I'd ALWAYS heard it was. Indeed, the ruling tribe there, the RUSS are the ones Russia is named after, aren't they? (I'd really like it if one of our Russia experts would post a good history of how Russia/Ukraine developed together and apart up until the beginning of the Soviet Union) Medieval history aside my understanding is they became one of the "Russias" under the Tsars in 1757(?) Now that's some little time, in fact it's longer than USA has existed. How would we feel if a fractious group of Texans wanted to secede and Putin was telling us we'd better not invade them? Texas was once its own country (and they've never quite forgotten, not even in the realms of wild Science Fantasy) Don't get me wrong. I'm as against this recent trend of autocracies to gobble up their neighbors as the next guy, and I don't think we do enough to protect free countries around the world, but we shouldn't act as if Putin has no historical basis for his claims He has at least as much as Hitler had to Austria.
Imo the problem is much deeper than trying to untie the Gordian knot of what piece of land rightfully belongs to whom. As with Hitler and Austria, since you reference that, did Hitler stop with Austria? No, he did not. Europe caving to Hitler caused Hitler to keep going, and that weakness ultimately led to what all would have believed to be inconceivable. Hitler specifically interpreted Europe’s inaction as weakness and took advantage of it. It caused mistakes, like interpreting Russia’s struggle with Finland as a sign he could roll over them which led to his downfall, but that didn’t help the millions who died as a result. Likewise, who’s to say our Afghanistan debacle isn’t being seen exactly the same way Hitler did Russia vs Finland? He’s already taken Crimea. He takes Ukraine, what happens as a result? Does China take Taiwan? What does N.Korea do? What does Iran do? these are far far more pertinent questions in my mind than Russia’s feelings on what belongs to it. They have bloody plenty of land last I checked.
By all historical accounts(both pro-soviet and other neutral accounts) it would seem that it was the Soviets who had planned an invasion of Germany, and they were caught flat footed by the German pivot to attack first. While the Germans were sympathetic to the plight of the Finnish, they weren't exactly keen on getting involved in that conflict. Really, the true error in WW2 on the side of the axis did not belong to Germany(even Italy was honestly correct to stay out of the war given its pathetic performance.). It belongs to the Japanese. The Germans continually communicated with the Japanese to aid in the Soviet war and had the Japanese done so, the UK wasn't in too great a shape and to have a still strong Germany meant that even with the bomb, the Japanese need not have capitulated to the Americans. In abandoning their German allies, Germany fell and Japan fell soon after to a planned Soviet invasion. Making Japan the worst player on the AXIS side. Mistake after mistake by the Japanese army.
You're missing some history. Ukraine was left with an arsenal of cold war era weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union. The US committed to defending Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine destroying the weapons.
So, in an effort to prevent nuclear war we have exposed Ukraine to Putin's tender mercies, and now it seems we will probably leave them high and dry But that's okay, we have our Wall to sit behind. (It's only 400 miles long and it's already falling down but it's Big and Beautiful, just like was said) America First!
The so-called Rus were not/are not a tribe, but a collection of tribe/clans united by the Byzantine Church a thousand pr so years ago. It took me about 30 seconds to google this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–Ukraine_relations#History_of_relations This isn't their first dance.
Well not exactly. And a whole lot of that depends on the time period you look at. At various times the Ukraine has been controlled by the mongols, the poles, and briefly occupied, by the Germans, and Swedes among others.
Eh. If Ukraine gives Hunter $87,000 / month and the Big Guy gets his 10%, he would send over some military help. Problem is since the Big Guy helped Putin supply 50% of fuel the EU uses for heating, we won't get help from them ,,, and we couldn't help anyway since the Big Guy did Putin's work to shut down US natural gas production. We couldn't supply LNG to the EU if we wanted to. Putin will wait until the dead of winter before he moves. Building Back Better
Absolute majority of people in Ukraine do not consider themselves to be Russian. Also, unlike Texas, they have their own language and alphabet. Russians themselves view them as separate people. If Russia invaded Ukraine, a lot of people will die. Russians indiscriminately bomb cities (look up Grozny) and use civilians as shields (how Russians were hiding behind women and children when taking over Crimea). Many Ukrainians will refuse to accept Russian rule and there might be prolonged period of guerrilla warfare. Majority of their men of fighting age were raised on the idea of independent Ukraine.
Yes. The Rus people were Norse from Sweden who formed Kievan Rus, a multiethnic society ruled by Norsemen who assimilated with Slavic, Baltic and Finnic tribes. They gave their name to both Russia and Belarus Well they both were spawned from undifferentiated Slavs, but, they've always been distinct groups. Russians are the largest Slav group, Ukrainians are the second largest. Russia agreed to the reunification of Germany, a big ass deal for all their neighbors given that not long after the initial unification of the German States into Germany, they promptly launched back to back world wars. So, all of Europe was concerned when former Warsaw State East Germany was poised to unify with NATO state West Germany. The Western European nations were reassured by US troops stationed in Germany and Russia was assured by the US that, other than the absorption of East Germany, that NATO would not move "another inch" closer to Russia. Well, we broke the living crap out of that commitment, didn't we?
I guess Russia decides what's Russia and what's not. They took Crimea from Ukraine when Biden was vice-president under Obama. Why should they stop now?
But that agreement was with the Soviet Union. In a very real sense the Soviet Union is not there any more, are they?
That's a good point. This article seems to look at both sides fairly even-handedly. https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...est-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
Apparently Ukrainians don't think so. and Russia certainty doesn't need more land as their population is shrinking.
