this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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I'm not sure what you mean, Human Rights Watch reported on unguided rockets from Kiev-regime forces killing civilians in the Donbass region since 2014. Further, data from the OSCE shows that shelling from Kiev ramped up dramatically right before Russia accepted the DPR and LPR request for aid.
This is disingenuous. Russian FSB and Russian soldiers have also been shelling Ukrainian civilians since April 2014.
I wasn't aware of Ukrainian forces using artillery close to populated areas in July 2014, that is sad. Ukraine signed a ceasefire with Russia in September 2014, which lasted until January 2015 when Wagner mercenaries invaded Debaltseve. Any shelling that happened in July-September 2014 is not relevant to the current situation in Ukraine.
With regards to the OSCE report, there was no ceasefire in the Donbas in 2022. Ukraine was at war with Russian-backed forces in the Donbas in 2022 before the Russian full-scale invasion in Kyiv and Eastern Ukraine.
Saying that Kyiv was shelling the Donbas for 8 years and Russia only assisted the LPR and DPR in 2022 is really nonensensical, when the Russian government has been fighting in the Donbas since 2014, consistently breaking any ceasefire agreement that Ukraine has signed. Russia simply escalated the fighting that they had already been doing, in a 2022 attempt to simulate the Iraq War in Ukraine.
Also, any implication that Russia is helping civilians in Ukraine in 2026 is inhuman and ghoulish. Russia is perpetuating a winter genocide in Kyiv right now.
There needs to be a ceasefire immediately, and making excuses for Russian genociders who break ceasefires, instead of demanding that they stay east of the Surovikin Line and lay down their arms, is not affirming anyone's right to self-determination, and only encouraging further suffering.
Calling the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine "Russian-backed forces" in order to minimize the fact that the Banderite regime in Kiev has been murdering them for over a decade is making excuses for ethnic cleansing. The RF certainly is pro-LPR and DPR, because they seceded in the context of the western-backed Euromaidan coup, where Yanukovych, popular in Eastern Ukraine, was overthrown by Banderites:
Kiev needs to cede the 4 oblasts, agree to NATO neutrality, and sue for peace. The war isn't popular, 200,000 Kiev conscripts fled Ukraine to countries like Belarus. The Donbass wants to join the Russian Federation. Russia is not committing genocide, but Kiev certainly was murdering civilians all over the Donbass region for a decade, and still is.
I implore you to take a leftist, anti-imperialist perspective, not one that tries to cape for neo-Nazis.
I am not saying Ukrainian civilians are "Russian-backed forces". I'm saying that Ukraine has been fighting a war against Russia and Russian-aided military forces in the Donbas, which is why the Ukrainians have been shooting in the Donbas. It is not an insurgency or ethnic cleansing. It makes no sense to say that civilians have died while ignoring the whole fact that there is a war in the Donbas.
You are also minimizing the rights of civilians by slandering the opposing side. Calling the government that was democratically elected in the May 2014 and October 2014 elections, a "Banderite regime", is minimizing the fact that Russia is fighting a war of conquest against the people of Ukraine, and committing genocide in the process.
Yanukovich wasn't overthrown by anyone, he fled to Russia after his security forces thought he was going to backstab them during the revolution.
The Ukrainian people are suing for peace. The problem is that every peace agreement proposed by Russia demands that Ukraine disarms, and that NATO countries are not allowed to give security guarantees. That opens the door for Russia to immediately violate the peace agreement like they have done dozens of times already since 2014.
What gives Russia the right to own the 5 oblasts, on what grounds should Ukraine cede them?
The first step to peace is an immediate ceasefire for both Russia and Ukraine. If Russia would agree to one of the countless ceasefire agreements that has been presented to them, then the war would end then and there. The US doesn't want to spend money fighting the war any longer. Ukraine cares more about NATO security guarantees than trying to reconquer Crimea. I agree with you there that the war is not popular. The goal should be de-escalation, not bombing Kyiv with drones, or nuclear saber-rattling with IRBMs like Oreshnik.
This is a leftist, anti-imperialist perspective. Any party in the European Left Alliance would agree with my assessment.
You're continuing to frame the people of Donetsk and Luhansk, that have been fighting for their lives against the Banderites in Kiev, as "Russian-backed forces." Kiev is murdering civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk, because the citizens of the Donbass have been resisting the fascist Kiev regime.
It isn't at all slander to call the far-right coup government Banderites. From @yogthos@lemmy.ml
Bullshit, he was coup'd in the Euromaidan coup.
Ukraine has broken the Minsk agreements every time, which is why Russia doesn't honor them once broken.
The fact that they want to be a part of the Russian Federation, not the Banderite regime.
I find it difficult to believe that this is a leftist, anti-imperialist perspective if it minimizes the role of imperialism in the conflict, and how the western imperialists provoked it.
Also, it's fascinating how agency and self determination is only reserved for movements that are pro western. Notice how easily liberals dismiss the right of LPR/DPR for self determination.
I know! It's pretty shocking, or would be.