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Joined: March 30 2010
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Posted: February 22 2022 at 10:01
To broaden the context a bit: there are some concepts, ideas, anticipations that seem so obvious that nobody involved is even going to discuss them. I can remember two of them.
First, when the USSR came to an end in 1991, there was a very common, often not even said but meant, idea that "let those Baltic countries go away, let those Central Asian -stans like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan go away, let those hot-tempered peoples from the Caucasus like Armenia and Georgia go away - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus would live together in some sort of confederation without those troublesome Balts and other no less troublesome non-Slavic nations". The idea was so clear and evident that it needed not to be even voiced aloud. It just felt like that for many-many people in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. One may wonder, why the USSR got dissolved so peacefully? Mainly, because of what I have said - because it was obvious that the core of the USSR, the core of the pre-USSR Russian Empire (that is, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) would remain the same, remain united in one way or another. And those Balts and -stans - they were useful, but not necessary, at all. They did not constitute the core of the Russian Empire. The dissolution of the USSR was so peaceful because of that anticipation...
Second, tension grew very slowly, very gradually. Orange Revolution, first Ukrainian Maidan in 2004 led to many people from Western Ukraine moving to Kiev. Because there was such a trend at the time that the Western Ukrainians are TRUE Ukrainians, media in Kiev welcomed them, many of them became TV journalists, TV hosts at the all-Ukraine TV stations.
In the provincial Ukrainian city where my grandparents lived, in the morning on May 9, 2005 a group of youngsters broke the windows right in those private houses where the WW2 veterans lived, in the one particular yet very long street. The city had suffered from Holocaust a lot during WW2 and I remember how I was shocked by what's happened and at the same time glad that my grandfather who was a WW2 veteran died 4 years before so my granma's house's windows were not broken. I am not going to tell you along the Russian propaganda lines that Ukraine is a Neo-Nazi state. No, I have just told you what I have just told you. The anti-Soviet, anti-Russian (that includes anti-WW2-victory) moods grew year by year - massively heated up by the people from the Western regions of Ukraine. At the high school for two years teenagers of my age studied in the late 1990s at the Ukrainian literature lessons EXCLUSIVELY the novels about bad Soviets and bad Russians. It looked to me like all the serious Ukrainian literature was dedicated to Holodomor and Stalin repressions. In the late 1990s, though, it was seen as an innocent nationalist quirk of the young Ukrainian state. But as time went on and on, as the new generations finished high schools, as the Western Ukrainians massively moved to the Central Ukraine, to various offices in Kiev - the tension became the tendency.
I do not need to be "liberated" by somebody. Ukraine is still a rather democratic country more or less. Anyway, it is obvious to me that the Ukrainian population was mentally alienated from Russia in an artificial manner, by means of one-sided propaganda, one-sided biased geopolitical narrative. It is obvious to me that the modern day Ukrainian society is full of anger, full of intolerance to others' views, overflowing with militant thoughts of vengeance and punishment acts towards those with other views than their own ones. Sure, no invasion can help here. But it is necessary to understand that in such a multi-patched country one shouldn't tear the fabric in one direction or another. When there's a hole, the body is vulnerable. Don't blame the germs, blame your own immunity system then!
Edited by Woon Deadn - February 22 2022 at 10:12
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Posted: February 22 2022 at 14:53
As far as my information goes, in the referendum for independence of the Ukraine, in 1991, all parts of the Ukraine voted for independence with more then 92% out of a turnout of 84%. There were 54% pro independence on Crimea, in Donetsk and Luhansk regions more than 80%. The result was not contested, and recognised by Russia.
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 00:08
Lewian wrote:
As far as my information goes, in the referendum for independence of the Ukraine, in 1991, all parts of the Ukraine voted for independence with more then 92% out of a turnout of 84%. There were 54% pro independence on Crimea, in Donetsk and Luhansk regions more than 80%. The result was not contested, and recognised by Russia.
You are certainly right. But they voted for independence from the USSR, not from the friendly relations with Russia. There had also been a previous referendum in March of the same year where the results were quite the opposite. Three western Ukrainian provinces massively did not participate in the March referendum, as far as I heard. But the rest 22 ones did...
