One view of what happened in 2014 in the Dombass

This from Massimo Introvigne, an Italian scholar:

Donbass: Did Ukraine Kill 14,000 Pro-Russians and Civilians?

04/30/2022MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

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The answer is no. 14,000 is the number of the total victims of the war in Donbass, killed by both parties between 2014 and 2021. 10,900 of them were soldiers.

by Massimo Introvigne

There are several myths used by Russia and its fellow travelers to justify the invasion of Ukraine. One is that a “genocide” was happening in Donbass, where Ukrainians killed “14,000” pro-Russian separatists and civilians since 2014.

This is just another myth, as are others we debunked in a previous Bitter Winter series. Many who repeat this story have only a vague idea of what “Donbass” means. “Donbass” (also spelled Donbas) is not a legal but a cultural and historical expression. The name was coined in the 19th century as an acronym for “DONetsk BASin,” an area in the east of Ukraine renowned for its coal mines. The coal boom of the same 19th century led to the immigration of thousands of Russian-speaking workers from present-day Russia into what was originally a predominantly Ukrainian-speaking area.

With the Soviet Union, a part of the historical Donbass was incorporated into Russia, while most of it formed the two oblasts (regions) of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Soviet republic of Ukraine. Generally, today, “Donbass” refers to the two Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

During World War II, Donbass witnessed some of the bloodiest battles between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which left the area depopulated. Because of its substantial Russian minority, a result of the 19th-century coal immigration, Stalin saw the presence of Donbass within Ukraine as a positive element, balancing the independentist aspiration prevailing in Western Ukraine.

He tried to strengthen this position with a new wave of immigrant workers sent from Russia to settle in Donbass, and—as demonstrated by Lenore Ann Grenoble in her book “Language Policy in the Former Soviet Union” (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003)—by greatly restricting the use of Ukrainian language in the two oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, where most schooling was in Russian only. As a result of these policies, the last Soviet Census, of 1989 reported the population of the two oblasts as 55% Ukrainian and 45% Russian.

After Ukrainian independence, there were almost immediately Russian voices that claimed that Donbass (as well as Crimea) was in fact part of Russia. The matter became part of the negotiations leading to the Memorandum of Budapest of 1994, a treaty that settled the question of the large quantity of Soviet nuclear weapons left in Ukraine by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. By that treaty, Ukraine agreed to give these nuclear weapons to Russia (which it did), and Russia agreed to respect “the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine,” thus abandoning its claims on Donbass (and Crimea).

Budapest-Memorandum.webp

Article 1 of the Budapest Memorandum. Source: United Nations.

In 2014, however, after the ousting of the pro-Russian president Yanukovych, which Russian propaganda depicted (falsely, as I discussed in a previous Bitter Winter article) as a Western-organized coup to promote anti-Russian interests, Putin’s invasion annexed Crimea, and Russian soldiers without uniforms entered the Donbass to support a pro-Russian separatist revolt. This was a clear breach of the Memorandum of Budapest of 2014, which did not make Russia’s respect of the borders of Ukraine contingent on the kind of government, pro-Russian or otherwise, or even democratic or non-democratic, Ukraine would have in the future.

Unlike in Crimea, Ukrainian troops and anti-Russian militias managed to organize an effective resistance in Donbass, which led to intervention of Russian forces, this time with uniforms, and to a ceasefire signed in Minsk (“Minsk I”) on September 5, 2014. Minsk I left to the pro-Russian separatists roughly one third of the territory of the two oblasts, where the two pseudo-independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk had been established with Russian support. The other two thirds remained under Ukrainian control.

On February 12, 2015, a second Minsk agreement (“Minsk II”) was signed, where Russia agreed that the territories of the pseudo-republics of Donetsk and Luhansk should return to Ukraine, which in turn should grant a broad autonomy to the two oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk as a whole, including provisions for the use of the Russian language.

The Minsk II agreement was never implemented. The territories of the pseudo-republics were never given back to Ukraine, as their leaders claimed they could not disregard the referendums they had organized in May 2014, where the majority had voted for independence.

Ukraine answered that few would take seriously referendums held in a situation of military occupation, and at any rate referendums cannot be a solution, one reason being that according to United Nations figures at least 30% of the whole population of the two pseudo-Republics had been expelled or had escaped to Ukraine, and could not vote in any referendum. On the other hand, Ukraine never implemented the measures for autonomy and promotion of the Russian language in the areas of Donbass that remained under its control.

