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Comment by artem247 | Hacker News Reader

So following your logic every country has a right to exert influence over it’s neighbors using military power. The are pro-Russian political parties in Ukraine, yet their support is low, around 10% and falling, so no hope of achieving Russia-oriented Ukraine via political means. The presence of West in Ukraine is overstated. Yes, Ukraine follows pro-Western foreign policy, what else could be done? Ukrainian electorate is wary of Russia, there are no other players here except West.

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To be fair Ukrainian government blocked/stopped from distribution most pro Russian media (both TV and newspapers) and jailed/drove to exile pro Russian politicians so whether actual election outcome represents preferences of the public is not clear before we even consider election fraud.

0% people voted for Taliban in Afghanistan (as no Taliban politician was allowed to participate in elections) yet they clearly enjoyed support of majority of population.

The blocking of ‘some’ of TV channels happened last year. Election to parliament happened almost three years ago, where actually one of the opposition parties won in a landslide.

Exile happened in 2014, due to closeness to Yanukovitch, for a portion of politicians. That was rather voluntary for them, mainly related to their stance on Crimea and so on. New “pro-Russian” figures came on the scene.

There are still pro—Russian political parties in parliament , which have media support (they are backed by powerful oligarchs) The richest man of Ukraine was the backer of Yanukovich, he hasn’t lost his influence or assets.

There is still internet, for example those blocked channels are very active on Youtube.

There is plenty of data that show suppport for those parties through out the years and it is pretty consistent with what I say - since 2014 it is around 10 - 15 % due to a number of reasons.

On the ground situation is very different than on RT or alike.

I dont think they were making a moral judgement, just a realpolitik analysis.

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