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus dissolved the USSR together... There were some chances to preserve the USSR without three Baltic republics. In Ukraine in the first half of 1991 only those three Western provinces (Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk ones) were aggressively against the preservation of the USSR. It was the August 1991 Coup that made people suspicious about the future of the USSR. Plus there were mass media in Ukraine that promoted the idea of total independence. There were many rather naive claims at the time. For example, it was widely known in Ukraine at the time that a few centuries ago a Ukrainian Cossack leader Pavlo Polubotok invested gold in one of the British banks. It was said now when Ukraine would be totally independent the deposit with all the percents obtained for the passed centuries would be returned to Ukraine and so every Ukrainian would get like a thousand dollars if not more. Sadly, no deposit was found in any of the English banks...
There was an idea floating in the air that there would be some kind of confederation or union of close partnership between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It was quite three-four-five western Ukrainian provinces that turned Ukraine away from it. Plus the naive emotional beliefs of some Ukrainians from other regions of Ukraine.
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 05:42
@Woon Deadn: Personally I believe that the people of a region should decide their own destiny on a democratic basis. I'd respect if the people of Crimea or the Luhansk and Donetsk regions would vote for independence or even association with Russia in a free and democratic referendum. However, it surely doesn't work and can't be accepted by invasion and armed pressure as apparently Russia/the separatists in the east want to have it. So it seems the Ukraine independence referendum was the last legitimate one, and it had a pretty unambiguous result. Also the thing is, at some point a decision is made, and it doesn't make sense to revise it every few years. In principle, after 30 years, I'd probably agree that another referendum, if done properly, could be legitimate, but if you vote to be in a democratic state and at some point the government takes a turn you don't like, this isn't immediately a justification for having another referendum. These things happen, and the question whether people want to belong to Ukraine or Russia should be bigger than that.
Plus there were mass media in Ukraine that promoted the idea of total independence.
If you have reasonably free media, you should expect that there are mass media promoting any one side in a big issue like this. You should also, unfortunately, expect that there is some simplification and misinformation, usually on both sides. Democratic votings, for better or worse, do not require that everyone is rational and well informed in a balanced way. I'd be very surprised if in 1991 the pro-independence side had much stronger influence on the media than the other side, which was still in power at the time.
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 07:16
Woon Deadn says - "You are certainly right. But they voted for independence from the USSR, not from the friendly relations with Russia."
Yes, they voted for independence, but the friendly relations is a two-way street between the governments of the two countries and not something that would be voted on in the first place. What has the Russian government done to promote 'friendly relations'? Sending in troops is not so friendly is it?
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 07:52
Putin has lost the plot,if he thinks this is going to end well for Russia. He might capture Ukraine - if he decides to go for full on invasion, including taking the capital. I'm still not convinced he will go that far, but if he does he'll have a job holding on to the country, and will be bogged down in guerila warfare, maybe for years. His country will be bankrupt. Thousands of Russian service personnel will have been killed. NATO will be right up against the Ukrainian border in Poland, Hungary & Romania. Belarus will have NATO bearing down on it from Latvia & Lithuania. At that point he'll have his back to the wall, all dressed up and nowhere to go. That could actually be the most frightening part of the whole disaster. Desperate despots, with nothing else to lose are likely to make irrational decisions.
Alternatively, he might take the whole of Donbass and leave it at that, but in either case, the outcome is very bad for Ukraine, for Russia and probaby for the whole of Eastern Europe. The very best outcome from all this is a refugee crisis, an energy crisis and a tense cold war for the forseeable. The worst outcome is armageddon. IMO.
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 10:28
Lewian wrote:
@Woon Deadn: Personally I believe that the people of a region should decide their own destiny on a democratic basis. I'd respect if the people of Crimea or the Luhansk and Donetsk regions would vote for independence or even association with Russia in a free and democratic referendum. However, it surely doesn't work and can't be accepted by invasion and armed pressure as apparently Russia/the separatists in the east want to have it. So it seems the Ukraine independence referendum was the last legitimate one, and it had a pretty unambiguous result. Also the thing is, at some point a decision is made, and it doesn't make sense to revise it every few years. In principle, after 30 years, I'd probably agree that another referendum, if done properly, could be legitimate, but if you vote to be in a democratic state and at some point the government takes a turn you don't like, this isn't immediately a justification for having another referendum. These things happen, and the question whether people want to belong to Ukraine or Russia should be bigger than that.
It is difficult to me to explain the whole gamut of nuances on the topic even in my native language(s). I am trying my best to do that, at least by providing the overall context. Sometimes I make slight mistakes. Thus, it would be better to write "When the USSR was coming to an end there were ideas of a union" than "When the USSR came to an end...". Simply, indefinite tenses in English and the imperfect aspect of the verbs in Russian are not always semantically identical.