It does not follow from this that those living in the two oblasts, if given a choice, would like to separate from Ukraine and join Russia. The Ukrainians living in those two-thirds of Donbass controlled by Ukraine until 2022 have never expressed these intentions, nor have they fled en masse to the pseudo-republics and Russia. The opposite is true: 1.6 million Ukrainians have fled from the pseudo-republics to Ukraine, and in 2022, when Russian troops advance or threaten to advance in the Donbass, hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians, many of whom are Russian-speaking, are fleeing to the the western part of Ukraine or to the countries of the European Union.

Periodically, both the Ukrainian and the pro-Russian troops and militias tried to control more territory in the Donbass, leading to more than seven years of what was called a low intensity war, which became a full-fledged war in 2022.

How many died in this war? It seems reasonable to discard the different figures offered by both Ukraine and Russia, which both have their own propaganda interests. Happily, the situation in Donbass is also monitored by the United Nations. On January 27, 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its most recent estimate of the victims of the Donbass conflict from 2014 to December 31, 2021. The famous figure of 14,000 casualties, often quoted by pro-Russian comments, comes from this document. In fact, the U.N. estimate is between 14,200 and 14,400 victims.

By no means were these victims all “killed by the Ukrainians.” According to the U.N., 10,900 victims were soldiers, of which 4,400 were Ukrainians and 6,500 pro-Russian combatants of or on behalf of the separatist pseudo-republics. Civilian victims were between 3,400 and 3,500. The latter were in turn not all victims of attacks and of drones and rockets launched by Ukraine against the pseudo-republics. In fact, a part died in the portions of the oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk that remained under Ukrainian control during attacks by separatists.

The U.N. report also notes that 8.8% of all civilian victims come from a single incident, which happened on July 17, 2014, when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot by a missile, and all the 298 who were aboard (283 passengers and 15 crew members) died. While Russian and pro-Russian propaganda has tried to spread several conspiracy theories about the incident, two Dutch investigations concluded that the plane was shot by a surface-to-air missile supplied by Russia to the People’s Republic of Donetsk and fired by the latter’s militias.

Credits.

In conclusion, there was no “genocide” of the Donbass population by the Ukrainian army. There was a war, provoked by Russia in violation not only of the territorial integrity of a sovereign state but also of the treaty it signed in Budapest in 1994. Like all wars, there were casualties on both sides. Sadly, civilians also died. They were killed, again, by both sides. To claim that all the 14,000 victims of the war in Donbass were “killed by the Ukrainians” is just primitive propaganda. Unfortunately, some in the West uncritically believe and propagate it.

Won't matter how credible the source, the posters on here who have espoused Russian propaganda or outright support Russia's action in Ukraine can just dismiss this as western propaganda.

This is not a well research article - it is the normal BS that is spread as part of propaganda to justify the situation in Ukraine.   How come the US then Assistant Secretary of State then in Ukraine was involved in the decision to choose a new government in Ukraine.  

First of all it is based on a historical lie.   The  Donbas area were part of the Sultanate of the Crimea until the late 18th century - it never was part of Ukraine ever.   Because of the situation the area was largely depopulated.    When the area was conquered by the Russians Catherine the Great brought in migrants from Greece, Bulgaria and Russia that made up the population.    The  Western Part of Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The depopulation was caused largely because of wars between The Ottoman empire and the Sultanate of the Crimea on one side and the Russians on the other side.   It was largely the result of enslaving of people by the Muslims in charge,   In any event the area was never part of Ukraine ever - the story about the Ukrainians living in the area at that time is total historical BS.  All the villages in the Donbas area were even when found centuries ago was Crimea  controlled and inhabited by Tartar Cossacks - not the mythical Ukrainian population.   The major towns like Mariupol tells the real story.     The following from  Encyclopaedia Britannica about the city:-

"The city was founded in 1778 as Pavlovsk, on the site of a former Cossack encampment. It was renamed Mariupol in 1779 to honour Maria Fyodorovna, the second wife of Crown Prince Paul. In 1780 the city’s population grew rapidly after a large number of Greeks from the Crimean Peninsula were resettled there. In 1882 it was connected by rail to the Donets Basin and developed as a major port for the region."

If the area was indeed populated by Ukrainians - why bring in Greeks to enhance the population.    Coal mining in the area started a century later and can be linked to the development of railways by Russia in the late 1800's   So the story about Ukrainian population in the area was largely BS - there were none.

