Time to end sanctions against Russia, says French President.

[Xithras]

41. Yes, following a decade long attempted Ukranian genocide of their own ethnic Russian citizens.

Many DU posters, and indeed many people on the planet, need to look up the definition of genocide. It does NOT require that people be killed (though killing people is the fastest way to accomplish it). Genocide is defined as a "coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups..." That definition was provided by Raphael Lemkin, the inventor of the word "genocide" and the person who defined it for the UN. Under international law, you can commit genocide without killing a single person.

Now look up "Ukrainianization", which was the official government policy in Ukraine since the fall of communism, and which was applied to areas that had never been traditionally Ukrainian but which had been gifted to Ukraine by the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian government banned education in minority languages, suppressed minority ethnic activities, and openly and publicly declared its goal to destroy ethnic minorities by turning them into Ukrainians. This was scaled back a bit after 2010 and there was a lot of talk about creating a "multi-ethnic Ukraine", but the one of the first things the western backed government did after taking over was repeal the language law and restart Ukrainianization efforts.

Many people in the west falsely believe that anti-Ukrainian sentiment among ethnic Russians in Ukraine was created by Russia/Putin, but it's been around for quite some time, and for very valid reasons. Putin simply threw a match into a gas filled room.