Russian shills:

tatzhit
NBCMarine

You guys aren't doing well at hiding your allegiance.  "Russia does no wrong, those soldiers hands were tied behind their backs to help with moving the bodies, not executions."-tatzhit

"Nobody was killed in the Czechoslovakian invasion by Russia/Warsaw Pact (other than accidents)." - tatzhit

"This is a big conspiracy from George Soros against Russia.  Russia is innocent."

"Crimean annexation was legitimate, majority voted for it to become part of Russia."  Forget about centuries of ethnic displacement of peoples and importation of Russians to control the strategic piece of real estate, which determines who has access to the Ukrainian and Russian interior.

Look, I get it.  Russia is in a bad place, surrounded in all the periphery by nations who would like to determine their own futures without being bullied into submission by a heavy hand from Moscow.

I understand that Russia faces an existential problem determined by land-locked geography in practice.

That doesn't mean Russia is innocent, and isn't lashing out with dirty tricks to try to determine the direction she has when looking at critical strategic areas that determine food supply, oil flow, and sea access.

Don't come here pretending to present some objective opinion on the matter, while shilling for Russia in very poor disguises.  No amount of mental gymnastics and Russian circus tricks can hide what you are.

Yeah the side you are supporting are all flaming lefty socialist. Obama, Hillary, Kerry, Soros, Yatsenyuk, Nuland, Merkel and so on.

.10 .....blood.

99.9% vodka

To spell it out clearly for you NBCMarine, LRRP52 is about the furthest thing from a liberal progressive that can possibly exist.

The fact that you have to makeup lies to support your arguments (which are all based on lies anyway) is very telling.

 
Lying is what Russians do. It is a survival trait to them, thanks to years of soviet bullshit.

Obama, Hillary, Kerry, Soros, Merkel, Yatsenyuk, and Nuland will all be gone soon.  Politicians and financiers come and go.  Soros is an international criminal on many levels, a Jew who helped the Nazis round up his people in Hungary.  Obama comes from a pro-communist family who helped transfer the B-29 TDP to the Soviet Union so you could build the Tu-95.  Kerry is a pro-communist social justice warrior/useful idiot who protested his own involvement in Vietnam, and should be tried for treason against the US.  Merkel is a former East German who has suspicious ties with the communist party and many think is a shill for Russia.  Hillary helped Putin revive the Russian nuclear arsenal through the Clinton Global Initiative, by allowing fronts for the Russian government to corner the uranium market.  Most of the people you listed have done more to help Russia than you are doing with your senseless simpleton ramblings.

Geography stays the same.  Russia will always be contained by her neighbors.  Treating them like garbage doesn't help Russia's position in the world.  The fact that Russia treats its own people like garbage creates a low national self-esteem, so treating neighbors even worse seems to be in Russia's DNA.

I've looked within enough to clearly identify my internal enemies.  You should do the same.  Things will become more clear.

Starting to wonder if this thread is going the way the OP planned.

TO EVERYONE: I'll be answering sensible questions first, and respond to trolling when/if I have the time. With trolling of my own.
. Not that I don't like me some Cold War - style shouting matches, but I'd like to strike a reasonable balance between reasonable discussion and incoherent swearing )




The second link I posted is from Czech libtards, I think. If they're lying about anything, it's to make Soviets look worse, not better. Read it if you'd like.

As for disappearances, I'm sure those same libtards would be bitching to high heaven if anything remotely like that took place.
Heck, Soviets even returned the head of state they originally moved in to overthrow. For a time, anyway.

A. UAF took ~3 months to show any success against local militias with no detectable Russian supply of heavy equipment (nothing that couldn't be carried by a 3-man team) and a severe lack of light weapons (SKSs for a lot of frontline troops, not even enough SKSs for everyone, two SPG-9s as only AT weapons at a key battalion position in June at Yampol, etc.).
Once UAF went full retard with MLRS barrages and airstrikes, Russians started arming the militias too, but it was too little too late, hence the need for intervention.

