Of course they are. Citizens can be conscripted.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Ukrainians living in Russian-occupied territory are being forced to assume Russian citizenship or face retaliation, including possible deportation or detention, a new US report has said.
Yale University researchers found that residents of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were being targeted by a systematic effort to strip them of Ukrainian identity.
Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin said in May that Moscow had given passports to almost 1.5 million people living in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions seized since October last year.
“This number has grown since then, with leaders of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) claiming that three-quarters of residents of that oblast [region] had received Russian citizenship,” the report said.
The report included a timeline of increasingly aggressive measures to pressure or force Ukrainians to become Russian citizens, starting in May 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea.
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Oh no Putler bad!
Unironically yes, Putin is like Hitler in some notable ways and is in fact very bad.
Apparently, lots of users here love him.
Wonder if those groups are organic but misled or crafted by China and Russia agencies.
I've read a couple of times that Russia should be supported because USA/NATO attacks countries and stages coups in Latin America for example.
Sure, everyone should be critical of the USA but we can also have a nuanced view.
A thought experiment: What if the USA (Russia) were to invade Mexico (Ukraine)? Should Latin America (Europe) support Mexico (Ukraine) from the invasion?
The same can be applied to other continents. China & Taiwan. Turkey & Greece. Etc
The anti-US/anti-NATO sentiment turning pro-russian is much older than astrosurfing. American hegemony during the '90s/'00s made it mainstream in many European left-wing parties, especially in reaction to the Gulf and Irak wars. At the time, America was the biggest bully around, used NATO as an extension of its foreign policy, etc. etc. so it was ideologically sound to try to get Europe to build some economic and political ties elsewhere to reduce American influence.
In this new multipolar world where the US isn't the only superpower around, one must reconsider this sentiment as it clearly works against Western interests. Yet it somehow persists to this day in left-wing politics with some reactionaries who cannot get over the fact that "America bad" does not mean "Russia/China better" (the enemy of my enemy is... still my enemy, STFU).
Russia should be supported
Who says stuff like that around here?
Tankies, tankies say that
I hate tankies
Holy shit, imagine defending genocide purely because of who's committing it. Take a good look at yourself, mate. Fucking shameful.
Yes, he's bad, evil in fact. Saying it in a mocking tone doesn't change that material reality
Imagine simping for a murdering genocidal dictator
I was really hoping users on Lemmy were mature enough not to use the caveman speak you see all over Reddit.
Well if the largest purveyor of violence on the international stage tells us stuff about a smaller purveyor of violence on the international stage, it must be true, right?
Or maybe it is true because the smaller purveyor is still pretty terrible and has openly been super imperialistic. They do not deserve support or respect simply because they oppose a country that is larger in almost every way. It's possible to not simp for empires yah know. Enter transactional agreements with them to support yourself, sure, but don't think of them as friends. Russia was totally in the wrong, as they started it to everyone's detriment, including their own.
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