Severodonetsk: Battle for key road as fighting reaches Ukraine city

[webfact]

Russia has flattened large areas of Severodonetsk during weeks of bombardment

IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS

 

By Paul Kirby
BBC News

 

A senior figure in eastern Ukraine has denied reports that a vital road linking Ukrainian-controlled areas in the east has been blocked from the rest of the country by Russian forces.

 

"Luhansk has not been cut off," said the region's military administration head, Serhiy Haidai.

 

Fighting has reached the outskirts of the big city of Severodonetsk, a key Russian target.

 

Full story: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61578156

 

-- © Copyright BBC 2022-05-26

 

 

[olfu]

I have impression Putin want to make Ukraine uninhabitable.

[rwill]

One can only hope that Russia will be held financially responsible for all the destruction.

 

Putin must be really evil to not care about all the lives he is destroying.

[smedly]

Putins dogs are willing to lay waste to everything, total destruction of everything and that right there is the problem, the Ukraine army are not going to lay waste to their own country, unfortunately that is not going to work, the only way they can fight these scum is to do exactly what they are doing, also target military infrastructure over the border in Russia, they cannot target civilians because they would then be just as bad as  Puttin's scum - what they are doing is shameful laying waste to everything - the destruction is shocking, should Ukraine do the same over the border ? - give them a taste on their home soil ? ...................................hmmm

[Pedrogaz]

The only way to peace is to have a clear winner here. Funnelling more and more weapons into Ukraine, weapons that will end up in ISIS's hands, is not the way to peace. Halt the weapons supplies it is prolonging war, killing of more civilians and innocents, and more destruction of Ukraine. It will look like the US have been there, like Syrian or Iraq.

[rickudon]

Putin is just another Hitler. You cannot let such a man prevail.

[Mr Derek]

Everyone needs to read up on the history of the Donbas region before passing judgement. It's interesting. The region was historically called the "wild field" - a kind of no-man's land. British industrialists founded what are now the two main cities and the region became an industrial powerhouse developed largely by Russian workers and immigrants from other Soviet republics.

 

Since industrialisation, the region has always been quasi-independent and difficult to rule. Moscow chose to give the region to the Ukraine SSR but not so that Ukraine could become independent and walk off with it forever.  Russians are still the majority throughout much of this region - the population do not want to be absorbed.

 

Modern Ukrainian nationalism has failed to properly accommodate these Russian regions and there has been a civil war there for 8 years. That intractable situation needs sorting out but Ukraine won't budge on it.

 

The best and most objective perspective on this is that the Russians are helping out the Donbas-Russians to achieve independence. I would be interested to know why people have a problem with that. These regions will eventually be independent and then there will a referendum as to whether to join Russia (which they will, as happened with Crimea). That seems fair to me. It's not in Russia's interests to devastate the region for its own sake as some people are suggesting.

 

The only question here is why doesn't Ukraine give up these territories which are not, and have never been, properly theirs?

 

[bobbin]

5 minutes ago, Mr Derek said:

 

The only question here is why doesn't Ukraine give up these territories which are not, and have never been, properly theirs?

 

That's a good question..

 

Here is the answer...

 

Because the Donbas lies within the territorial borders of the sovereign State of Ukraine, which State is recognized by all other States on the planet.

 

Allowing Putin to redraw the map of Europe, in an attempt to recreate the Russian Empire is a very bad idea. The EU and Nato are organizations created to make this type of aggression painful for the aggressor.

[candide]

1 hour ago, Mr Derek said:

Everyone needs to read up on the history of the Donbas region before passing judgement. It's interesting. The region was historically called the "wild field" - a kind of no-man's land. British industrialists founded what are now the two main cities and the region became an industrial powerhouse developed largely by Russian workers and immigrants from other Soviet republics.

 

Since industrialisation, the region has always been quasi-independent and difficult to rule. Moscow chose to give the region to the Ukraine SSR but not so that Ukraine could become independent and walk off with it forever.  Russians are still the majority throughout much of this region - the population do not want to be absorbed.

 

Modern Ukrainian nationalism has failed to properly accommodate these Russian regions and there has been a civil war there for 8 years. That intractable situation needs sorting out but Ukraine won't budge on it.

 

The best and most objective perspective on this is that the Russians are helping out the Donbas-Russians to achieve independence. I would be interested to know why people have a problem with that. These regions will eventually be independent and then there will a referendum as to whether to join Russia (which they will, as happened with Crimea). That seems fair to me. It's not in Russia's interests to devastate the region for its own sake as some people are suggesting.

 

The only question here is why doesn't Ukraine give up these territories which are not, and have never been, properly theirs?

 

Well, It's a question of perspective. Actually, these regions have been brutally colonised by Russians. A few quotes from the Wikipedia article:

- According to the Russian Imperial Census of 1897, Ukrainians ("Little Russians", in the official imperial language) accounted for 52.4% of the population of the region, whilst ethnic Russians constituted 28.7%.....

