“You are a pro-war anarchists.”

This shit should be deleted.

Taking no war but the class war to exciting new frontiers.

See them realize that capturing lands costs the lives of not only people in the military but also civilians because for civilians the war does not end when occupation begins.

Just Ukrainian propaganda, nothing more nothing less. See virtually any serious academic/scholar on Eastern Europe (i.e. not people like Taras Kuzio, who is a Ukrainian patriot first and a second-rate scholar) about, for example, Crimeans' views on the annexation and about being so-called "liberated" by the post-Maidan regime. They'll tell you that Crimea's mostly ethnic Russian population (which was the case before the annexation and is not merely the result of demographic manipulation) sympathize more with Russia than they do with the Russophobic and discriminatory post-Maidan government. I already have some sources ready:

Here’s Mark Steinberg in his mostly bourgeois history of Russia (i.e. A History of Russia, 9th ed.), co-authored with the late Nicholas Riasanovsky:

Steinberg wrote: The accession of Crimea into the Russia Federation in March 2014 was viewed by most Western powers as the annexation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine in flagrant violation of international law and led to years of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia and deepening isolation. For Putin’s government and most of the Russian-speaking majority in Crimea, even after the role of Russian troops (initially disguised) was acknowledged, this was a just and proper act. (618)

Here are the scholars John O'Loughlin and Gerard Toal in their lengthy article dealing specifically with Crimeans' views on the annexation, in which the authors conclude by writing:

O'Loughlin and Toal wrote: Crimea has experienced considerable transformation and turmoil since the annexation (de Stefano 2017). At present, however, there is no indication that a majority of current residents of the peninsula question or regret the annexation. It is viewed as a closed subject. Researchers would do well to acknowledge this as an essentially contested issue in international affairs rather than a subject that immediately requires recitation of a standard litany of plots and offences by the opposing sides. The foundations for contemporary and future peaceful conflict resolution can only be built by acknowledging that irrespective of the controversial means by which Crimea became part of Russia, the majority of its residents appear happy about this fact and want it to stay there. Russia’s annexation of Crimea may not have widespread legitimacy but at this point in time it has it where it counts, within Russia and within Crimea. (18-19)

(Incidentally and somewhat predictably, there is also widespread support for the Russian annexation of Crimea within Russia.)

And lastly here’s Richard Sakwa's rather informative Frontline Ukraine (his newer book, The Lost Peace, probably contains more up-to-date information):

Sakwa wrote: Anti-Maidan sentiment was strongest in Crimea, leading to its incorporation into Russia, which will be discussed in the next chapter, as well as in the putative ‘Novorossiya’ in the Donbas, which will also be discussed later. (93)

Sakwa wrote: According to the referendum commission, 83 per cent of Crimea’s eligible voters cast their ballot (1,274,096), of whom 96.7 per cent backed reunification with Russia (1,233,002). Thus, 82 per cent of the total Crimean population apparently voted in favour. There were no independent Western observers, and thus the vote inevitably attracted widespread criticism. […] Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that even in perfect conditions a majority in Crimea would have voted for union with Russia, and in Sevastopol the vote would have been overwhelming. (104-105)

Despite Adri's continuing attempts to justify Putin's invasions, occupations, annexations, and to paint a picture of happy loving Russophile pro-conquerer sentiment among the vanquished, I still find Solidarity Collectives' contributions here to be important.

As for the idea that just chanting "no war but the class war" establishes an internationalist socialist, anarchist, or anything elsist position on Ukraine it isn't persuasive, especially when anti-militarist positions on Ukraine line up so well with AFD, Le Pen, and tankie groups like ANSWER and Code Pink. Anarchists and other Ukrainians don't need to pass some weird purist test as to whether their modern military aid comes from a revolutionary source, of which there are none.

For more substantive rebuttal to adri's pro-Russian nationalist line I did address some of his claims in the comments here: https://libcom.org/article/are-you-my-martyr

I don't pretend to be an expert but I know reductionist cherry picking arguments when I see them, and the idea that Crimea had a love fest over being annexed by Russia is repugnant.

Motopu wrote: [...] to justify Putin's invasions, occupations, annexations, and to paint a picture of happy loving Russophile pro-conquerer sentiment among the vanquished, I still find Solidarity Collectives' contributions here to be important.

