Atlas discussion on Russia/Ukraine is dominated by two groups of people:
1. Random neo-liberals/Neocons that savagely hate Russia, but lack any kind of recent or ancestral ties to that part of the world.
2. A few Western Ukrainian nationalists that savagely hate Russia.
As someone with ancestral ties to the Odessa region, I am not sad at all about Russia's recognition of the Donbass republics. This is a great day for the entire southeastern Ukraine and an important step forward. The entire southeastern Ukraine should form a new federation together with the Donbass.
As for the first group I mentioned, I really do not care at all what you guys think about anything.
For group two, the Western Ukrainian nationalists, you are going to have to learn to live without the Donbass and probably the entire southeast as well, eventually. The best thing that the Ukrainian military could do is get out of the Donbass fast, before this turns into a much larger war. Unlike the Neocons here, I do not want to see large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers get needlessly killed. That is all I have to say to you.
A lot of people here/in western press totally misjudge the unpopularity of Donbas war and today's "annexation". Crimea was extremely popular, both among Russians and Crimeans. Donbas never was.
Just to clarify, Russia is not "annexing" the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics -- they are not being invited to join the Russian Federation like the Crimea was. Russia is simply recognizing their independence. Just last week the State Duma overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution on recognizing the Donbass republics. A Russian peacekeeping force is also going to be deployed into the DPR/LPR to stop Kiev's endless shelling of the people that live there. The most logical thing for the two republics to do is form a new country together.
That is all I have to say to Atlas on this matter, for now.
