Quote:
Originally Posted by Chingas
I don't know the details of what has been happening in the Donbass region at all. Has there really been constant conflict this whole time? Has it been a battleground for 8 years yet I'm just learning about it now? Or is it fabricated bull#### from Putin? Is there anything here?
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Yeah, there has been fighting in that region on and off over that whole period, with an estimated 14K people killed (including 3-4K civilians) and 1-2 million people displaced. So not the scale of fighting that's happening now by any means, but there has been pretty consistent conflict in that area over the last 8 years. And living conditions have been pretty bad for residents at times (no water or electricity for periods of time).
But that doesn't mean Russia's one-sided characterization of it is at all correct. Basically it started with the 2014 Ukrainian revolution where separatist groups in the region began to protest the new government which eventually turned into an armed conflict. Since then, Russian-backed insurgents have been fighting the Ukrainian army and various Ukrainian militias on and off (I think there have been something like 30 different ceasefires, none of which have held).