It wasn't just Russians that lived in Donbass.

It's Russians that live in the Donbass, not Poles.

There are a few Taiwanese in Taiwan apart from Chinese,
a few Australians in Australia apart from Anglos,
and a few Americans in the US apart from Anglos,
but there are no Ukrainians in the Ukraine.

Vatnik detected

But many do, and did historically, as it was part of Russia prior to the USSR.

But I have a genuine question: suppose that the majority of people living in Donbass genuinely wanted to break off and become part of Russia. Should they be allowed to, and if so, what steps should they have taken to make it happen, in the context that the government banned major opposition parties that were sympathetic towards Russia? What are you supposed to do, exactly, when the country is moving in a direction that you disagree with and shutting the opposition out of the political process, after seizing power through force?

A downvote is not an answer, btw.

Ah yes, they are just "confused Russians" who speak a different language because of the ebul West.

No, they are fascist Russians who speak a different language because they hated communism and decided to turn their Russian dialect into a full-blown language.
The Soviets decided to respect the language and cultural differences as long as they denounced their fascism.
Plus "The West" is too vague a term to take seriously.

If you're from the US, you're soon going to be familiar with such 'fascist split-off "nation"' like the ROC and Ukraine have been.
There won't be no lie low enough not to continue for them. US fascists will claim that they're the true USA and later claim that they've never been part of the USA in history. Their lies go on and on until kingdom come.

Yeah, the famous communist hating "Russians" deciding to write in Ukrainian in the 1840s.

Alexander II. banned any publications in Ukrainian. But yeah, totally just fascist Russians lol.

Dialects have names. Go back further and you'll notice the language starts out in Kiev, same as Russian, in the same era as the same language.

Again, if you live in the US, you'll have this historical revisionism fun of fascism too soon.

Lol, the differences between Ukrainian and Russian began in the 13th century, when old Ukrainian shifted /g/ to /ɣ/ and then to modern day /ɦ/.
By that logic, Germany should swallow the Netherlands because clearly Dutch and German have the same origins and are just dialects. Hell, if you go back to the 11th century, i.e. the Kievan Rus, a bunch of now distinct languages were much closer to each other.

Ukrainian has a lot more German, Polish and Tartar loanwords than Russian. Southwestern Dialects of Ukrainian are closer to Polish than to Russian. Ukrainian has an 38% difference in Vocabulary to Russian, which is roughly the difference between Italian and Spanish.
Ukrainian also preserved it's vocative case, which has disappeared from Russian. It possesses 3 different future tenses, opposed to 2 in Russian. These are two different languages

Soviet promotion of the Ukrainian language was not an "appeasement of fascist russians", it was a reversal of Tsarist oppression. Just up until the 1930s, when the USSR again made a 180 turn on their language policies throughout its territory.

Calling another language a "dialect" is really lame if I'm being honest. The Ukrainian and Belarusian languages descended from Rutherian, which split from Russian hundreds of years ago. After centuries of Ukraine being occupied by one foreign power after another the history is all over the place but long story short Ukrainian is as much a dialect of Russian as English is a dialect of Latin.

And as for the Ukrainian identity not being real ... if it wasn't real then Russia wouldn't be trying to erase it. Ukraine has only been part of Russia for 80 out of the last 800 years. I should not bother arguing with you, I don't know why I even bother. I'm gonna block you like I do every tankie.

It's a complicated issue to solve, and I'm not the person to solve it but the Russian state's approach has basically been in every single way wrong.

The Russian ethnic minority and it's treatment is a domestic issue. It is not a suitable pretext for Russia to invade a country, bomb schools and hospitals, and force Ukrainians into either a smaller portion of their country or to live under an ethnostate that does not represent them. Putin has naked imperial ambitions not just in Ukraine but also in Georgia.

I'm now gonna block you, as I do everyone with pro-Russia views. Because anyone that can excuse Russia's actions is not worthy of my attention.

Historically the acceptable answer if you want to live in a different country would be to, you know, move to that country, instead of trying to move that country to you through war.

Btw, the Donbas is not a historically majority Russian region. It was subject to russification starting under tsarist Russia and intensified under the Soviets. But it was majority Ukrainian, home to the Ukrainian cossacks and major settlements were also deeply intertwined with the Ukrainian economy.

The only historical revisionist here is you.

This is completely false. It was seat of Crimean Khanate, vassal of Ottoman Empire, which was also hostile to Poland, Russia AND cossacks. And "deeply intertwined with the Ukrainian economy" was mostly looting, kidnapping, raping and murdering Ruthenian peasants (ancestors of both Ukrainians and local Russians) as part of one of biggest historical slave trades which Russia ended when it conquered that blight of humanity Khanate was.

Your post is deeply ahistorical, disgusting and borders on slavery apologia, and you should be ashamed.

That's a weird looking pen.

It’s a complicated issue to solve, and I’m not the person to solve it

Im now gonna block you... anyone that can excuse Russia’s actions is not worthy of my attention.

Interesting how "russiafication intensified under the Soviets" when the Soviets are the ones who gave the territory to Ukraine

Hey let's switch examples and see if your logic stands up. The name Los Angeles is Spanish. Because Spanish speakers have been there longer than English speakers. If the Spanish speakers don't like the president of the United States, does that mean it's perfectly acceptable for the Mexican government to provide Spanish speaking protesters in LA with artillery systems and missile batteries? Or is that fucking weird?

A downvote is not an answer btw.

Yes. I wish they would.

Especially if the government said that those people were not allowed to participate in the political process, but given that the US political process is a joke and a sham, I don't have any sort of belief in "upholding its territorial integrity" or anything like that.

Legitimacy derives from the consent of the governed, does it not?

See how I was able to immediately provide a very clear answer to your question? Now do mine.

That's even further back. I'm talking about the period when the Russian empire controlled the territory. During that time (+100 years), there was far more economic integration with the Ruthenians than there was with Russia proper. It made more logistical sense, it's the same reason for which Crimea was ceded to Ukraine by the Soviets, Kiev due to its positioning was better suited to administratively control it.

The tsar sought to increase his influence over the region and began the process of russification, to tie the valuable region to Russia proper. The Soviets accelerated this, as they did in most of the other Soviet states.

Also thanks to ml mods to shut down any discussion. Come on, you're better than just censoring comments.