It is a common knowledge in the post-Soviet space that the Communist elite, the nomenklatura, the apparatchiks wanted more power as soon as possible. Former assistants, second-and-so-forth secretaries, people in the background were in a hurry to become presidents or prime ministers of newly created independent states. Boris Yeltsin also wanted to be a president of Russia as soon as possible. There was no time and no wish for Russian leaders to care about the Crimea and other potentially explosive topics. Because there was a feeling that Ukraine would follow the well-balanced ethnical policy and after all, who cared about the Crimean peninsula when you can become a president of the whole country?
You're talking about referendum, but I hope you understand that the Ukrainian government in Kiev would have never allowed such referendum to happen... It was a fact that the population of the Crimea massively wanted to join Russia all those years. They were very pro-Soviet, pro-Russian, anti-NATO and anti-EU. But who cared? Also I hope you understand that the USA would have never allowed and never recognized such a referendum - just because it concerns Russia. So much was said about voting at gunpoints, but the results of the referendum were hardly surprising. No doubt, like 10-20% were added artificially (because it's the former USSR lands, you know) - but the picture was obvious and expectable. How else could that voting be possible if not after Russian troops' entering?
And again, do not underestimate the effect of Euromaidan. Euromaidan was so blurry, so messy, so bloody and it ended with the total absence of power in the whole country for at least a few days. City councils were occupied by the protesters, ministries were occupied, president escaped. Is the referendum in the Crimea acceptable in such time? Well, everything is acceptable because the country is dead. The laws were no longer working - everybody did what he/she wanted to do. No doubt about it, no government in post-Euromaidan Kiev would have allowed the Crimean population to vote for joining Russia.
Lewian wrote:
Plus there were mass media in Ukraine that promoted the idea of total independence.
If you have reasonably free media, you should expect that there are mass media promoting any one side in a big issue like this. You should also, unfortunately, expect that there is some simplification and misinformation, usually on both sides. Democratic votings, for better or worse, do not require that everyone is rational and well informed in a balanced way. I'd be very surprised if in 1991 the pro-independence side had much stronger influence on the media than the other side, which was still in power at the time.
I may be wrong, I am not a historian and I was a child at the time - but from what I know and firmly believe, there was practically only one side in 1991 after the August coup... Practically nobody in the Communist establishment wanted the USSR to exist in the late 1991. Practically no journalists wanted it. The voting results in Ukraine in December showed it. In November 1917 the Bolsheviks believed that the most difficult thing in building heaven on Earth would be to get the power. In 1991 there was a belief the USSR is the only obstacle on the path of building a happy prosperous life. The Communist elite massively shared that view, as well!
Edited by Woon Deadn - February 23 2022 at 11:48
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 11:46
Easy Money wrote:
Woon Deadn says - "You are certainly right. But they voted for independence from the USSR, not from the friendly relations with Russia."
Yes, they voted for independence, but the friendly relations is a two-way street between the governments of the two countries and not something that would be voted on in the first place. What has the Russian government done to promote 'friendly relations'? Sending in troops is not so friendly is it?
It's a question of sizes. Imagine, Russia is joining NATO - NATO is of course ruled by the USA, then it should have been ruled by the USA and Russia. Is it possible? Hardly so.
Russia is, if I remember right, 29.5 times larger by area than Ukraine. In the Soviet times there was a popular idiom, meme of the elder brother Russia and its younger sister Ukraine. The younger sister is very talented, very productive, in some ways better than her brother - the elder brother is simply strong. This is a reasonable duet, especially considering an emotional, often a cry-baby nature of Ukraine (just believe me on that point...). But, excuse me, when the brother is 29.5 times taller or wider or thicker than his sister - it's not what you'd call a friendship. It's a partnership. Sure, elephants have other concerns than the ants.
Speaking specifically, I can't prove it, but there were constant talks in the 1990s that Ukraine used to steal Russian gas from the gas pipes in the Ukrainian territory... The talks were so constant that probably it really happened. Russia said, threatened - but finally forgave Ukraine.
Russian business certainly invested in Ukraine, was massively present in Ukraine.