Fact is that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was  dissolved and the major part of what was then part of Poland went to Russia - together with the whole of Lithuania - while the rest went to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Prussia.    Fact is that there never in history before 1991 a country called Ukraine - the only time there was a state called Kievan-Rus was when the king of Novgorod (successor  to Rurik the founder of the Rurikid dynasty) moved from Novgorod to Kiev and found the kingdom of Kievan Rus.  This fell apart when the Russian Orthodox church leadership moved t Moscow when Kiev was threatened by the Mongols and ultimately fell.    

One would except that  "Encyclopaedia Britannica"  is nowadays Russian disinformation.   Go through all the cities in the Donbas area and the same historical facts will be found in that case.   Go to the area of Kharkov and you would find that the ancestors of the Tolstoy family came from Germany - according to Leo Tolstoy and received the name Tolstoy when the grandchild of Indris the founder of the family - Andrei Kharitonovich - moved from Kharkov to Moscow and was given the surname Tolstoy by Vasily II - the Blind.   Fact is the area of Byela Russia was in large part populated by Germans.   Kharkov at the time was a fully Russian city ruled by a Rurikid Prince.   

The story of the so-called revolution in Kiev in 2014 is also BS.   In 2013 there was an election in the Ukraine won by a democratic election - the last one ever held in accordance with the 1991 Constitution in Ukraine.   There were demonstrations in Kiev starting in November 2013 and going through to February 2014.    In that time where did the funding of the Demonstrations came from?    Hardly possible n the poorest country in Europe?   It came from the USA operating from the USA embassy in Kiev and after the coup in Ukraine the USA leadership at the time flooded into Ukraine and the US Government even decided on who should be the interim President until the election held in 2015.  

Starting off with historical BS   the rest can also be regarded as BS propaganda.   For instance the KLM plane was shot down in an area occupied by the Ukraine Government and not in an area occupied by the Russian separatists and the conclusion of the Dutch investigators were what the plane was shot down by a missile - there were no conclusion by them that it was done by using of a Russian missile provided to the Russian speaking Donbas area by the Russians. 

A bit of research would tell you it is a propaganda article found by Mozart somewhere.   The facts are contradictory to what was really going on in the Ukraine since the Maidan uprising and installing of a new Government in Kiev in 2014.   In the article there were references to the Minsk agreement - but no real details provided.   The implementation of that agreement was never due to so-called Russian interference - there is no proof of that.    It was not implemented by the Ukraine Government actually acting with the help of the USA Government did not ever agree to implementation despite the fact that they signed the agreement.   Why was that the case?    

Won't matter how credible the source, the posters on here who have espoused Russian propaganda or outright support Russia's action in Ukraine can just dismiss this as western propaganda.

And too posts later Mike is right on queue with his wall of blah blah blah.

Mike if you want anyone to take you serious, you need to post links to credible evidence. And telling people to google search it is not sufficient.

So Mike can you dispute Moz original post that questions the claim that 14,000 Russian's or Russian speakers where killed by Ukraine in the Donbass since 2014 with evidence . We know Russia has made this claim, but what sort of evidence have they provided to support this. Has any independent organization verified their claims?

We don't need to hear your take on Ukraine's history or about the Minsk agreements or claims America was really behind the revolution in Ukraine. Just stick to this one topic of the 14,000 Russian speakers killed in the Donbass since 2014 and provide links where you can.

Stav, don't hold your breath.......get ready for a snore-a- thon of BS.

I have been viewing videos by Geogio Bianchi an Italian journalist been living in Donbass for the last 8 years.You can find him on youtube. 

Don't be scared in finding truth. 

Duplication  

Stav

I quoted from the  Encyclopaedia Britannica which conformed directly what I was stating in the preceding paragraphs of my posting.     The Donbas area was depopulated and the Mozart article started off saying it was occupied by Ukrainians.   The rest are historical facts you can read up from various Encoclopaedia on the issue.   

Before 1991 there was no country called Ukraine - it was either a province of Poland, Russia or the Habsburg empire.   The Western Ukraine population was more Polish than Russian  and before 1953 the Donbas region was for at least 250 years not part of the Ukraine, but part of Russia.    Neither was the Crimea.   You can get that from numbers of sources.     

