Post by Kamilo on Nov 26, 2024 13:18:23 GMT
Recently re-watched World War II in Colour (produced in 2009), and the narrator literally says the Nazis were welcomed in many areas of Ukraine that they invaded. This totally blew my mind, as the presence/otherwise of Nazi sympathizers and groups (e.g. Azov) in Ukraine was almost classified as missinfo these days.
The Donbas has up to 74.9% Russian speakers, i.e. it's the predominant language in much of these areas.
Don't want to derail the conversation, just trying to point out that the issues between Ukraine and Russia go very deep on an ethnic and cultural level (similar to many of these conflicts post-USSR dissolution, where masses of people ended up living within the national boundaries of new nations where their ethnicity was in the minority - with disastrous consequences, saw this first hand when I travelled through Croatia and parts of Montenegro years back).
Personally, I genuinely don't think Putin has any "imperial" intentions take over all the neighbouring countries and sweep across Europe.
It is extremely complex. The Ukrainian nationalism movement is very much tied to Nazism historically. Stepan Bandera was one of the leaders of the independence movement in the 30s and 40s. He and his followers committed assassinations and murders of soviets and poles. He saw Hitlers war as a path for independence to Ukraine. My great grandfather is one of his victims, killed with 15 others and buried in the woods. A Ukrainian church here in Ohio 5 minutes from my home has a monument in his honor.
