The Situation in the Ukraine. #12

sepheronx wrote:Well, those VVS guys were apparently near borders. Could have got lost or kidnapped as Ukraine has had quite a few times violated the border and villages hit with Ukrainian bombs. That shpuld have been the start of open war.

In other news, one journalist dead, another wounded by krainian shellings:

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150412/1020798187.html

They were many kilometers inside Ukrainian territory. It was NOT a case of "500 meter" violation.

Plus, given what was going on, you expect me to believe they just blundered in?

Please They knew exactly where they were.

You are mentally challenged. No other way to put it.

Pathetic.

Deny, change the subject, whatever.

T-72B3. Keep crying kid.

You wish pardner, but even if i might be "mentally challenged", TREASON is infinitely worse. One of the most despicable of crimes apart from murder. One can have sympathy for a "mentally challenged", but one can't have anything but loath and down right visceral hate for TRAITOURS.

mack8 wrote:

You are mentally challenged. No other way to put it.

Pathetic.

Deny, change the subject, whatever.

T-72B3. Keep crying kid.

You wish pardner, but even if i might be "mentally challenged", TREASON is infinitely worse. One of the most despicable of crimes apart from murder. One can have sympathy for a "mentally challenged", but one can't have anything but loath and down right visceral hate for TRAITOURS.

Treason is not shilling the government's line?

LOL.

I guess everyone the USSR imprisoned deserved it, because TREASON.

And by your own logic, Snowden deserves it because TREASON.

You are too empty headed to even follow your own logic, as asinine as it is.

TR1 wrote:

mack8 wrote:Oh and on another note, something that stroke me and shows the disgusting US and stooge's manipulating machine at work, i was reading through a US military book from 1995 about the then ex-soviet navy and so on, and it had a bit about the more political aspects, as expected everything was at least scathing towards the soviets, their practices, planning and so on. But it say there, black on white, how Crimea is overwhelmingly russian and how it had been artificially attached to Ukraine in 1954, and how the eastern Ukraine  vast majority of inhabitants are russians. This in 1995, straight from the horse's mouth.

It show how much could have been saved if treason and ineptitude would not have been so rampant in those days, eastern Ukraine, Crimea and even Transnistria should have been protected above anything else, and either given independence or integrated into Russia if they would have so desired. The mess today would have not happened, seriously doubt anyone would have given two f*** about western Ukraine.

Chechnya was conquered.
Chechnya is mostly non-Russians.

Chechnya wanted independence.

What was Russia's response again?

Lol. Blind shilling from you like always.

Too bad kiddos like you never lived in one of the states you constantly rush to defense online.

Ohh please, Chechnya wanted independence my ass. Chechnya was funded by George Soros the US and Saudi Wahabits to steer up terrorism against russians. That was no Seperatistic movement from their own, no not even a minority of chechens wanted seperatism it were only terrorists among them some ukropy fascists and from ME.

Stop lying here like you are talking with some uneducated americans about history and politics, if you want to push this russophobic lies you can do that on mp net where such garbage is appreciated.

I'll reply here one more time because there's no point in going tit for tat (don't have time for such "games" anyway): when all one is left with in a discussion to reply with are lowly insults, he's already lost the argument. Good riddance.

That is funny, since you intellectual midgets stooped to insults RIGHT away when all I had done is only posted photos of equipment.

But thanks for admitting you lost the argument.

mack8 wrote:I'll reply here one more time because there's no point in going tit for tat (don't have time for such "games" anyway): when all one is left with in a discussion to reply with are lowly insults, he's already lost the argument.

The point is he never made an argument the only thing he made was posting some tanks with white paint and then proclaiming those are russian soldiers invading ukraine, of course no evidence except his bullshit of White paint with a slogan that somehow proofs combat involvement. He then further pushed his bullshit and made it all to a debate proclaimed his victory and that he is right and for asking questions the rest of us must be in denial. Still no proof how wet white paint is a proof of combat involvement but here you go you are a DENIER.