- Along with other territories inhabited by Ukrainians, the Donbas was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War

- Ukrainians in the Donbas were greatly affected by the 1932–33 Holodomor famine and the Russification policy of Joseph Stalin. As most ethnic Ukrainians were rural peasant farmers, they bore the brunt of the famine....

- During the reconstruction of the Donbas after the end of the Second World War, large numbers of Russian workers arrived to repopulate the region, further altering the population balance. In 1926, 639,000 ethnic Russians resided in the Donbas.[33] By 1959, the ethnic Russian population was 2.55 million. Russification was further advanced by the 1958–59 Soviet educational reforms, which led to the near elimination of all Ukrainian-language schooling in the Donbas.[34][35] By the time of the Soviet Census of 1989, 45% of the population of the Donbas reported their ethnicity as Russian.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas

Having said that, you are probably right that the successive Ukrainian governments mismanaged the Donbas issues.

 

[candide]

On 5/26/2022 at 11:54 AM, Pedrogaz said:

The only way to peace is to have a clear winner here. Funnelling more and more weapons into Ukraine, weapons that will end up in ISIS's hands, is not the way to peace. Halt the weapons supplies it is prolonging war, killing of more civilians and innocents, and more destruction of Ukraine. It will look like the US have been there, like Syrian or Iraq.

Following this line of thought, it can also be said that if Russia would not have intervened in 2014, there would have been a clear winner. Ukraine would have quickly regained Donbas, and peace would have reigned since then.

Additionally, Ukraine may probably have been starting a process of joining the EU, which would have resulted in progressively adopting EU compliant laws, in particular as regards protection of minorities.

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, Mr Derek said:

Everyone needs to read up on the history of the Donbas region before passing judgement. It's interesting. The region was historically called the "wild field" - a kind of no-man's land. British industrialists founded what are now the two main cities and the region became an industrial powerhouse developed largely by Russian workers and immigrants from other Soviet republics.

 

Since industrialisation, the region has always been quasi-independent and difficult to rule. Moscow chose to give the region to the Ukraine SSR but not so that Ukraine could become independent and walk off with it forever.  Russians are still the majority throughout much of this region - the population do not want to be absorbed.

 

Modern Ukrainian nationalism has failed to properly accommodate these Russian regions and there has been a civil war there for 8 years. That intractable situation needs sorting out but Ukraine won't budge on it.

 

The best and most objective perspective on this is that the Russians are helping out the Donbas-Russians to achieve independence. I would be interested to know why people have a problem with that. These regions will eventually be independent and then there will a referendum as to whether to join Russia (which they will, as happened with Crimea). That seems fair to me. It's not in Russia's interests to devastate the region for its own sake as some people are suggesting.

 

The only question here is why doesn't Ukraine give up these territories which are not, and have never been, properly theirs?

 

So much that's ridiculous here. For instance:

"Moscow chose to give the region to the Ukraine SSR but not so that Ukraine could become independent and walk off with it forever."

Can you please share with us what nations Moscow did envisage leaving the USSR?

It's also useful to point out that before the industrial development of the region it was mainly ethnic Ukrainians who lived there. We know this because even today the rural areas are largely ethnic Ukrainians. Of course a fair number of those Ukrainians disappeared thanks to Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine. About 3 million perished from starvation. To be replaced by ethnic Russian immigrants

As for Russia not destroying the region and how locals felt about the situation before the war...

 Dismal Russian Record in Occupied Eastern Ukraine Serves as Warning
The areas, once engines of the Ukrainian economy, are now impoverished, depopulated enclaves that increasingly rely on Russian subsidies to survive. It’s what many fear could happen to the rest of the country if Vladimir Putin carries out a broader invasion.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dismal-russian-record-in-occupied-eastern-ukraine-serves-as-warning-11643988253

 

 

[heybruce]

On 5/26/2022 at 5:54 AM, Pedrogaz said:

The only way to peace is to have a clear winner here. Funnelling more and more weapons into Ukraine, weapons that will end up in ISIS's hands, is not the way to peace. Halt the weapons supplies it is prolonging war, killing of more civilians and innocents, and more destruction of Ukraine. It will look like the US have been there, like Syrian or Iraq.

If your logic were applied during World War II, when the US funneled a large quantity of weapons and war materials to the USSR, then Nazi Germany would still exist and occupy eastern Europe up to Moscow and beyond.

[Denim]

5 hours ago, Mr Derek said:

It's not in Russia's interests to devastate the region for its own sake as some people are suggesting.

Tell that to the civilians living in the cities the Russians are currently shelling. Tell that to the citizens of Mariupol.

 

Whatever the historical facts ,  The behavior of the Russian army has been deplorable and made easy propaganda for Ukraine.

[Slip]

On 5/26/2022 at 4:54 PM, Pedrogaz said:

The only way to peace is to have a clear winner here. Funnelling more and more weapons into Ukraine, weapons that will end up in ISIS's hands, is not the way to peace. Halt the weapons supplies it is prolonging war, killing of more civilians and innocents, and more destruction of Ukraine. It will look like the US have been there, like Syrian or Iraq.

Nyet Ivan.

 

and also nyet Mr Derek the Putin shill for the nonsense he has posted above.