THE UNREPORTED GENOCIDE IN SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE

The S.E. of Ukraine, the Donbass, only ever wanted peace & the ability to run their region free from attack with a high degree of autonomy, free from the fear of ultra-violent Maidan extremists and all that emerged via the destruction of their democratic right to choose their own political representatives and president.

By majority the people in southeastern Ukraine feel positively toward Russia with whom they have a long border. They cherish their legacy of being liberated by the Red Army in WWII. The language they speak is predominantly Russian and they frequently cross over the border to Russia for trade and to purchase goods and Russians cross over to them for the same reasons.

The movement for self-rule/autonomy/federalization in southeastern Ukraine began as a grassroots movement to ensure their rights and freedoms of belief and association would not be affected by the ultra-violent coup which had taken place on Maidan Square, Kiev. But this fact was not convenient for the U.S. narrative. In fact it ran, and still does run, directly contrary to the scenario U.S. & EU elites would have you believe.

The Reasons for the Revolt Against Kiev:

As in Crimea the movement to divorce from Kiev was the direct result of the single lynchpin holding disparate Ukraine regions together being smashed to pieces on Maidan Square, Kiev. That lynchpin was composed of the democratic right of ALL Ukrainians to VOTE for their preferred governments & presidents.

In the absence of this lynchpin there could no longer be the trust required by the vulnerable pro-Russian parties and their supporters (almost the entirety of the eastern half of Ukraine)  who saw the huge danger they & their culture were in. Western elites try to sell the Ukraine crisis portraying Russia as the evil aggressor. This could not be farther from the truth. It is a 180 degree misdirect away from the facts regarding the people of Crimea & those of  southeastern Ukraine. It is a completely false narrative allowing hidden, civilian victims of the Maidan rioters and the Ukraine army to be overlooked, victims who in their fear of losing their culture and indeed their lives sought autonomy within Ukraine but who were punished by constant murderous violence for this.

 (The map above shows the western half of Ukraine voting one way while the east votes another.)

The way chosen by the people of Donetsk and Lugansk was to express their firm and resolute aspiration to have control over their own lives, pro-Russian culture and have a cast-iron assurance of this in perpetuity for their children to come.

With the government and president they had elected being overthrown by an ultra- violent mob they had no choice but to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves and the unborn children to come. They began peacefully taking over all administrative buildings in their region of The Donbass.

No one was injured let alone killed during these occupations. Weapons were carried for defense but for no other reason. You may ask why this was necessary. During the preceding month there had been many violent provocations by those who agreed with the violence on Maidan Square. The situation was tense and no one was under any illusion about how violent things could become. Therefore carrying protective weapons was absolutely vital in the situation confronting them.

But a peaceful occupy movement was turned unnecessarily into a bloodbath by the Maidan haters Kiev sent east. Post-Maidan the Ukraine army was an incompetent, drunken mess. Kiev bolstered it with hate-fuelled neo-Nazi thugs straight off Maidan and sent them east with little or no training.(An annual torchlit parade of ultra-nationalists and neo-Nazi thugs takes place in the city of Lvov annually, Upward of ten thousand attend chanting "Russians on Knives", "Moskals (this is what they call those who live near the Russia border) on Knives".)

The mindless haters sent by Kiev set up their mortars (later Grad missiles) and began randomly shelling towns, villages and cities in southeast Ukraine. Civilians began dying in increasing numbers, women and children included. The mortars were fired directly into the urban centers hitting the first high buildings they encountered. Apartment blocks, hospitals and schools were mostly hit by these shells. If not these then they exploded randomly among the civilian population.

The Response of the West to the Killings:

The primary moral failure of all western pundits, politicians, journalists, analysts, intelligence specialists was to omit all reference to these events. Clearly no reports were filed as no articles appeared across the full extent of western mass media, neither in the press of TV news. The people of southeast Ukraine were completely abandoned to their fate, making the world's press and media directly complicit in their deaths.

In May of 2014 a referendum was held on whether to back a political divorce from Kiev. The images of referendum day show the huge crowds who waited patiently for 4 hours and more to cast their vote.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with having the referendum is another point, but the enthusiasm for having it and the vitality of the question for the people is undeniable. Those in the West and in the west of Ukraine NEVER mention this crucial point: that the revolt against the Maidan rioters & the coup junta in Kiev has overwhelming majority support among the people of southeastern Ukraine. The initiative for the referendum came from the people themselves and was initiated with fulsome enthusiasm. Avoiding this reality is indicative of the paucity of the West's case. Naturally (in propaganda terms) it is inconvenient & totally unhelpful in making their spurious case that it is all about "Russian Aggression".

If a proper, just and fair public discussion was to be had in the West the discourse would HAVE to include this primary element. But of course it has been totally absent. By omitting this reality it allows western elites to keep their populations completely ignorant of the reality in this benighted corner of Ukraine and to be duped into having a totally skewed view of the situation there. It also allows civilians in S.E. Ukraine to be continually and mercilessly targeted and killed, their homes, schools and hospitals destroyed, quite out of sight of western populations' scrutiny. And while all this is going on western political and media elites create endless propaganda aimed solely at denigrating an innocent party, Russia.

In this way the paucity of an argument on Ukraine by U.S. and EU political elites is revealed... IF you have access to the full facts . These deceiving elites refuse to in any way acknowledge the wishes, dreams, hopes and aspirations of the people of the region into the equation. This is abominable. Anyone with a fair-minded approach who looks deeply into the facts on the ground in southeastern Ukraine can't help to admit this glaringly obvious omission.

Now six years and more later the situation is largely unchanged. The Ukrainian army and the ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi militias embedded with them continue to violently oppress the people of southeastern Ukraine.

The hopes of the population there to retain its pro-Russian outlook and to live in peace are subject to immense restrictions. They can be glad that they at least have created a haven within which they have a continuum for their way of life and also have retained the legacy they wished to pass on to their children and all children to come. They can be truly proud of this achievement against all the odds and in spite of all the suffering they have endured, which they resolutely continue to endure at the hands of those who refuse to let them live in peace as they wish.