Almost amusing to see a Nazi and US empire denialist to call others deniars of something, according to this shill there are no nazis in ukraine which the US has pushed to power illegally of course.

sepheronx wrote:First chechen war was a mistake but at same time, many Russians died by Chechens prior to the engagement.  But they gained their autonomy which they squandered and attacked Russia which then became second chechen war.  I wouldnt say this is the same thing as east Ukrainians didnt start the killings.

Kremlin was meddling in Chechnya (including the coup attempt let's not forget that) long before war started. The war was as much a result of what was going on in Grozny, as power politics within the Kremlin.

Moscow never intended to give Chechnya an attempt at Independence, that much is obvious. Chechnya in between the wars was a decentralized hole, essentially sanctioned by Russia, and torn apart by the war. Remember, Mashkadov did not even support the attack on Dagestan.
But it did not need to happen that way, if the choices taken in 1991-1994 were different. Blowing apart a region and then saying "see, they can't handle being independent!" is just absurd.

And the myth of ethnic Russian being massacred by Chechens prior to war is just that. Massively overblown in Russia in past 10-15 years to justify the war.

TR1 wrote:

mack8 wrote:Oh and on another note, something that stroke me and shows the disgusting US and stooge's manipulating machine at work, i was reading through a US military book from 1995 about the then ex-soviet navy and so on, and it had a bit about the more political aspects, as expected everything was at least scathing towards the soviets, their practices, planning and so on. But it say there, black on white, how Crimea is overwhelmingly russian and how it had been artificially attached to Ukraine in 1954, and how the eastern Ukraine  vast majority of inhabitants are russians. This in 1995, straight from the horse's mouth.

It show how much could have been saved if treason and ineptitude would not have been so rampant in those days, eastern Ukraine, Crimea and even Transnistria should have been protected above anything else, and either given independence or integrated into Russia if they would have so desired. The mess today would have not happened, seriously doubt anyone would have given two f*** about western Ukraine.

Chechnya was conquered.
Chechnya is mostly non-Russians.

Chechnya wanted independence.

What was Russia's response again?

Lol. Blind shilling from you like always.

Too bad kiddos like you never lived in one of the states you constantly rush to defense online.

As much of an idiot as Yeltsin was; he did at least negotiate with the Chechen rebel leadership, for nearly 4 years. He of course recognized them as the defacto authority there too, despite them having come to power less then legitimately (read: throwing the old Moscow-loyal leader from out of a multi-storey building). The rebels seized power yet they had no gripe; no-one was threatening the Chechen people, no-one was trying to repress their language or deny them autonomy - on the contrary; Yeltsin's slogan to the regional leaders was 'have as much sovereignty as you can swallow'; and he offered the same to Dudayev too. Tatarstan even went as far as taking advantage of this in order to basically write themselves in as a sovereign world state in their constitution.
What the hell exactly was preventing Chechnya from working out a deal? They seized power in a violent way with no legitimate cause and yet they got patience and compromise in return. But Dudayev was seemingly not interested in anything other than full independence.
Dudayev simply got greedy. The last word was that he was prepared to keep Chechnya in Russia only if his administration received multi-billion dollar sums from the federal government yearly. Clearly for bankrupt early 90s Russia, with other regional leaders looking keenly on too; this was not an option.

Oh and of course, in the meanwhile, Dudayev let all the criminals out of prisons, fanned ethno-nationalism in the republic, it became a haven for arms and drugs trafficking, kidnap & ransom raids on neighbouring regions, all sorts of banditry. Non-Chechens were being kicked out of their homes in droves or leaving of their own accord before anyone got to them.
The ~45% of the republic's population that wasn't Chechen had of course, no say whatsoever in Dudayev's administration as to whether or not Chechnya should be independent. Between them, the Cossacks and pro-Moscow Chechens in the north, and other pro-Moscow Chechens (mainly urbanized populations); they probably accounted for a majority of the population, if anything.

