Why should Ukraine give up Donbas or any region at all?

Meeting A Russian Demand for Ending the War - historical and legal basis for Donbas Republics, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson natives' right to self-determination

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Reading time: educational 63 minutes (or 66 minutes with footnotes)

Welcome to the peace initiative for Ukraine in which you can contibute by raising your awareness as well as your consciousness^[+] and spirit to the modes^[+] of neutrality^[*^], decency, respectfulness, wisdom^[*^], objectivity, mastery of the intellect, surrender (ego and mind to God’s will), and finally peace (inner then outer). To properly grasp everything, we recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative in the order that we^[*^] designed it, which is listed in the CONTENTS. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we urge you to do it, please. With this article we continue the “Meeting the Demands for Ending the War” segment.

The initial demand was that the Russian-backed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (together known as Donbas) would be granted independence but because Zelensky dismissed it, Russia used its powers to annex it and even more regions. In September 2022, Russia annexed four Ukrainian regions, meaning Moscow now considers them to be part of Russia. Russia's determined not to give back any annexed territory. As a matter of fact, if Ukraine doesn't negotiate a settlement soon enough, Russia might seize many more territories.

In considering this Russian demand, we all need to assess the historical and legal basis for it. Here we will lay out what are the legal and historical justifications for that demand.

Meating This Demand From a Legal Standpoint

As for legal basis, under international law, Donbas Republics as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have the right to secede because “remedial secession” is certainly legal in extreme cases of repeated oppression or subjugation of the minority. In such case, the territorial integrity of Ukraine can be lawfully discarded because there are serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of the residents since thousands were killed and millions displaced. States not respecting the right to life and internal self-determination of their population forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity. Leaving it with no other option to exercise internal self-determination in a meaningful way, the Russian ethnic minority has a right to external self-determination then.

Also, the Russian ethnic minority in Donbas as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson has the legal right to plead Kosovo's independence precedent^[+] on grounds of similar facts and legal issues.

Precedent refers to a court decision that is considered as authority for deciding subsequent cases involving identical or similar facts, or similar legal issues. Precedent requires courts to apply the law in the same manner to cases with the same or similar circumstances.

Kosovo was allowed to secede on grounds of a humanitarian crisis, which was also the case with the Russian ethnic minorities in Donbas and even more severe - over 13.000^[+] Donbas Russian ethnic civilians and rebels were killed from 2014-2021^[+], and many more encountered a risk to life under Ukrainian shelling and bombardments and were prosecuted, not to mention their homes and infrastructure being destroyed and millions of refugees. Interesting how the West loves "rebels" when they're in Syria but hates rebels when they're from Donbas🤔.

Legally speaking, if NATO had the legal right to intervene (bombing of Yugoslavia^[+]and Syria^[+]) to save the Kosovar Albanians (despite the legitimacy issues^[+]) and Syrian rebels, then also Russia had the right to intervene to save their Russian ethnic minority in Ukraine. Just like NATO, Russia had the same goals^[+] to end all military action and the immediate termination of violence and repressive activities by the Ukrainian government, withdrawal of all military, police, and paramilitary forces from Donbas, the stationing of Russia’s peacekeeping presence in Donbas; unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons, the establishment of a political framework agreement for Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics based on Minsk Accords^[+][+], in conformity with international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

Like Russia, NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, schools, hospitals, monasteries, national TV station, factories, power plants, and water-processing plants but also hundreds of civilians and even the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists, which was labeled as a war crime by Amnesty International but no one was held accountable.

In other words, since the humanitarian crisis and the risk to regional stability were equally real in both regions (and even more severe in Donbas with more casualties and refugees), secession is allowed in such extreme cases of repeated oppression or subjugation of the minority, leaving it with no other option to exercise “internal self-determination” in a meaningful way but to then seek out its external self-determination. International lawyers call this “remedial secession.”

However, the US-puppet UN has unlawfully disregarded both the humanitarian crisis that posed a threat to regional stability in Donbas and the existence of a precedent^[+] that by law should be applied.

Nevertheless, sources antagonistic towards Russia claim that there is no legal basis^[+] for Russia's claim to the Ukrainian Donbas region¹. Therefore, let's dig further into the legality of it, which so far, no court has declared illegal. The allegations of illegality are just allegations, nothing more and nothing else. While some experts say it is illegal, other experts say its legal. But if we consider the human right to self-determination, which is enshrined in the UN Charter and legal precedents that gave the same right to declare independence to other folks, then it is legal but even more it is ethical. The residents should have the right to determine it. It is unethical to force people to live under a regime that calls them “terrorists”, terrorizes them, kills them, persecutes them, discriminates against them, and forced them to flee (some five million^[+] fled to Russia). If Kosovo people had the right to secede from Serbia, then why do not Crimea and Donbas people have the same right to secede from Ukraine? There can't be double standards in international law, which is why their declarations of independence should have the same legal recognition.

Perhaps one of the most important determinants in this issue is the fact that Kyiv regime² and majority of Western Ukrainians want South-Eastern Ukraine back but they do not want its people who are either ethnic Russians or pro-Russian.

Here's a critical 2014 video^[»][»„] to understand why the people of the Donbas wanted to separate from Ukraine!

One of the most-watched networks in Ukraine, Hromadske TV featured Ukrainian Nazi journalist Bogdan Boutkevitch during the Maidan coup, demanding genocide of ethnic Russians. He said that Donbas: "is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me I know what I am saying. If we take, for example, just Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of them are superfluous. We don't need to "understand" Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don't claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound, there is a certain category of people that MUST BE EXTERMINATED."

When national TV broadcasts such programs where renowned people were openly stating that Donbas people were not needed and should be killed, then they had no choice but to separate from a regime that did not persecute such fascists but gave them a platform to disseminate their criminal objectives.

More on ethnic cleansing agenda is explained in this post^[+] on Conservapedia. It has to do with shale gas found in the region that Western predators intended to extract but the local residents have to sell their land and property. In case of refusal they are to be coerced to do it to serve the interests of Royal Dutch Shell and Burisma Holdings (Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden was a member of board of directors then). That was the main goal of those who launched the “anti-terrorist operation” or the Donbass slaughter. They wanted to establish total control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to clear the way for shale gas extraction (80-140 thousand wells). Arable lands would not be used for agricultural purposes, houses and churches would have to be destroyed to erect gas production infrastructure.

Donbas victims^[+] could have not sued the Ukrainian government at the UN's International Court of Justice because, unlike many other tribunals, the ICC focuses on holding individuals accountable for these crimes, as opposed to a nation-state. Donbas victims could have not sued the Ukrainian individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression because the ICC’s jurisdiction extends only to those countries that have become parties to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC –Ukraine is not one of them, and thus, in general, the ICC lacks jurisdiction over actions within the territories of Ukraine.

Since the war broke out in Donbas in April 2014^[»], the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights^[+] and the US State department^[+] as well as other prominent institutions and organizations have regularly issued reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine proving that the impact of the conflict on the rights of Donbas civilians was “dramatic”, not just threatening their lives but also violating their economic and social rights by the Kyiv regime. They reported about abductions, torture, unlawful detention, no independence of the judiciary, restrictions on free expression and on the rights of peaceful assembly, etc.

This Russian demand infringes on Ukraine's sovereignty but is no breach of The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation^[+][+] that was signed in 1997 when both countries affirmed the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders and respect for territorial integrity because this treaty was rendered as void after Ukrainians violated and then terminated it in 2018. States not respecting one or more provisions of the treaty forfeit the protection of that treaty, including territorial integrity. In 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree not to extend the treaty^[+], which is why this treaty was officially no longer in effect. By cancelling the Treaty agreements in 2018, Kyiv shot itself in the foot because since then, Russians had no obligation stick to their part of the deal – to honor Ukraine’s territorial integrity and acknowledge the inviolability of the borders.

Russia also did not a breach the Agreement between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on the Ukrainian-Russian state border (2003) and the Minsk Agreements^[+][+] (2014 and 2015) that were a basis for a political resolution of the conflict in Donbas^[+] for the same reason that they were rendered as void after Ukrainians violated them. Since Ukraine was first that violated all those treaties, the principle of reciprocity in the Law of Treaties dictates that the injured party (Russia) should not be called upon to comply with its obligations under the treaty when the other party (in this case Ukraine) fails to comply with those obligations which it undertook under the same treaty. In other words, legally, Russia was not obliged to comply with its obligations under the treaty as soon as Ukraine failed to comply in 2008.

Ukraine is a free, independent, sovereign, indivisible, and independent state. Russia has no more authority than the EU or US or UK to interfere in the politics of Ukraine as long as Ukrainians respect the human rights of the Russian ethnic minority living there. If the West has the right to meddle into Ukrainian politics, then Russia has even more right, given that Ukraine was always part of Russia or under Moscow governance until 1991 and that some 8 million ethnic Russians had lived in Ukraine before the war. However, the West wants us to believe that Russian interference is evil while their interference is not. Well, south-eastern Ukrainians begged to differ and rejected Western meddling, especially Western-backed undemocratic, violent regime change in 2013/2014. The self-declared governments of the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic are not recognized by any governments other than Russia and a couple of other states^[+][+] because the West threatens everyone (who won’t do as told by Washington) with sanctions if they do.  

