of Moscow or Kiev? It is bonkers to think that that one’s nationality dictates what one feels about the government of one’s country. I’m British, does that mean I should be unquestioningly be supporting Liz Truss and her band of looters? Do all Scots want to live in an independent Scotland? No, of course they don’t, but that doesn’t stop them putting “Scottish” as their nationality on a census.
The numbers (%-ages) hard to argue with.
But the ethnicity/nationality emphasis here is overrated I believe.
I will use a few anecdotal evidence to demonstrate what I mean.
1. My mother-in-law has a friend in Kiev (they are both 80+ y.o. women).
Some children and grandchildren of her live in Kiev and some in St-Petersburg.
The Kiev’s part of the family are Ukrainians (and at least one of them is fighting in the Ukrainian army).
The St. Petersburg’s part of the family are Russians. But they are all siblings, cousins. They hate each other, and the old woman is crying.
2. This is an old anecdote from the soviet times when birth certificate had a line ethnicity.
When completing the birth certificate information for a child of Armenian father and Jewish mother an official asked about ethnicity of the offspring. After conferring a bit, the parents said write it Russian.
It is a parent’s decision after all. And who knows what it means when marriage has mixed ethnicity as many are.
3. Numbers like 99% votes FOR look fraudulent. But I’d rather think that those who FOR do vote and almost all who AGAINST do not vote.
My take is that the fault line is political and has nothing to do with ethnicity. Like it is in a civil war.
> My take is that the fault line is political and has nothing to do with ethnicity. Like it is in a civil war.
Yes, that’s what I think. But not *like* a civil war; it is actually a civil war.
There’s a second aspect: Donbas has a lot of mining, oil and industrial infrastructure, compared to the rest of Ukraine. It’s an economic ‘prize’. And it’s a strategic prize too – Ukraine needs to get back its southern coastline, otherwise it would be easy for a future attack to render Ukraine landlocked.
Yeah Biletski, Yarosh and Rada members threatened to kill Zelinski. Shame, even under Kolomoisjis baleful tutelage he came on like Chaplin. An overwhelmed tragic figure?
Language is no way to determine the nationality or ethnicity of a population especially a mobile moving population in a part of the world where borders change .
It’s possible to miss the crucial point here that started this war and that is the proposal for NATO which we all know full well is controlled by USA , to install military weapons on the border of Ukraine and Russia a mere 400 miles from Moscow the capital of Russia.
Any country in the world that found a distant enemy moving military weaponry to their border siting it on a neighbours land with the neighbours permission would get very very angry indeed and if that distant enemy was known worldwide to be extremely aggressive they would also be frightened.
Let’s face it the USA is aggressive around the world.
NATO is being used by USA to fight its commercial war ,China will be next, China do very little in the area covered by NATO but this move to the east , a huge landward move , changes matters substantially .
Craig Murray is an expert in these matters but I am shocked that he has chosen to talk about the language spoken in Ukraine as if it is the primary factor in determining who in Ukraine feels Russian and who feels Ukrainian .
There are probably a great many Russians living in Ukraine who register themselves as Ukrainian and a great many people born in Ukraine of Russian parentage who register themselves Ukrainian but still have family in Russia.
What is Russia to do ? Allow NATO alias USA to move to their border ? Once there NATO would be there forever readying themselves for their next expansion.
Let’s not forget Russia India China have increased trade with each other all three are unhappy with this NATO expansion.
NATO expansion is the problem here , not Russian expansion, it was NATO expansion that caused Russia to act and expand I firmly believe that if Ukraine do not allow NATO on to their land Russia will back off .
> install military weapons on the border of Ukraine and Russia a mere 400 miles from Moscow the capital of Russia.
Of course, Russia doesn’t have “military weapons” (is there another kind?) a mere 50 Km from the capital of Ukraine. Oh, wait… Russia has weapons *inside* Ukraine.
> Let’s face it the USA is aggressive around the world.
That’s as may be. But they haven’t invaded Russia; they haven’t even attacked Russia (unless you believe some of the unsubstantiated rumours about undersea pipelines). Russia currently occupies territory it has invaded in the last ten years, in both Georgia and Ukraine, and is cureently trying to expand its territory in Ukraine by military force.
Vague accusations that the USA is militarily aggressive “around the world”, when we’re talking about Ukraine, is whataboutism, of which a great deal is generated by Putin supporters.
If you had actually read the article properly, you would see that:
Craig Murray is an expert in these matters but I am shocked that he has chosen to talk about the language spoken in Ukraine as if it is the primary factor in determining who in Ukraine feels Russian and who feels Ukrainian .
is in fact the precise opposite of what the article says Terence.
