If there where so many why didn't they come out?
Maybe they are afraid? Plenty of frustrated, trigger-happy Ukrainian paramilitary nutcases are roaming the streets of Mariupol these days you know.
Why was the city so peaceful before and now hundreds are fleeing the city?
Yeah some are fleeing, and how many are staying? And how many of those who fled would return if rebels take Mariupol? You don't know that.
The Russian backed rebels might go and conquer all Ukraine do you really think all the people there support new russia?
A lot of them just hate their current government and oppose it like a lot of Americans do. But would they change it to another one that might prove even worse?
Basically you leave them no choice. It's just a forced replacement in which they won't have a word.
Exactly. So what should we do, hm? How about giving people chance to decide? Referendum was request from the very beginning (there was one, but it was held in everything but regular conditions tbh). However, Kiev has been refusing even to think about it, and this denial is one of the key causes for what today looks more and more like a wide-scale civil war. People of Donbass should have rights for self-determination. West gave that right to Albanians in Serbian province Kosovo, why Russians in Donbass cannot get the same freedom?