Despite the constant paranoid screaming about GRU recon, there's little evidence they were actually involved before August, maybe July.
Back in 2014, propagandists liked to claim Strelkov's 52-man unit was GRU, but now we know they were formed from Crimean locals, and pretty much the biographies of main participants.
B. I already said there were Russian troops in-theater at some point (and they often pretended to be volunteers). Doesn't change the fact that some soldiers/veterans genuinely volunteered.

[span style='color: red;']1. I'm not sure about the second episode, that's why.

2. Assuming anything in the article is connected to reality(it's a Western propaganda source, the interview is obviously heavily edited, AND I haven't seen any other confirmation. Accounts of UAF tankmen of the battle don't match the newspaper, either, right down to giving a different date):

= The article indicates the battalion was used in the mopping-up and in defending from UAF attempt to break into the encirclement. You know, AFTER UAF at Debaltsevo were already encircled, their commanders fled, and the troops were left without supply, comms, medevac - pretty much totally boned. If that battalion wasn't used, successful breakthough of a small force would've - at best - let UAF run from Debaltsevo with somewhat fewer losses.

= While a tank battalion would certainly be a significant force by that operation's scale (mostly because they had tanks that actually worked and crews that have been in a tank before, which was rare for both UAF and DLPR), the whole thing involved several brigades on each side, almost all of them known militia units for which some form of AARs are published by now. In other words, the participants were overwhelmingly local (although a lot of their heavy gear wasn't, by that time).

Russian nationalists actually view Debaltsevo as "Russians letting newly formed DLPR armies do an operation on their own and realize that superior morale alone doesn't win battles. Not without heavy casualties, anyway".

3. Care to share a link? This is too broad for me to comment without knowing what/when/where, especially considering VICE tendency to mis-label things.

If Trump loses this next election they ain't going anywhere. If he wins, well he is fairly pro Russian. Who are you voting for?

Tatzhit, what do you think of Martin Armstrong's view on the Ukraine; that the eastern half is considered by the Russians to be an intergral part of Russia, and that the suffering could have been avoided by negotiating a partitioning of the country to keep the western half independent.

He also says the Russian invasion was to make sure Russia kept their monopoly on natural gas pipelines to Europe, just like the Syria pipeline we don't get told about.

I see more of the usual suspects have shown up. You guys are such a great team.

Fuck Russia.

FIFY .

Propaganda and its driving forces are really a fascinating subject. Among other things, it's interesting how geopolitical situation sometimes leads to the same themes being perpetuated through centuries. Crimean War cartoons, anyone?

Lol@italy

Are you actually being serious right now? You're saying an invasion of Georgia by South Ossetia, using most of Georgia's regular army, was some sort of a giant costumed event staged by the Russians? What next, Saddam's troops at Kuwait were actually dressed up Norks ?

I'm not even sure how to comment on that. I love me some good conspiracy theories, but I like ones that would be possible to pull off without involving like a hundred thousand people on all sides of the story.

  I see things differently,the US,France and England would not have fought the Soviets,there were simply too many fellow travellers.

Somewhere in Lubyanka they'reccalling in a firemission

Sorry, I wrote a long response, and then mis-clicked and closed the tab . So, short answers:

1. Most likely.

2. No, because Czech reforms came from the top. Reformers were mainstream before the invasion, not "underground/resistance".

3. Local idiots at border villages were shooting at each other, Russian peacekeepers did their best to keep both sides from killing anyone. Ask any member here who has been in UNPROFOR - AFAIK it was similar to that.
Judging by the fact that Georgians advanced and took some high ground in the months before the invasion, the latest flare-up was their doing. Of course, they insisted they were merely retaliating to provocations by Ossetian Terrorists, Spetnaz Alpha GRU and Gray Space Aliens.

1. Hands are tied in front. Extremely common practice in the East Bloc, troops aren't issued body bags, and stretchers are sorta narrow.

2. I gave you data. Disprove it if you can.

3. Never said innocent (actually said the opposite). I merely said Soros shills are shitty sources of info.
It's like asking Soros/BLM types about Iran-Contra, or OIF. Sure, they'll probably get some things right, but will mix it with a ton of libtard conspiracy theories.