Now please go ahead and tell me - one thing about this whole situation; that the Donbass seperatist conflict has in common with it? Other than the fact that it's a seperatist conflict of course.

WTF is wrong with this crowd here? Mod, please stop this embarrassing and ridiculous thread. Send this Nerds for a while on vacation. The level here is absolutely not worthy russiadefence-forum.

flamming_python wrote:
Now please go ahead and tell me - one thing about this whole situation; that the Donbass seperatist conflict has in common with it? Other than the fact that it's a seperatist conflict of course.

We can disagree on the specifics of Chechnya, that's fine. You are wildly underplaying Yeltsin and Grachev's decision to forget the diplomatic path and go in with the guns. Also Russian special service meddling inside Chechnya against Dudaev. Was the situation peaceful? No. Did it require full on war? no.
Regarding non Chechens, crime affected them as well as ethnic Chechens. I heard many similar tales about Russians in Dagestan, the fear people had of pan-Caucasian forces. Did not pan out, not to any serious extent.
Regarding anti-Russian (really just pro-Chechen) policies in society, well, their land, their choices. Unfortunate they maybe were, but given Russia's history in Chechnya it really has no standing to dictate. Not back then anwyays, today is a different story.

However the only reason I brought it up was a response to Mack's point about Crimea being "mostly Russian, never belonging to Ukraine really, and not getting the independence it wanted".
Russia is absolutely no better in this respect to Chechya.

Donbass also was majority Ukrainian, if not by much. It also did not actually have an effective vote where most of the population participated. The only difference is Chechnya did not have a huge power backing it up.

But for some people, Russia can do no wrong.

TR1 wrote:

sepheronx wrote:First chechen war was a mistake but at same time, many Russians died by Chechens prior to the engagement.  But they gained their autonomy which they squandered and attacked Russia which then became second chechen war.  I wouldnt say this is the same thing as east Ukrainians didnt start the killings.

Kremlin was meddling in Chechnya (including the coup attempt let's not forget that) long before war started. The war was as much a result of what was going on in Grozny, as power politics within the Kremlin.

It armed counter-rebels to raise a revolt in Grozny in '93 - which failed. What else?

Moscow never intended to give Chechnya an attempt at Independence, that much is obvious.

Nor should it have. How Dudayev and his gang 'managed' Chechnya from '91-'94 should have rang alarm bells everywhere. I'm not sure that it did; Moscow went in simply because it wasn't in the mind for loosing territory - which was just as well.

Chechnya in between the wars was a decentralized hole, essentially sanctioned by Russia, and torn apart by the war. Remember, Mashkadov did not even support the attack on Dagestan.

You said it yourself it was a decentralized hole - or to be more precise; a hell-hole ruled by a clique of independent warlords, clans and Islamists.

Who the hell was Mashkadov and who the hell cares what he did or didn't support? The fact that the invasion took place, involving thousands of Islamist fighters - should give you a clue as to how much his support or non-support counted for outside Grozny.

But it did not need to happen that way, if the choices taken in 1991-1994 were different. Blowing apart a region and then saying "see, they can't handle being independent!" is just absurd.

I think that in regard to choices taken in regards to 1991-1994 Chechnya, for the most part, it was one of the rare parts of 90s Russian politics where Russian leaders actually acted wisely and attempted all peaceful and civilized solutions first. It was the Chechen side that was being unreasonable. They were given everything for their people and republic on a platter.
Not all of it of course. The whole idea for example of involving Basayev and his men in the operation to defeat the Georgians in Abkhazia was an epic fail and soon to backfire bigtime.
And yes there were plenty of people like Berezovsky for example, and other Rusisan officials, that fanned the flames for their own ends or sold arms through it, etc... but I don't blame Yeltsin for that.

And the myth of ethnic Russian being massacred by Chechens prior to war is just that. Massively overblown in Russia in past 10-15 years to justify the war.

