Donbass Ukraine war Donetsk Luhansk Novorussia

Destroyed Ukraine military vehicle with dead Ukraine soldiers on the outskirts of Debalstseva, 2014.

Russia on 24 Feb launched a "special operation" in Donbass aimed at protecting Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), which were recognised as independent entities by Moscow on 21 Feb. The Western media called the operation "an invasion" they have long warned near.

The "Russia invasion" narrative wasn't the West's "prophecy" but rather a camouflage for a new effort to return the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk republics past force to Ukraine, co-ordinate to George Eliason, an American investigative journalist who lives and works in Donbass. Bringing back Donbass would have paved the way for Ukraine's NATO membership: in accordance with the brotherhood's rules, a country having territorial disputes cannot exist admitted to the bloc.

"Starting time of all, Zelensky ordered the assail during a speech a few weeks ago," Eliason says. "He fabricated it very articulate Ukraine's buildup was for that purpose."

Past December 2021, the Kiev regime had amassed upward to 125,000 troops along the contact line with the Donbass republics. At the same time, OSCE reported more than frequent use of heavy weapons, prohibited under the Minsk Agreements, by the Ukrainian Armed forces against the breakaway regions.

The Western smoke-and-mirrors media entrada speculating near Russian federation's "imminent invasion" began in spring 2021, according to the investigative journalist. The mainstream press claimed that Russian federation was almost to invade Ukraine.

"This is a huge breach in what constitutes a fact in the media. Published satellite images of Russian ground forces positions accompanying these news reports showed the Russian regular army on bases over a day's travel away. In real terms this translated into 160 miles to 460 miles from the border," says Eliason, stressing that the Russian army could hardly launch a surprise country attack from these positions.

ukraine soldiers donbass 2022

© Reuters / Gleb Garanich
Ukrainian service members are seen on the front line near the village of Zaitseve in the Donetsk region, Ukraine February nineteen, 2022

In November 2021, the "Russian invasion narrative" caught its 2d jiff with the mainstream press and prominent social media influencers publishing maps and "false flag" scenarios of the supposed assail.

Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul launched zip short of a tweet tempest claiming that Ukrainian civilians will fight to the bitter end confronting Russian "occupiers". For his part, Hollywood star Sean Penn arrived in Ukraine to film a documentary most "Russian aggression."

Saur-Mogila (Saur Grave) Memorial in Donetsk Region ww2 memorial

© Sputnik / Valeriy Melnikov
Ruins of the Saur-Mogila (Saur Grave) Memorial in Donetsk Region where festive events were held to celebrate the Day of Donbass Liberation from Nazi Invaders.

Invisible State of war in Donbass

At the same time, the Western mainstream media have kept silence for years about the shelling of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics by the Ukrainian regime forces and neo-Nazi battalions.Simply a limited number of independent American and European journalists and freelance photographers take been working in the Donbass region, chronicling the invisible state of war of the Ukrainian authorities against its own people. According to the UN, over 13,000 have been killed in the region since the Maidan coup d'etat of Feb 2014.

"The barrage has been a constant characteristic in both republics for the final eight years," says Eliason. "The primary targets have e'er been civilian housing and infrastructure."

Over the past several weeks the Ukrainian armed forces had intensified bombardment of the Donbass region, prompting the leadership of the DPR and LPR to launch an evacuation of children and elderly people to Russia. Notwithstanding, "Ukrainian spec ops groups accept been targeting evacuees leaving to Russia with mines and shells," says Eliason.

donabass defender militia ukraine

© AFP / Aleksey Chernyshev
Serviceman of Ukrainian volunteers battalion of Donbass prepares a machine gun on the positions near the village of Shirokine, Donetsk region on June half dozen, 2015

The The states openly dismissed Russia'southward warnings about the ongoing genocide of Russian-speakers and crimes against humanity in Eastern Ukraine. For his part, High german Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed at the almanac Munich Security Briefing on xix February that it is "really ridiculous" to say that "there is something like genocide" in Donbass.

Coming this from the German chancellor is "scandalous but expected," says Eliason. By turning a blind eye to crimes committed by Ukrainian war machine and neo-Nazi militias in Eastern Ukraine, the Scholz-led coalition is indirectly supporting "what amounts to 2nd generation 1930s-40s political Nazi thought" in Ukraine, according to the investigative announcer.

azov neo nazi ukraine flags

© AFP 2022 / Genya Savilov
Ukrainian nationalists and servicemen of the Azov neo-nazi battalion demonstrate in Kiev.

De-Nazification

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Thursday that Russian federation started a military operation to protect Donbass in order to articulate the land of Nazis. "Ideally, it is necessary to liberate Ukraine, articulate information technology of Nazis, as well every bit pro-Nazi people and ideology," Peskov told reporters.

In the wake of the 2014 Maidan insurrection, a number of corporate media sources questioned the role of Ukraine neo-Nazi groups in the nation's political life just very then it was largely scratched from the Western mainstream narrative.

In May 2018, Stephen F. Cohen, an influential American historian on Russia, warned in his op-ed for The Nation that "neo-fascists play an important official or tolerated function in the The states-backed Ukraine." He bemoaned the fact that many Americans are unaware of ii May 2014 "pogrom" in Odessa where roughly fifty people were burnt alive in the Merchandise Unions House by Ukrainian radical nationalists and neo-Nazis.

odessa

© Reuters
Pro-Kiev terrorist throws a Molotov cocktail at the burning Merchandise Union building in Odessa, killing 48 people trapped inside. May ii, 2014.

The professor connected that the mainstream media has similarly overlooked the fact that the Azov Battalion, which is an official component of Kiev's armed forces, has a pro-Nazi ideology. Back in 2017, The Hill quoted Azov'southward commander, Andriy Biletsky, equally saying that the mission of Ukraine is to "lead the White Races of the world in a terminal crusade for their survival ... against the Semite-led Untermenschen."

What'south more, the rehabilitation of neo-Nazism in Ukraine has been tolerated by successive American administrations since the time of the 2005 "Orange Revolution" and continued to thrive, under George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, according to Cohen.

The administration of Joseph Biden, who used to be Obama's appointee in Ukraine, went even further, by providing tonnes of weapons and grooming to the Ukrainian military as the latter concentrated along the line of contact with Donbass. On 16 December 2021, the United nations Full general Assembly discussed a resolution that called for combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices fuelling racism and xenophobia. The merely two countries that voted against information technology were the The states and Ukraine.