Average Ukrainian citizens in the first half of the 1990s had 3 all-Ukrainian TV channels: in 1992-1995 there were UT-1 (hello from the 1950s, agricultural programs and outdated local crooners), Russian First Channel, and UT-2/3 that gave a lot of its air to the Russian Second Channel. An independent country of Ukraine mostly watched two main Russian state channels that aired different shows, news, whatever. The Second Channel of Russia broadcasted the American TV show Gladiators, among others.
Even nowadays nearly 5 million Ukrainians used to work in Russia. For example, built private houses for rich Russians. Workers from Ukraine, Moldova and Central Asia have built a significant part of elite Moscow suburbs, thus.
There are not so many abnormally vast countries left in the world. Well, they live according to their size. The USA, Russia, China fight for the spheres of influence, fight for what they believe is justice and truth. What is truth and justice for an elephant are not necessarily such for an ant. It is rather expected they are not such for an ant.
I feel sympathy and utterly understand the worldview, the views of pretty small countries, territories like Estonia or Western Ukraine. They are small, they used to live in isolated group within themselves, surrounded by bigger predators. When the USSR annexed Estonia and Western Ukraine, they did there what they had done in the rest of the USSR: shootings, imprisonments, sending to Siberia of the tens of thousands of people. For such very small very isolated yet passionate groups it felt like a catastrophic blow, their cocoons were badly damaged. Russia or the USA are simply too big to think of such stuff. How many people died during Great Depression? How many people died under Stalin? Well, we have survived - let's do everything to prevent this from happening again! But in say it Western Ukraine where the locals used to marry only the ones from their region, befriend only the locals, feel free only with the locals - it felt like a tragedy on a global scale. You can't perform elephant's tricks on ants. Ants can't bear elephant's moves performed on them.
Similarly, Russia promoted friendly relations in a manner empires used to perform. But then, who would get you better than a member of your family?.. It's a part of the bigger problem of people's interaction. Any group of people always have kinda-bullies and kinda-servants. People have to socialize, have to learn how to live among other people. How to defend their position, how to improve the behaviour of the others. How to live with the members of your family.
The same with countries, actually. And what has the Ukrainian government done to promote friendly relations with Russia, after all? After the Orange Revolution in 2005 a new Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs came to Moscow with official visit, where he demanded a Ukrainian-Russian translator as he spoke there only in Ukrainian. He certainly knew Russian perfectly and I am almost sure he used to speak Russian a lot when at home - but he wanted to demonstrate his position. In result, his visit expectedly became a failure. Don't get me wrong, if there's a Ukrainian politician who really speaks Ukrainian 24/7 I am ready to respect and accept his views. But usually in Ukraine it's just a PR trick. Those Ukrainians usually speak Ukrainian only while the cameras are on...
There was such a situation once on Ukrainian TV when a Ukrainian female politician spoke Ukrainian to a Russian actor (no translation to Russian was provided to him), the actor told her he didn't understand Ukrainian to which she said, "This is your problem". The actor was an ethnic Tatar so he responded in Tatar - the language which nobody in the studio could understand, at all... And, believe me, her Ukrainian speech had at least one grammatical mistake - it's clear she's not an experienced Ukrainian speaker
So, you know, that's a mutual process. Inviting a guest to the foreign show without providing him with a translator doesn't look that friendly, as well...
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 12:33
^ Just curious, what is your motivation to be such an elaborate justifier for the actions of the Russian government? My motivation to speak up for Eastern Europe is that I like to take a stand against propaganda that comes from the big military powers such as the US, Russia, China, England etc.
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Posted: February 23 2022 at 13:45
Easy Money wrote:
^ Just curious, what is your motivation to be such an elaborate justifier for the actions of the Russian government? My motivation to speak up for Eastern Europe is that I like to take a stand against propaganda that comes from the big military powers such as the US, Russia, China, England etc.
First of all, I like to argue, like to contradict . An opportunity to argue in foreign language is even more exciting.
Second, I like (and feel the need) to solve the conflicts by explaining something to some ones. I see that the foreigners do not know that much about the former USSR and the current state of things in the post-Soviet territories.