Not massacred as in holocaust-style; just good ol' ethnic cleansing and raiding - 'get out of our house Masha, it's ours now', etc...
And the motives were often not ethnic but criminal - it's just that Chechens have the clan ties to fall back on so they didn't really go after each other; at least not while the urbanite minorities like Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians, Koreans, etc... were around for the picking.

The effect was still the same though. All the minorities were thrown out, threatened and left, or killed. Now there are almost none of them left in Chechnya - where in Soviet times Grozny was one of the most multi-cultural cities in the USSR and Chechnya itself had long been made up of Russian Cossack descendants as much as Chechens themselves.
Half of that was due to the war I know. Yet during the war this same nationalism showed itself too; like when Russian girls were being traded at the slave markets and so on.

The TR1 troll is engaged in the usual revisionist lamer history. The Donbas separatists were not calling for secession in March and April
of 2014. They wanted federalism which they were entitled to. But the Kiev regime decided to shut them up with a military campaign.
Those must be the fine European values of the Maidan.

The Ukrainians in the Donbas have not been ethnically cleansed by the separatist governments. In contrast, Grozny was ethnically
cleansed from of all its Russian inhabitants. We are talking about 200,000 just from Grozny. TR1 is engaging in the typical hate propagandist
tactic of calling the victims the aggressors and the aggressors the victims. It is the butcher Kiev regime that is based on ethno-fascism
and has an explicit ethnic purity agenda. In this way it is vastly more similar to Dudayev's regime compared to the Donbas separatists.

Russia had a right to protect justification for regime change in Chechnya. NATO doesn't get exclusive rights to regime change and
humanitarian intervention. No amount of lying by TR1 will make it so.

flamming_python wrote:

It armed counter-rebels to raise a revolt in Grozny in '93 - which failed. What else?

Thats...kind of big don't you think? Not to mention KGB funneled weapons into opposition hands well before as well. Don't take my word from it- I have family who were KGB-then-FSB anti-terrorism units active in the North Kavkaz.


Nor should it have. How Dudayev and his gang 'managed' Chechnya from '91-'94 should have rang alarm bells everywhere. I'm not sure that it did; Moscow went in simply because it wasn't in the mind for loosing territory - which was just as well.

Not only territory. Taking back Chechnya and stamping Kremlin control would have gone a long way to strengthening Yeltsins (and his lackeys, Grachev included) position in Russia. After 1993 White House crisis, Yeltsin was not exactly the savior of the Russian Federation anymore.

You said it yourself it was a decentralized hole - or to be more precise; a hell-hole ruled by a clique of independent warlords, clans and Islamists.

Right- after the first war had destroyed much of the country, created warlords, brought in Middle Easterner funding and personal who did not exist before in the region....and radical Islam. Once again, the latter was not a serious factor in the early 90s. War radicalizes. What else is new?

Who the hell was Mashkadov and who the hell cares what he did or didn't support? The fact that the invasion took place, involving thousands of Islamist fighters - should give you a clue as to how much his support or non-support counted for outside Grozny.

Mashkhadov was the nominal authority. Like I said, the country was fractured by war. If the Russian military did not go in....what would have happened? probably a lot less dead people, and an imperfect, but likely better political situation by the end of the 90s. And no Wahhabism, not to the same extent. Foreign non-Muslim power invading is just what Wahhabism needed to grow.

I think that in regard to choices taken in regards to 1991-1994 Chechnya, for the most part, it was one of the rare parts of 90s Russian politics where Russian leaders actually acted wisely and attempted all peaceful and civilized solutions first.
Not after 1993. First few years it seemed the hopes would be realized. but then again, how is that different for Russia overall? Yeltsin did not seem like the thieving scum he turned out to be back in 1991.