4. Ignoring the fact that Crimean Tatars enslaved/removed the original Greek/Armenian/Russian population, spent the next few centuries running a slave-based economy preying on Russia and Ukraine, and in WWII helped Germans genocide the local Jewish population. I won't get too deeply into details, but Crimea is the one place you don't wanna play the historic blame game.



FIFY :). Don't confuse propaganda with reality. The current NATO supporters will all start waving Russian flags tomorrow if Russia somehow starts to dominate the region. Not that it's likely to happen, not in the next generation at least.

Pictured: Crowds of locals demand reunification with USSR in Latvia and Ukraine, 1939-1940. I could find the same pictures for Nazis in 1941, and probably some from when Soviets came back 1944. Not to mention "independence" crowds of the 90s. There were likely a few people who participated in all of these rallies, or at least 3 out of 4.






Agree on the bolded part.

Oh, and I don't "pretend to be objective" - I specifically said in the OP that I'm biased. I just have different biases than you do, and it's actually very interesting to me to compare them.

Get out of the Ukraine, commie.

Ukraine needs to become a part of NATO once they pull their heads out of their rear end and learn something about warfare and corruption.

If you have never moved dead bodies, the explanation of tying hands in front to help with dragging might fly by a low information voter.

For those of us that have, there's this crazy thing called rigor mortis that negates any need for tying hands, especially in a place that has colder weather, where rigor mortis sets in rapidly.

The only reason you tie people's hands is when they are EPWs, Enemy Prisoners of War.

It is also extremely difficult to tie the hands once rigor mortis has set in past a certain time.

Since combat operations involve clearing after a major battle, a lot of time transpires between actions on the objective and consolidation and reorganization.  One of the last priorities of work is movement of bodies.

Those uniformed Ukrainian soldiers were EPWs, tied up and secured, who were then executed like dogs.

Russia tries to assume a moral high ground often, while saying how evil the West is, especially the US.

The reality is that Russian forces have been known for raping, plundering, and unlawful executions of both civilians and soldiers throughout Russia's sordid history.

Trying to claim that these guys were tied up post mortem doesn't pass the smell test no matter how you look at it, and doesn't do well for your credibility.  The willingness to concoct an explanation like that shows your hand as being willing to suspend reason in defense of criminal actions.  I think that is quite clear.

You had several different parties in South Ossetia and Abkhazia:

Russian military on one side

Georgian military on the other

Pro-Russian separatists inside South Ossetia

Pro-Georgian South Ossetians

South Ossetia had declared its independence from Georgia and Russia after the Soviet collapse.  Russian interests there were significant, especially with the oil industry and illegal smuggling activities between Russian military/police and Georgian government in the region.

Things escalated in 2007 with attacks on each other from both sides.

Russian MVD specializes in false flags, and uses surrogate forces to kick off invasions when the Kremlin feels this is necessary.  Many pro-Russian citizens in South Ossetia had gained Russian passports, and even voted for Putin in the elections.  The UN report on the whole affair is a sham.  Nobody had the balls to accuse Russia of instigating the invasion with the mass murder of its own pro-Russian people, so the peaceniks in Europe and UN put their heads in the sand and looked away.

The US certainly wasn't willing to escalate for a little nation like Georgia, and this is what the bully tactics of Putin were counting on.  It was a great chess move on Putin's part, because the message was really directed at the Ukraine:

"See, the US will not come to your aid when Russia invades."

The Ukrainians still moved forward with trying to shed the shackles of Russian-imposed trade agreements, puppet governments, and living under the influence of Russian abuse and dominance.

(excuses for graphic details)
I've seen rigor mortis plenty (not on any battlefield - working with animals). You are not accounting for the fact that at war soldiers rarely handle enemy KIA. Their own KIA would be taken out soon after death, or die on the way to medevac, and hands would flop around until rigor mortis sets in. In the case we see, the bodies look like they've been dead quote a long time, likely dug from under the rubble, so rigor mortis would be gone = same deal. Moreover, the hands aren't tied particularly well, especially guy on left - he could simply take out his hand if he was alive.