Since international community had not recognized Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic, the local authorities and the residents had no other option but to request Russia to be part of Russian Federation. This was then officially settled by means of referendums in September 2022. Four regions that were formerly part of Ukraine — the Peoples’ Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (collectively known as the Donbas region) and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — have voted overwhelmingly in a historic referendum to formally join the Russian Federation in September 2022. The referendum results of those in favor of joining the Russian Federation were as follows: Donetsk: 99.23%; Lugansk: 98.42%; Zaporozhye: 93.11%; and Kherson: 87.05%.

People at a rally in the Donbas Region fly flags of the Donetsk People’s Republic.  Credit: Alexander Kravchenko / TASS

If the vast majority of the residents of these regions prefer to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine as they were governed by Moscow for centuries and they identify as Russians, then who are we or anyone else to determine their identity and fate?!

Ukraine’s constitution does not give Ukrainian citizens the right to dual citizenship, but in April 2021, there were well over 538.000 residents^[+] of the Donbas region of Ukraine who were also Russian citizens (they had dual citizenship). And by the time when in February 2022 Russia launched its SMO³, according to the members of Russia’s Security Council^[+], some 700.000 of the 4,6 million inhabitants of the Donbas region already had a Russian passport and some 500.000 more have applied for one. They were not immigrants or refugees but the natives of the region. These were formal Russian citizens which Russia was legally obliged to protect from harm. So, all attacks on Donbas by Kyiv regime were attacks not just on Ukrainian but also Russian citizens.

To put it into a perspective, what would the US do, if 700.000 American citizens living across the border in Ontario in Canada or in Mexico City were being terrorized and thousands were being killed there?

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Meating This Demand From a Historical Standpoint

The revised history of Donbas as presented by Kyiv and NATO propaganda on Wikipedia^[+][+] since 2014 fails to provide any evidence to prove that Ukraine has any historical right to claim Donbas while there is plenty evidence to prove that Donbas has belonged to Russia for centuries. Even during Soviet era, when in 1922, Lenin transferred Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to Ukraine  under the condition that those regions and the whole of Ukraine remain part of the Soviet Union, it was Moscow and not Kyiv that governed the whole area; Kyiv only administered it.

It is important to note that Ukrainians were never an ethnic group before 1918 or a nation before 1991, so there can be no talk about any territories historically belonging to the nation of Ukraine before 20^th century or even before 1991. As a matter of fact, there was no such thing as “Ukraine” or “Ukrainians” before the Russian Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Empire in 1917. Before that, they were called Rus or Rusyns or Little Russians (Malorossy)^[+].

The Little Russian identity^[+] was a cultural, political, and ethnic self-identification of a population of Ukraine who aligned themselves as one of the constituent parts of the triune Russian nationality^[+] – Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia (Belarus) bringing all Eastern Slavs under one fold. The terms originated in 1292 from the Byzantines^[+] who used them to distinguish between the jurisdictions. Later, in 1764, there was also New Russia (Novorossiya)^[+] during the era of the Russian Empire (1764-1917) for an administrative area that would later become the southern part of Ukraine^[ꚛ].

The history and evolution of Ukrainian national identity^[+] is explained by Dominique Arel, professor and holder of the chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who explains how the notion of Ukrainian national identity started to emerge in the 19th century, when the territory that later became Ukraine was split between the Russian empire to the east and the Austro-Hungarian empire to the west. “The birth of Ukrainian nationalism as a mass social movement really crystallized by the first world war (1914-1918),” says Arel. It was developed only in what is now western Ukraine, while most south-eastern Ukrainians have identified themselves as Russians and kept speaking Russian to this day, despite extreme Ukrainization attempts. But the fact that a group of people starts a notion that they are a nation all of sudden despite the fact that they were not a nation never before in the history, does not give them legal right to it. Like if Californians would now decide they are a nation now and all of the world should just accept that – how crazy is that?! This is exactly what happened some 100 years ago with Ukrainians claiming to be a nation under German-Austrian protectorate^[+].

Of course, ancestors of modern Ukrainians existed for a long time but they were just residents of a Russian borderland (hence the name “Ukraine”, which is the old Slavic term for 'borderland') as one of the Rus ethnic group bound together with Russians and Belarussians by common ties of race, language, nationality, culture, religion, and traditions. For centuries or millennia, Ukrainians were just an ethnographic group^[+], not an ethnic group, nor a nation.

Just like, for instance, Bavarians^[+] who are an ethnographic group of ethnic Germans of the Bavaria region. Or like Slavonians, Zagorians, Međimurians, Dalmatians, and others who are not separate ethnic groups or nationalities but ethnographic groups of one ethnic group and nation of Croats distinguished by different place of birth or descent within the nation.

The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus'⁴ as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it while Ukraine adapted its coat of arms, therefore Ukrainians denying their ties to Russians and Belarussians is preposterous. Either they are too dumb to know their history or are victims of mass psychosis instigated by Anglo-Saxons, which is why most Ukrainians nowadays identify with them rather than with their fellow Eastern Slavs.

By Eastern Slavs (Russians, Belarussians, and half of former Ukrainians), Ukrainians are seen as a disgrace because they aligned with Anglo-Saxons instead of fellow Eastern Slavs.

Also, Ukrainian language was just a dialect akin to Russian language with many similarities also with Polish language because Ukraine borders with Poland and Russia. Just like many other nations have different dialects, some of which are quite different from the official language of an ethnic group.

For instance, if we take another Slavic nation, the Croats, they have groups like Zagorians, Istrians, and some other ones whose dialects are hardly understandable to the people living in the capital Zagreb or elsewhere in the country.

In all of history, there had never existed a state called Ukraine until 1991 (save for a brief period between 1918-1921 but with much smaller borders and with German, Austrian, and Polish controls anyway) when the Ukrainian state came to existence due to no merits of its own but as a result of the end of communism and the Soviet Union, thus there can be no talk about Ukraine’s historical claims to any territory.

The region now known as the Donbas was largely unpopulated until the second half of the 17th century when the Cossacks established the first permanent settlements in the region. Cossacks were a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian nomadic-military people. Don Cossacks^[+] (Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don) have had a rich military tradition as they played an important part in the historical development of the Russian Empire and participated in most of its major wars.

Another measurement of historical prerogative is the dominant language, which to this day has been Russian for centuries. According to the last census held in then-Ukraine’s Donetsk region^[+], 74.9% of the population declared their mother tongue to be Russian language and only 24.1% Ukrainian. In Luhansk region census^[+], that ratio was 68.8% Russian and 30% Ukrainian language declared as native. The fact that despite Ukraine being a sovereign state since 1991, the vast majority of people still preferred to speak Russian rather than Ukrainian is clear evidence that Donbas people stand by Russia more than they stand by Ukraine, or identify with Russians. This is due to history of the region that was under Russian governance for centuries. In Zaporizhzhia census^[+] that ratio was 50:50% and in Kherson census^[+] was 25:73%.

To provide historical context for this demand, let us point out that, after the new NATO-backed revolutionary regime took power in Ukraine in February 2014 by forcefully ousting the democratically elected government, the two Donbas Republics – the Donetsk People's Republic^[+] (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic^[+] (LPR) – opposed the new unelected anti-Russian, pro-NATO regime and after those Russian ethnic minorities being terrorized and killed for months on end (including the ban on the use of their native language and other sanctions), they declared^[+] independence from Ukraine in May 2014 but, save from a couple of states^[+][+], the international community denied them that right^[+] and continues to consider them part of Ukraine.

watch a video from June 2014 with appeals from Donbas people to save them from Ukrainian Army

Donbas residents are mostly ethnic Russians and Russophones⁵ who until 2014 had been Ukrainian President Yanukovych’s political base, so they resisted what they viewed as the illegitimate, unconstitutional, and undemocratic overthrow of their democratically elected president on 22 February 2014. And when on 23 February 2014, the Ukrainian parliament proposed to revoke the language law^[+][+][+] (granting regional language status to the Russian language), thus prohibiting the use of their native language in courts, schools, and other government institutions, they justifiably and fiercely protested it.

The new, unelected Kyiv regime led by acting President Turchynov and acting Prime Minister Yatsenyuk (appointed by the US^[+][»]) declared them “terrorists” and launched an “anti-terrorism operation”^[+] against the Donbas in April 2014^[+][»] dispatching neo-Nazi and other extremist militias to kill and terrorize the ethnic Russians. Moscow then began assisting the embattled ethnic Russian rebels to defend themselves, a move that the Obama administration and the Western (NATO states) mainstream news media called “Russian aggression” while hypocritically justifying the NATO-backed Ukrainian aggression against the Russian ethnic minority. Interesting how the West loves "rebels" when they're in Syria but hates rebels when they're from Donbas.