Yawn, nobody is "justifying Putin's invasion, occupation, annexation," etc. etc. What's wrong with you?

Motopu wrote: For more substantive rebuttal to adri's pro-Russian nationalist line I did address some of his claims in the comments here: https://libcom.org/article/are-you-my-martyr

There's nothing "pro-Russian nationalist" about it. I'm literally quoting bourgeois academics like Steinberg (whose book is used in introductory courses) and Western media sources like NBC News when I note how Crimea's ethnic Russian majority doesn't desire any form of "liberation" from the post-Maidan government.

Motopu wrote: For more substantive rebuttal to adri's pro-Russian nationalist line I did address some of his claims in the comments here: https://libcom.org/article/are-you-my-martyr

You didn't "rebut" anything.

Motopu wrote: I don't pretend to be an expert but I know reductionist cherry picking arguments when I see them, and the idea that Crimea had a love fest over being annexed by Russia is repugnant.

That's right, "not an expert"—as in you haven't actually done any serious reading on Russian or Ukrainian history, haven't read anything about the 2014 Maidan coup or bothered investigating why there is hostility towards the post-Maidan government in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine. Nobody is also trying to portray Crimeans as having a "love fest" over the overthrow of Yanukovych (which was illegal/undemocratic, by the way, since you seem to be so concerned with such things) and the subsequent annexation of Crimea. I'm only pointing out what other non-propagandist scholars have noted, which is that a substantial number of Crimea's ethnic Russian population (particularly in places like Sevastopol) sympathize more with Russia than with the post-Maidan government. It's also sort of funny how there has been an outpouring of mindless liberal support for Zelensky, just because the orange buffoon was mean to him, when the majority of them probably couldn't even locate Crimea on a map.

I have studied Russian history at the graduate level and was a reader/grader for two Russian history classes. I also supplied many sources in our last exchange, which is where, after reading and considering your arguments, I found them to be rehashed Putin talking points for the most part. I doubt anyone is reading this but if they are I again refer them back to our exchange here: https://libcom.org/article/are-you-my-martyr

I understand people with deep ideological blinders and sectarian lines about politics think they are the only ones who can really know history, and I get that it doesn't really pay to spend hours and months debating them in forums so I'm going to go do other things.

Suffice to say gunpoint referendums and public opinion polls under occupation are not the whole story of a complex situation like Crimea or the so called Donbas "Republics." You have not at all made a case against the Maidan Revolution or that the occupied areas of Ukraine got what they really wanted.

Motopu wrote: Suffice to say gunpoint referendums and public opinion polls under occupation are not the whole story of a complex situation like Crimea or the so called Donbas "Republics." You have not at all made a case against the Maidan Revolution or that the occupied areas of Ukraine got what they really wanted.

How about you engage with any of my sources, or maybe present your own, instead of droning on about how anyone who criticizes the post-Maidan government is a Russian apologist? You're really going to argue that the overwhelming support for Russia in places like Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea is merely the result of "everyone being held hostage" (just like how Kuzio argues incidentally)? Are there no genuine grievances among Ukrainians in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, along with Crimea, towards the discriminatory, fascistic, and Russophobic policies of the post-Maidan government? This is all just Russian propaganda according to you?

adri wrote: Just Ukrainian propaganda, nothing more nothing less. See virtually any serious academic/scholar on Eastern Europe (i.e. not people like Taras Kuzio, who is a Ukrainian patriot first and a second-rate scholar) about, for example, Crimeans' views on the annexation and about being so-called "liberated" by the post-Maidan regime. They'll tell you that Crimea's mostly ethnic Russian population (which was the case before the annexation and is not merely the result of demographic manipulation) sympathize more with Russia than they do with the Russophobic and discriminatory post-Maidan government. I already have some sources ready:

Since I just happened to finish it, we can also add to the sources listed above Peter Kenez and his (mostly bourgeois/economically liberal—similar really to Steinberg and Riasanovsky's book) 2017 A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to Its Legacy, which touches on the Maidan Coup in the very last chapter. Like the scholars cited above, Kenez also alludes to how a majority of Crimeans, most of whom are ethnic Russians, sympathize more with Russia than with the post-Maidan government in Kiev:

