Ursprungligen postat av
psychicsailor
De som reste från Ryssland var i minoritet, men de var en kompetent och våldsam minoritet, och kanske var det Putin själv som skickade Girkin (Strelkov), vi vet inte.
Ukrainska medborgare var dock de som var mest pådrivande - men de var inte den militära spjutspetsen. Platonova skriver:
"By late January, the “radicals are coming” scare reached its most intense pro- portions in Donets’k. On 23 January 2014, the Russian Bloc began online recruit- ment on its social media platform for “volunteers” to form “self defence units.”136 On 28 January, when the scare entered its most intense phase, Anti-Maidan Mariupol,137 Donetsk Republic, Russian Bloc and other groups began recruiting people en masse on their social media platforms. On 27 January, a typical post included the following...
...
On 31 January, Donetsk Republic began recruiting people into “people’s self- defence units to for the purpose of defending administrative buildings in Donets’k.
By 27 January, it was clear that the initiative was finally wrested from the local political elites to local activists. Serhiy Bogachov claimed that every day he was receiving calls from activists willing to join people’s self-defence units that formed spontaneously.141 It is important to note that in Kharkiv the elites announced the formation of the self-defence units first142 whereas in Donets’k the pattern was reversed. The process of such spontaneous formation via personal networks is described on one of the blogs. At the end of January, there was a conference to celebrate the anniversary of the Pereyaslavl Rada. Representatives of Russia and “Russian movement of Ukraine,” including Khriakov and Donetsk Republic activist Aleksandr Matyushin participated. When they found out that there were allegedly “busloads” of banderovtsy moving towards the city, they spontaneously organised a Coordinating council. Donetsk Republic activist Matyushin was the chairman. They then began calling to everyone they knew: Cossacks, Afghan veterans and retired army officers – to mobilise them into a self-defence unit." (Platanova, p. 179, The Donbas conflict in Ukraine).
Samma författare konkluderar: "The book thereby demonstrates how crucial for Ukraine are patronal politics, patronage networks and informal centre-region relations, and that it was these local political circumstances, rather than Russia, which brought about the conflict."
[Min läsning: I både Kharkov och Donbass var där starka lokala eliter som var anti-Kiev efter Euromaidan. Platanova diskuterar det politiska spelet, för långt för att återge här.]
Här har du födseln av de militanta seperatisterna. Det man kan anklaga ryssarna för här är att deras medier rapporterade väldigt negativt om händelserna i Kiev, vilket skapade "nazistskräck" i öst. Men det är ju "the rules of the game", sånt ser vi överallt i väst också.
Strelkov då?
"While the evidence that Russian non-state actors helped the insurgency to get off the ground is quite compelling (German and Karagiannis, 2016; Kashin, 2014; Matveeva, 2018; Mitrokhin, 2014), since 2016, more evidence has appeared confirming that Russia as a state did not cause the war. Paul Robinson (2016, 507) argues that Russia has been reacting to the events rather than mastermind- ing them. Moreover, Russian nationalists have been blaming Russia for inaction in relation to the Donbas (Robinson, 2016, 507). Strelkov and others regularly complained that they did not receive enough support from Russia (Sakwa, 2015, 156). As Robinson writes on Strelkov:
despite allegations that he was acting on behalf of the Russian intelligence services, Strelkov himself claims that he came to Ukraine in response to an appeal from Donbass activists. According to Strelkov, the Russian intelli- gence services may have been aware of his plans and did nothing to stop him, but he did not carry his actions out under their instructions (Prokhanov & Strelkov, 2014).
(Robinson, 2016, 511)
...
, for Sakwa, the primary cause lies with the locals. Similarly, Kudelia con- tends that Russia “did not act in a vacuum,” but rather exploited the local conflict (Kudelia, 2016, 6). The recent evidence on the role of Russia in the conflict con- firms that Russian state actors, such as Putin’s aide Vladislav Surkov, stepped into the insurgency later50 and were not welcome by some insurgents, such as the leader of “Vostok” battalion Aleksandr Khodakovskiy." (ibid, s. 28, )
Dvs Ryssland i Donbass agerade opportunistiskt. Ryssarna ledde inte utbrytningen i politisk mening, utan i meningen att de lät Strelkov bli militär ledare. Precis som det är Zelensky som styr i Ukraina, inte Zalushny.
Platanova kan verkligen rekommenderas. Det känns som en doktorsavhandling som skrivits om till en bok, duktig tjej. Inget rysstroll, riktig forskare.
Det är viktigt att notera att i februari var det inte så att alla i Donbass ville separera från Ukraina. Det var en minoritet som ville det, en väldigt stor del som var arga på Kiev och trodde att en annan politisk lösning skulle manifestera sig (federalisering, autonomisering, etc). Precis som i Euromaidan, i juni ville knappast många procent störta presidenten, i december var det en annan situation. Sedan gick det som det gick. Människor blev radikaliserade och "winner takes it all"-effekter skapade fler och fler seperatister och när kriget startade flyttade många väst-orienterade...västerut.