Donbas children who were being shelled daily by Ukrainian army asking to be saved

The trigger event for Donbas residents to separate from Ukraine and seek protectorate from Russia was the Odesa massacre^{[+][+][+][»]} on 2 May 2014, when 116^[+] (officially 48) anti-coup protestors of Russian ethnicity in Odesa were burned to death by Ukrainian ultranationalists who to this day, although being identified as perpetrators, were not prosecuted for it but were praised even by MPs^[+]. As a result, the Donbas people realized^[»] what the new Kyiv regime and their paramilitaries are going to do to them, too, thus, eight days after that massacre, on 11 May 2014, both Donbas republics held secession referendums^[+]. The results of the referendums (in favor of secession) were not officially accepted by any government except 8 years later by Russia in February 2022 (Donbas people's reaction^[»]), Syria in June 2022, and North Korea in July 2022.

Donbas children who were being shelled daily by Ukrainian army asking to be saved

The Ukrainian government regarded the Russian ethnic minorities (whom they referred to as pro-Russian separatists) as terrorists despite them being the indigenous people there and the Ukrainian military attacking and terrorizing them. Donbas residents never conducted any terrorist attacks but were only defending themselves against the new oppressive anti-Russian regime that increased its hostility against them after their fellow Crimeans decided to separate and join Russia in March 2014. After Russia annexed Crimea on 26 March 2014, Ukrainians got furious and turned against all ethnic Russians, punishing them for it.

watch the video about it here

As of 30 September 2022, Russia claims to have annexed them and treats them as its federal subjects.

According to the last census held in 2001, Ukrainians accounted for about 58% percent of the population in the Donbas region. Ethnic Russians formed the largest minority, accounting for about 39% while Russian was the main language of around 72% of Donbas residents.

There was only minor support for separatism in the Donbas before the outbreak of the Donbas War^[+][+][+]. Separatists were a marginal group that gained power and caused armed conflict only because of Ukrainian oppression and terror thanks to Russian military backing.

Flags of Donbas people who have been defending themselves from the neo-Nazis’ attacks since April 2014

On 21 February 2022 the Russian Federation recognized the sovereign independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics (a.k.a. Donbas^[+]) that those republics already declared in May 2014 after they held referendums on that – about 90% voted for the independence of both the DPR and LPR. Note that Russia has rejected to recognize those two republics for 8 years, which proves that Russia had no intention to annex them because it would jump at the chance immediately like it did with Crimea in March 2014. Russia tried to help Donbas people by various diplomatic means all these years but after 8 years of Ukraine violating Minsk agreements^[+], it became clear that there was no other way to settle the issue but by show of force, which is why Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on 24 February 2022 to end the war in Donbas after the legal authorities of these sovereign republics requested military intervention from Russia. A peace deal was reached in April 2022 but NATO leaders and ultranationalists sabotaged it by pressuring Zelensky to back off from the deal and staging a Bucha massacre as false flag operation.

The aim of the Russian intervention in the Donbas in February 2022 was to liberate its terrorized and tyrannized folk (ethnic Russians) there and help establish pro-Russian governments that, upon reincorporation into Ukraine, would facilitate Russian rather than Western interference in Ukrainian politics. However, after Kyiv backed off from peace negotiations in April 2022 and after years of shelling ethnic Russian civilians there, Russian authorities finally agreed with Donbas authorities to reincorporate the two republics into Russia, including also two more regions (Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) that also voted in referendums to rejoin Russia.

Ukrainians and ethnic Russians in Ukraine are Eastern Slavs like Russians and Belarussians, which makes it more natural to unite with them rather than with a foreign Anglo-Saxon folk. Since the Western-puppet Kyiv regime refused it, then ethnic Russians chose to rejoin Russian Federation. Moreover, there are some legal and historical basis for Donbas to secede from Ukraine and be annexed to Russia rather than the EU and NATO.

As for historical basis, Donbas as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson belonged to Russia for centuries until Russian Bolsheviks assigned them in 1922 to the Kyiv  administration but still under Moscow's governance. Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson were transferred to Ukraine without the approval of the residents of the region (no referendum) and without Ukrainians deserving it as they lost the war with Bolsheviks and lost their independence^[+] that ungrateful Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed in 1918 under German-Austrian protectorate^[+] after Russian Bolsheviks liberated them from the monarchy. Not appreciative of being liberated by the Bolsheviks, nationalists took advantage of Russia going through a troubled transition and proclaimed the independence from Russia, which was only possible for a brief time because Russia was in a civil war then (1917–1922). The so-called independence was fictitious anyway as with German, Austrian, and Polish controls, Ukrainians were not independent at all. Donbas (and Crimea) was not part of that Ukraine. In late 1920, Bolsheviks seized much of Ukraine and through a treaty officially terminated its pseudo-independence in 1921. Ukraine was then divided between the Bolshevik Ukrainian SSR, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.

Donbas region falls under the area marked in purple in the east while Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are in purple in the west

The whole territory of Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson that is largely under Russia's control since 2022, as well as Crimea, used to be internationally called Novorossiya (New Russia)^[+] from 1764 until 1917, when the entire area (minus Crimea) was incorporated into the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic (Ukrainian autonomy within Russia until 2018 and then under protectorate of German Empire until 2021), and then into the Soviet Socialist Republic Ukrainian within the Soviet Union under Moscow governance. Clearly, the whole region has been part of Russia and under Moscow rule for centuries while Ukrainians got it to no merits of their own for only short time, which is why Russians have every right to claim this territory, especially after Ukrainians started terrorizing and tyrannizing ethnic Russians there since 2014.

So, Russian ethnic groups in the east and south of Ukraine are not immigrants but natives in this region officially since the 17^th century, if not before. This is their homeland, motherland, or fatherland. The Russian-speaking Don Cossacks^[+] established the first permanent settlements there in the 17th century. Since the mid-late 18^th century the Russian Empire governed it until the Russian Bolsheviks⁶ took over in 1917 and Lenin assigned this territory to Ukraine in 1922⁷.

This Soviet poster from 1921 claims that “DONBAS is the HEART of Russia”

Aggressive Nature of Ukraine

In 1992, modern Ukrainians chose their coat of arms^[+] that represents them to be none other than a primitive weapon, a three-pronged spear (trident^[+]). It would be worth exploring why a killing tool and not something more pacifistic or noble. It was adopted from the seal of Prince Vladimir^[+], Viking ruler of Kievan Rus'⁸ from 980 to 1015 who converted them to Christianity in 988 after he got converted. Through bloody wars, he expanded the borders of Kyivan Rus’ but not to Donbas and Crimea.

Ukrainians^[+] are an East Slavic ethnic group^[+] but for some reason, they identify themselves with the medieval emblem of a Viking dynasty that ruled over them. Strange.

Choosing an emblem that is heavily used in the military heraldry^[+] and for military insignia^[+] reflecting “a stripe of Ukrainian warriors”^[+] and exhibiting violence to symbolize Ukraine’s state and embellish Ukrainian banknotes and coins, appear on the Presidential flag of Ukraine, among other things, it is a sure curse as evident with all those who use this as their uttermost representation:

·      Prince Vladimir died at an early age (57 years old) as his own sons Sviatopolk and Yaroslav turned against him. Having defeated Sviatopolk, Volodymyr died while preparing a campaign against Yaroslav^[+]. The same fate of early death is made certain for Ukrainian soldiers and all those who wear this symbol.

·      The exterior of the World Trade Center^[+] used three-pronged decorative and structural elements at its base

·      The flag of Barbados^[+] incorporates a Trident since 1966 when gaining independence from the British Empire. This island country in the Caribbean region had a resident population of 277.821 in 2010, with close to 90% of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Despite enormous potential, great predispositions, and its good position in most international rankings (it is ranked as one of the most favorite tourist destinations, one of the world’s biggest sugar industries), for some reasons, more than 120.000 Barbadians chose to rather live elsewhere^[+], which is almost half of its population back home. It is one of the world’s most densely populated areas and they face an issue of uncontrolled waste management and contaminated water supply^[+]. Like with Ukraine, the top challenges are official corruption and poverty, as well as economic crisis^[+], violent crime, substance abuse, gender-based violence, and firearm and drug trafficking^[+]. Barbados is one of the most indebted nations on the planet^[+]. It has the fourth-highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world. Barbados is drowning in debt^[+].

·      Trident is also the logo of the Italian automobile brand Maserati^[+] (although some try to present it as a fountain^[+]) and if you didn't know, it has struggled much and suffered huge losses^[+][+][+][+]. Unlike other similar luxury car manufacturers, Maserati has been going through a lot of troubles and turbulences despite its well-engineered and stylish designs. Maseratis are notorious^[+] for their costly maintenance services and repairs. The high cost of ownership is also one of the top reasons why Maseratis depreciate at such rapid rates (the car with the worst three-year depreciation – losing 70% of its value, resale value is wretched). Compared to all the other car brands in its class, Maserati manufacturer has been struggling the most. Like Ukraine and other trident bearers, it suffers an identity crisis^[+]. We advise ditching the trident.

·      Club Méd^[+] is another prominent bearer of the trident logo and another example of struggles, turbulences, and deep losses, which ended with its closure in the US^[+][+], Bahamas^[+], Australia^[+], Tahiti, Bora-Bora, and elsewhere. French travel and tourism operator, specializing in all-inclusive holidays with its all-inclusive resort villages in holiday locations around the world even went through a two-year-long acquisition war^[+]. Despite Rothschild's and others’ financing, Club Med suffered a debt crisis^[+] and was on the verge of bankruptcy several times long before the pandemic^[+].

