Thanks for the info! Good to see that some of my favourite debaters in the forum are back.
Just hoping that Ramil and it-ogo find their way back.

I am cautiously siding with the rebels in this conflict for the reason

1) The ousting of Yanukovich was clearly orchestrated from abroad.
2) That a government should bomb and kill thousands of their own citizens is totally unacceptable to me. The US would use something like that as a reason to invade, even if the country was on the other side of the planet. This is right on Russia's border but Putin, Medvedev or Lavrov have not even been seen handing out cookies in Donetsk or Lugansk..
3) The People's republics are clearly local initiatives and whatever support they receive from Russia is almost certainly from individuals and organisations, not from the government. However, it seems without doubt that there are citizens of Russia (and other countries) fighting with the rebels as volunteers.

As for whether there are Nazis in the new Ukrainian government, or not, I couldn't say for sure, and it's probably not my business anyway.

Also I don't have a view on who downed MH17 apart from that whoever did it must have made an unintentional mistake.

However I REALLY object to the villification of either side, until there is firm proof.

If I wanted to see a conspiracy on the recent claim, I would have said that the informant should come forward with his full name, after having helped his family to leave Ukraine.
Otherwise anyone could say that he simply saw Voloshin on TV and made up the story.

If I was to make a guess, I'd say that it is much more likely that a commercial airplane flying at that height was downed by an airforce, than a ragtag bunch of rebels. I am not aware that any rebels in any conflict have managed to do something like that before, and it seems unlikely that they would have the equipment and the know-how.

I also think it's near unbelievable that the investigation hasn't come up with anything other than stating the obvious - it smells of cover up, because possibly, the truth is embarrasing.