Traffic on the single bridge that links Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and serves as a key supply route for the Kremlin’s forces in the war with Ukraine came to a standstill on Monday after one of its sections was blown up, killing a couple and wounding their daughter.

The RBC Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were heard on the bridge, with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes.

RBC Ukraine and another Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda said the attack was planned jointly by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Ukrainian navy, and involved sea drones.

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
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    If it weren’t for Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries staging a mutiny against the Russian military, I would have cast serious doubt on Ukraine’s counteroffensive succeeding. Regardless of what you think about the competency of the Russian armed forces, it can’t be denied that Wagner are one of their few effective units in force.

    Ukraine has remained boldly united in the face of a long and a bloody war on their own doorstep, whereas we’ve seen deteriorating Russian morale, both within the country’s borders and on the frontlines.

    At this rate I think that Zelenskyy will retake Crimea and the Donbas within months.

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        Ukraine is making good progress and there is no doubt how degraded and brittle the Russian defenses are.

        As the campaign succeeds, the impacts of their striking capabilities will become more and more clear.

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          Remember that degraded morale has a compounding effect as well. If a position hears that four other positions near them have failed, they might decide “well fuck it”, and then the positions behind THEM hear “well now five positions have failed” and they scramble, and so on. Combine that with the fact that Russian morale is already reportedly extremely low (who would’ve thought conscripts make shitty and unhappy soldiers).

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          What does that have to do with the effectiveness of the counter offensive?

          https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-dubik-interview-defense-offense-tavberidze/32476276.html

          "Well, campaigns are judged on how much they contribute to the strategic gains. So, [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy’s strategic aim is to secure his country’s political sovereignty, territorial integrity, and that sets conditions for economic prosperity. That’s how I read them. And so, a successful counteroffensive will achieve all of those or move toward achieving those.

          So, what that means on the ground is that Ukraine’s forces have to seize back enough territory from the Russians to, at the minimum, force the Russians to negotiate from a position of weakness and from a position that Zelenskiy can secure political sovereignty, territorial integrity, and thus economic prosperity. So, it’s not an objective of how many miles, how many cities. It’s the relationship of the campaign and the strategic objectives that determines success."

          Let me know when Ukraine is able to achieve enough success to force Russia to the table on their terms.

            • Carcosa@lemmygrad.ml
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              Ironic seeing the human wave of Ukrainians sent into the land mines and open fields to be hit by indirect fire. Russia has no problems supplying this war of attrition and it could be argued that they sought to impose such a war after pivoting from the maneuver based doctrine of the start of the SMO. As I quoted in the rail line the Russian supply chain is limited by the rail and as such would be unable to sustain themselves far from the lines as opposed to the established and new lines they have created to the Donbass region.

              From an old comment of mine: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/569600

              https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

              “The capacity to detect and strike targets at ever-greater distances and with ever-growing precision increases the vulnerability of dense troop concentrations, and therefore limits the ability to conduct large-scale sequenced and concentrated operations. As such, in order to enhance survivability, current battlefield conditions are forcing military units to disperse into smaller formations, dig in, or both, unless these conditions are effectively countered. As a result, the battlefield tends to become more fragmented, offering more independent action to lower tactical formations as the depth of the front is expanding to a considerable extent.”

              “As a survey of decades of history illustrates, Russian military strategy over the past decades has correctly forecasted a number of implications of advancements in weapons, as well as sensor technologies, that are currently affecting the character of warfare in Ukraine.”

              “The operational level of war sits between tactics, which consists of organizing and employing fighting forces on or near the battlefield, and strategy, which involves aspects of long-term and high-level theatre operations, and the government’s leadership. The Soviet Union was the first country to officially distinguish this third level of military thinking, when it was introduced as part of the deep operation military theory that its armed forces developed during the 1920s and 1930s and utilized during the Second World War.”

