THREAD to share some thoughts at this perilous time for #Ukraine. About Western support, #negotiations in March 2022 and now, being very clear about what can actually be achieved and at what cost. I’ve been rewriting this thread for a few weeks, and am pretty conflicted. 1/ West needs to find the political will + technical capacity to arm Ukraine decisively OR determine what volume of arms it *can* realistically and regularly provide and leverage that to improve UA position in a negotiated settlement. And take part in that process at Kyiv’s side. 2/

Last week @leonidragozin retweeted my piece and a debate started in his mentions about "civil war" in #Ukraine vs. #Russia'n invasion. There's a lot of bad faith around that debate but exploring it can open up a few of the themes from my piece. THREAD
opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine… In 2014 RU couldn't create separatist war in #Donbas out of whole cloth. Was possible because millions of east UA citizens were alienated from post-Maidan government, a minority radically so. Was no common touchstone to understand revolution's causes, events of its final days. 2/

In @opendemocracyru I share how I've been trying to grog what's happening in #Ukraine #Donbas #Donbass under #Russia's relentless assault and whether a path was possible to a different outcome. I cite work of @scrawnya and @SporrerWolfgang here. THREAD opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine… My starting point is this: the Donbas is ravaged beyond repair. In the areas under the control of Kyiv before Feb '22, only Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and a smattering of small mining and factory towns remain more/less intact, and they are under brutal rocket attack already. 2/

I've been thinking a lot about discourse of #Russia decolonization, specifically the strain that sees it as a physical break-up process and not an ideological one. I've spent the last 13 yrs of my life in RU or Ukraine, no small part of it in ethnic regions of the former. THREAD Russia is too unimaginably huge to appreciate all the different dynamics of non-Slav peoples from just 6-7 years of residency. I've never set foot in the Caucasus or the Volga region, with its imposing Turkic civilizations in Tatarstan, Bashkiria, etc. Big caveat. 2/

Building on my piece on collaborators and sympathizers in #Russia'n occupied territories of #Ukraine for @ForeignAffairs, I wanted to share seemingly simple but very important thought from a local administrator in #Luhansk region who fled occupation. 1/11 foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/collab… Natalia Petrenko ran the Shulhynka consolidated community and remained loyal to UA even when town was overrun by RU tanks. She told me a few months ago "The best way to prevent collaboration by local officials is to evacuate them in time." At first I thought... well, yeah. 2/11

Collaborators or Compatriots? foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/collab… via @ForeignAffairs First of all, is sympathy for the occupier + outright collaboration widespread in occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia + Kherson Oblasts? The intensity varies, because there really is no uniform "southeast" let alone mythic "Novorossiya." Regions are diverse. 2/

My recent contribution in @guardian to the post-"referendum" debate about what people in east #Ukraine #Donbas #Donbass want, which has been so stirred up by a certain tweet-happy billionaire. THREAD theguardian.com/commentisfree/… For record, this piece is my personal experience in half of #Luhansk region that was controlled by UA for past 8 years + occupied only in 2022. What's happening in "Luhansk Peoples Republic" is different +even more complex dynamic. I can comment on it only as distant observer. 2/

Judging by news for past week maybe the deadliest cities in #Ukraine were #Russia-occupied Donetsk and Horlivka. Reports show dozens of civilians killed in urban markets, residential neighborhoods and public transport. Civilians here also deserve our attention, emotion. THREAD There are basically parallel media universes for gov't controlled #Donbas and RU-held "Peoples Republics." Some UA media cover civilian deaths on other side of line, most principally+ consistently @novostidnua. It's not media blackout, but resonance is less when victims there. 2/

My latest for @opendemocracyru on the (comparatively!) "soft" occupation of northern #Luhansk #Donbas east #Ukraine. Russia has various occupation formulas and understanding how they are trying to rule here is important. #RussiaUkraineWar THREAD opendemocracy.net/en/russia-ukra… Russia claims it has "liberated" the "Ukraine-occupied territories of the Luhansk Peoples Republic." In practices this means obliterating all the cities under government control, depopulating them, but capturing the rural north with minimal force. This is region I describe. 2/

A thread about trying to understand #Russia's horrific war on #Ukraine from the perspective of someone who structured my entire understanding of the #Donbas #Donbass conflict (where I have lived past 6 yrs) around the principle of "Avoiding the Big War." This has been churning in my head for the past month and I'm trying to work some of it out here. A lot of mea culpas and remaining ?s here. 2/

I wrote about #Donbas front in #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine for @ForeignAffairs. THREAD foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/red… On utter madness of Russia targeting for destructions the very cities it still had a soft power foothold in. The bizarre mixture of messianic liberator and karatel (punitive expedition) mentality RU brought to #Mariupol. How Ukrainian military defiance brought latter to fore. 2/

Government controlled #Luhansk region in #Donbas is one of bloodiest fronts in #Russia's war on #Ukraine. This is footage of shelling of Starobilsk, the sleepy center of the region's rural north and home to hundreds of IDPs from Russia's 2014 invasion of Donbas. 1/ The 2014 war passed quiet, thinly populated north #Luhansk by with its blackearth fields and chalk hills. But this time Russian troops pushed thru border at nearby Bilovodsk, perhaps hoping to catch regional capital of Severodonetsk in pincer. 2/

As Schastia in #Donbas #Ukraine comes under heavy fire I remember an internally displaced person I met in that small city in 2015. She was twice displaced. In her uni days she married a Syrian who was studying in #Luhansk and moved to his country. 1/ More or less in time for the war to start there. She fled with her children when Assadist tanks entered their town. In 2013 she moved back in with her parents in Luhansk, and in 2014 fled that city under shelling as Ukraine tried to wrest it back from RU/separatist troops. 2/

The town of #StanytsiaLuhanska in the #Donbas is in the news because of the brutal shelling it is undergoing from #Russia /separatist forces. This is one of most important communities in the development work I've been involved in since 2015. Here's a bit about Stanytsia. 1/ It is basically a rural suburb of Luhansk that functioned as the city's market garden. Most backyards are lined with plastic greenhouses for raising tomatoes and cucumbers. This so central to local identity that town seal is 🍅 hovering over a Cossack fortress. 2/

THREAD: New #Ukraine NatSec Council sanctions against blogger Anatoliy Shariy + editor Igor Guzhva lop off most of remaining #Russia-leaning, Maidan-skeptical end of media spectrum. Brings up same troubling questions as earlier sanctions against Viktor MedvedchukTV stations.1/ Primary question: is this countering disinformation and Russian info-warfare, silencing of dissident voices or some of both? 2/

Wrote this for Kyiv Post about #Ukraine's new language law, how it is viewed in #Donbas #Donbass and tangled history of Russian and Ukrainian languages in region. THREAD kyivpost.com/article/opinio… 2/ With language law, we need to look at both rights/preferences of modern Donbas Ukrainians and question of historical justice. The two don't overlap perfectly. Case for state promotion of Ukrainian after decades of coercive Soviet language policy is strong

I recently posted how #Poroshenko’s 2014 win required untenable coalition of pro-Maidan liberals+ conservatives who thought he’d cut pragmatic businessman deal with Russia. Inevitable some would be disappointed. #Zelensky’s electoral coalition even worse. #UkraineElection. THREAD I mentioned acquaintance who helped establish Poroshenko Bloc office in #Luhansk Oblast in 2014, got elected to Lisichansk city council. Got disenchanted with prez for not confronting entrenched regional elites to see through #Maidan policies. Now firm Zelensky supporter.