Third, and probably the most important of all, I am not that young to have illusions and not that old to stop searching for some universal formula, universal truth. I am 38 y.o. - I still do not know the whole formula of everything. I have gone through different stages along with many of my present and former compatriots. In the 1991 or so when I was 7-8 y.o., our school teacher once mentioned Lenin. My father despised Lenin and the USSR, I heard many jokes about the Soviet politics on TV at the time - so I laughed aloud, nobody else in the classroom laughed at all. There was a few seconds of silence and the teacher explained to her colleague, "His father is from the Western Ukraine". As time went by, I simply started understanding that at the time in the beginning of the 20th century the same things, the same ideas sounded differently, if not opposite to how we perceive them now. Everything was very different. It's enough to read some Dickens to see that life of the workers, life of the ordinary people was hard everywhere in the world, Lenin and his idea(l)s were not that crazy for the time. North Korea at the time of its creation also did not look that crazy.
I was very much anti-Russian circa 2010-2012. Then I simply saw how primitive the Ukrainian nationalist narrative occurred to be. Just as primitive as my vocabulary in the posts over here - mainly, the same words, the same messages posted over and over again.
I am ready to respect and cherish and support the people who really stand for what they're fighting for (unless it's something thoroughly extremist, of course). But when the people stand for something they have no idea about, when the whole national idea consists of crying for the past tragedies and hating exclusively Russia and the USSR - I see no reason in such a nation-building.
You definitely implied I am somehow a Russian... gnome, orc, that kind of creatures. I don't think, Progarchives forum is anyhow significant for the Russian government... Let us not overestimate ourselves!
I certainly see kilotons of problems in modern day Russia and the former USSR. Do I personally want to live in Russia, my country to be a part of Russia? No! But I'd like some sort of confederation or informal union with Russia and Belarus, perhaps with other post-Soviet countries. Also notice that Russia is a declining power. I prefer to defend the weaker superpowers rather than the superpowerful ones.
And... I was born in the USSR. Both of my parents were born in 1952, so they lived one first year of their lives under Stalin. I was born a few days before Andropov came to power. I am a creature that was raised by the Soviet engineers. I am a Soviet man. There are no former Presidents, no former Olympic champions. Once baptized in Christianity, it is impossible to unbaptize then. Once born in the USSR and raised by the Soviet people, one shouldn't un-sovietize himself/herself completely then, I suggest. As time went on, I started comprehensing some positive sides, traits of the Soviet existence. For the most part, they were non-material or at least directly-invisible - the material side was not among the greatest ones in the USSR...
Did the latest Putin speech and other of his speeches made me happy? Did I agree to his views? His views are too schematic, he is putting labels. He is sometimes just lying. I prefer more balanced views, more sincere speeches. He is not my type of speakers or my type of people. Is he a good leader for Russia? I don't consider myself a citizen of Russia to make statements about the other country.
Tastes are often irrational, irreasonable, irresistible. When I adored soccer in mid-1990s, my favourite national soccer team was the Dutch one. Why? I don't know. Maybe, just because I loved the orange color, they wore orange shirts. Maybe, because I loved the sounding of the word "Holland".
I love the USSR. Such is my taste. My love is not possessive , I love it retrospectively. I love it and I love the fact that it's gone.
No specific reason, therefore.
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Posted: February 24 2022 at 03:15
Donbass republics have declared that they will attempt to conquer all territory over which they claim possession with Russian support. Russia warns Ukraine's armed forces to lay down their arms and Ukraine's allies to stand down lest they "face consequences greater than any have faced in history". Reports are coming in of border crossings by Russian troops not only from the east but also from Belarus and Crimea, of naval landings at Odessa, and of air raids on Kyiv and Lviv, hardly bastions of oppressed Russian minorities. People are fleeing the capital en masse.
Is anyone still wondering why the Baltic states and the rest of Eastern Europe wanted to join NATO? Really hoping that this is a wake-up call for anyone who continued to insist that NATO and the USA are the real aggressors and Putin's concerns needed to be taken seriously.
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Posted: February 24 2022 at 03:24
Thanks to the wonder of the Internet - which truly is a World Wide Web - I have many, many friends in both Ukraine and Russia. And it’s important to note that this is not Russia’s war. This is Putin’s war. And Putin is not warring against Ukraine, but rather against NATO. I am no Putin sympathiser, and in no way think he is innocent - but he is far from being the only guilty party here, and NATO (and most particularly the US and UK) are in my opinion as much to blame as Russia. (And, of course, by the US, UK and Russia, I do not mean their peoples, but rather their leaders.)
This morning, my FB feed is full of sorrow and sympathy from my FB friends in Russia. Most are short, because it’s hard to say how you feel when your country has invaded another, without it seeming a platitude. A few are longer, and I thought I might share this one - as I suspect it is indicative of how most Russians feel.
There is no war!