              “After the failure of the initial invasion, the subsequent period of the fighting in the Donbas was at first marked by Russian dominance in fires. Besides precision munitions, the employment of UAVs for target detection greatly enhanced the effectiveness of Russia’s large numbers of legacy artillery systems. Russian artillery batteries employing UAVs for target detection generally showed themselves capable of engaging Ukrainian positions within minutes after being detected. As a result, Ukrainian infantry companies were forced to disperse and often occupied front lines up to three kilometers wide. Consequently, battalions covered frontages that are traditionally the responsibility of brigades. Russian artillery superiority and sensor density even prevented Ukrainians from concentrating in units above company size, because anything larger would be detected prematurely and effectively targeted from a distance.”

              “Russian forces also rarely employ armor and infantry in concentrated assaults and in the defense occupy dispersed positions, while increasingly drawing on artillery to blunt Ukrainian attacks.”

              “However, current battlefield conditions are adding the related difficulty of achieving the concentration of forces necessary for establishing main efforts during offensive operations. This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare. Only by disrupting the opponent’s kill chain can larger formations regain the ability to concentrate and engage in maneuver warfare. During the war in Ukraine, superiority in kill-chain effectiveness has become one of the prime objectives for both sides. In this war and any other characterized by the same dynamics, this superiority becomes an essential condition for victory.”

              With a doctrine advantage, western acknowledged electronic warfare, indirect fire, and air support superiority combined with an established, modernized supply line its JOEVER

      • shimura@lemmy.world
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        It died when Belarus intervened and brokered a compromise between the Wagner group and Putin. Still unfolding so we still don’t know the full story. Here’s a summary from Business Insider.

        • MercuryUprising@lemmy.world
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          My guess is he got paid off to back down. Putin has a lot of money and probably offered him safety in Belarus as well as a huge chunk of change for him and his troops.

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    Honey, how about we spice our family vacation up this year and go to a drought stricken stolen land near an active war zone?

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      Let’s drive over a military asset during a war! I wish no harm to any civilians but driving over this bridge isn’t like chilling in a cafe in a city. You need to be either stupid or accepting of the risk to drive over this bridge.

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    I believe the reasoning is that this is the only bridge into and out of Crimea from the Russian side.

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    I heard the naval drone attached from inside the Azov Sea which shows Ukraine has done something very unexpected. How did the front get to the north side of the bridge?

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      if you look at the photos and map, you’ll see that the span dropped was the one in the middle, that is the one carrying traffic from crimea to krasnodar. it’s pretty unusual either way, whether drones got there from south or north

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        Any Russian citizen moving into Crimea negates the privilege of being labeled a civilian at this point.

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        death of civilians is never good news, but if russia doesn’t want its citizens to be at risk then they shouldnt invade other countries

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          This is why war is horrible. Ukraine made a brilliant tactical move here in terms of strategy, but civilians still died. Whatever you think of the adults, a child was injured and is now orphaned because of this attack. But it was still necessary, and there will be more situations like this as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive and hopefully fully recaptures their stolen land. Crimea belongs to Ukraine.

          Lemmy is way more intelligent, both cognitively and emotionally, than Reddit was. We can recognize the necessity of this attack and cheer Ukraine for making such a huge tactical move, but we can also be remorseful for the civilians who have had their lives changed because of the attack.

          This is why war fucking sucks. There are no gentleman or ladies in wars. There is nothing honorable about it. There’s just cold logic for killing your enemy and how you can more easily do that. If you can avoid civilian casualties you will, but if it can’t be avoided, then it is what it is.

          Lest someone mistake this as a pro Russian “stop the war!” comment – Putin can stop all of this anytime he wants. He withdraws all forces, the war ends. He fights for conquest, Ukraine fights for survival. As long as Ukrainians want to fight for their country and Putin doesn’t end the war, the war continues. Make no mistake, all of this carnage is his fault.

        • Carcosa@lemmygrad.ml
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          “The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known in Spain as 11M) were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain’s general elections. The explosions killed 193 people and injured around 2,000. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain and the deadliest in Europe since 1988. The official investigation by the Spanish judiciary found that the attacks were directed by al-Qaeda, allegedly as a reaction to Spain’s involvement in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq”

          On 6 July 2006, a videotaped statement by Shehzad Tanweer was broadcast by Al-Jazeera. In the video, which may have been edited to include remarks by al-Zawahiri, Tanweer said:

          What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq. And until you stop your financial and military support to America and Israel.
          