To settle the matter once and for all:
2:15 Russian soldiers in Chechnya tying the hands of their own KIA. Good song, actually, maybe I'll subtitle the video sometime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8j0OrbcdPk

Again, I'm not saying no one executed POWs. I'm pretty sure both sides have. I'm just saying these two guys in pictures are unlikely have been executed.

EDIT: Recalled one more. 2:40 DPR guys taking out their own KIA or WIA at the goddam airport, hands tied. This one is subbed, but just for the song. Think I had the 30-min documentary with subs somewhere. Other people have certainly subb'ed it too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNZg8Cmmlrc

Your hero Motorola is on record saying he executed Ukraine POWs. There are no Ukrainians who say that, only your heroes.

Your buddy Graham Phillips has quite a few people who are going to put his head on a pike soon. I look forward to that.

Bwahaha. Another classic "UA Ministry of Propaganda Mix and Match Soundtrack". I thought nationalists stopped trying to use those back in 2014, after they've been called out on them so many times.
I didn't even know this one existed, but it took me all of 3 minutes to find it's a fake. For chrissakes, the cut is fukin obvious.

Here is what the Kyiv Post subtitles say:
"I don't give a f*** what I'm being accused of, believe it or not. I shot 15 prisoners. I don't give a shit. No fucking comment. ..."

Here is what Motorola actually says in their recording:
"I don't give a f*** what I'm being accused of, believe it or not. I am fucking [this is where the cut happened, which is why those words don't make sense] I shot 15 prisoners. I don't give a shit. No fucking comment. ..."

Here is what HE says he said to the journalists, roughly:
"I don't give a f*** what I'm being accused of, believe it or not. I am fucking accused of all sorts of shit. Now they're saying that I shot one prisoner, before they were saying that I shot 15 prisoners. I don't give a shit. No fucking comment. ..."

I'm sure examining the waveforms of the recording would confirm, too, because you can hear Motorola's voice suddenly getting much quieter when the cut happens (I assume he lost breath and/or moved the phone over the period that has been cut out).

Motorola explaining how they cut up his interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecu9KK5cmpE

Oh, and quick Google shows the Guardian, Independent, Mashable, and similar rags reprinted this fake, as-freaking-usual. Mainstream mass media :
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/10/russian-fighter-ukraine-motorola
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-fighter-admits-killing-15-ukrainian-prisoners-of-war-as-amnesty-international-urges-10167912.html
http://mashable.com/2015/04/09/russian-rebel-commander-kill-ukraine-pows/#y1zBOSEmCEq2

Oh well, at least this one isn't as painfully obvious as the Strelkov VK posts fake and the editing of Hodakosky interview by Reuters themselves. Those were real crude, and got real far because of the mad scramble to take advantage of MH17 tragedy.



Saying that killing surrendered enemies in the heat of combat, after they killed your buddies, is a crime, but at the same time boasting of a conspiracy to murder a British investigative journalist... That's not even being brainwashed, that's something else. Combined with your attempts to promote fringe Ukrainian Neo-Nazi factions in this and other threads, I have to ask again:
Are you employed by Putin to make Ukrainian nationalists look like violent, mindless Nazis?

Nice redirect attempt Boris, and the cut and paste argument from your "fact sheet".

Why do you people despise freedom so much? Certainly you get enough exposure to it here, and can also get a sense of how Americans react to propaganda spewed by the enemy. Why the hate?

Ukrainian Nationalists = Ukrainian Citizens. Of course to you they are all Ukrop and Banderites, right?

Your hatred of freedom has no place on this board and you should probably leave.

ETA - For the rest of us, his "British Investigative Journalist" has an arrest warrant out for him in Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, etc,  and is persona non grata in Britain for being a terrorist.

Hold on, we need to clarify definitions before we continue. There is quite a bit of debate over the definition of the word "nationalist", but in the 20th century the political movements that used the term were mostly based on ethnicity or culture. In other words, they wanted prosperity not for a NATION (people who want that are called PATRIOTS), but for an ETHNIC or CULTURAL GROUPS within said nation. Examples of nationalist movements would be Russia's RNE, USA's KKK and BLM, UA's RS/Svoboda. Got it?

