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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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Yes, that poll shows a clear majority for staying within Ukraine (with autonomy or expanded powers, or without), which is completely different from separation and/or joining Russia.

NYT say they have, as do HRW. You think it’s bunk because of an obscure book written by an obscure Russian, probably from an obscure passage you haven’t linked.

To make it clear, I wasn't talking about cluster munitions, but about the idea that Ukraine just attacked innocent Donbass people for "wanting sovereignty", a term that means very little in itself. Ukraine defended itself by force of arms against armed filibusterers and (later) local separatists who wanted to violently enact separation and annexation to Russia (declared to be the aim by DPR/LPR from the start), ie. something that had just repeated in Crimea previously. Any other country would have done the same, according to capabilities.

If you want to read the book ("obscure", sure, but would one expect a pro-separatist Russian manifesto to be a NYT bestseller in any case?), it's here.

The poll is an extreme upper ceiling on support for remaining in Ukraine, which is sufficient to prove to even the most skeptical of skeptics that there is huge public support for independence / annexation among Donbas residents. Reminder by the way that Euromaidan was an armed, illegal ousting of a constitutionally-elected president.

That argument is, to put it mildly, a huge reach. Unless there's clear evidence to assume otherwise, one can't just take a poll and then assume that it must represent the "extreme upper ceiling".