December 4th, 2025
This is continuing on from our last lecture in my socialism class, developments in Ukraine before the war in 2022.
At the end of February, Yanukovych is removed and an interim government is established. The following day the 2012 law on Language was abolished. This caused demonstrations to occur against this decision. Pro-Russian armed men would seize government buildings in Crimea. Crimea is important die to Sevastopol being where the Russian fleet is. American officials were saying in 2013 that “Ukrainian revolution is the best, Russia is next.” A referendum was held and this signalled to other regions what was possible. Crimea voted overwhelmingly in favour of Russia so maybe the same could be said for Donbas. On March 6 this vote was held. American and Ukrainian historians claim this referendum result was because of Russian pressure but my professor believes that this is unlikely. On March 16, the referendum goes ahead, the results saying that at least 95% voted union with Russia.
Now we get into the War in Donbas and I wrote a LOT. On March 2014, separatists occupied local administrative buildings. Demonstrators were full of enthusiasm, trying to emulate Maidan. On March 5th, a guy was voted in as governor. the Donbas was an industrial region and flourished under the USSR: they had 3 times higher salaries, closure in the 90s meant incredible poverty and organized crime. Then there is the East vs West conflict. Demonstrators put the Russian flag up to prove a point to Kiev. This was a social movement for the Russian language. On March 6th, demonstrators were barred from the buildings, so now they had to take them back harshly. Pro-Russian activists (like soccer fans) were arrested.
In April, the Donetsk People’s Republic was proclaimed. Crimea was a huge embarrassment, so now the plan was to repress the Donbas rebellion ASAP. Karkiv buildings were seized and the people asked for help from Russia. What is Russia to do? A guy said diplomacy with Kiev, my professor stated that the people in power are the enemy and thus this did not work. Another guy said to imagine Quebec going independent and taking English land, we’d do the same interference as Russia. We were told to remember Kosovo. Russia sends weapons to Donbas and the Ukrainian government refuses to send money to the region so Russia does so.
Igor Strelkov is a soviet veteran who comes to help. He participated in taking Crimea so Kiev is worried, he has experience with swaying Ukrainians. Weapons and vehicles were confiscated by Kiev. Strelkov gets some army people to join in his endeavour. The forces were unique, they were well organized military people and Strelkov’s presence turned people into soldiers. He arrived in July. The army was untrustworthy to Kiev so paramilitary and police battalions were used to fight against Donbas.
These paramilitary and police battalions were run by far-right nationalists, also maidan activists. This was the worst fears of Donbas being actualized: armed Russian haters were coming. From April to May is the radicalizing phase of the conflict. On may 2nd, there were demonstrations of Russophones in Odessa. A group of soccer neo-Nazis arrived and fighting occurred. The Russophones (pro-Russians) were forced to enter a trade union building and said building was then set on fire. Around 40 people died in the flames and those that escaped the building were beaten to death. The perpetrators were never punished and police did not intervene.
August 2014 saw the direct intervention of the Russian military. The east thought Putin was betraying them as they were begging for help. Tent cities were violently repressed, so demonstrators wanted independence. There was no government that Russia started. The Donbas rebels needed decisive support, so incursions were made y battalion units. Russian attacks caused the defeat of the Ukrainian side. Now Kiev was forced to negotiate. Which leads into the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015.
We were given this quote from the agreement:
“Ceasefire and withdrawal of all heavy weapons 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.”
There was promise of federalization, ceasefire, and withdrawal of troops. The ceasefire happened but not the withdrawal, which would lead to the 2015 Minsk 2. The Ukrainian side said they could not do federalizations due to Russian troop presence. In 2019, Zelenskyy is elected as president. He was a former comedian and is a Russian speaker who promised to fight corruption, stop the war, and restore the Russian language laws. He went to the Donbas region and told the neo-Nazis to disarm and leave, but they just literally laughed at him. In a few months the Normandy format was organized for implementing Minsk. This was a meeting between Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany in Paris. At this meeting Zelenskyy exhibited a weird shift, he said no to rewriting the constitution and was laughing at the meeting. Last year, Merkel said they never actually intended to fulfill the Minsk agreements, this was all a show to buy time for inevitable war.
In 2021, journalists were predicting invasion, Zelenskyy denied this. Putin said only if there was a written agreement than Russia would have zero issues with Ukraine. Why not give a signed document? It was possible but no one took initiative. In 2022 Russia starts the war, but who is fighting? A guy said Ukraine, supported by NATO and the EU, and Russia, who is supported by China. My professor said that Minsk did not work because no one acknowledged the players in the war. The US was not pointed to as an aggressor, only Russia was blamed. Right now the US has more leverage on Ukraine due to corruption scandals.