Kenez wrote: Putin’s forces occupied Crimea, a peninsula that had been attached to Ukraine only in 1955 and had a relatively small Ukrainian minority. The main reason for this was that the new government had made it clear that it would not renew the lease to the only naval base Russia had on the Black Sea, Sevastopol, which was to expire in 2017. According to the last census less than a quarter of the population of the peninsula considered themselves Ukrainian. (333)

Also, going back to the question of whether the conflict between the pro- and anti-Maidan protesters starting around 2014, including the separatists in the Donbass region, should be considered a "civil war," Kenez (repeatedly) answers in the affirmative, and he's correct:

Comrade Motopu wrote: And yeah, it’s not a civil war. Just because there are two sides fighting inside a country doesn’t make it a Civil War, especially when there would have been no war if not for the invading force from another country. A cursory look at US imperialism in Southeast Asia or Latin America should show anyone this. It’s just weird to insist Russia didn’t kick start the war and that they don’t sustain it. “Nope, I don’t see any elephant in the room, sorry.” Like, the Contras were an American created counter-insurgency. Call that a civil war if you like, but it was a US intervention in Nicaragua.

Kenez wrote: Indeed, the president [i.e. Yanukovych], although he had been repeatedly elected by his eastern and southern Ukrainian constituency, was an uninspiring, corrupt leader with a murky past. The authorities mishandled the situation. They used too much force in dispersing the demonstrators, thereby intensifying the revolutionary atmosphere. Within a few weeks, the demonstrations were transformed into a civil war. (332)

Kenez wrote: With Yanukovych’s removal, a long civil war commenced. The delicate balance between the pro-Russian and anti-Russian Ukrainians was broken. The country that had served as an intermediary between the European Union and Russia was no more. With the establishment of a government in Kiev whose authority was based on support from nationalist forces, Russia’s security came to be endangered more than at any time since the demise of the Soviet Union. Any desire for compromise evaporated from the government in Ukraine. Expecting support from the West, especially from the United States, they found it possible to provoke Putin’s government. (333)

Contrary to some posters in this and other threads (see here and here), the anti-Maidan protesters were not merely Putin puppets, but instead included Ukrainians who had genuine grievances against the ultra-nationalist (and fascistic) post-Maidan government and its discriminatory, Ukrainizing policies (e.g. the almost immediate attempt to do away with Yanukovych's more inclusive language law, which ultimately succeeded in 2019).[1] In other words, the unrest starting around the time of the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovych was not just the result of Russian interference or actors, though Russia obviously lent its support to the anti-Maidan protesters and separatists once they had already sprung up.

1. Kenez also concurs (note also his support for a "free-market economy"—I'm not just throwing around the word "bourgeois" when I use it to describe him and other scholars, which doesn't mean that there is nothing of value in his and others' works):

Kenez wrote: The Maidan revolution of 2013-14 had far-reaching and mostly negative consequences. The greatest sufferer has been Ukraine itself. The large number of people killed will not easily be forgotten; the material devastation will not be easily remedied. Even in the unlikely case that the pro-Russian elements are defeated, such a defeat would not win people over to a concept of nationalism that denies their past and heritage. Being included in the European community will not in itself turn Ukraine into a Poland or a Czech Republic. Economic reforms have costs, and corruption is not easily overcome. The prerequisites of liberal politics and a modern free-market economy are not yet present.

The government of Petro Poroshenko, elected president in 2014, has done nothing to bring about reconciliation of the two parts of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, the government has further embittered the conflict: it failed to repudiate the assistance of an admittedly small group of neo-Nazis; it has been willing to use the help of Muslim Chechen fighters who are in Ukraine simply because of their hatred of Russians; Poroshenko named as governor of the Odessa province Mikheil Saakashvili, a man who had not even been a Ukrainian citizen and had no qualification for the job other than hatred of the Putin regime. Odessa is perhaps the most pro-Russian major city in the country. (333-34)

Regarding Odessa, I think there are definitely other cities in the south and east that are more pro-Russian than Odessa (e.g. Sevastopol), especially since the Russian Invasion. It's worth mentioning again that Kenez was writing around 2017.