          Tanweer argued that the non-Muslims of Britain deserve such attacks because they voted for a government which “continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya.”

          Targeting civilians with explosives because the country they are citizens of is engaged with war is decried as “terrorism” so are you stating that the Ukrainian officials responsible for this are terrorists?

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              I am not in the business of victim blaiming rather assigning blame to those who executed the attack. Given my response quoting us army knowledge of Russian operations why would they not disable the rail line? Instead they target vehicles on the civilian bridge hence my classification as a terroist attack, one assigned to the PREVIOUS attack on the SAME bridge, one would think they would learn unless their motive is different

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            That’s a bad faith argument if ever there was one. At that point Russia could walk into any country behind human shields and nobody would be allowed to do anything.

            There is a giant difference between targeting civilians and a couple civilians getting killed while targeting strategic infrastructure.

            • Carcosa@lemmygrad.ml
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              How is it bad faith?

              Intentionally targeting civilians because they country they are from is at war with the country initiating the attack is called terrorism by many other countries. Ukraine could have focused their attack on disabling the rail line, which is the primary aspect of the Russian supply chain, instead it was against the civilian roadway, exactly the same as the previous attack utilizing the truck bomb. Exploding vehicles is another common mode of terrorism, I might add.

                • Carcosa@lemmygrad.ml
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                  Wrong the rail line is the means by which military support is moved, Russia has a history of utilizing rail as their supply lines.

                  “The reason Russia is unique in having railroad brigades is that logistically, Russian forces are tied to railroad from factory to army depot and to combined arms army and, where possible, to the division/brigade level. No other European nation uses railroads to the extent that the Russian army does.”

                  “Trying to resupply the Russian army beyond the Russian gauge rail network would force them to rely mostly on their truck force until railroad troops could reconfigure/repair the railroad or build a new one. Russia’s truck logistic support, which would be crucial in an invasion of Eastern Europe, is limited by the number of trucks and range of operations.”

                  https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/

                  “Russia has to defend in 360°. It is heavily dependent on barge and rail movement. It does not have the manpower of Soviet times. It cannot be strong everywhere at once and has gone to highly mobile brigades so that it can rapidly assemble forces where needed.”

                  “The vast majority of personnel and cargo are transported via rail for civil and military purposes. Rail transport is the primary means of logistical support for most military operations (including current operations in and around Eastern Ukraine) and is an absolute necessity for any type of large-scale movement throughout the great expanse that is the Russian Federation”

                  “Due to the importance of rail for military operations, the Russian Federation has a separate branch, the Railroad Troops, dedicated to protecting, servicing, and maintaining rail service in combat and austere conditions for the Russian Armed Forces.”

                  https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/Hot Spots/Documents/Russia/2017-07-The-Russian-Way-of-War-Grau-Bartles.pdf

        • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
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          They’d have still gotten their shit blown up by Kyiv, who has been blowing up everyone who voted in a referendum to become Russian. Fucking christ am I the only one capable of remembering anything more than two fucking years old? Or is this another one of those “conveniently ignored” bits for y’all NAFO rimjobbers?

          • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world
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            Don’t worry, I remember what happened before 2014. I didn’t have any sympathy for separatists then and I don’t have now either.

            • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
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              …So for the crime of wanting to separate from an increasingly-fascist government, you want their bridges blown up and their civilians turned into chunky salsa. You’re a fucking ghoul; and part of me wonders how you’d feel about American separatists when that day eventually comes.

              • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world
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                how you’d feel about American separatists

                If they want to join Canada or Mexico then the same. Independence =/= stealing for another country.

                you want their bridges blown up and their civilians turned into chunky salsa

                Nobody is forcing Russians to visit Ukrainian territory.

                • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
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                  You’re a fucking ghoul, and I pray you wind up having to live through the monstrosity you’d subject others to.

  • Hedup@lemm.ee
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    In pictures only one road span seems to be damaged. That would elave the other road with 2 lines and railroad with 2 lines still available. Could this really have an effect on the supply efforts beyond halving the maximum throughput? I don’t imagine the bridge is constantly being used at maximum capacity.

    • nbafantest@lemmy.world
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      I believe the bridge is to be totally closed to car traffic for at least a month but that trains work.

