Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1521113120042885121?s=20&t=Y7xe2vwYfG7O...

Once again, one has to wonder if sabotage, incompetence, or a lack of replacement parts taking their tole on those industries ordered to produce as fast as possible.

Possibly sabotage, similar to the destroyed railways in Belarus. I don't think this is an accident.

[Stranger in a strange land]

A military can't run if everyone is sitting around skimming off the top to the point that there is barely anything left to actually go towards actual operations.

Even Russian writers who generally take care to be extremely careful about politics would often happily slip in jokes and dark references to corruption in the military in their work - up until a few months ago, anyway. Which gives an indication of a few things.

This is happening too often for them to be accidents. I can't help but think that there are more than a few Russians who are against the War and disgusted by the atrocities that have occurred.

[Badger]

Regarding the above, it does come down to how readily Russia uses nukes, and what choices the West makes when subjected to nuclear blackmail. It does appear that this war is going to break Russia, unless Putin is removed. What does Putin do when it appears that he is losing his grip because the war is going that badly for him? The choices we make on this issue are very personal to each of us. It may come to the point that the outcome is going to be either a nuclear holocaust or the death of Putin. I hope and trust our spy network has a much better handle on the prospects and ways and means of terminating Putin when we reach the tipping point.

My personal temperament is that I don't submit to blackmail in a situation like this no matter what. But then I am an old without kids. It would be the height of hubris for me to bash those who make other choices.

Oh yes, Putin has done a splendid job of making NATO an anti Russian alliance once again. Actually, it would be more accurate that it is an anti Putin alliance. This is very much Putin's own personal war. If anyone can recommend a good non cliched read on just why Russian culture makes it susceptible to falling into the grip of all powerful totally toxic strong men, I would appreciate that.

Oh, one other thought. Europe is going to have to find a way to power itself not using Russian sources, and sooner rather than later. Once Europe does that, how is Russia going to make its living in the world? That shows how irrational and obsessed Putin really is, and why this whole cf is so dangerous - perhaps even dire.

And atop this set of badly soured gambits, Russia is annoying Israel, one of the relatively few neutrals in this war and players that could broker a peace settlement.
Will India have to mediate the next round of serious peace talks, because Tel Aviv refused to do it? Lol.

Can someone more knowledgeable about Israeli foreign policy explain to me why, despite their close ties with the US in the west, they are relatively neutral in the Russia Ukraine war?

Russian immigration to Israel? They make up about 15% of Israel's population.

While that dwarfs the 500000 Ukrainian Israelis, wouldn't the typical Russian emigre likely be relatively anti-Putin?

[Badger]

A military can't run if everyone is sitting around skimming off the top to the point that there is barely anything left to actually go towards actual operations.

Even Russian writers who generally take care to be extremely careful about politics would often happily slip in jokes and dark references to corruption in the military in their work - up until a few months ago, anyway. Which gives an indication of a few things.

This is happening too often for them to be accidents. I can't help but think that there are more than a few Russians who are against the War and disgusted by the atrocities that have occurred.

True, but probably few to none willing to commit industrial sabotage for Ukraine.

Edit: my point is that a majority, possibly a large majority, of these are the results of wartime Sabotage by very brave ukrainians rather than mere industrial accidents

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1521159911618535427
👀

[President Johnson]

https://twitter.com/Thomas_Sparrow/status/1521185192622309376

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Arguing with TimTurner is a waste of time.

The man literally believes that might makes right, really no better than BigSerg, just more agreeable.

I've literally changed my mind on multiple things since this war began (in some cases because of reasoned arguments with people), and I do not actually believe in might makes right (if you look at things overall), but you know what they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Stay on-topic, drive-by hater.
EDIT: I'll note that I've deleted no posts about this war, as far as I recall, no matter how wrong they were in retrospect. You can look through them if you like.

Great. Then you can have a long overdue change of opinion on this subject of Russia's motivation for invasion and just take the L. Russia's theory of Conquest here, key word being Conquest, is nothing more geopolitically complex than "Russia want, Russia take!!", which is as obvious as the nose on one's face.

We need to distinguish between what caused this war in the long term, and what has directly driven it in the very short term.

I still believe firmly that NATO expansion has had a pivotal role in creating this war, and we+European allies are the driving force in the region. Russia's hand is extremely weak. Zero need to take an L on something I'm entirely right about.

There are also things like the break of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Russian one, that have likely had a particular impact on him. Add to the growing distance between the two countries and the fact he's been so isolated during the pandemic (why did he write and publish an essay? He had so little else to do! Perhaps he was despairing that not as many people have been taking the vaccine....) and unhappy feelings of his America has always, at most, merely nodded at...

This war has multifaceted causes and was not at all necessarily inevitable, even with the existence of the "expand or die" mentality in Russia.

The problem with conflating long-term causes of this war with the short-term ones is that those are distinct and very different, coming from different places. Reality is naunced.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

A military can't run if everyone is sitting around skimming off the top to the point that there is barely anything left to actually go towards actual operations.

Even Russian writers who generally take care to be extremely careful about politics would often happily slip in jokes and dark references to corruption in the military in their work - up until a few months ago, anyway. Which gives an indication of a few things.

This is happening too often for them to be accidents. I can't help but think that there are more than a few Russians who are against the War and disgusted by the atrocities that have occurred.

Who knows at this point.
One darkly funny fact about the Russian military is that a part of its duties is acting as a quasi-corvee force building and doing work on elite generals' dachas.
It's amazing how lowly the institution really is (in how it is treated). You'd think they would be treating them better, given how wealthy Russia's elite is. This kind of puts the role the Russians give the Chechens and others in perspective.

