I see you guys posting these ceasefire violation images all the time like it’s some smoking gun for Ukraine being the aggressor in their defensive war

Russia is fighting a defensive war against NATO expansion and Ukraine is the aggressor here, they are the ones who violated Minsk 1/2 and never fulfilled their duty to go through a constitutional reform and grant Donetsk and Lugansk more autonomy:

"11. Conducting constitutional reform in Ukraine, with the new constitution coming into force by the end of 2015, providing for decentralization as a key element (taking into account the characteristics of individual areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, agreed with representatives of these areas), as well as the adoption of the permanent legislation on the special status of individual areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in accordance with the measures specified in Note [1], until the end of 2015. (See Notes)"

Where does it show which troops the ceasefire violation was committed by?

In the OSCE reports:

https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512506

https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512605

https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512629

https://www.osce.org/special-monitoring-mission-to-ukraine/512683

Are you suggesting that people in Donetsk and Lugansk bombed themselves to make Ukraine look bad?

And why would ceasefire violations along an internal border like this warrant a full scale invasion from another country?

Because it's a violation of the ceasefire between Ukraine and the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, the three were supposed to stay as one country so long as Ukraine kept their promise and didn't violate Minsk 2, but they did so now we have an even bigger war there.

[–] dandi8@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Then why did Russia start amassing troops and preparing for war months before these ceasefire violations even happened?

What's more plausible, that Russia has precognitive abilities, or that it was looking for an excuse?

And isn't attacking another country kind of counter to this whole 'peace talks' narrative you seem to be suggesting? Shouldn't Russia itself start with condemning the ceasefire violations, instead of entering Ukraine with their army?

No matter which way you try to slice it, Russia is an aggressor.

Edit:
Btw I would have no trouble believing that Russia (or Russian-aligned separatists) bombed a part of Ukraine to make Ukraine look bad and take over the territory. They're committing war crimes left and right, and this would not be the worst one.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lol, precognitive abilities. That's what you need to maintain your cognitive dissonance? The US has been pushing NATO expansion to Russia's border since 1992. It doesn't take a genius to see a pattern that unfolds and repeats over 3 decades.

Your entire narrative relies on Russia just suddenly being an aggressive so that you can attribute the root cause to its internal evil. The reality is that Russia has been talking about this for 30 years and has been very consistent with how it communicated its national security needs. Each aggression you have seen from Russia is part of Russia attempting to respond to US/NATO expansion.

Remember that Russia was invaded twice across the Ukraine border: first by France under Napoleon and then by Germany under the Third Reich. This time, NATO is a transnational nuclear military with no democratic accountability and instead of fighting across Europe it is negotiating across Europe but the strategic positioning is still the same: a massive nuclear military is marching across Europe, aimed at Russia, staffed and developed under Nazi leadership (literally, look it up), and attempting to put a readiness presence at the indefensible border. Russia amassed troops at the border because of history, not because of fantasy precog nor fantasy evil.