I agree. I posted an article a couple of weeks ago about the disproportionate affect the war is having on minority populations. It’s quite literally a form of colonialism where the ‘Russian’ populace is not facing the brunt of war casualties. The mobilized by all accounts are once again culled from the poorer, outlying districts and from ethnic minorities and there is a tinge of sorrow for them.
The ones leaving, however, probably have some sort of privilege that I have quite a distaste for. It’s not the war or the wrongs committed that they are against, simply the fact that their precious bodies might be put on the line. As long as it was someone from Siberia losing limbs and Ukrainian towns and cities being razed then it was all ‘Z’.
But my concern is that once Putin forces the results of this sham referendum on the public in these areas, a lot of countries will grow tired of the stand off, and worse the general public will grow bored and move onto some other thing to occupy their time/focus/outrage and the people of Kherson, Donbas, Crimea will be fogotten about and Ukraine will lose the military support they have received so far and get screwed over.
I’m wondering if they see a two-fold benefit:
(a) the “West” gets alarmed, and increases the rhetoric, which in turn benefits
(b) their posturing for internal consumption, as they can blame NATO for bombing the pipeline, providing a casus belli
98% even in the non-Russophone occupied provinces. Following the great tradition of all dictatorships historically of not bothering with plausibility and credibility. Scum.
It doesn’t make much sense, other than skyrocketing ng prices again for a short while.
I do wonder what the result would have been if the “referendum” had been free and monitored by a recognised agency. What proportion of the population genuinely feel russian?
I was recently talking to the son of a friend who is an officer in the british army and he was involved in recent Nato exercises in Estonia. He told me that the mainly russian speaking population in the east of the country, where the exercises took place, were at best sullen and at worst openly hostile towards them.
I get that but it still begs the question, do these people historically feel russian. They speak the language and live right next door. In a free and fair referendum would the majority vote for their region to be part of Russia irrespective of any current propoganda they are consuming?
I don’t want to speculate, but Kherson is not a Russia dominated area and has high partisan activity. Also, in Ukraine what has generally happened through this war is that a large segment of those who were pro-Russia or at least ambivalent, has become anti-Russian despite themselves being ethnically Russian.