·      Many navy units^[+] use it as part of their emblem but none of them achieved any success with it and a thorough investigation may reveal huge losses

·      There are also other examples and there is even a song Cursed by the Trident^[+] and other instances of “Trident's Curse”

·      There is not one example of a person or people thriving with the trident symbol

Of course, the trident alone is never responsible for anyone's failures but symbology does have the power to influence people in the symbolic direction. Like everything, the trident has both positive and negative sides, so in the right hands, such as in a spiritual context, it may have more positive than negative impact, such as when it is used to fight inner battles.

An indication that Ukrainians themselves are aware of the inappropriateness of a trident as their emblem is evident in the fact that, despite the official explanation^[+] of the meaning of the Ukrainian coat of arms, many Ukrainian historians^[+], probably ashamed of its true symbolism, attempt to present the medieval symbol as intended to depict not a trident, but rather, a symbol of the Holy Trinity or a stylized falcon. However, if they truly intended to depict a falcon, then they would draw a recognizable falcon, and the holy trinity is surely never presented as a trident in the Ukrainian Christian religion! The three blades of the trident Trishul represent the Hindu holy trinity: Lord Brahma, the Creator; Lord Vishnu, the Preserver; and Lord Shiva, the Destroyer. Why would the Viking Rurik dynasty or Ukrainians use a Hindu symbol in their emblem? Nonsense. And, as a trident was used by Roman sea-God Poseidon and his Greek counterpart Neptune, using it in Christian Ukraine would be blasphemy as Christians believe in only one God.

Choosing Vladimir’s seal to be the Ukrainian emblem, which President Zelensky and many others wear with pride, it is safe to assume that they see Viking Prince Vladimir as their utmost hero. However, this sanctified hero, like all other Ukrainian heroes, never managed to conquer or occupy the Russian territories known now as Donbas and Crimea. So, if none of the Ukrainian heroes ever managed to claim these regions, what right do the wearers of this emblem have to claim these territories as theirs now? Just because Russian Bolsheviks assigned them to Ukraine? But this was done only under the condition they would remain under central Moscow rule with Russian as the main language!

And, if this highly revered Prince has expanded Ukraine through wars, then why is it wrong if a contemporary Russian hero does the same for Russia? We are not questioning the immorality of wars but the concept of Ukrainian double standards. Why is polygamous rapist and mass murderer Viking Prince Vladimir of Ukraine, who killed many people with his own hands and had his own brother murdered, any better than now President Vladimir of Russia? Can the fact that he brought Christianity to Ukraine (engineered by Byzantium) or any other of his good deeds compensate for all his crimes? If yes, then it should apply to Putin as well because he has done many great deeds for his folk, too. Anyway, doesn’t Ukraine have any other decent, non-murderer hero to look up to and adopt his emblem?

Another hero the Ukrainians glorify is another mass murderer, a convicted criminal, and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera⁹^[+], who never accomplished anything, not even to be present at the declaration of Ukrainian independence (he was arrested by the Germans and taken into a concentration camp for 4 years), which no other country recognized and lasted less than a month, making him a total failure. What does that say about the folk who see such a criminal loser as a hero? No decent role models out there? Viking Prince Vladimir was canonized in 1240 because of his support of the church but supporting the church and violently forcing Christianity onto his people doesn't make him a hero or a saint, especially given that he killed many people and his own brother. He christened the Slavs for political reasons anyway, not because of conviction, which is more of a reason not to praise him for it.

Apropos Prince Vladimir, let us remind ourselves that he was not a Slav but a Viking of the Rurik dynasty^[+] and came to power with the help of Vikings by killing his older brother who was the ruler at the time. Without Vikings, there would be no medieval state of Kievan Rus’ on which Ukrainians base their identity. As per the history of Ukraine^[+], the Vikings founded Kievan Rus' state. During that time, several Slavic tribes were native to those territories^[+] but as Kyiv was situated on lucrative trade routes (at the crossroads of three important trade areas – the Baltic Sea, the Volga River, and the Caspian Sea), it was attracting many foreign traders, including Viking raiders, traders, and warriors, hence by 882, the Rurik dynasty occupied Kyiv and much of the now Ukrainian territory and ruled for nearly 400 years, until the 13^th-century Mongol invasion^[+].

According to the Primary Chronicle^[+], the Slavic tribe Polyanians^[+] built Kyiv in the 5^th century and named it after their ruler, Kyi^[+]. Byzantine sources report that the Kievan prince Kyi was brought up at the court of Emperor Justinian I in his youth, converted to Christianity in Constantinople, and was educated there. This means that Prince Vladimir was not the first who brought Christianity to Ukraine but through native Slavic faith and Viking rule, Christianity was suppressed and then revived by Vladimir in 988.

Vikings influenced the genetic and historical development of Kievan Rus’. Let's bear in mind, the Vikings were extremely brutal, barbarian pirates, looters, raiders, and invaders^[+][+] known for their atrocities, plunder, and colonization^[+]. Only through brutality and killing his own brother did Prince Vladimir come to the throne and power. In 977, due to a fratricidal war after their father's death, Vladimir fled to his kinsman, ruler of Norway, collecting many Viking warriors to assist him in forcefully recapturing Novgorod and Kyiv in 980, where he killed his brother Yaropolk by treachery.

History repeats itself in a way if we take into consideration that the NATO chief is from Norway. NATO is helping another Volodymyr to rule now and again through brutality rather than diplomacy. But this time is not going to work because the rival is a superpower Russia.

Vikings ruled over Ukrainians for nearly 400 years when in the 13^th century Mongols took control until the 14^th century when Poland and Lithuania absorbed much of it. In the 17^th century, Cossacks^[+][+] took control of central and north-western territories^[+] under the protection of Russia. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth fought for it for 13 years until 1667 when Russian Tsar Alexis annexed it through a treaty. Under Russia, the Cossacks initially retained official autonomy in the Hetmanate. The Cossack Hetmanate^[+] is usually viewed as a precursor of Ukraine but this territory doesn't include any territories currently occupied by Russia, which was under Russia all the time. By the late 18th century, the extreme west of Ukraine (Galicia) with 2.4 million Ukrainians fell under the control of the Austrian Habsburg Empire. Unlike in Russia, most of the elite that ruled Galicia were of Austrian or Polish descent, with the Ukrainians being almost exclusively kept in the peasantry. Russians treated them better. Development here lagged behind Russian-ruled Ukraine and was one of the poorest regions in Europe. In 1861, 42% of Ukrainians were serfs.

Ukrainians^[+] are an East Slavic ethnic group^[+] but they disconnected from their roots and therefore are such an instable state ever since their statehood was first established and internationally recognized in 1991. The modern nations of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine all claim Kievan Rus'^[+] as their cultural ancestor, with Belarus and Russia deriving their names from it while Ukraine adapted its coat of arms. Ukrainians are Eastern Slavs like Russians and Belarussians but they do not get along with both their kinfolk. It seems that most or many Ukrainians who have been attacking Russian minorities in Eastern Ukraine since 2014 feel a greater connection to Vikings than to Slavs, especially when they keep denying^[+] kinship and unity with Slavic Russia and proudly use a Viking emblem as Ukrainians coat of arms.

Nevertheless, Russians, on the other hand, justifiably feel a kinship with the fellow descendants of Kievan Rus' (Ukrainians) because they share the same cultural ancestor and because the powerful state Grand Duchy of Moscow arose from the disintegration of Kievan Rus' as well as because they share the same linguistic group and Slavic ancestry. The Ukrainian language^[+] is, like modern Russian and Belarusian, a descendent of the Old East Slavic language.

Considering Ukrainian history, ethnicity, and language, it would be most natural for unstable, corrupt, and poor Ukraine to remain in Russian rather than the NATO or EU sphere of influence because they share the same origin, culture, traditions, customs, celebrations, folklore, religion, language, ancestors, and Slavic values (family values, rodolyubiye – the love for and of the kin, generosity, hospitality and sharing meals, personal relationships, care for grandparents, blatant honesty, faith, gender norms, social order, etc.). Most of the American and Western values, customs, and way of life to which Ukrainians are submitting themselves are transforming Ukrainian society in a way that deviates from the cultural heritage of Ukraine. They cut off their Slavic roots and identity, which is seen as disgraceful by many Slavs, particularly the Russian ethnic minorities in Eastern and Southern Ukraine that didn't want to go along with it.

Just as the internal power struggle among the various principalities led to the disintegration of Vikings-ruled Kievan Rus' in the 13^th century and the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1920, for the same reason the same fate falls upon the Kievan state (Ukraine) in this day and age. First, Crimea was disintegrated and reintegrated into Russia, then Donetsk and Luhansk regions, after that Zaporizhzhia and Kherson territories, and who knows how many more as long as the Kyiv government continues with their hostile politics. Whatever Russians don't appropriate, the EU will annex eventually, which means that Ukrainians are not fighting for independence and sovereignty but to lose it by joining the EU, which will make all the rules and regulations in Ukraine.