It was the Chechen side that was being unreasonable. They were given everything for their people and republic on a platter.
Look, I am not saying Chechnya was a flowering gem untill Russia came in and ruined everything. But outright invasion and a coup attempt radicalized the situation massively. It did not need to go that far. Everyone would have been better off if scumbags did not get power on both sides and destroy Chechnya, grow Wahhabism across ALL of Kavkaz and turn the area into an economic black hole today.

And yes there were plenty of people like Berezovsky for example, and other Rusisan officials, that fanned the flames for their own ends or sold arms through it, etc... but I don't blame Yeltsin for that.
Yeltsin was too busy figuring out how to make privatization fill his pocket in the jucier parts of Russia.

it's just that Chechens have the clan ties to fall back on so they didn't really go after each other

Orly? Chechen clan fights are some of the most brutal anywhere in Kavkaz. Non-chechens may seem like easy targets, but serious blood fueds (I almost said Libel, damn the Jew-obsessors in this thread) are reserved for Chechens themselves. Overall it was an Akward position- I don't think anyone should be forced out of their homes, and no Stalin-era population shifts can justify it....but the Russian gov could have made a program to get ethnic Russians resettled in Russian federal subjects outside of Chechnya. Anwyays, just speculating here. In the end the army shelled villages and cities in Chechnya without discriminating what ethnicity lived there. How nice of them.

Half of that was due to the war I know. Yet during the war this same nationalism showed itself too; like when Russian girls were being traded at the slave markets and so on.
Honestly speaking, I am not sure of the veracity of the 'Russian ethnic slave markets" claim. I have done some research on it and....questionable in my mind. More generally to Chechen nationalism- yes it was exploited by formerly Soviet officials who grabbed a chance to carve out their local "sulatantes" of sorts. I am tempted to attribute Chechen nationalism (Noxchi myths today are pretty sad) to their history within Russian Empire, USSR, and the wars of the 90s. You are quite correct- it did not exist in the late 80s. Today it is a product of trauma, IMO, on a national scale.

Sorry I suck @ Multiquote.

How convincing he can not keep his bullshit story up with russian forces in ukraine with his twitter research now he switches the topic to chechnya which he lies again and ignores historical facts like western NGO's like Freedom for Chechnya, sponsored by George Soros that financed chechen terrorists and that this "seperatism" was nothing else but let only by western backed terrorists, the chechen civilian population never wanted to leave RF they were afraid of terrorists when they started indiscriminately killing everyone that was not chechen and pro chechen, but now since those scum has thined out the civilian population even help when they can to fight chechen terrorists along with chechen forces fighting wahabit scum. Either stay on topic ad actually finish the bullshit you have started and post relevant sources that back up your claim or refrain on shitting around here, because you are such a desperate excuse of a russophobe that only drags attention like a whore but has nothing to contribute here in any sense.

TR1 wrote:

flamming_python wrote:
Now please go ahead and tell me - one thing about this whole situation; that the Donbass seperatist conflict has in common with it? Other than the fact that it's a seperatist conflict of course.

We can disagree on the specifics of Chechnya, that's fine. You are wildly underplaying Yeltsin and Grachev's decision to forget the diplomatic path and go in with the guns. Also Russian special service meddling inside Chechnya against Dudaev. Was the situation peaceful? No. Did it require full on war? no.

They negotiated for 3-4 years. This was plenty enough time for everyone to agree a deal - even if the deal would only have consisted of 'OK we accept Russian soveregnty for the time being, but we reserve the right to raise the issue of independence at a later date'.
This region was under the formal sovereignty of the Russian government after all - you can't seriously expect them to have left it to limbo forever? The population of Chechnya, don't forget, were all Russian citizens and Russia had an obligation to them too - including the +50% that probably wasn't so enthusiastic about splitting-off at the behest of some random nationalists who forced themselves into power.

