frostygrin t1_j6nuroy wrote on January 31, 2023 at 5:34 PM

Reply to comment by Postcocious in Brazil's Lula cold-shoulders Germany's Scholz on Ukraine support by Available_Hamster_44

> In December 1991, Ukraine held a referendum and Ukrainians voted for independence. This essentially marked the end of the Soviet Union.

I said as much - it was a choice between independent Ukraine and the Soviet Union, not a choice between independent Russia and independent Ukraine. Then Ukraine stripped the autonomous status.

> True, but only half the story. Russia was working just as hard to suppress pro-Ukraine sentiment. You forgot that part.

Haven't seen any sources. How could Russia do that, exactly, in a newly independent country?

> Ukraine won that battle by political means (the pro-Ukraine parliament ousted the pro-Russian president).

Coups aren't exactly political.

Postcocious t1_j6nvyku wrote on January 31, 2023 at 5:41 PM

>How could Russia do that, exactly, in a newly independent country?

The same way they do in every other country: inserting agents, propaganda, misinformation, sabotaging (and sometimes murdering) people who disagree with them.

All that is especially easy in a newly independent country, where political structures and norms are not well established.

Doubly so when many people speak Russian and/or are sympathetic.

Crimea being newly independent made them more vulnerable to outside influences, not less.

>Coups aren't exactly political.

Parliamentary votes aren't coups.

frostygrin t1_j6nwy7o wrote on January 31, 2023 at 5:47 PM

> All that is especially easy in a newly independent country, where political structures and norms are not well established.

I haven't seen any examples of that actually happening in Crimea. You even acknowledge that people might have been sympathetic - making it less nefarious.

> Parliamentary votes aren't coups.

What's leading to them surely can be.

Postcocious t1_j6nxdvl wrote on January 31, 2023 at 5:49 PM

>You even acknowledge that people might have been sympathetic - making it less nefarious.

Nothing about an unprovoked military invasion that murders civilians is "less nefarious". It is fully nefarious.

frostygrin t1_j6o19rb wrote on January 31, 2023 at 6:13 PM

Do you even follow the conversation? We were talking about Crimea in the 90s, "in a newly independent country", where, as you were claiming, Russia was playing mind games to suppress the pro-Ukrainian sentiment among the sympathetic pro-Russian population. Except I haven't seen any examples of that.

Postcocious t1_j6o498n wrote on January 31, 2023 at 6:31 PM

> Except I haven't seen any examples of that.

How did Russian troops disguised as independent mercenaries manage to invade and conquer Crimea in 2014 with hardly any resistance from the local defence forces?

If they'd believed the invaders were independent, they'd have fought. No army surrenders their country to nameless bandits.

That they didn't fight is evidence they knew the invaders were backed by Moscow. Which is evidence that Moscow suborned them before the invasion began.