How will the world change due to the war? This is the most important event in the 21st century so far. I lifted my hand and said that global alignments shifted. My professor responded that the war created this for Russia. Before, Russia tried to be nice to the west, but now Russia has shifted to China as they had no other choice. Russia used to be close to Germany, which was scary to the US, but is now close to China. This means that Europe is the biggest loser of the war as they now have to rely on expensive US gas. Hungary benefits as Trump allows Orban to get Russian gas. To me, this just reveals how fucked the relationship is between the US and Europe (and the world as a whole), did the other students not clock this?
Anyway, a girl said nowadays countries want to stop wars, not participate in them. NATO and the EU will not save you, they will just prolong the conflict. My professor brought up Lindsay Graham where he said that it is okay if Russians and Ukrainians die as long as no Americans are harmed. Ukrainians are mere change. The Business major speaks up about her Ukrainian boyfriend when he was in Mariupol. His grandpa was in a hospital and died there due to it being bombed. His family is there and receive large pensions. My professor said that the pensions were due to Russian occupation. Business major talked more saying her boyfriend’s family fled to Russia and then had to go underground to get to Estonia from Russia. His family is pro-Russia but he is not.
My professor then said the war strengthened and radicalized Putin. Students respond that he is scared, a guy specifically stated that he was like a cornered animal: scared and dangerous. My professor responded that in the first 14 years of Putin’s rule, many liberals lived peacefully but would leave due to the war. Students talked about liberal protestors being brutalized by the state. My professor said it was strange as those liberals that left told people to got back to Russia if they take it so seriously. Business major talks about her boyfriend again and I just didn’t write what she said because… it’s obvious at this point. A guy asked if Putin has the most to lose, my professor said that the Ukrainian side is collapsing quickly. Again the guy speaks saying that the Russians are conscripting Ukrainians and the Russian military doctrine is a “meat grinder.” Is this an official thing or is he just parroting shit he heard on the internet? He made the meat grinder comment to dismiss Russian success in the war, that the only reason the Ukrainian side is collapsing is because of the Russians throwing bodies at the problem nonchalantly.
Regarding the Trump agreement for the war, my professor exclaimed that she is sick and tired of misinformation. People claim that the Trump points are pro-Russian but she states that the 28 points are the worst for Russia. In actuality that agreement (that wasn’t signed of course) is pro-USA. A student said that theUSA was doing neocolonialism, another student replied that all countries do neocolonialism.
This was the end of my class and the last lecture I would attend. Technically there was one more class on December 9th, but my professor told me specifically to stay home as it was only going to be review and she believed I would not need it. She just wanted me to take the time to study on my own since the final was on December 11th.
Let me know what you all thought about these socialism lectures! I know it has been painful but my performance in the class has been good. Since this is the last post about the lecture I will write about the final exam.
December 11th: The format of the exam was similar to the midterm with some changes. She gave us a list of short answer questions that could appear on the exam and a list of essays that may also appear. We were given a list of 12 short answer questions to study, only 6 would appear and we needed to answer five. So with that I omitted the one question I did not want to answer. For the essay section we were given 4 topics, 2 would appear on the exam and we had to choose one. Thus I omitted one essay question that I did not care for. I wrote out all my responses and recited them as bets as I could. When I got the exam, at 9AM, I took my pens and just wrote. For once I went home feeling decent about my performance. Before the year ended I got my exam result back, I was anxious as I opened website with my score:
100%
Final grade for the whole course: A+
I very much agree that the war is likely the most important geopolitical event since the fall of USSR. It marks the end of the unipolar order where the US was the unchallenged hegemon. In my opinion, the most impactful outcome of the war was the creation of an alternate economic system focused on BRICS. Russia being kicked out of SWIFT necessitated finding ways to trade outside the dollar because Russia is a major commodity exporter that countries can’t ignore. Once this process started, then non dollar trade naturally expanded outside of Russia. This directly set the stage for the failure of Trump’s tariffs because the US could no longer control the flow of global economy.
The other major outcome of the war was the that it showed just how deindustrialized and utterly impotent the west is now. Long gone are days of massive American industry that was able to force USSR into a war of economic attrition. Today, Russia alone outproduces all of NATO militarily. What’s worse is that many critical inputs come from China and other BRICS countries. The west is now forced to face the reality of being entirely dependent on its adversaries. Europe is still quietly buying Russian energy at a markup, while the US needs critical inputs like the rare earths that only China produces.
We’re once again living in a world of bloc conflict, between G7 and BRICS, and BRICS is the dominant economic bloc this time around. The division we now see in the west is reminiscent of the Sino-Soviet split, and the US resembles USSR in its final days.
