this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Yanukovych wasn't strung up by protestors, he was removed from power by a huge majority of the Ukrainian parliament, including members of Yanukovych's own party, and they held an election later that year. For what you're saying to make sense, any large protest in a country would have to potentially void any international treaty that country is party to. Russia doesn't get to invade and annex land just because there was a big protest and then the parliament kicked the president out.
It does happen, that's how the US dodged all its debts to France after the revolution
They removed him illegally! They didn't impeach him because he didn't actually commit an impeachable offense, they just voted to get rid of him. It was an unconstitutional move that had the fullthroated support and backing of the EU and NATO, hence, a Western-backed coup. Russia saw a Western backed coup on its boarder and saw its geopolitical rivals getting ready to plant their flag right against its border, so it reacted in an extreme and unjustified (though understandable) way. Russia was provoked into overextending itself and now the US/NATO strategy is to bleed Russia dry by forcing them to spend all of their resources on this war while hitting them with sanctions.
Except that isn't happening, and now the war could last for years. Decades. Maybe forever, and it'll be like the Korean War with a demilitarized zone but no peace agreement.
How many Ukrainians are you willing to sacrifice to defeat Russia?
I don't have to be willing to sacrifice any Ukrainians because it's not my call to make. I can't make them fight. If they want to surrender, they can. Sending them guns and ammo doesn't stop them from doing that. The guns do nothing without someone to use them. For so long as they don't want to surrender, I say we should support them. How many Ukrainians are you willing to abandon to Russian imperialism? All of the Ukrainians of Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk? The whole country?
Yanukovych's removal was debatably unconstitutional, but it's an important point that it was done by parliament and not by violence. The parliament's position is that Yanukovych abandoned his post.
Tell me, if it had been Zelensky in power in 2014 and he was removed by parliament in the same manner following a big protest, would you be as understanding if Romania marched in to Chernivtsi Oblast and annexed it? Or is Russia just special enough that it's allowed to decide the politics of its neighbours?
Peace negotiations aren't "surrender"
If they try to move towards peace they risk losing America's support, which would turn peace negotiations into a surrender
I prefer peace negotiations over war. That's all. It's not about what Russia "gets" to do, it's about saving lives.
So in your own description, if international support ends, Ukraine will be forced to surrender without a negotiated peace. On that basis, it is either "keep supporting them" or "Ukraine surrenders". Again, that's the situation as you have just described it.
Considering the total failure of both Minsk agreements, the fact that the pre-2014 borders were already based on a treaty with Russia that included security guarantees for Ukraine, and the fact that Russia has no right to anything out of this war, I don't expect Ukraine to really have a lot of faith in any negotiation in which they don't hold an extremely strong hand. The Russian government has demonstrated with Crimea that even if it takes something, it will not be satisfied there, it will be only be emboldened to try to take more. Following that, I say we should give them that strong hand.
They already have a strong hand because of international support, but international support could end if Ukraine tries to negotiate peace without demanding total surrender. It's a Catch-22 that Ukraine has been forced into by the West, because they are not allowed to negotiate for peace. They are only allowed to "win", and that isn't going to happen either.
So the war will never end. Either it ends up like the Korean War or the War on Terror - endless war forever.
Well I disagree with your analysis, but even if you're 100% correct then we should still keep sending them equipment or they'll be forced to surrender. So what's your gripe with Biden looking for money to do that?
They did have the votes and the power to impeach, but yes the procedure was iffy. To be noted though is that Yanukovych already had fled to Russia when he was removed from office. I don't know the legal details but I guess fleeing into the arms of a belligerent state should, in my book, be an impeachable offence.
And in any case that's irrelevant. There have been multiple presidential elections since then. Calling the whole thing a Putsch when it didn't involve the military taking over, or the cessation of democracy, or anything of the sort, is very very disingenuous.
Big picture what happened is that the people wanted to get rid of a president who reneged on election promises (EU ties) and turn the country autocratic, they wanted to have themselves some early elections for a new one. And they got that. Call it a special electoral operation.
It's not irrelevant - he was illegally removed from power, meaning it was literally a coup. Then, after he was removed, the people against the coup government refused to participate in the elections. Democracy collapsed after Euromaidan
The people are neither military nor government, and even parliament isn't government (but legislative) so... no. You're misusing the term. If anything you could call it a revolution but even that's a misnomer as nothing really changed about state organisation itself. The Berkut got abolished, such things, but that's reform not revolution. As said: Special electoral operation, I'm not even using the term tongue in cheek.
First off: He fled. The presidential office was vacant. There was de facto no Ukrainian president as the de jure incumbent was AWOL. Other people would have had the dignity to resign from office -- quite a bit earlier, before shooting at protesters.
Then, boycotting elections is those people's own fucking fault. How else was the situation to be cured? Imagine yourself in the Rada those days, what would your proposal have been? How else could democracy, which you apparently claim to value so much, have been restored but with elections?