Now, let's move on to Ukrainian citizens. Of course, your claims are false and the majority of them are not nationalists (this is probably because you have a different definition, tho).
Heck, a very large number aren't even patriots of Ukraine - by various estimates, over 20 to over 60 percent want nothing more than to flee the place:
http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine/over-20-percent-of-residents-of-ukraine-want-to-emigrate-poll-385937.html
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150730/1025201756.html

That said, I don't generally have a problem with UA patriots or even moderate nationalists.
We may have differing views on some things, but I have differing political views with a lot of my American friends, too.
It's the hardcore idiots that I can't stand.



That sentence has so much fail in it, I can only respond with this meme:



FYI, almost none of what you said has any connection to reality. Phillips has been deported from UA for not towing the nationalist line in his reports, true. None of the other countries you mentioned have anything against him, as far as I'm aware. He was also deported from Latvia, for asking "disruptive, loud questions" during a march of Waffen-SS veterans. The whole "accusing journalist of terrorism" thing is even more derp .


Heh, out of curiosity, what acts of terrorism* can you name that have been perpetrated by DLPR militias?
Let's define as "perpetrating attacks intended to cause mass civilian casualties, and taking credit for them to terrify the populace"

There is a lot of truth to that view. I think partitioning may not have been the only way, but something should have been done about respecting local interests.

Ukraine is a very "patchwork" country, made up of parts of former Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian empire, Romania, Poland, and an area in the center that was independent for a short while in the 17th century. A lot of it was done very recently.
All of that that mattered little until Ukraine became separated from the rest of the Russian nation just 23 years ago.
Essentially, you're dealing with a bunch of different groups who were recently - for the first time in 350 years - forced to figure out to peacefully balance everyone's interests (spoiler alert: they eventually failed, with outside meddling from East and West pushing them into conflict).

Allow me to post a few pictures, the whole thing is not nearly as simple as voting maps(top) would have you believe:




Now here is another key problem point that is barely discussed in the West:


Because Ukraine was only a province ever since the Middle Ages, it's individual regions aren't built like "countries".
Differently from USA, or say Germany/Italy/Switzerland, which used to be a bunch of independent states, Ukraine doesn't have proper local governments/infrastructure/elites built to serve the interests of individual regions.
This means that there is only one center of power - the capital, and instead of balancing the interests of different groups and keeping everyone placated, Ukrainian politics looks like "King of the Hill" game. Whoever rises to the top oppresses the fuck out of everyone else, pisses the rest of the country off, and gets thrown out (last one was violent, but really the 3 previous changes of power were pretty dramatic too). That's how you end up with ridiculous lopsided shit that's unheard of in any other European country, such as the primary language of 83% of the population not being an official language (*Gallup data, on 2nd page of thread).


The reason I'm saying all of this is that I think dismantling the country is one way to fix the regional problems, but not the only way. It's like reconciling North/South differences in the US: you can split, or you can compromise, have strong local governments, different laws in different states/cities, etc.

I believe that is what Russia bet on: if Ukraine has any sort of representative/federal structure, with none of that King Of The Hill BS, it won't ever be able to majorly screw over Russia because half of it likes Russia and has close economic ties with it.
So the initial protests were about having some sort of a power-sharing agreement between East and West (and Russian official rhetoric always called the protesters "proponents of federalization" - because Russia had no desire to annex a large, run-down area, AND have the gas pipelines you mentioned above still cut off by West Ukrainians). It wasn't until West Ukrainian nationalists who seized the reigns of government went full retard and tried to subjugate everyone else by force, rather than negotiate, that the armed resistance really started.