Just as Ukrainian “hero” Bandera^[+] and his followers preferred to be under Nazi Germany's rule rather than Soviet rule, history repeats itself with modern-day Ukrainians preferring to be ruled by the EU (where Germany calls all the shots) or the US rather than by Russians. There is nothing to be proud about fighting and dying to have just another puppet master, which is exactly what Ukrainians are doing these days. With the Association Agreement signed in 2014, Ukrainians submitted themselves to the rules and regulations of the EU and the US and are totally dependent on their aid and loans. Ukraine has never been independent even when Ukrainians declared their independence. They have been always ruled by others, from Vikings and Russians to Germans, Poles, and since 1991 the US.

Many Ukrainian Bandera followers (Banderites¹⁰) see Bandera as a symbol of Ukraine’s struggle for independence but the Proclamation of Ukrainian Statehood^[+] that this Nazi collaborator and convicted murderer wrote involved Ukraine being under Nazi Germany – where is independence in that?! It was Germans, not Banderites or Ukrainians that briefly defeated the Soviet Red Army at that time and as soon as Nazis occupied Lviv in western Ukraine, Banderites made this foolish proclamation that got most of them killed or arrested for it, as Hitler would have none of it, of course. Obviously, the Germans didn't fight the Russians to hand the conquered territory to Bandera and his gang. Hitler and Nazis saw all Slavs as “an inferior race”. Nevertheless, until the end of World War II, double-dealing Banderites continued to fight alongside Nazi Germans conducting massacres of Jews, Russians, Poles, and other ethnic minorities in German-occupied territories. Another bizarreness of glorifying Bandera is the fact that he envisioned an anti-democratic, fascist, totalitarian Ukraine! This is the kind of person Ukrainians glorify but Russian ethnic minorities and the whole of Russia (as well as Poland, Israel, etc.) denounce defying his followers and refusing to subjugate to the new regime that legitimizes and glorifies a convicted criminal.

Let us not overlook the historical fact that there were no “Ukraine” and no “Ukrainians” before the Russian Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Empire in 1917. Before that, they were called Rus or Rusyns or Little Russians (Malorossy)^[+] and Ukraine was only a concept^[+] that arose in the wake of the peasant revolt of 1768/1769. The Little Russian identity^[+] was a cultural, political, and ethnic self-identification of a population of Ukraine who aligned themselves as one of the constituent parts of the triune Russian nationality^[+] – Great Russia, Little Russia, and White Russia (Belarus) bringing all East Slavs under one fold. The terms originated in 1292 from the Byzantines^[+] who used them to distinguish between the jurisdictions. Later, in 1764, there was also New Russia (Novorossiya)^[+] during the era of the Russian Empire (1764-1917) for an administrative area that would later become the southern part of Ukraine^[ꚛ] – the region north of the Black Sea and Crimea up to the center of what is now Ukraine, which is now largely occupied and annexed by Russia. It consisted of also a large portion of the Western bank of the Dnipro River (Kherson city, Mykolaiv, and Odesa) as well as Kharkiv, all of which Russia might seize soon in the effort to preserve its Russian heritage as the whole region is threatened to be integrated into the EU and assimilated by it.

Therefore, to be wise, Ukraine should accept this peace initiative or enter peace talks before Russia gets a hold of all these Novorussiya territories or more and before Poland gets the idea to grab or claim the western lands that used to belong to it.

While proud Ukrainian nationalists like to pound their chest about “glorious” Ukraine and its “long history”, it is important not to fall for their propaganda and history revisionism. There is absolutely nothing “glorious” about Ukraine or Ukrainians who are notorious for being corrupt, poor, cheap labor (Ukrainian women are known as “prostitutes” and “gold-diggers”) and have never in their history won any major wars or battles or territories.

As for “long history”, the term “Ukrainians”^[+] came into wide use only in the 20th century after the territory of Ukraine obtained distinctive statehood in 1918 upon Russian Revolution^[+]. In other words, it was Russians, who facilitated Ukraine to gain its current identity. The name of Ukraine^[+] comes from the old Slavic term for "borderland" in different contexts, including for being the land located at Russia's southern border, at the border or edge of the Polish kingdom, and due to its border function to the Tatar world in the south.

In January 1918, after Russian Bolsheviks liberated them from the monarchy, ungrateful Ukrainian nationalists took advantage of Russia going through a troubled transition and proclaimed the independence of Ukraine^[+] from Russia without even asking Ukrainians if they agree (e.g. through a referendum). Crimea and Donbas were not part of it.

This was the first time in history that Ukrainians declared independence, which was only possible under German-Austrian protectorate^[+]. Ukraine was considered “Made in Germany,” a “German Invention” – the Germans had invented the Ukrainians in order to dismember the Russian state (“divide and conquer” ploy) and to loot its food and critical raw materials. The main impulse behind Ukrainian independence came from the German general staff and its cynical geopolitical machinations during World War I. The German general staff hoped to use communism and socialism to overthrow the Russian Tsar and create chaos, hopefully knocking Russia out of the war (WWI), so they called Ukraine into existence, among other things (some sources claim that they also funded and backed Lenin to overthrow the Russian Empire because it was to their advantage but there is no evidence for that, just a motive). In 1914, just after the war had broken out, self-designated Ukrainians from the Austrian Empire and refugees from the Russian Empire contacted the German foreign office and appealed for assistance. The Germans were immediately intrigued by the obvious possibilities for creating splits inside their Russian enemy. In their “divide and conquer” ploy, the German diplomats soon began providing money for books, pamphlets, newspapers, and other propaganda motivating the need for an independent Ukraine outside of and opposed to the Russian Empire. The Germans had been looking for subject nationalities of the Russian Empire, which they could play against the Tsar and foolish Ukrainian nationalists took the bait. By that time, the Germans had already taken large numbers of prisoners of war following the 1914 defeats of the Russian army. Imperial German general staff identified about 50.000 of these POWs who based on their birthplaces and dialect might be convinced to become Ukrainians, separated out the officers and sergeants, and put the remaining proto-Ukrainians in special reeducation camps. These proto-Ukrainians were exempted from work, given better treatment, and put into classrooms, where they were given intensive courses in Ukrainian national identity, farming techniques, and the need for socialist revolution. Of the original 50.000 POWs, about 10.000 were successfully indoctrinated and were shipped back east after the Austrian army had conquered Lemberg/Lvov in June 1915, and they became a vital catalyst in the cause of Ukrainian autonomy or independence. When the Russian czar was overthrown in February 1917, the Western parts of the Russian Empire were plunged into chaos. Desperately seeking help against the Bolsheviks, the Kiev Rada council on 1 January 1918 publicly proclaimed its independence from Soviet Russia and its willingness to sign a separate peace with Berlin and Vienna. Convinced that the Rada would be a useful tool against the Russians, on 9 February 1918, Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary formally recognized the Ukrainian Rada as an independent state and German-Austrian protectorate. The Germans and Austrians were desperate for food and critical raw materials, so under the provisions of this Treaty, Germany and Austria were willing to protect the Kiev Rada regime in exchange for the delivery of designated food staples. In other words, Germans and Austrians created Ukraine for two reasons: to divide Ukrainians from the Russians so as to make Russia weaker (to dismember Russia) and to get the required goods. Without Germans and Austrians, there would be no Ukraine. The Ukrainian Nationalists who sought independence became totally dependent on Germans and Austrians, and were used as puppets in their geopolitical game. The borders of the new Ukraine were drawn not by the Ukrainians but by the Germans according to their own needs, not the wishes of the population or any principle of self-determination. The Germans needed coal but the frontiers of the Ukraine did not embrace coal-fields, and it was decided that those of the Donets Basin must be incorporated into the new puppet state. The Bolsheviks were too weak to resist this, as they were in the midst of the Russian Civil War (1917-1922, the Bolshevik Red Army fought the monarchist White armies, which were backed by the British and French). The Rada turned out to be ineffective in overseeing the planned looting of the peasants who prevented the Germans and the Austrians from obtaining and shipping the food they urgently needed. The food deliveries were falling far short of the treaty commitments and the whole deal was a very bad return on the investment of almost a million troops which Berlin and Vienna sent in. Hoping to get better results, the Germans broke up the Rada, arresting some key members, and created a new Ukrainian puppet dictatorship with a general Skoropadski but German Field Marshal von Eichhorn was the de facto ruler of Ukraine and would-be enforcer of food deliveries until his assassination in Kiev on 30 July 1918. There are obvious parallels between the German satrap Skoropadski and the US puppets Yatsenyuk as well as some between von Eichhorn and Biden since 2014. Skoropadski was put there to loot the wheat harvest. Yatsenyuk was ordered by the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank to loot the coal deposits of the Donets basin, to sell out the black earth farmland to foreign speculators, to double the price of natural gas, to donate the pipeline system to Chevron for free, to sharply increase the taxes on gasoline, electricity, and prescription pharmaceuticals, and to savage the social safety net for the old, the sick, the very young, mothers, and the needy. In 1918, the brutal looting imposed by Skoropadski led many Ukrainian peasants to take a second look at the benefits of Russian rule. The peasantry, who had at first eschewed Bolshevism, now turned to it as a protection against the exploitation and repressive domination of the Central Powers. The draconian grain requisitions of the German General Staff were comparable to that of Western Powers today. This time, it is the IMF conditionalities that are likely to impel many Ukrainians to see Moscow as preferable. Despite all the looting of Ukrainian resources, German and Austrian predators were at a huge loss – given the immense resources they invested and the limited benefits they derived from their Ukraine gambit, the Central Powers gained little and lost much on the plains of Ukraine. In fact, they might have lost World War I because of it. Many German forces remained bogged down in the east, especially in the Ukraine, so there was no enough forces in the west to widen the gap between the French and British Allies, to capture Paris and end the war successfully. A million troops immobilized in the East was the price of German aggrandizement. General Ludendorff of the German General Staff was defeated, not so much by the Allies and the Second Battle of the Marne, as by his own flawed Ukraine strategy. Perhaps present-day geopolitical ‘geniuses’ among NATO leaders should remember that Ukraine has already proven a graveyard for one imperial dynasty, and may well break the careers of modern meddling gnomes.

