From 7 to 10 June 2018, we were in Sakhanka, in the south of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), to assess the situation.
We spent three days and three nights with the civilians, who were once again under the shelling of the Ukrainian army.
The war in Ukraine began soon after the U.S. orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014.
One of the first things the new Nazi-backed government did was outlaw the speaking of Russian inside Ukraine. Since more than half the nation's population speaks Russia as their primary language this became problematic.
The people (mostly in eastern and central Ukraine regions which were largely Russian ethnic) began to hold peaceful marches and gathered signatures for a referendum. They called for a 'federated Ukraine' where people could speak the language of their choice and elect their own local leaders rather than having the new unfriendly government in Kiev appoint them.
Almost immediately the Ukrainian army (backed by the Nazi death squads who predominate in western Ukraine near the Polish border) began to attack the Donbass (Lugansk, Donetsk, Mariupol) region of eastern Ukraine. As the people were attacked they began to create their own self-defense forces to protect their families and land from the Nazi-led attacks. Many of these self defense volunteers were coal miners who came out of the mines to fight the Nazis. There are many coal mines in eastern Ukraine. It was always the most industrialized part of Ukraine.
The US-NATO set up military training bases in western Ukraine and put many of the Nazis into a newly created Ukrainian National Guard in order to hide their fascist worship. But some Nazi units, like Azov Battalion, still maintained some level of autonomy though they were being trained, armed, directed, and paid by US-NATO.
Russia began it's 'Special Military Operation' in February 2022. By that time, since 2014, there had been more than 14,000 Russian-ethnics killed in the Donbass region and more than 34,000 wounded.
Citizens in Crimea voted overwhelming in 2014 (soon after they watched the coup in Kiev) to seek to rejoin the Russian Federation.
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