After much stupidity, it came to the same conclusion: Minsk Accords, separate rights and more local government for Eastern regions. Obviously, if that ever gets implemented, every OTHER group is gonna demand local government, too, and Ukraine will eventually become a proper federation.
For now, rabid West Ukrainian nationalists and (mostly) simple thieves in the new regime are digging their heels in and trying to remain at the helm as long as they possibly can, because local government means they would no longer be all-powerful, and wouldn't get all the revenue flowing from local budgets. Feds never willingly give back power to the locals, all that.

At this point, both Russia and USA are trying to push Kiev towards federalization, to little effect. If they fail, Ukraine remains over-centralized and fucked up and will likely fracture eventually, with parts being annexed by closest neighbors (Russia, Poland, Romania, etc.). If they eventually succeed, Ukraine may have a chance as one country, although the economy is already ruined and fixing it would be a huge problem.

http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/for-the-record-nuland-on-implementation-of-minsk/

Oh FFS.

Everything you are posting is an attempt to justify the invasion of a peaceful sovereign nation by a country with a poor reputation for human rights and respect for it's neighbors. You cannot justify that. You can fabricate all the excuses you wish, however there is zero justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That is the reality.

I used to feel sorry for Russia, however over the years I came to realize that was a weakness on my part.

As for your silly chart and yet another poor attempt at redirection, I leave you with this:

Freedom speaks all languages.

Even your language Boris. You would do well to remember that.

And..



I am done here; you are not worth it.

There have been publications which discussed the fact that the South Ossetian government had essentially come under the controul of Russians, with key government positions being held by Russian military officers.  Before Russia began the efforts needed to achieve this politically, the Georgian government had been on the path to reconciliation with the South Ossetians.  Once the Russians gained political controul, the South Ossetians put an end to such efforts, began ethnic cleansing of Georgians, Russia began issuing passports, and the South Ossetians began to do things like take shots at Georgian troops, engage in mortar attacks, etc., and some of this was even caught on video (I saw a couple on Youtube years ago, back when this was still a hot topic).  During this time, Russia was providing arms and munitions to the South Ossetians (its 'peacekeeping' force was clearly a farce by this point).  

The week that the war began, the South Ossetian attacks had gotten unusually intense and prolonged.  Tbilisi decided that this situation could not continue and decided to put an end to it and restore order and the central government's controul over the province.  Unbeknownst to them, though, the Russians, under the guise of exercises, had massed troops and supplies on the border and were pretty much ready to go immediately after Georgia made its move.  

They basically suckered the Georgians into taking an action that they could at least try to claim gave them a legitimate reason to intervene and then invaded and pushed as far as they thought they could get away with.  They did this by controulling the politics and thus the military actions of the rebel province and provided a way to claim that the lives of Russian nationals were at stake (and also used their 'peacekeeping' force as a sacrificial lamb, knowing the Georgians had no choice but to deal with it).  Of course, once the Russians won, looting of non-Ossetians and much more extensive ethnic cleansing began, and even some killing (a common Soviet practice).  A lot of this stuff came out during and within the first year after the Russo-Georgian War.

So the Soviet Union DIDN'T sign a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany on August 23rd, 1939? Stalin DIDN'T order the NKVD to kill 22,000-100,000 political prisoners and POWs in the Gulags (NKVD evacuation order No. 00803)? Those same NKVD massacres that in November 2010, the Russian parliament finally admitted happened under orders from Stalin?

Boy Britain and the US is SO good at inventing stuff to discredit Russia, they traveled through time to produce a fake non-agression pact that both Hitler and Stalin signed then plant files detailing NKVD massacres and even got Stalin to authorize those fake evacuation orders. Amazing stuff there.

As a russian descendant who's ancestors fled the pogroms,

Go bugger off, Vlad. The only sucking sound I hear is your economy

Holy fucking Christ.

Hmmm . . . 80%??  

Where did you get that figure?  "Election" results maybe?  

Please show me where any respected international body accepted that rigged election as legitimate.

And riddle me this:  the G8.  IT NO LONGER EXISTS.  Russia was kicked out over their illegal annexation (and fake election).  So please explain why the G7 don't know what they are talking about (but you do) how the G7 didn't see your evidence, etc.

As Americans know, communism is the result of liberal democrats being in power.

