As a resident of Donbas, I was asked to tell about the beginning of war in Donbas in 2014. But this is a long story. So I'll do it in a few threads over the next few days. I realized that before I talk about the beginning of the war in Donbas, I need to talk a little about the period before the war. In particular, about Yanukovych's term (because during his term, Russia started taking over Ukraine) and about the Revolution of Dignity. After all, for those who do not know this period, the following story may be incomplete. In addition, Russian propaganda also pays attention to this topic. I have repeatedly seen how Russian propaganda, through its Western servants, distributed the map of the presidential elections in 2010, in which Ukraine is divided in half. At the same time, they claim that this is a map of the pro-Russian population and that these regions should be given to Russia. Yanukovych focused more on economic issues and his program was populist. He spoke "for everything good and against everything bad." And the majority in his program could find something of their own and interpret it in their own way. As for the Ukrainian language, his program stated that it remains the only state language. And the Russian language and other languages ​​have the right to exist in Ukraine. That is, he repeated what was stated in the constitution and how it worked before and after his tenure. Yanukovych's pre-election program was not pro-Russian, he spoke Ukrainian and never advocated joining Russia before the election Yanukovych positioned himself as a politician who is friendly to Russia but who will cooperate closely with Europe. That is, he showed some neutrality between East and West and his neutral path. Like once President Kuchma. And the majority of Ukrainians (until 2014) supported it. The majority of Ukrainians did not support the idea of ​​joining NATO. After all, when we gave up nuclear weapons, the USA, Britain, Russia and other countries guaranteed our sovereignty and territorial integrity. As history has shown, these hopes were in vain and Russia violated the agreements. But some Ukrainians remembered well the history of the extermination of Ukrainians by the Russians and were worried about Russia's attack on Georgia in 2008, which showed that Russia has not changed and will repeat its fascist-imperialist path. They turned out to be right. The share of these Ukrainians, in my subjective opinion, was 20%-30%, including me. It should be noted that these are people who did not want a war with Russia and did not plan it. But based on historical and modern realities, it was suspected that Russia would try to seize Ukraine or part of it in one way or another. And when Yanukovych finally canceled the European integration processes in November, people took to the streets both those who were against the cancellation of this process and those who feared that Russia, through Yanukovych, had started the process of absorbing Ukraine. There was another group of people who opposed the government because of great corruption and the transformation of the state into a totalitarian one. Or those that came out due to a combination of these factors. However, the final factor that pushed the protests into the Revolution of Dignity was the beating of protesters in the center of Kyiv. Then a peaceful and legal rally, which at the time consisted mainly of young people, was surrounded and then beaten by the police. The police beat people lying down. They even beat journalists. Then on December 1, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians came out in response to this brutality, the beginning of the establishment of a dictatorship and the suppression of people's rights. From that time, people did not leave the central square of Kyiv until Yanukovych fled to Russia. The first video shows the beating of protesters in the center of Kyiv. The second video is the start of the Revolution of Dignity in response to this.

It looks funny when trolls come to me in replays and tell me that Russia is protecting Donbas, and Ukraine is destroying the inhabitants of Donbas. I was born and raised in Donbas. I was an eyewitness to Russia's crimes in 2014. What happened in Buch and other cities in 2022 already happened in Luhansk, Donetsk and other occupied cities of Donbas in 2014 If you want, I will someday make a thread about the events of 2014 in Donbas.