I don't know honestly, I wasn't there. But what I suspect is that Russia exhausted all its options by late '94. Negotiation failed. Arming a revolt failed. What else was left for them to do? Let the region become an even bigger hell-hole, risking destabilizing the North Caucasus further, while regional leaders in Tatarstan & Yakutia were quietly looking on and thinking about whether Dudayev's precedent wouldn't be such a bad one to follow?

Regarding non Chechens, crime affected them as well as ethnic Chechens. I heard many similar tales about Russians in Dagestan, the fear people had of pan-Caucasian forces. Did not pan out, not to any serious extent.
Regarding anti-Russian (really just pro-Chechen) policies in society, well, their land, their choices. Unfortunate they maybe were, but given Russia's history in Chechnya it really has no standing to dictate. Not back then anwyays, today is a different story.

I don't understand what is so pro-Chechen about promoting violent ethno-nationalism and letting the criminals out of your prisons to bully minorities out of the country, and taking an uncompromising, unrealistic attitude with the central government towards a path of confrontation which you have no hope of militarily winning.

Pro-Chechen would be doing everything to build up the economy of your republic, doing everything to raise the prosperity of everyone who lives in it, fighting crime and negative tendencies, raising birthrates, guaranteeing the rights of everyone who lives in your republic's legal, linguistic, etc... rights regardless of their ethnicity, promoting Chechen language among your people (including non-Chechens, why not); and doing everything to promote yourself as a civilized, modern people.
Believe me - this would be half the road to independence already - if that's what's ultimately desired even after everything I listed has been achieved (and it should all indeed be way ahead of independence on your list of priorities)

That BS what Dudayev and co. did, didn't do anything for Chechen independence, and perhaps it was never intended to either.

However the only reason I brought it up was a response to Mack's point about Crimea being "mostly Russian, never belonging to Ukraine really, and not getting the independence it wanted".
Russia is absolutely no better in this respect to Chechya.

Well we can't compare the Crimea to Chechnya; the Crimea was swiped by Russia before anything could occur.

If Russia hadn't stepped in though than I suspect it would have turned out like the Donbass; the Ukrainians would not have bothered with any negotiations, they would have just declared anyone who supports independence as terrorists and launched an ATO there against people who hadn't had time to have actually done any wrong yet or to discredit their own self-rule.

This approach has much more in common with Gamsakhurdia's towards Abkhazia and S. Ossetia, or Moldova's towards Pridnestrovie in the early 90s, than to Russia's vis-a-vis Chechnya.

Donbass also was majority Ukrainian, if not by much. It also did not actually have an effective vote where most of the population participated. The only difference is Chechnya did not have a huge power backing it up.

But for some people, Russia can do no wrong.

Donbass had the May referendum, which the lines were huge for and in some cases went on for longer than a kilometre. I forget what the turnout was but it was pretty reasonable; not less than you might expect in a presidential election for instance. As I recall +75% of voters called for the DNR/LNR sovereignty (not independence note; the DNR/LNR authorities at that time were still holding out hope for negotiations with the Ukraine and to use the vote as leverage)

I do not know of any such vote being organized in Dudayev's Chechnya, or of his regime ever asking his own people what they wanted.

I've sorta had my say on the earlier points already, so I'll move onto these.

[quote="TR1"] it's just that Chechens have the clan ties to fall back on so they didn't really go after each other

Orly? Chechen clan fights are some of the most brutal anywhere in Kavkaz. Non-chechens may seem like easy targets, but serious blood fueds (I almost said Libel, damn the Jew-obsessors in this thread) are reserved for Chechens themselves.

Exactly, you said it yourself - why the hell would some criminals there want to involve themselves in a blood-fued, or a clan-war or whatever?
Robbing and taking property from minorities is so much easier; there's no-one to protect them - certainly not Dudayev's regime; which was unofficially sanctioning it pretty much.

but the Russian gov could have made a program to get ethnic Russians resettled in Russian federal subjects outside of Chechnya. Anwyays, just speculating here. In the end the army shelled villages and cities in Chechnya without discriminating what ethnicity lived there. How nice of them.