Terence,
“It’s possible to miss the crucial point here that started this war and that is the proposal for NATO which we all know full well is controlled by USA , to install military weapons on the border of Ukraine and Russia a mere 400 miles from Moscow the capital of Russia.”
Oh, so it was a proposal that justifies all this killing? Thanks for explaining that.
So if we are feuding neighbours and i tell you I’m going to buy some weapons to defend myself, that justifies you breaking into my home and raping and killing my family? Really?
I don’t mean this as an insult, but such behaviour would pretty much make you the medical definition of a psychopath.
I try to look at the arguments deployed by both sides and note the contradictions and inconsistencies.
I also try to find sources which have some reliability. A boarder knowledge of history and of how people argue is also useful.
We have just seen the mini budget of Truss and Kwarteng. A friend said to me ‘how can they be so stupid?’ They are obviously not stupid and both Oxford graduates BUT they are driven by ideology (generally more a feature of American politics ) and my observation is that ideologues dismiss or disregard information which doesn’t fit the paradigm. One finds it with some religious people -not all by any means. Solzhenitsyn gave us examples of that in the USSR.
I have been following Consortium News who claim to tell us what the western media is NOT telling us. . There are articles there -on Wall Street predatory capitalism, on Julian Assange and Palestine-with which I am in full agreement but the coverage of the war has been disappointing and readers’ comments often very one sided. Their case usually starts with the resignation of Yanukovych rather than his decision to try to over rule the parliament and their vote to start talks on a closer relationship with the EU.
The war in the SE of the country is presented as neo-Nazis brutally attacking dissidents and Russia coming to their aid.
When I looked at UNHCR , Amnesty and Human Rights Watch reports a different picture emerges. It is possible to make a case for each side and , indeed, human rights abuses have taken place on both sides. Atrocities beget other atrocities, sadly.
A few times I have put another view for which I have evidence or history, and I don’t write swinging condemnations. Usually they are moderated out.
The view I have evolved is that social change -aided by the internet-has occurred over the last 30 years in Ukraine. They are free to travel and work in the EU and, for all its faults, it is more diverse, has better elections and offers more prosperity. We only have to look at neighbouring Belarus with an obviously stolen election and brutal repression of protest , which was fully endorsed by Putin, to see what the future could be in the ‘de-Nazified’ Ukraine Putin has in mind. Hence the determined resistance. If they were puppets of the USA, they wouldn’t fight like they have.
Life is not black and white. So I applaud your conclusion which tries to present a reasoned picture. I don’t entirely agree with your descriptions of American motivation but we are free to disagree in part. Yes, truth over ideology.
> They are obviously not stupid and both Oxford graduates
Being an Oxford graduate isn’t any kind of insurance against stupidity. Oh, I’m sure they’re intelligent; Kwarteng in particular is widely said to be ultra-clever; but they’re also super-arrogant. They are definitely not so clever that they don’t need advice. So the first thing they did was to fire the top civil servant at the Treasury. That was stupid. Then they banned release of the OBR report on the mini-budget. How did they imagine the markets would respond? So that was stupid too.
Basically, they’re so bloody clever they think they don’t need advice. They’re blunderers.
I think the mini-budget itself was unbelievably stupid; who am I to judge; I’m not an economist. But in just a month, they’ve wrecked the economy so badly that Starmer will only need to hold his wheesht to win big in two years’ time. And no Liz, it’s nothing to do with Ukraine; everyone knows the crash was caused by you and Kamikarzi.
there is being intelligent and there is being stupid. For intelligent people they have been very stupid.
Is it not just a ploy to hand over more of Blighty’s assets to the IMF/US, as planned?
Just a nitpick, Ian:
“the EU and, for all its faults, it is more diverse, has better elections”
Who is the President of the EU? Ursula von der Leyen.
Had even 0.1% of voters in the EU, outside Germany, even heard of Ursula von der Leyen before she became President? Even many members of the EU “Parliament” hadn’t heard of her before she was nominated!
EU elections are a cynical sham.
There was no referendum. The pictures and the ballot papers are all just for show.
Putin says there is a vote and he says what the result is. Nothing else matters.
Anyone who believes the result is a naïve fool.
It’s nice to see Craig getting it right on this for once. There’s still a long way to go on a lot of other subjects, but it’s a start,
If that is meant to be an explanation of a 99% vote to join Russia by majority Ukrainian areas, it is really very, very pathetic
Before the discussion gets heated too much, may I suggest a little discharge?