For once i don’t have too much to correct. If this was how your professor explained the Donbass war then i have to say it’s surprisingly mostly neutral and objective, if somewhat superficial.
the Ukrainian government refuses to send money to the region so Russia does so.
It wasn’t just money (pensions, government salaries, etc.) that Kiev refused to send to the Donbass, forcing the Russians to step in to cover those costs, they also cut the water, electricity and telecommunications service. All of that had to be connected to Russia or people would literally have starved and frozen. The Kiev regime even destroyed/dammed canals that were feeding the Donbass and Crimea with water.
This caused a major crisis in Crimea until Russia semi-resolved the situation with water shipments. Only in 2022 did Russia regain control over that canal and restore full water supply to Crimea.
Kiev was hoping to cause a humanitarian crisis in Crimea which could then be blamed on the “Russian occupation”. The fact that it would be not the Russian “occupiers” but the overwhelmingly pro-Russian native population of those regions being harmed was of course a welcome bonus as far as the Ukrainian Nazis were concerned, who viewed them all as traitors and vowed to punish/ethnically cleanse them when they took over again.
Last year, Merkel said they never actually intended to fulfill the Minsk agreements, this was all a show to buy time for inevitable war.
Not only Merkel admitted that the Minsk agreements were a sham meant to buy time to re-arm Ukraine, but also the then French president Hollande.
Other than that, a few points that could have been added are the Neonazi battalions terror-bombing civilians in the Donbass and the perfidious role of the OSCE. A lot of civilians, including children, died far from the front line due to Ukrainian shelling of civilian homes, markets, bus stops, etc. especially in Donetsk (look up the “Alley of Angels”). The OSCE was supposed to monitor ceasefire violations but what they did in secret was feed information on troop positions of the Donbass rebels to the Ukrainian forces.
If you want to delve deeper into the military side of the conflict i would suggest studying the Battles of Ilovaysk and Debaltsevo, where the Donbass militias (most of them being former Ukrainian military) encircled and decisively defeated Maidan regime forces, leading directly to the Minsk I and II agreements. Both agreements came about as a result of these Ukrainian defeats and European countries (France and Germany) stepping in to rescue the situation for Kiev with diplomacy.
Hoping that the diplomatic track would succeed in resolving the conflict, the Russian government forced the Donbass militias to stop advancing, even though they probably could have pushed onward and liberated more of the Donbass in 2015 in the wake of these victories. A lot of pro-Russian people in Mariupol especially were very angry about this as the Donbass militia forces were practically on their doorstep when they turned back.
This left the majority ethnic Russian Mariupol to be occupied by the brutal Azov Nazi battalion, who abducted, tortured and “disappeared” dozens of people over the years until 2022.
If you want to learn more about the perspective of someone who is a pro-Russian native of Mariupol you can check out this channel whenever you have the time: https://youtube.com/@VideosfromMariupol
The Kiev regime even destroyed/dammed canals that were feeding the Donbass and Crimea with water.
And the then-comedian Zelensky did a comedy routine mocking them.
Psycho shit.
the perfidious role of the OSCE.
When I mentioned the ethnic cleansing of the Donbass a lib told me “sorry, sweaty, the OSCE said it’s false”.
[A guy said that] the only reason the Ukrainian side is collapsing is because of the Russians throwing bodies at the problem nonchalantly
Around 40 people died in the flames and those that escaped the building were beaten to death. The perpetrators were never punished and police did not intervene.
Also Firefighters were instructed not to respond to emergency calls
Again the guy speaks saying that the Russians are conscripting Ukrainians and the Russian military doctrine is a “meat grinder.” Is this an official thing or is he just parroting shit he heard on the internet?
Mostly the latter. But fighting is incredibly brutal for both sides. Front lines do not really exist, its more like a advancing grey zone with pokets of control that expand, retract and move. Drones could hit at any time, drone operators are treated like snipers were in older wars - shot after capture. Ukraine also loves to dronestrike its soldiers uppon surrender.
As for who is throwing more “meat” into the grinder:
- Russia had two waves of mobilization of reservists.
- Ukraine is kidnapping men off the streets to throw at the frontlines. Large numbers of deserters.
imagine Quebec going independent and taking English land
Quebec taking land across the Atlantic?
the Ukrainian government refuses to send money to the region so Russia does so.
Money for what? Were they entitled to federal funds or something?
Money for what? Were they entitled to federal funds or something?
Social and government spending is covered by the federal government, not the regions
The student meant “English Canada”. He phrased it very weird as it’s more like English-majority rather than English-owned. So his example was Quebec stealing Anglo-Canadian land.
Regarding the money thing, I believe it was about typical government spending like pensions. Russia had to step in with stuff like that.
Gotcha