We, ordinary people, are against war. We will never support her. There is no war.
We were all raised by our grandparents. My grandfather had a bomb blast and tore both his legs. There is not a single family that has not been touched by war. And there is not a single person who is not touched by this.
You can tell this happened without our consent. It was decided without us, at night, under silence.
But we will not be silent. The only thing you can do now is not to be silent. Don't hide, don't say that I'm out of politics. This is no longer politics, this is our reality now.
And yet very scary. But don't be afraid. Don't give in to panic. Although I cannot suppress this disgusting feeling - fear and shame at the same time. Shame is not for your actions. I would like to apologize to all my friends from Ukraine, although I have not done anything.
It's hard to understand and accept it right now, but Russia has decided to take our lives with yours, push the buttons and blow up weapons.
Russia is not Putin!
Russia is the people who want peace. We love our country, yes, and we want to be proud of it. But we don't want war. We don’t want to be the aggressors. We don't want to attack. We do not want to take away other people's territory. We have to deal with ourselves, half of the country lives in poverty and destruction.
We want peace and only peace. We don't want to bomb anyone. We don't wanna fight. To attack. We want to live our lives. Make friends, love, work.
We.
Don’t.
Want.
Wars.
This is not our war, this is one man's war. Only we, ordinary people of both Russia and Ukraine, will suffer in this hell. Our military men and women will die for nothing.
There is no war!
And here is an opinion from an Italian friend with no vested interest in either Ukraine or Russia, for context on why so many people believe NATO is as much to blame as Russia/Putin.
Russia has chosen war.
Has it, though? I would like to respond by saying that NATO didn’t exactly choose to distribute flowers and rose petals all around the world in the last 30 years.
The future of the world is multipolar, with no military blocs threatening others. And borders, all borders, and peoples, all peoples, must be respected.
NATO should have been superseded in 1992 after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Instead it lasted another thirty years and now we are on the verge of a more serious war than those that preceded it.
I don’t like Putin, but I truly think he’s not the only evil and NATO is the main guilty concerning what is going on. If you want peace, you need to update the old slogan: Europe out from NATO, NATO out from Europe.
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Posted: February 24 2022 at 03:30
Mirakaze wrote:
Donbass republics have declared that they will attempt to conquer all territory over which they claim possession with Russian support. Russia warns Ukraine's armed forces to lay down their arms and Ukraine's allies to stand down lest they "face consequences greater than any have faced in history". Reports are coming in of border crossings by Russian troops not only from the east but also from Belarus and Crimea, of naval landings at Odessa, and of air raids on Kyiv and Lviv, hardly bastions of oppressed Russian minorities. People are fleeing the capital en masse.
Is anyone still wondering why the Baltic states and the rest of Eastern Europe wanted to join NATO? Really hoping that this is a wake-up call for anyone who continued to insist that NATO and the USA are the real aggressors and Putin's concerns needed to be taken seriously.
Fully agree.
I hope Woon Deadn and other Ukrainian members of PA are able to get to some place safe. My thoughts are with them.
Edited by progaardvark - February 24 2022 at 03:33
---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions
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Posted: February 24 2022 at 04:28
nick_h_nz wrote:
I am no Putin sympathiser, and in no way think he is innocent - but he is far from being the only guilty party here, and NATO (and most particularly the US and UK) are in my opinion as much to blame as Russia. (And, of course, by the US, UK and Russia, I do not mean their peoples, but rather their leaders.)
I heard that Russia actually tried to join NATO, but rejected. When Clinton was in office.
Edited by Archisorcerus - February 24 2022 at 04:29
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Russia/Ukraine tensions - Any concern?
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omphaloskepsis wrote:
. They are small, they used to live in isolated group within themselves, surrounded by bigger predators. When the USSR annexed Estonia and Western Ukraine, they did there what they had done in the rest of the USSR: shootings, imprisonments, sending to Siberia of the tens of thousands of people. For such very small very isolated yet passionate groups it felt like a catastrophic blow, their cocoons were badly damaged. Russia or the USA are simply too big to think of such stuff. How many people died during Great Depression? How many people died under Stalin? Well, we have survived - let's do everything to prevent this from happening again! But in say it Western Ukraine where the locals used to marry only the ones from their region, befriend only the locals, feel free only with the locals - it felt like a tragedy on a global scale. You can't perform elephant's tricks on ants. Ants can't bear elephant's moves performed on them.