Get bent, commie.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I hope things improve for the Ukranians; I don't think this administration has the wisdom or will to guide things to a successful conclusion of hostilities.

This thread is a tour-de-force for propaganda technique and information warfare.   It's impressive to watch how deftly facts get turned on their heads.  Watch and learn, people.

Oh for the love of.... just... so we're clear, I think this needs to make another appearance.

Fucking perfect!  

Yeah, no kidding.

It's so much fun because you dont know if the people asking the commies questions are lateral support trying to legitimize the discussion or just people drinking combloc coolaid so then can regurgitate it later over the dinner table.

Utter nonsense. The militias don't enjoy much popular support outside of their two primary Oblasts and don't even enjoy much support in predominately Russian speaking Oblasts.  They were on the ropes when Russia decided to intervene to save them, them being a bunch of criminals and gangsters. Blaming the coup on a Western backed conspiracy is simply convenient and missing the point, not to mention ignoring the historical and present realities and dynamics of Ukraine.

"Freedom speaks all languages" ... (proceeds to deny basic language rights to the majority of population who speak Russian as first language ).

Actually, there is a long and sad story as to why this happens, so let me go into it here.

It boils down to Ukraine being over-centralized, as explained in my large post above. This means the only one in charge is whoever currently controls Kiev.
Regardless of whether he is from the East or from the West, he is terribly afraid of any sort of local government or regional interests, because that means he would no longer be free to rob the rest of the country blind (for example, taking ALL the local revenue, then RE-DISTRIBUTING scraps of it back to the regions according to his whim). Feds are gonna fed.

Therefore, he inevitably ends up in an alliance with various nationalist groups who shout "Nation above all" and similar slogans which really mean "We want to lord over everyone else in this country, and also we want alliance with EU because rich tourists next door and Russia-connected industry is all on the other side". Sorta like BLM backs the Democrats here in hopes of greater wealth redistribution towards them.

That is another funny part that no one gets: The Maidan wasn't a coup by Ukrainian nationalists against local Russians. It was a coup by more radical West Ukrainian nationalists against more moderate East Ukrainian nationalists.
Yanukovich wasn't diametrically opposed to Yarosh and Bilecky, he was simply on a moderate wing of the same movement. He still didn't give Russian-speaking regions the rights that they wanted, in fact he further centralized the system and tried to move closer to the EU. Heck, the whole Eurointegration Agreement was originally Yanukovich's idea, he just changed his mind once he realized it would collapse the country (cause he wanted to stay the King-In-Kiev for the foreseeable future, not just a couple years).

That is also the reason why Yanukovich was overthrown: when West Ukrainian nationalists/regional interests made a power grab, people didn't exactly passionately rally to defend one big-government gang of oppressors from a competing one (we can somewhat compare to the feelings on Romney/Obama "Two Big Gov Progressives with Universal Healthcare Plans" presidential contest in US).

Unfortunately, the people that overthrew Yanukovich were even greedier and less tolerant of local interests than he was, while yet another illegitimate transfer of power weakened the government institutions to a breaking point. Soon enough, you had massive protests in the regions who would be robbed the most by the new central gov. Some local LEO/SWAT joined the protesters, etc. And of course, while all of the above was going on, outside players were very actively pursuing their own interests and propping up whoever they preferred. Long story short, nationalists moved to crush the protests by force and locals organized various resistance groups with the hopes of help from Russia (which eventually materialized in some regions). The rest is history.

Whew. That took a while, but hopefully clears up my view.

=======

As for "Russian invasion" - it's cute how in every civil war, both sides paint each other as entirely created/controlled/funded/armed by foreign interests and totally not representing anyone in country.

BBC poll: 81 percent of Syrians believe USA created ISIS
Can't be bothered to look up similar data for Libya, but I assume its greater.
Americans always blame Iraq going to shit on Iranians / Saudis / whoever, but rarely on the locals themselves.
In Yugoslavia, warring factions were supported by everyone and their grandma, including many foreign volunteers who later came to fight in Ukraine.
During the Russian Civil War, the Whites called the Bolsheviks "Jewish" or "German" puppets, whereas the Bolsheviks claimed  Whites are only tools of the Entente.
Heck, during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War, France and Spain contributed 2x more men AND suffered 3x more casualties than the colonists. So what, War of Independence is just a "French Invasion" to you?