On latest events, for these of you who understand Russian
https://pikabu.ru/story/v_svete_poslednikh_sobyitiy_9514999
For these of you who don’t, here is the translation:
Ukr: I’ve had enough, I’m joining NATO!
Ru: you can’t join NATO while there is a war on your territory
Ukr: this is not a war, but a special military operation, as you yourself said!
Ru: It doesn’t matter, there’s fighting going on in your territory!
Ukr: you declared it your territories!!!
I think Ukraine should vote to be annexed by the us. They could hold a referendum tomorrow, as ridiculously invalid as Russia referendums, and say that Russia is now invading the us.
Very informative, thank you. As a pacifist, I certainly agree with your last paragraphs.
But I’d also say that your questions would pretty much be unanswerable or result in implausible or at least unsatisfactory answers, if they concerned the US presidential election.
Caitlin Johnston put it well in her latest:
The narrative that the invasion was unprovoked makes a diplomatic solution and peace impossible.
Indeed. The invasion was both provoked and illegal.
The placing of US nuclear weapons in Italy and Turkey provoked the Soviets into placing nuclear weapons in Cuba. The US blockade was a ‘special military operation’ of dubious legality.
Peace was eventually restored. What is the difficulty of negotiating a peace now, or is it ‘different’ this time?
Your article is odd in many ways and most of your comments simply rude and arrogant.
Your above “The invasion was both provoked and illegal” makes me respond with a sarcastic ‘and?’…_
It wasn’t provoked because Ukraine didn’t invade or send missiles across the border into Russia. At no point was Russia attacked, not by Ukraine, not by the US, not by NATO.
If I wave a big stick and you launch a cruise missile at my house murdering my entire family, try telling the judge you were provoked and see how far that gets you.
So the US should have just accepted Soviet nuclear bombs stationed in Cuba or a tieup of Mexico with Russia or China?
You would not regard it as a provocation?
Besides, to live in peace with Russia one merely has to refrain from discriminating against Russian minorities in ones state, especially when that state is a former part of the Soviet Union, as Russia still feels responsible for them.
If Switzerland prohibited the use of French and started to discriminate against French speakers, rest assured that Macron would get involved, and righteously so.
That is what the Baltic countries aren’t getting- they should have buried their justified grudges like Mandela did instead of taking revenge- and what Ukraine wasn’t getting.
Ukraine decided to want it all, bet the ranch and is now paying the price for it.
Like Germany, it was egged on and is now really thrown under the bus by the US, which is driven solely by MIC, OGMC and crazy Neocons interests and goals.
I do not think anyone claimed that 97% of population in any of these regions and, in particular, in Zaporijjzhe, voted to join Russia on these referendums. The claim is about 97% of those who voted. Given that Ukrainian authorities were quite clear that mere participation in these referendums is an act of sedition and will be punished by lengthy prison terms, it is hard to see why many people loyal to Uktaine would have participated in voting.
https://tass.com/politics/1514527
They claim 78.86% of the population in Kherson voted! Clearly not true.
Why wouldn’t it be possible that 78% of those people of voting age who have remained over the past 8 years and then after Russia’s invasion would vote?
So you are suggesting that those that have fled their homes are not entitled to a vote? Just want to know your thoughts on that?
Not being able to vote and not being entitled to vote are two totally separate concepts. I would have thought that was obvious.
Wikipedia states the population of Kherson oblast to be over 1 million, so I guess it was 78% of the occupied territory.
A problem with these referendums and annexations is that anyone can clearly see they are bogus. Craig is correct and has made a good start at listing some of the problems. There are even numerous photos of the counters counting blank ballots. Now all these oblasts are in precisely the same position as Crimea – one must assume that the referendum and annexation carried out there was equally flawed. Until now Russia has made a plausible argument that most in Crimea wanted to join Russia – that myth has just been destroyed by Russia’s own actions. It will be hard to argue that Ukraine should not take back Crimea by force after they have taken back other annexed territory by force. The two cases are one and the same.
“Crimea – one must assume that the referendum and annexation carried out there was equally flawed.”
No, there was a BBC team in Crimea and they reported that the referendum there seemed genuine. The official result was consistent with exit-poll samples.
There was more advance notice of the 2014 Crimean poll and there were more experienced professional journalists observing it, than for this year’s polls. The situation was different. I agree that the recent referenda were flawed, but I don’t think we have enough evidence to dismiss them as completely “bogus”. I think a majority of current residents really would prefer their region to be part of the Russian Federation, but of course that’s not sufficient for a valid plebiscite.