Those ethnic Russians were mostly descended from the Terek Cossacks that started settling the region and Terek river, starting from the late 17th century. During the Soviet times, upon the return of the Chechen people from exile - the Soviet government actually trusted the local Russians less, than the Chechens; due to their Cossack-roots and alleged lack of sympathy for communism.
Why should these people have been resettled anywhere? Chechnya is their home and had been for centuries.

Honestly speaking, I am not sure of the veracity of the 'Russian ethnic slave markets" claim. I have done some research on it and....questionable in my mind.

It's in a vid that I saw on 90s Chechnya. A whole bunch of refugees were interviewed; Chechens, Russians, and an interview with 2 girls in quite terrible condition; who claimed that they were being sold on the slave markets in Grozny.

I am tempted to attribute Chechen nationalism (Noxchi myths today are pretty sad) to their history within Russian Empire, USSR, and the wars of the 90s. You are quite correct- it did not exist in the late 80s. Today it is a product of trauma, IMO, on a national scale.

No doubt, going through what they did would make them quite unstable and it has.

I'm already starting to see the same here with people from the Donbass, that I can identify from their accents on public transport. They stand-out by their behaviour; like they are constantly on edge, swearing and arguing very loudly with each other in the metro, etc... my friend drives a taxi told me how some Slavic-looking guys swiped his phone while he wasn't looking not long ago - they're probably from the Ukraine too.
Not St. Petersburg cultural standards for sure.

Like FP said, the only thing similar between Chechnya and Donbass is that it's a separatist style conflict. Just about everything else is different, especially the root causes, context and dynamics of the conflict.

Without getting into lengthy arguments, the Ukraine is essentially a unnatural, non-functioning, fake state. It's an attempt to fuse together Galicia with Novorosija and Malorosija. Just by looking at it's history since independence, going from one existential crisis to the next, even a moron can come to that conclussion.

The ever increasing hysterical repression that the hunta has to employ just to stay afloat is testament to this fact.

It's not just about loosing the Donbass (just one episode), but loosing more than half the country

Most western people wanting to read about the situation will do : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass

And, please, read on the right, "forces in presence" (strength)

"42,000 regular Russian soldiers from 117 units (RUSI estimate of combined rotation)"
"20,000–32,000 fighters, including 3,000–4,000 Russian volunteers (according to the separatists)"
~10,000 fighters
(according to experts)
~7,500+ Russian infantry
(according to experts)
12,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine,
50,000 on border
(U.S. estimate)

How can such bullshit be writen?

It might sound fun, but recall that 99% of people wanting to "seriously read about it" will go straight to the wiki article. Very sad.

cracker wrote:Most western people wanting to read about the situation will do : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass

And, please, read on the right, "forces in presence" (strength)

"42,000 regular Russian soldiers from 117 units (RUSI estimate of combined rotation)"
"20,000–32,000 fighters, including 3,000–4,000 Russian volunteers (according to the separatists)"
~10,000 fighters
(according to experts)
~7,500+ Russian infantry
(according to experts)
12,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine,
50,000 on border
(U.S. estimate)

How can such bullshit be writen?

It might sound fun, but recall that 99% of people wanting to "seriously read about it" will go straight to the wiki article. Very sad.

You are right, it is ludicrous.

But it is also funny. The numbers the give are the same size as the Ukrainian army (consisting of paramilitary formations
and regular mobilized troops). You would think that reporters covering the story from the Kiev regime side of the front
would notice this detail. I have not seen a single photo or video of anything that would look like a regular army formation
from the Donbas side. The age distribution is all wrong. Too few 20 year olds and too many fighters in their 50s.

With 42,000 Russian troops in Ukraine the front would have been near the Polish border by the summer of last year. Any
clown who does not believe this should consider how fast the Georgian forces collapsed in 2008. They were facing a rather
rag tag Russian force with decrepit equipment.