When the German war effort collapsed at the end of 1918, Skoropadsky’s dictatorship in Ukraine fell apart and was replaced by an oligarchy known as the Directorate, in which the dominant personality was Simon Petliura, known as a leading perpetrator of pogroms of Jews^[+] – the number of Jews killed during his rule is estimated to be between 50.000 and 200.000^[+]. In the Russian Civil War since 2017, the Bolshevik Red Army fought the monarchist White armies (backed by the British and French). A third force was the so-called Black army of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Machno. The White armies ravaged much of Ukraine during 1919. By 1920, the Bolsheviks were mopping up the White armies but the new Polish state now intervened in hopes of retrieving her old territories. The fighting between Poles and Bolsheviks seesawed back and forth across Ukraine and by 1921 the fronts had stabilized. Poland sized the western Ukraine, including cities like Lvov and Tarnopol, where the Greek Catholic or Unite Church, loyal to the Roman Pope, was strong. The eastern Ukraine, dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church, became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was founded in 1922. In 1939, Stalin returned the Eastern Ukraine by taking it back from Poland, taking advantage of Nazi invasion of Poland, which started the World War II. But, in June 1941, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, and the German armies seized Eastern Ukraine with Lvov by the end of July.

So, in the couple of years from January 1918 until the end of 1920, the Ukrainian People's Republic^[+] went through several political tribulations with internal strife^[+] between nationalists, socialists, anarchists, pro-German, and Polish factions. Without German-Austrian protectorate, Ukrainians were not capable or competent enough to sustain its so-called independent state longer than a couple of years. In November 1920, Bolsheviks took a part of its territory, and through a treaty officially terminated its independence in 1921. With German, Austrian, and Polish controls, Ukrainians were not independent then anyway. Ukraine was then divided between the Bolshevik Ukrainian SSR, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. Very embarrassing history for Ukraine, nothing to be proud of.

The second time Ukrainians declared independence was in 1941 in Lviv (western Ukraine) by the pro-Hitler organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Bandera's deputy in OUN-B, Yaroslav Stetsko^[+]. This time it was much more embarrassing as it lasted even shorter, just a few weeks, and was aligned with the Nazis, which Ukraine should be embarrassed about yet they are proud of this whole event. Never the ones to learn from history, they again allied with Germany and foolishly proclaimed^[+] the Ukrainian state while it was occupied by Nazi Germany: "The Ukrainian nation will work closely with the great Nazi Germany, which under the leadership of Adolf Hitler will establish a new world order in Europe and worldwide…”

A self-proclaimed, non-democratic, fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Soviet government was announced on the radio as they foolishly assumed that Germans (who occupied the territory, taking it from the Soviets) would go along with it like in Croatia. But Adolf Hitler would have none of it and in a matter of weeks, all the leaders were either killed or arrested, including Bandera. It seems that those Ukrainian peasants were very ignorant of Nazi Generalplan Ost^[+] (Nazi Germany's blueprint for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe), which was quite clear about Ukrainians to be treated as a race of slaves.

The whole independence declaration was a joke, nothing but an immature scheme of foolish zealots that had absolutely no foundation in reality. They did not declare what the borders were or provide a map showing this new Ukraine's state borders. And no country in the whole world recognized it! Ukraine was not an internationally-recognized sovereign state and there was no country named Ukraine on any map of the world before 1991 (save for the brief period in 1918 on some German and Austrian maps).

Hypocritical Ukrainians claim they had the right to declare independence but deny that same right to the folks of Crimea and Donbas! If they do not recognize the Declarations of Independence of Crimea, DPR, LPR, and other regions, then for the same reasons, they should not recognize the Declarations of Independence of Banderites in 1941 either. Otherwise, they are hypocrites using double standards. Because, why should one have the right and not the other? And, when Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, imagine if Russia acted the same like Ukrainians acted when Crimea, DPR, and LPR declared independence? Would it be acceptable if Russians declared the terrorists and sent their army to shell their civilians every day? So, let's not have double standards and be hypocrites. If Ukrainian separatists appreciate being given the right to self-determination, then they should also grant that very same right to other folks, like ethnic Russians in Donbas, Crimea, and elsewhere. Otherwise, they are horrible, duplicitous people not worthy of anyone's support.

Just as Ukrainians were fooled at that time by the Germans that they could have an independent state and even were dying and killing in fighting for Nazi Germany, Ukrainians are doing the exact same mistake these days again. They are now dying and killing to be able to be annexed and ruled by the EU where Germans call all the shots in the illusion that they would be an independent state. And as if that alone were not absurd enough, Ukrainians are also ruled by and dependent on the US, too.

Just as they preferred to be under Nazi Germany's rule rather than Soviet rule, modern-day Ukrainians prefer to be ruled by the EU or the US rather than by Russians. And they are paying the ultimate price for it again.

Throughout history, Ukrainian borders^[+][+] have often been shifted, so who is to say which borders are legitimate or historical? And why should they stay the same forever anyway, especially if Ukraine doesn't honor the treaties^[*^] with its neighbor(s)? None of the Ukrainians have ever contributed to expanding or establishing Ukrainian borders (we don't count Vikings such as Kievan Rus’ rulers as Ukrainians, of course), so, like the previous, also the borders of 2013 were not attained by any Ukrainians but mostly Russians who granted many territories to Ukraine, obviously illusioned that Ukrainians would be grateful for it.

Ukrainian history is much debated but according to Wikipedia^[+], apart from those couple of years from 1918-1920, most of Ukraine's territories were provinces of Russia ever since 1654 (and before that, the western territories were under Poland) until, with no help of Ukrainian nationalists, the Russian Bolsheviks abolished the monarchy and, as part of USSR, Russian revolutionary Lenin assigned the eastern and southern lands (from Russia) to Ukraine in 1922, Stalin assigned it the western lands in 1939^[+] and 1945, and Khrushchev assigned^[ꚛ] it Crimea in 1954. In other words, Ukraine's current borders were established by Russian communists^[+] rather than by Ukrainian victories or merits (Ukraine lost the Ukrainian War of Independence^[+] 1917-1921), whereby some territories of the Russian Empire were unselfishly ascribed to Ukraine under the assumption they would always remain under Moscow's governance as part of the Soviet Union.

All Republics of the Soviet Union^[+], including the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic^[+], had a constitutional right to secede. 1924 USSR Constitution contained the right of free secession from the Union. Ukraine hadn't exercised its right to do that, therefore, all recent western-backed Ukrainian allegations of being forced to join and stay in the USSR are not based on facts and the constitution. As a matter of fact, Ukraine helped create the Soviet Union, as, in 1922, Ukraine was one of four Soviet republics that signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union. Kyiv became the republic's seat of government in 1934.

Even at the time of the dissolution of the USSR, in the March 1991 Ukrainian sovereignty referendum^[+], 82% of Ukrainians voted to remain in the restructured Union of Soviet Sovereign States (voters turnout was 83.48% – 37.689.767 people). In other words, despite a very strong nationalist campaign to secede, a vast majority of Ukrainians didn't want independence and wanted to continue to have strong ties with Russia. Answering the second question, 71.4% of Ukrainians voted for the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation. Again, a vast majority even wanted to preserve the Soviet Union. Therefore, any Ukrainian claims of being victimized during the Soviet Union are nothing but Western propaganda.

The third time Ukrainians declared independence^[+] happened in December 1991 when the Soviet Union was already on the brink of collapse as a result of the Cold War. On 19 August 1991, hardline Communist leaders attempted to restore central Communist party control over the USSR by staging a coup in Moscow. The leaders of the Ukrainian political establishment supported this coup, either openly or covertly, fearing above all that the Russian democratic movement might gain some hold on power. When the coup was defeated and Boris Yeltsin emerged as the victor with help from the West (and announced that he intended to implement the shock therapy, extreme austerity, social demontage, and privatizations demanded by the International Monetary Fund), the Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk decided that their best chance of maintaining power was to play the card of nationalism and independence from the USSR. The perspective of going through the shock therapy meat grinder under IMF conditionalities was in itself a powerful reason for Ukrainians to want to leave Russia. So, in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR on 24 August 1991 adopted The Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, disregarding the March referendum results. A new referendum^[+] on support for the Declaration of Independence was organized for December when the majority (92%) of Ukrainians voted for independence.