Please provide a source for your bbc report claim.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26481423
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-26463318
In reality it won’t be enough to convince the BBC. How do you propose to convince Zelensky and the Ukrainian military leadership that they can use force to reclaim Lyman but not Sevastopol? I am no longer seeing it. It doesn’t make sense that Russia will only use nukes when they enter Crimea – either from the Russian perspective or from the Ukrainian. It also makes increasingly less sense from a military perspective to stop at the Crimean border, but on that we shall see.
> It also makes increasingly less sense from a military perspective to stop at the Crimean border, but on that we shall see.
Northern Crimea is marshy and mountainous, and has few roads and railways. A significant part of Crimea is a giant Russian military base, which has been there since long before Ukraine became independent, and will be well-fortified. Liberating Sevastopol wouldn’t be like liberating Lyman. Ukraine could break its teeth on Crimea.
I agree if the Russian army were to withdraw to the Crimean border today it would be easy to defend. However, the history of the past few months shows us the tendency of Russia to wait until it is too late (Kyiv, Lyman, Kherson). Every time there is announcement that city x must be held at all costs and then there is a withdrawal there is a cost. IF we get to the point where all of Ukraine is liberated except Crimea THEN it is far from clear whether there will be a serious defense of Crimea. What are the political and military consequences of retaking Mariupol / Kherson etc on the kremlin? I don’t think we are in a position to speculate on that until we get there. Ukraine wouldn’t need to enter Sevastopol. It just needs to occupy rural areas and close off supply lines from Russia. (I am no military expert – my guess is that Ukraine’s military leaders will look at the possibility and there will be no call for restraint from politicians)
“Please provide a source for your bbc report claim.”
Sure.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606097
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26598832
These are reports by BBC reporters actually on the ground in Crimea who watched the voting take place. One of your links was to a professor in Cambridge, the other was to comments by Yatsenyuk, who was essentially appointed by Victoria Nuland (she refers to him as “Yats” on the recording that I assume you will have heard).
“Crimea – one must assume that the referendum and annexation carried out there was equally flawed.”
Of course it was flawed from the West’s POV, it produced the wrong result.
There were several western polls conducted in Crimea after the annexation and they all showed a majority agreed with reunification with Russia. So I don’t think you can say that about Crimea.
“A problem with these referendums and annexations is that anyone can clearly see they are bogus.”
Not anyone, only those who want them to be. Of course, if you want them to be bogus, the evidence that they are is clear in your eyes, but this also works for those that want them to be genuine. In addition, the vast majority of those who want them to be bogus are in the West and hardly anyone in Russia cares any longer what they think.
Truth over ideology is an interesting quandary. Our basic beliefs or complexes of ideas can guide us towards a binary complex, the maintenance of our existing world order or toward changes in the prevailing order. It is within this paradox that the validity of truths, and the tenability of their norms entwined with the balancing effect of objectivity is key here, or so I believe.
We can be presented with many facts, nicely tabulated and indeed socially scientific. We can think about the motives and arguments thenceforth and decide their genuineness. It is at this point the problems of indoctrination press on the gullible.
I do not believe our planet is advancing toward a flood of fire that will kill all life on earth. Rather we are in fact approaching a moment of truth. Do we want to be dominated by a huge miliitary machine turned by deceit, hypocrisy, robbery, sabotage.and discrimination?
By their fruits you shall know them
Just thinking about this paradox is not enough…
Putin’s latest speech in full: https://www.miragenews.com/full-text-of-putins-speech-at-annexation-866383/
Mark,
“Do we want to be dominated by a huge miliitary machine turned by deceit, hypocrisy, robbery, sabotage.and discrimination?”
The question that Ukraine has been asking itself for months now, as well as by the poor Russian boys Putin has sent to their deaths while describing their Sacrifice as “nothing”, “Russia has lost nothing by invading Ukraine” as Putin stated a couple of weeks ago. As has been noted before, nobody hates the Russian people as much as Putin does
‘nobody hates the Russian people as much as Putin does’
– That statement Neil exposes a distorted value judgment in my opinion and certainly requires proof.
I myself exist at the bottom of the food chain, a meat and potatoes feeder. After kicking around most open door sermons made by President Putin I asked him through the UK Russian embassy to mediate the proxy war in Syria, essentially to contain the murder and refugee crisis known to me and which had parallels with the 2003 illegal Iraq war. Afterwards Putin stepped in and wiped out the terrorist groups in Syria, essentially Daesh and Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, with overwhelming Russian air powerr.