The problem that I have with the whole issue relates to -

*     the historical context of what the situation was in the Donbas area and the Crimea and the resultant consequences;

*     the proven involvement of senior USA politicians like Biden, Obama, Clinton, Pelosi and Schiff in the Ukraine and their treasonous conduct in all foreign policy issue where they can make money out of  just read up on the Hunter Biden laptop story - which was also so-called Russian Disinformation, but in fact embodies proof of corruption of senior Democrat politicians in Ukraine, Iran, China and other countries and

*     the proven undermining of peace negotiations  by the USA in peace efforts by EU leaders and Putin.

When Russia provided evidence they are lying and cannot be believed - so when Putin said there are bio-labs in Ukraine it was regarded by people on site as disinformation.   However, under oath in the Senate the Deputy Secretary of State admitted the labs exist.  The story they then come up was that the USA are trying to assist Ukraine in closing down the USSR labs and it is work on progress.  Another lie swallowed wholesale by idiots.  The labs must be older than 32 years and the hilarious part is there are still 26 operational labs in Ukraine.   The next myth was the research done by the laboratories is harmless - followed by a sentence of the Deputy Secretary saying the US is worried about Russia getting hold of the Pathogens.  You were famous in falling in with the propaganda BS of the Biden Administration.          

When stories are circulated in any media I start doing research studying huge numbers of data and documents the BS will hit you in the face by doing that.   I am not supporting anyone in this case - I just demolish the BS we end up on this site.     

As to the war I condemned the invasion by Russia and favored a peace negotiation process - the warmongering  by you lot is unbelievable.    As to the Ukraine issue - I refuse to eb an idiot and do research to find out what led to the war and do not ignore facts about the Russian residents in Eastsern Ukraine and the oppression they are suffering.   For you those people are not real - they are not even animals - they numbers to be destroyed and manipulated because they are trying to protect themselves.       

In other news...DA MP DEMANDS ANSWERS ON DOCKING OF RUSSIAN VESSEL AT SIMON'S TOWN NAVAL BASE

Ukrainian People's Republic - Wikipedia

DumbMike is simply a product of Apartheid.
A backward delusional idiot that calls his "opinions" facts. 

He supports Putin including:

1. Bombing hospitals
2. Bombing schools
3. Making 10 million people refugees
4. The murder of civilians
5. The destruction of the Ukrainian economy
   
6. Attacking energy to leave people with no electricity
   
7. Committing an unlimited amount of war crimes
8. Working with shit like North Korea and Iran
9. The list is endless, but suffice to say - anyone who supports Putin should not exist. It is the same as supporting Hitler. 

So Clever you are comfortable with Encyclopedia Britannica as a source on the Donbas.Fine, this is what they say about the 14000:

‘ As his casus belli, Putin had claimed, falsely, that Ukrainian forces were carrying out a genocide against Russian speakers in the Donbas. Ironically, the Russian invasion caused significantly more death and hardship than the previous eight years of conflict, and cities like Mariupol—traditionally strongly pro-Russian in their sympathies—were essentially razed by indiscriminate Russian artillery strikes.’

.

Interesting Mozart.  When DumbMike said that he quoted Britannica, I suspected instantly that he cherry-picked some data points, then added his own BS facts, and indoctrinated interpretation to it. 
Then he lied to everyone on the board (and perhaps to himself) - and tried to pass up his handiwork as a credible source.

1 hour of constipation on the toilet, and the result was his posting. 

Mike conflates a lot of stuff….that’s why I asked him to cut and paste. This South African sympathy towards Russia is a bit baffling. I know the US  wasn’t a reliable friend, South Africa set off too many domestic risks for either party. But hell  what did Russia do except support the ANC which suited their aims.

The fact is the world has come through Covid, the first big crisis of the century. And right in the middle of the recovery Russia starts a war which blows up the energy picture, while China follows a close down policy causing much of the supply chain issues.

Yes Biden spent too much for too long….making people less likely to work and far too ready to spend, another mistake. But America and the rest of the world were part of the solution. China and Russia are  part of the problem

So Clever you are comfortable with Encyclopedia Britannica as a source on the Donbas

Don't you know the paragraph you quoted is propaganda, the evil Democrats where behind the edit, must likely edited by Biden himself...on Hunters laptop!...in Xi Jinp ing's office!

"But hell  what did Russia do except support the ANC which suited their aims."

And they're still thick as the thieves they are....smuggling ammunition to Russia at this stage is plain stupid...as if we have the capacity to actually make a difference...STUPID.