It is very strange how it is possible that in the March referendum, 82% of Ukrainians voted to remain in the Union of Soviet Sovereign States and a few months later in December of the same year, 92% of Ukrainians voted against it – to secede from the Union and declare independence! Raise your eyebrow if this sounds suspicious. This kind of pivot in the will of people in a span of just a few months has never happened in the history of mankind. It is shocking especially given that nothing threatened them from Russia to make all of them change their mind. Perhaps the perspective of going through the austerity measures under IMF conditionalities was enough of a motivation for Ukrainians to want to leave Russia. But the most curious is that US President Bush came to visit Ukraine in between those two referendums, in August. He made a speech^[+] in the Ukrainian parliament that outraged Ukrainian nationalists by using phrases such as "suicidal nationalism," "ethnic hatred" and "local despotism" as he referred to them as local despots and said the US would not support them. The majority of Kyiv MPs actually applauded Bush but then voted contrarily a few days later. If this was intended as a reverse psychology technique^[+] or not remains unknown but the US involvement surely did something to spur nationalistic sentiments. How else to explain this extraordinary shift between two referendums in the same year? After all, we all know that the US has worked to break up the Soviet Union, to divide and rule the region since the Cold War. It is also possible that Ukrainians just followed the lead of some other Republics that left the Soviet Union in the previous months and were eager to avoid the austerity measures required by the IMF and announced by Yeltsin in October 1991. Even so, this most recent foundation of the Ukrainian state appears as a top-down operation designed to preserve the power and privileges of the Ukrainian oligarchy or nomenklatura, and not in any way as a popular revolution.

In 1991, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine on the basis of its Declaration of Independence^[+][+][+], which Ukraine adopted when leaving the Soviet Union. The Declaration implemented its Declaration of State Sovereignty^[+][+] that proclaimed Declaration of the Rights of Nationalities of Ukraine^[+] contains the commitment that they will remain neutral (no military allaince) and respect the rights of all nationalities of Ukraine (ethnic minorities), and the rights of the Russian language:

Ukraine guaranteed^[+] all peoples, national groups and citizens of Ukraine living on its territory, political, economic, social, cultural rights and prohibited any discrimination based on nationality, the manifestations of which were to be punished by law. Having provided all national groups have the right to freely use their native languages ​​in all spheres of society and life (education, production, receiving and dissemination of information), the state has taken on the responsibility of creating appropriate conditions for the development of all nations, languages ​​and cultures.

Since February 2014, Ukraine has violated not only the Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty^[+][+] but also its own Declaration of Independence!

Also, upon the disintegration of the USSR, in 1991, in its “Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine”^[+], Ukrainian authorities were “Proceeding from the right of a nation to self-determination in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other international legal documents”. So, if they had the legal right to do so – to declare independence based on the right of a nation to self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter, then for the same reason, ethnic Russians in Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson have the same right to do so! There can be no double standards in international law and the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine should serve as a precedent for also other nations or folk to do so, including Russians who are natives of what used to be called Little Russia but since 1991, the new Ukrainian state claims as its own.

From 2 December 1991 onwards, Ukraine was globally recognized as an independent state, including by Russia (President Boris Yeltsin) and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. (Ukraine was the second-most powerful republic in the Soviet Union both economically and politically (behind Russia), and its secession ended any realistic chance of Gorbachev keeping the USSR together. By 24^th December 1991, all former Soviet Republics except the Russian SFSR and the Kazakh SSR had formally seceded from the Union. The USSR officially dissolved on 26 December 1991.)

The new Ukrainian government led by new President Kravchuk was faced with hurdles comparable to Brexit (Great Britain's exit from the EU) but worse. Kravchuk's administration was incompetent to govern under difficult conditions in which all the production, economy, and finances were tied to and dependent on Russia (Ukraine didn't have its currency until 1996), all the while the US was taking advantage of the situation by exploiting Ukraine through bribing the authorities, which resulted in economic decline and extreme poverty. The inflation was 4.735% in 1993! A complete disaster! The situation was described as ‘independence without a vision’^[+]. Ukraine was being propelled into quasi-independence by merely changing its puppet muster. In reality, it was not independent at all but extremely dependent on the US, like nowadays. A pro-Western foreign policy was instituted, and official pronouncements stressed that Ukraine was a “European” rather than a “Eurasian” country like Russia, although it seemed more like the 51^st state of America^[+][+] for serving American interests in full.

Ukraine called itself “independent” but it was fully dependent on the West¹¹ as well as on Russian loans and energy sources. The authorities from the West wanted Ukraine on their side rather than on Russia, so they bribed and indirectly (through agencies and NGOs) funded politicians who obeyed them. As part of economic reforms, privatization of state assets was introduced, which in a highly corrupt environment, was implemented so badly that a bandit-like denationalization and transfer of ownership occurred with political insiders grabbing most of the state assets for themselves – and so emerged a clique of criminal oligarchs among the governing elite.

Post-independent Ukraine witnessed the growth of numerous social ills. Both street crime and organized crime increased, and Ukraine became a conduit for the international illegal drug trade. A rise in the number of drug addicts accompanied a worrisome growth in the number of people infected with HIV. The trafficking of Ukrainian women for the international sex trade also emerged as a serious concern.^[+]

There was no understanding of the concept of statehood and no tax policy, thus Western goods flooded the country raising profits for the West while Ukraine gained nothing but debts. In such catastrophic times, ideology becomes salvation and ultranationalists started to form in a country that had huge depots of nuclear weapons. The US was concerned, so it arranged in 1994 for Ukraine to give up all its nuclear arsenal in exchange for the protection of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is why Ukraine is now demanding from the US to protect them.

The economic crisis made the Ukrainian public call for an early presidential election in 1994 but the new president Kuchma couldn't save the country either in his first term. People were not getting their wages and pensions for 6 months; electric power was often down… a catastrophe. Imports^[+] grew (e.g. in 1992 $16 billion, in 1995 $24 billion) while exports^[+] stagnated and so the trade balance was in deficit until 1999^[+]. The Ukrainians were simply incompetent to run their new capitalist country as they didn't know the basics of the market economy and were exploited by the West (that sold their goods to Ukrainians tax-free). This incompetence was understandable since they were communists until then and had no education in how capitalism works. It took years before the paralyzed economy could recover, mostly due to luck in 1998 when the prices of Ukrainian main commodity, steel, skyrocketed but also due to the introduction of tax-reform measures in 1999. From then on, the economy began to recover, and the next year, the trade balance^[+] improved from deficit to surplus but only until the Orange Revolution and regime change in 2004 when it all changed for the worse again. Russophone Kuchma maintained Ukraine’s pro-Western policies and aspirations while seeking more cordial relations with Moscow. The West didn't like the fact that President Kuchma (of Russian ethnicity) didn't want to turn his back on Russia and Putin, so they masterminded the protests against him to overthrow him in 2004. The West needed something to galvanize the public, so they pinned the 2000 killing of a journalist on him.

The West, in particular, the US then found another guy to replace him in 2004, making sure the person would play by their rules. They found that guy in the banker and former prime minister (removed from office after just a year and a half and eager to retaliate for his dismissal) Victor Yushchenko who was pro-West, anti-Russian, and had an American wife, who was a member of the ultranationalist Union of Ukrainian Youth since age 14 and worked in the Washington Bureau of Ukrainian Committee of the US Congress and US Treasury. All in all, a perfect guy to be the US puppet in Ukraine. At the same time, Soros started to weave the Western web of influence on the Ukrainian establishment and youth by providing grants, social events, trips, and student program exchanges.

Backed by the US, Yushchenko became a destabilizer of the political situation in Ukraine by antagonizing political opponents, spurring animosity between political factions, and turning rivals into real enemies. This was part of the classic “divide and rule” tactic by the US. A series of events led to the US selecting their puppet¹² Yushchenko to become president in the next election by funding and supporting his campaign through US-funded NGOs. Despite all the US support and pressure, in the second round (in the first round no candidate won more than 50%) of voting between Yushchenko and Yanukovych, 70% of Ukrainian people voted for pro-Russian oligarch Yanukovych in the presidential election of 2004. The US had invested too much in regime change and their guy to let it be, so they refused to recognize the results of the election and covertly orchestrated the protests by spreading rumors of electoral fraud, which they based on the fact that the election results didn't match the exit polls but the exit polls were run by the US and the West and could be easily rigged. Under pressure, a third round of voting was organized and, as expected, Yushchenko won because Yanukovych was being defamed for both rigging the election and poisoning Yushchenko.

This is when Ukraine's economy started its downfall because of a huge inflow of foreign loans, which increased Ukraine's debt. Also, the US puppet regime applied to join the US (NATO) military bloc. The focus of the establishment was either to join the EU or Russia, rather than focus on developing the quality of life of the population. All the while the economy was in decline, the main goal of the Yushchenko government was “joining the EU and NATO” so they did everything the West wanted them rather than think with their own head.

Of course, the West had their interests at heart, not Ukrainian, which clearly showed in the economic outcomes^[+], which were ruinous the whole time Ukraine was under Western influence. At the same time, Russia’s^[+] and Kazakhstan’s^[+] economies were in surplus and thriving, which proves that Ukraine made a huge mistake of aligning with and relying on the West. When comparing the economies of Russia and the West^[+][+] at that time, Russia was doing much better, so Ukrainians should have taken lessons from Russia rather than the EU or the US.