That deed, that operation I accepted as Putin’s faith, Putin’s spirit, his resolve, his soul. I knew him.
I never knew that Putin responded to requests made via Russian embassies, Mark. Perhaps I should put one or two in. In any event, the Russians haven’t wiped out HTS – and ISIS aren’t completely out of the picture either, having hundreds of cells still active in NE Syria and the Badia; most of the work in destroying their caliphate was done by the Western coalition and their SDF allies anyway.
I agree LA ‘wiped out’ is a bit strong nevertheless after Russian intervention Syrian government control rose to about 70% from as low as 7%… ISIS is a proxy construct and China maintains publically that America is in Syria to plunder Syrian oil and transport to US bases in Iraq:https://english.news.cn/northamerica/20220906/052e55dae98e4fe3a698f4680fc23101/c.html
Thanks for your reply Mark. Before the Russian intervention in 2015, the Syrian Regime controlled around a quarter of Syria’s land area. With assistance from the Russians (and also the Iranians), they managed to regain control of most of Aleppo governorate, rebel-held pockets in the south and, more recently, the south of Idlib governorate. However, most of the land they’ve retaken is Badia desert land formerly held by ISIS, which they were able to do with minimal casualties, thanks mainly to the Western ‘Inherent Resolve’ coalition thoroughly degrading the caliphate with their near-continuous bombing.
ISIS isn’t a proxy for anyone, its growth being almost entirely organic. I’d take statements from the Syrian regime about the US stealing Syrian oil with a large pinch of salt – most likely, it’s buying it from the Kurdish Administration of NE Syria (Rojava). Sure, the Regime isn’t able to make money by selling the oil of which it claims to be the rightful owner, but how much is it making by illegally selling Captagon (amphetamine) all over the Middle East?
Thanks, LA. You have reached my heart and thrown a velvet glove. You know my heart resides in the Iraq children striving for survival., So no, I believe China as I stated knows the oil robbery. On ISIS, the joint CIA/MOSSAD construct I know much more… and I enjoyed your first paragraph. Thanks again.
Thanks again for your reply Mark. The Chinese are just regurgitating Syrian Regime propaganda. The CIA and Mossad haven’t been funding ISIS. The CIA did fund some Islamist groups – largely inadvertantly – through the covert operation Timber Sycamore but, along with the Free Syrian Army, these were largely opposed to ISIS and fought with them frequently, particularly in 2014. ISIS did obtain some weapons through the scheme but only after buying them through third parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
I think that Putin wishes us to believe that the East of Ukraine declared itself separately sovereign and voted to join the Russian Federation in the same way that a country might vote to join the EU. This IS possible but this isn’t the case. He’s clumsily trying to push this forward in a way that gives it a veneer (or attempts to) of legality. It just seems to me that he has been outplayed and had his buttons pushed by the US until he has backed himself into a corner, losing the European gas market whilst the US picks up sales of shale gas and profits massively..
The only losers are Ukraine and Europe. Russia saw this coming years ago, and prepared, which is why the sanctions are having minimal impact. China, and India, are watching and preparing.
Stevie, the losers very much include Russia. The fact that you can’t see this, that you can’t see the huge losses of poor Russian boys sent to their deaths in Ukraine as a loss, makes me suspect you have the same utter contempt for Russians that Putin has.
Neil claims “Putin has [an] utter contempt for Russians”.
If this is true, then why has “evil dictator” Vladimir Putin enjoyed overwhelming majority approval throughout his 22 or so year career as an uncontested duly elected President: highest c89% in 2015 to lowest c59% May 2020 rising to 77% September 2022?
Obama managed a 57% high – lower than Putin’s lowest! – with Biden sinking below 41% in June 2022.
Or are these data to be dismissed too, as bent “plebiscites”, since Putin is obviously also a “dictator”?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-rating-russia/
https://www.statista.com/chart/19541/approval-ratings-obama-trump/
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=how+popular+is+Putin+in+Russia%3F&ia=web
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+popular+is+Biden+in+USA+graph+data%3F&t=ffsb&ia=web
These numbers don’t seem to take into account the large number of people who have fled the Donbas region since the shelling began in 2014. I’ve read it was upwards of 4M prior to Russia’s invasion in February and I can only imagine that the people who identify as Russian are the ones who stayed in the area after it began.
I really don’t know if we can have that much confidence in the old census information in light of what’s been happening there since the Maidan coup.