Welcome to Lemmy, where your worldview is challenged and the US government doesn't get to censor every perspective they don't want you to know about.

Yep. Give it time, a lot of these communities are still basically brand-new, and moderation tools are in their infancy. Long term, I don't think Russian trolls will find Lemmy all that welcoming for their garbage.

And yet… a brief internet search will reveal (and I have deliberately found a mixture of sources, most of which are anti-Russian)…

::: spoiler spoiler

• By 2016, the BBC was reporting that at least 9,200 people had been killed since 2014: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36148882
• ‘Donbas war death toll rises up to nearly 13,000’: https://www.unian.info/war/10416549-donbas-war-death-toll-rises-up-to-nearly-13-000-un.html
• UN Reported, ‘the total civilian death toll of the conflict has reached at least 3,390. The number of injured civilians is estimated to exceed 7,000.’ https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/aPR32_final_ENG.pdf. The same document reports: ‘Thirteen civilian casualties resulted from active hostilities: four killed (all men) and nine injured (seven men and two women). Seventy-seven per cent of these (four killed and six injured) were recorded in territory controlled by self-proclaimed ‘republics’, and 23 per cent (three injured) in the Government-controlled part of Donetsk region. For example, on 14 April 2021, a man was killed by mortar shelling in armed group-controlled Donetsk; and on 19 June 2021, a man was injured by heavy machine gun fire in Government-controlled Avdiivka (Donetsk region).’
• UN Security Council meeting on 29 May 2018 reported’: “The conflict [in eastern Ukraine] continues to test the credibility of international and regional organizations and erodes the trust Member States need to work together in the interest of Europe’s stability,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, Under‑Secretary‑General for Political Affairs. Repeated pledges to respect the ceasefire as laid out in the 2015 Minsk agreements had failed to end the fighting, now in its fifth year.  Destruction and immense suffering continued, she said, noting that the civilian death toll stood at more than 2,700, with up to 9,000 injured.’ https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13357.doc.htm
• https://www.donbass-insider.com/2021/03/09/ukraine-intensifies-shelling-and-preparations-for-offensive-in-the-donbass/
• You’ll notice the anti-Russia sentiment in some stories, e.g. https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-shootings-donetsk-moscow-russia-3d2e732cc1a88c0d1b36fe856b45a8a9 but they don’t deny the fact of a conflict. Instead they claim that France and Germany tried hard to arrange a peace agreement, known as Minsk, which apparently granted Russia too much.
• Looking further into Minsk, Merkel later revealed: ‘"It's a great sadness that it didn't work out, but I don't blame myself for not trying," said Merkel, speaking of the 2014 Minsk agreement with Russia.’ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/merkel-says-she-doesnt-blame-herself-not-trying-hard-enough-ukraine-2022-06-07/. In other words, ‘The 2014 Minsk Agreement was an attempt to buy time for Ukraine’—NATO was never serious about suing for peace: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2022/12/13/merkels-confession-could-be-a-pretext-for-an-international-tribunal/. To the real international community (not just the white parts of it): ‘Real intention behind Minsk agreements further destroys credibility of the West’ https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202212/1281708.shtml.
• https://popularresistance.org/ukraine-intensifies-shelling-of-donbass-as-western-media-are-silent/
• https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/10/five-years-of-war-in-the-donbas/
• https://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey/ :::