From 2000 (when Putin first took office) till 2013 Russia's GDP per capita increased by 1100% whereas that of the EU increased only by 87% during the same time. By 2022, Russia's GDP per capita increased by 1147%^[+][+] since Putin first took office in 2000 whereas that of the EU increased only by 103% during the same period. Gross national income per ^[+] (purchasing power parity) had increased 628% (by contrast, for the same period, the US^[+] had increased it by 127% and EU^[+] by 116%).

Under Putin's first presidency term 2000-2008, Russia's GDP per capita^[+] increased by 874% (140% in the US^[+]), Russia's economic growth^[+] increased by 747% (47% in the US^[+] or 106% in the EU^[+]), the trade balance^[+] between exports and imports increased by 364% (decreased -185% in the US^[+]). The poverty rate^[+] decreased from 48% to just 4% people now (in the US^[+] it increased a bit). The unemployment rate halved from 13% to 6% and now dropped to a historic low of 3.6%. The suicide rate in Russia constantly decreases^[+], while in the US it increases^[+] which kind of reflects the conditions.

As you see the data, facts prove that Ukrainians should have learned from Russia rather than the US or the West.

The high susceptibility of Ukrainian officials to corruption has been the main reason why they turned to West as Western bribes must have been higher. The Ukrainians got corrupted by American authorities and the politicians placed their interests above the interests of their nation, or they have been naïve in believing the US cares for them more than Russia does or that Americans are more capable than Russians.

Other than corruption, all other related transgressions are to blame for Kyiv officials’ being blinded by the West, such as greed, theft, not paying debts, violations of treaties with Russia and of human rights of Russian ethnic minority in Donbas and elsewhere, which is why they turned against Kyiv. Ukraine was illegally diverting^[+] Russian gas intended for transit to Europe and in 2006 Russia cut the supply off claiming that Ukraine had not paid its bills. Ukraine, however, maintained that the move was a reprisal for its pro-Western policies. Getting involved in political games at the expense of the economy turned out to be very costly for Ukraine while Ukrainian high officials filled their offshore accounts with Western bribes.

After the disintegration of the USSR (no thanks to Ukrainians), through some treaties, Russia allowed all this territory to stay under Ukraine under certain conditions but after Ukraine violated the provisions of these treaties^[*^], naturally Russia reciprocated and under the international law of treaties was not obliged to honor these treaties any longer. In other words, Russia didn’t violate any treaties because they were no longer in effect as soon as Ukraine violated them.

By defending the provisions of those treaties, Putin warned that if Ukraine violated the agreement (on strategic partnership and friendship) by joining (or applying to join) NATO and signing the Association Agreement with the EU, Russia would consider the bilateral treaty that delineates the countries' borders to be void. Why should Russia honor the treaty if Ukraine wouldn't, right? As Putin cautioned in 2013, Russia could no longer guarantee Ukraine's status as a state and could intervene if pro-Russian regions of Ukraine appealed to Moscow for protection. Ukraine dismissed all of Russia's pleas to honor the agreements and therefore had to face the consequences.

On top of it all, there has been also the issue of the rise of neo-Nazis who were funded by the West because they were the fiercest enemies of Russia in Ukraine (just as US-backed jihadists were in Chechnya wars), keen to terrorize ethnic Russians in Donbas and elsewhere, which gave rise to separatism there. Already under US-puppet Yushchenko's rule (2005–2010), radical ultranationalists, fascists, and neo-Nazis thrived and openly operated^[+] in Western Ukraine, which was opposed by Eastern Ukraine. Yushchenko even awarded the title of national hero to a couple of well-known Ukrainian Nazis. Neo-Nazis supported Yushchenko in the “Orange Revolution” helping him seize the power and the support was mutual. The support of neo-Nazis started under Yushchenko (2004-2010), and increased under Poroshenko rule (2014-2019) who gave them weapons and integrated them into the National Guard of Ukraine, and under Zelensky (since 2019), neo-Nazi got their peak as they proved to be very useful in fighting the Russians.

As far as history goes regarding the Donbas region, in all fairness, we all can see some substance in the Russian claim to these territories.

👉All in all, considering the legal and historical basis for Russia's demand regarding the Donbas region for making a right and fair decision, Ukrainians, their allies, and arbitrators need to consider:

➡  the Ukrainian violations of treaties with Russia^[*^]

➡  the historical context of the geopolitical dispute (Donbas was Russia since 17^th ct.)

➡  the illegal nature of the regime change that occurred in Ukraine in 2014

➡  the risk to regional stability

➡  the extreme case of a humanitarian crisis, repeated oppression of the minority, and serious and persistent breaches of the human rights of the residents with thousands being killed and millions displaced

all of which lawfully allow:

✅ “remedial secession” for people to exercise self-determination

✅  the territorial integrity of Ukraine to be discarded.

International law does not prohibit unilateral declarations of independence and it does not prohibit newly independent states to integrate with another neighbor. States not respecting the right to internal self-determination of their population forfeit the protection of their territorial integrity.

Given all these arguments, we advise Ukraine to allow the separatist of the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions their right for self-determination.

Thank you for reading this article and participating in this peace initiative by raising your awareness and, hopefully, your consciousness and spirit. To properly grasp everything, we^[*^] recommend reading the articles of this peace initiative for Ukraine in the proper order, which is listed in the Contents. So if you haven’t read the previous articles, we recommend that you do. When you are ready, please proceed to the next article in this “Meeting the Demands for Ending the War” segment: Why should Ukraine guarantee not to join NATO?

1. Donbas^[+] is a coal mining region that was part of eastern Ukraine from 1922-2022 (now part of Russia) consisting of two Republics - Donetsk and Luhansk - where most residents have been Russians for centuries. In 2022, after Bolsheviks defeated the Ukrainian nationalists, Lenin gave that part of former Russian Empire with mostly ethnic Russian residents to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine under condition that it remains part of the Soviet Union and under Moscow governance (Kyiv administration) but in 1991, Ukraine violated that agreement by breaking off from the Soviet Union and from Moscow, and since 2014, Ukrainians had been demolishing all Lenin's monuments, therefore they have no rights to claim the territories he conditionally granted them. Since Ukrainians hate Lenin and Stalin so much that they demonize them, then in the Russian view^[+], it is only fair to give back all the land^[ꚛ] that Lenin and Stalin allocated to Soviet Ukraine, without even asking the locals’ permission (the majority were Russians in Donbas).

2. we refer to Kyiv as a regime^[+] due to its oppressive and repressive policies, corruption, and foul treatment of its ethnic minorities, such as the ethnic Russians, violating their human rights, tyrannizing, and killing them since 2014.

3. SMO = Special Military Operation^[+]

4. Kievan Rus'^[+] was a state and later an amalgam of principalities ruled by the Viking Rurik dynasty, formed in 882 and lasting until the mid-13th century when it fell to the Mongol invasion, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until 1598

5. people whose native language is Russian (people of Russian ethnicity)

6. Bolsheviks = revolutionary socialist political party, consisting of the proletariat of Russia

7. ironically, in 2014-2015 Ukrainian pro-EU protesters and the new pro-EU government were ungratefully demolishing statues of Russian Lenin, who gave east and south territories to Ukraine without Ukrainians winning or earning any of it

8. Kievan Rus'^[+] was a state and later an amalgam of principalities ruled by the Viking Rurik dynasty, formed in 882 and lasting until the mid-13th century when it fell to the Mongol invasion, though the Rurik dynasty would continue to rule until1598

9. Stepan Bandera^[+][+] was an anti-Semite, anti-Soviet Nazi collaborator, convicted murderer, responsible for the ethnic cleansing of minorities such as the genocide of more than 100.000 of Poles, Soviets, and Jews during World War II

10. neo-Nazi Banderites are Bandera followers or Bandera fans. Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera^[+] was an anti-Semite leader with Nazi ideology collaborating with Nazi Germany in executing ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews and other perceived subhumans including Slavs, Gypsies, gays, etc. He founded and headed a political party OUN-B and its military wing UPA. His followers and troops were called Banderites. In modern Ukraine, there are millions of fans or followers of Bandera, who is considered a national hero since 2014 when Ukrainian nationalists came to power backed by the West.

With the help of Nazis, they stormed Lviv in 1941 and idiotically proclaimed a non-democratic, fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Soviet government on the radio as they foolishly assumed that Germans (who occupied the territory, taking it from the Soviets) would go along with it like in Croatia. But Adolf Hitler would have none of it and in a matter of weeks, all the leaders were either killed or arrested, including Bandera. It seems that those Ukrainian peasants were very ignorant of Nazi Generalplan Ost^[+] (Nazi Germany's blueprint for the genocide, extermination and large-scale ethnic cleansing of Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous peoples of Eastern Europe), which was quite clear about Ukrainians to be treated as a race of slaves.

11. West^[+] = the US, EU, UK, and Canada - Anglo-Saxons; NATO states

12. The US and his American wife helped Yushchenko to scheme a smear campaign against the President Ynukovych and the Orange revolution in 2004/2005 to force a third round of election, which got him elected