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      I guess the whole thing could be structurally unsound now without it being visible from these photos.

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        I guess we’ll just wait and see if Russians actually use it.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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        It didn’t need to be blown up to be structurally unsound, it was already. The bridge was a well known rush job that was built against the advice of several engineers but Putin’s hubris knows no bounds.

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    With this bridge being the only link between Russian occupied Crimea and the Russian mainland, we can look forward to a loooooooot more attacks of this kind.

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    Lemmingrad wank moderated community. I’m out.

    Edit: it appeara the problem has been rectified lol

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    At this point, any Russian families remaining in Crimea really should leave for their own safety. They know full well they live on stolen land.

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        What? Do you have anything that shows the demographics significantly changed at all? The population was 76% russian in 2014 before Russia took it. You have data that shows that significantly increased?

          • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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            Ehh besides the rude ones most of this is alright. I think only 2 people were particularly rude and they got blocked so meh. Some other conversations here actually got quite interesting @barsoap@lemm.ee seems mostly alright once we get off the topic of the war.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          No it was at 67.9%, up from 60.4% in 2001 down from 67% in 1989. Up from 6.6% in 1850 when Russification really started. Also note the suspicious absence of Tatars during the times of the Soviet Union and their return afterwards. And TBH I trust those censuses 2014 onwards about as much as I trust Russian referenda.

          Also, “people speak Russian at home” is not, by a long shot, the same thing as “want to be part of Russia” much less “want to live under <currenttsar>'s boot” or “want to suffer yet another Holodomor”. Crimea had a referendum just as the rest of Ukraine did and it didn’t want to be part of Russia by a good margin. The question of “part of Ukraine or independent” was more split, but that turned towards “part of Ukraine” as Ukraine failed to treat Crimea badly and independence would be difficult for such a small country in such an exposed situation.

          • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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            And TBH I trust those censuses 2014 onwards about as much as I trust Russian referenda.

            Then just speak to some people physically in Crimea? You’re on the internet it’s not difficult to seek out and have conversations with people in different places in the world.

            but that turned towards “part of Ukraine” as Ukraine failed to treat Crimea badly and independence would be difficult for such a small country in such an exposed situation.

            Ukraine did treat Crimea badly though? Are you completely unaware of the political turmoil in Ukraine prior to any of this? Increasing ethnic persecution against Russians and finally banning the russian language is what started the separatism in these regions.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              Then just speak to some people physically in Crimea? You’re on the internet it’s not difficult to seek out and have conversations with people in different places in the world.

              Of course. Because that’s totally not something the FSB would do to sniff out partisans and shit. There’s a war going on in case you haven’t noticed and truth is always its first victim.

              Increasing ethnic persecution against Russians and finally banning the russian language is what started the separatism in these regions.

              Neither was there prosecution nor was the Russian language banned. The Ukrainian army largely operates in Russian, FFS.

              I suggest you have a good look at the reliability of whatever place you get your information from.

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                Of course. Because that’s totally not something the FSB would do to sniff out partisans and shit. There’s a war going on in case you haven’t noticed and truth is always its first victim.

                This is just closed mindedness. You refuse to take on any new information, you have made up your mind what the situation is and utterly refuse to even consider listening to anyone with first hand experience.

                Neither was there prosecution nor was the Russian language banned. The Ukrainian army largely operates in Russian, FFS.

                No. This is just factually incorrect. The flashpoint that started the separatism was the repeal of the language laws that made Russian (and many others) one of the many state languages in these regions (majority russian ethnicity regions). This occurred in 2014 immediately following the Maidan coup/revolution.

                This law change by the new far right bandera supporting government was the final straw in a long line of things that had led up to it, and was what created popular support for violent separatism among the local populations. Many people saw it as existentially important to separate themselves from Ukraine as they believed the Bandera supporters sought to kill or deport them all.

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                  The flashpoint that started the separatism was the repeal of the language laws that made Russian (and many others) one of the many state languages in these regions (majority russian ethnicity regions).