Wake up and face reality, however uncomfortable it may be. Here is the head of Ukraine State Security saying they have evidence 56 Russian citizens fought against UAF in the East (Kyiv Post)(My Translation of Video). Not 5,600, or 560. 56.
This must only be the number that they have solid evidence for - IMO Russian volunteers used to form over 10% of DLPR's 30,000 strong militia force, not to mention the August 2014 army intervention. But to say that a war where the vast majority of combatants on both sides are local (and driven by a tug-of-war over regional interests) is anything but a civil war is simply deluding yourself to quiet down your conscience. Dixi.

You keep circling back to that language deal, and seem to be trying to equate it to "Well they speak Russian so therefore they're actually Russians and not Ukrainians to begin with..." For decades the Soviet Union imposed Russian on every culture, nationality and region in the USSR. At one time there were around 160 different nationalities in the USSR speaking about 140 different languages but if you wanted to do more than herd elk in the far eastern stretches of Siberia you had to learn Russian. If a Georgian wanted to become an engineer instead of cleaning out wine vats while standing on his head, he had to speak Russian, full stop. But even though he spoke Russian that doesn't mean that the Soviets considered him Russian at all. Since the USSR went away the Russian government has done a full 180 on that opinion and  claims anyone that speaks Russian anywhere in the world is Russian if it happens to suits their agenda. Hell if it somehow helped Putin out (and if he didn't think he'd get punched in his face for it) he'd claim William Smith was a citizen of the Russian Federation.



The reason many Ukrainians speak Russian as their first language is the same reason most Sioux speak English as their first language, decades of central government mandates on making the common language the only acceptable one, if you do that for enough generations then you wind up with people speaking a language that isn't their original one. A Ukrainian that speaks Russian instead of Ukrainian isn't somehow magically a Russian when it's convenient for Russia to count them as one.





 

Are you paid in rubles or USD?

Anyone done an IP address check lately?  Just wondering.

This sounds like something written by Western journalists to look plausible for Western audiences, yet having no connection to South Ossetia.
Now, bear in mind that I'm NOT a specialist on South Ossetian politics, I'm just saying this does not compute based on the few things that I do know:
1. South Ossetia is a tiny statelet with a population of 50 thousand people. I'm not aware of any sort of power transfer there. The place simply isn’t big enough to support two elites, and I’m not aware of any real power struggles. All the people running for President there seem to be from the group that fought for independence from Georgia in 1992.  IIRC the same guy remained in power from 2001 to 2011, he was replaced by another guy from the same party, AND their closest competitor was a communist.

2. Moreover, even if anyone wanted closer relations with Georgia, Mike “Let’s Throw Everyone in Prison” Saakashvili certainly wasn’t up for negotiations. He abolished Adjarian independence (with no interference from Russia, BTW), denounced any sort of local self-government, and aggressively moved to shut down the South Ossetian black market, leading to armed clashes against Georgian force in SO in 2003.

3. The only piece in there that seems to be remotely true is the claim about Russian passports. Amendments to Russian law, that allowed Soviet documents to be much more easily exchanged for Russian ones, happened in 2002 (South Ossetians obviously all held Soviet passports, and all obviously wanted a non-expired document from a recognized country). But those changes targeted many millions of Russians abroad, happened 6 years before 08.08.08, and could hardly be construed to be primarily aimed at South Ossetia.

4. As for the “who mortared whom” stories, I suppose we won’t be able to tell without pulling up some OSCE reports and memoirs/AARs from both sides. Even wiki says it was tit-for-tat, so I don’t buy official Georgian line “they happened to go all aggressive just as we were securing good positions for invasion”.

As stated above, I’m not a specialist on Ossetian government, but basically the claims you list seem to be 80% fiction and 20% misunderstanding of the local situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_South_Ossetia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passportization