                  What you’re citing there is a question to the Commission, not a research paper. The guy posing that question? A Greek Nazi, becoming MEP on a Golden Dawn ticket. Here’s the answer:

                  The Commission is not aware of any ban on use of minority languages in Ukraine. In February 2014, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law, revoking the language policy law of 2012, which has however been effectively vetoed by the then Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, and therefore has not entered into force.

                  The law adopted in 2012, giving the local and regional authorities the right to determine regional languages in addition to Ukrainian for contacts with public bodies, has been largely positively assessed by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe in its opinion. At the same time, the opinion noted: ‘the question remains whether, having regard to the specific situation in Ukraine, there are sufficient guarantees, in the current Draft Law, for the consolidation of the Ukrainian language as the sole State language, and of the role it has to play in the Ukrainian multilinguistic society.’

                  Yes, the Ukrainian government has been actively trying to make Ukrainian the de facto, not just de jure, lingua franca of Ukraine, to halt secondary effects of Russification.


                  I’m not even going to address anything else you said. A Tankie relying on hallucinations of a Nazi to make points, how fucking classic.

                  Learn some research skills and source criticism and then maybe you’ll be able to contribute to discussions.

            • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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              There is a loooong road from “has political turmoil” to “wants to be part of Russia.”

              Florida has political turmoil. Doesn’t mean they want to be part of Spain because some people there speak Spanish.

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                Sure. But I assure you that when russian ethnicity people read twitter and see nafo and other morons (like half this comment section) saying all russians should die blah blah blah it only ends up pushing them to russia for safety. Even Navalny’s people who I despise say this:

                Like, what do you people expect the russians in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to think exactly when they read half the shit they’ve seen from libs on Twitter, reddit, etc etc who have all behaved indistinguishably from fascists in their bloodthirsty calls for russian blood? They see it as attacks on themselves, not the russian army, not putin, they see it as ethnic threats and it has pushed fencesitting russians with family in both ukraine and russia (about half are mixed families) over to the russian side because they just don’t feel the west can be trusted. They see them as wanting all russians dead, which you can hardly blame them for with all the behaviour you’ve surely seen online.

                • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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                  People are mean on the Internet? People are also mad at Russia because they’ve invaded a neighbor. People were calling out “death to America” for invading Iraq. It’s how the world works.

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                  We’ll take it. The land is valuable, and the current residents will voluntarily flee to the rest of the USA, horrorified by our free healthcare.

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      Crimea is 76% russian. It was almost 70% russian before 2014 and it is around 76% russian today. Almost all of these people lived there already.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        As others have pointed out, Crimea is not 82% Russian. The majority of the populace speaks Russian, but a shared language does not indicate a shared culture. They don’t want to be part of Russia, and were illegally invaded.

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          Crimea wasn’t “invaded”. Russia was already there as it leased the port and officially managed it for military use already. That’s why there was no fighting. They already ran the checkpoints, they already were the entire military presence in the region. The changeover from “this is Ukraine” to “this is Russia now” was entirely the signing of papers and changed absolutely nothing about the presence in the region or the average day to day. They certainly took it over, but to say it was invaded is somewhat misleading, more of a “we’ve decided that this is ours now”.

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            This is a gross and flagrant distortion of events in Crimea leading up to the illegal annexation. It leaves out the fact that the operation of the checkpoints was still subject to Ukrainian governmental oversight, the fact that prior to the take-over, Russia illegally brought soldiers in unmarked uniforms over the border (the “little green men”), and the fact that the “changeover” was far from violence-free, let alone just a “signing of papers.”

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              1 year ago

              The denial of reality going on here is absurd. Pre 2014 I know they operated the checkpoints because I went to Crimea for 2 weeks in 2009. I’m not saying that there wasn’t also fuckery involved but denying the reality of events is nonsensical. There is even a vice documentary that shows just how casual the transition was. It’s extremely painful discussing these topics with people online whose only understanding of these regions comes through the lens of this war.

              • kescusay@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I never said Russia didn’t operate the checkpoints. But prior to 2014, Crimea was indisputably Ukrainian territory, and Russia operated security checkpoints inside Ukraine at Ukraine’s discretion.

                No one is claiming that the annexation of Crimea involved violence at the scale of the current war, but it was not non-violent, either. Characterizing it as just “signing of papers” is false.

                It’s extremely painful discussing these topics with people online whose only understanding of these regions comes through the lens of this war.

                What other lens should we look at the annexation through? It was clearly the early stages of this war.

                • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m not saying it wasn’t Ukrainian territory. I’m saying that the presence there was 100% russian military because it was functionally operated as their military port.

                  This is precisely why there was no battle over it, no deaths, no nothing. Just “this is russia now” and continued operation of it as they always had but with different flags.

                  What other lens should we look at the annexation through? It was clearly the early stages of this war.

                  I’d much prefer a non-war lens of the place and how cool it is. Most people in america hadn’t even heard of it until the annexation, it’s very unfortunate.

                  I don’t think calling it the early stages of this war is quite accurate but it’s not really that important and kinda gets into unnecessary semantics. The war probably wouldn’t be happening if the Minsk agreement had been kept. Russia were never going to let Crimea go because they needed it as a military port but they avoided Donetsk and Luhansk up until the Minsk agreement failed. If they had taken these regions in 2014 it would have been a breeze for them as Ukraine had no military to speak of, which is why the civil war was fought by the nazi volunteer batallions (azov, right sector, etc etc). Ukraine’s military was ramped up between 2014 and 2021. They did not really have much of anything until the 2016 Stategic Defense Bulletin followed by the State Program for the Development of the Armed Forces (2017-2020). In 2014 the military was only 90k active personnel with over half being civilian staff.

      • galloog1@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is an ethnic argument, further pointing to the idea that you are making distinctly fascist points in this thread.

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          1 year ago

          It is impossible to talk about a genocide without talking about ethnicity. Stop being so pigheaded. I’m going to block you now.

      • Heresy_generator@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Russian speaking != Russian. A majority in Crimea voted for independence from Russia in 1991 and that desire for independence from Russia did not lessen between 1991 and 2014 when Russia’s imperial war of conquest against Ukraine began.

        • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          A majority of Russians rose up in opposition against the Ukrainian government during the Ukrainian revolution in support of Russian annexation. You can’t just ignore that a large number of people in Crimea were onboard with annexation.

          • fidodo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Then do it democratically through referendums. An illegal war is inexcusable. Claiming land is yours because there are people from your country there is textbook fascist strategy.

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              1 year ago

              To offer an example, this was Hitler’s basis for invading and annexing the Sudetenland, part of what was then Czechoslovakia.

            • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
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              Manifest Destiny is calling; are you going to call Amerikans fascists for their living on stolen land?

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            1 year ago

            I’m going to quote this next year when Xi annexes Sakalin.

            Russia has been too large for too long, it should have been split into a dozen separate countries centuries ago.

            • Packet@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              Yeah man, I agree. USA should do so too. Ya know, too big of a country eh? Texas and Florida should separate and California following them as an example. Especially California, I hate California.

              • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                It’s funny you say that, because both California and texas each have a larger GDP than russia by themselves.

                Of course that was before the catastrophic failure of a war, now I’m sure Russia’s smaller than Florida too.

                BTW, it’s pronounced “Knee-how”, just to help you for next year.

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            1 year ago

            Certainly can, and will! Nothing justifies another country just annexing that territory. Nothing. No amount of you talking will justify it. No number of people there who speak Russian justify it. There is no justification.

            • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              So, you don’t care about the people or how they feel about anything? So when the people in Crimea felt they were being treated unfairly by the Ukrainian government, they should’ve just put up with it instead of standing up for themselves? With that attitude, the US would still be a British territory.

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          1 year ago

          Sure. But that doesn’t really change the census data much.

          This applies to Donetsk and Luhansk too. All three of these regions were ethnic majority Russian, and the separatism kicked off when the Maidan government banned the Russian language in official government usage (schools, local institutions etc).

    • sinovictorchan@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      You mean that Ukrainians who are ethnically and linguistically Russians and who had been residing in Crimea before the formation of the current Ukraine country should have no political righst nor property ownership rights?

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    1 year ago

    Fuck I blocked one troll and this entire thread literally decreased in size by more than half.

      • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, he also has been a mod here until yesterday for like a day or so and got a couple of posts removed. I tell you, some modlogs are a wild read.