[Logical]

Arguing with TimTurner is a waste of time.

The man literally believes that might makes right, really no better than BigSerg, just more agreeable.

I've literally changed my mind on multiple things since this war began (in some cases because of reasoned arguments with people), and I do not actually believe in might makes right (if you look at things overall), but you know what they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Stay on-topic, drive-by hater.
EDIT: I'll note that I've deleted no posts about this war, as far as I recall, no matter how wrong they were in retrospect. You can look through them if you like.

Great. Then you can have a long overdue change of opinion on this subject of Russia's motivation for invasion and just take the L. Russia's theory of Conquest here, key word being Conquest, is nothing more geopolitically complex than "Russia want, Russia take!!", which is as obvious as the nose on one's face.

We need to distinguish between what caused this war in the long term, and what has directly driven it in the very short term.

I still believe firmly that NATO expansion has had a pivotal role in creating this war, and we+European allies are the driving force in the region. Russia's hand is extremely weak. Zero need to take an L on something I'm entirely right about.

There are also things like the break of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Russian one, that have likely had a particular impact on him. Add to the growing distance between the two countries and the fact he's been so isolated during the pandemic (why did he write and publish an essay? He had so little else to do! Perhaps he was despairing that not as many people have been taking the vaccine....) and unhappy feelings of his America has always, at most, merely nodded at...

This war has multifaceted causes and was not at all necessarily inevitable, even with the existence of the "expand or die" mentality in Russia.

The problem with conflating long-term causes of this war with the short-term ones is that those are distinct and very different, coming from different places. Reality is naunced.

You should actually read what the Russian elites and silovik believe. None of them have ever accepted the idea of an independent Ukrainian state that orients itself to the West instead of Russia. It's something every Russian intellectual and leader from Solzhenitsyn and Patrushev to Yeltsin and Putin share.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Arguing with TimTurner is a waste of time.

The man literally believes that might makes right, really no better than BigSerg, just more agreeable.

I've literally changed my mind on multiple things since this war began (in some cases because of reasoned arguments with people), and I do not actually believe in might makes right (if you look at things overall), but you know what they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Stay on-topic, drive-by hater.
EDIT: I'll note that I've deleted no posts about this war, as far as I recall, no matter how wrong they were in retrospect. You can look through them if you like.

Great. Then you can have a long overdue change of opinion on this subject of Russia's motivation for invasion and just take the L. Russia's theory of Conquest here, key word being Conquest, is nothing more geopolitically complex than "Russia want, Russia take!!", which is as obvious as the nose on one's face.

We need to distinguish between what caused this war in the long term, and what has directly driven it in the very short term.

I still believe firmly that NATO expansion has had a pivotal role in creating this war, and we+European allies are the driving force in the region. Russia's hand is extremely weak. Zero need to take an L on something I'm entirely right about.

There are also things like the break of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Russian one, that have likely had a particular impact on him. Add to the growing distance between the two countries and the fact he's been so isolated during the pandemic (why did he write and publish an essay? He had so little else to do! Perhaps he was despairing that not as many people have been taking the vaccine....) and unhappy feelings of his America has always, at most, merely nodded at...

This war has multifaceted causes and was not at all necessarily inevitable, even with the existence of the "expand or die" mentality in Russia.

The problem with conflating long-term causes of this war with the short-term ones is that those are distinct and very different, coming from different places. Reality is naunced.

You should actually read what the Russian elites and silovik believe. None of them have ever accepted the idea of an independent Ukrainian state that orients itself to the West instead of Russia. It's something every Russian intellectual and leader from Solzhenitsyn to Yeltsin and Putin shares.

Ah, the "soliviki" (i.e. enforcers)? I saw a Caspian Report video about them appear in my Youtube recommendeds, haven't got around to watching it yet.
Not going to pass up on a free chance to plug in a Caspian Report (definitively my favorite geopolitics-related channel on Youtube) video, here is the video I'm talking about.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/germanyintheeu/status/1521146027562217472

[Logical]

Arguing with TimTurner is a waste of time.

The man literally believes that might makes right, really no better than BigSerg, just more agreeable.

I've literally changed my mind on multiple things since this war began (in some cases because of reasoned arguments with people), and I do not actually believe in might makes right (if you look at things overall), but you know what they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Stay on-topic, drive-by hater.
EDIT: I'll note that I've deleted no posts about this war, as far as I recall, no matter how wrong they were in retrospect. You can look through them if you like.

Great. Then you can have a long overdue change of opinion on this subject of Russia's motivation for invasion and just take the L. Russia's theory of Conquest here, key word being Conquest, is nothing more geopolitically complex than "Russia want, Russia take!!", which is as obvious as the nose on one's face.

We need to distinguish between what caused this war in the long term, and what has directly driven it in the very short term.

I still believe firmly that NATO expansion has had a pivotal role in creating this war, and we+European allies are the driving force in the region. Russia's hand is extremely weak. Zero need to take an L on something I'm entirely right about.

There are also things like the break of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Russian one, that have likely had a particular impact on him. Add to the growing distance between the two countries and the fact he's been so isolated during the pandemic (why did he write and publish an essay? He had so little else to do! Perhaps he was despairing that not as many people have been taking the vaccine....) and unhappy feelings of his America has always, at most, merely nodded at...

This war has multifaceted causes and was not at all necessarily inevitable, even with the existence of the "expand or die" mentality in Russia.

The problem with conflating long-term causes of this war with the short-term ones is that those are distinct and very different, coming from different places. Reality is naunced.

You should actually read what the Russian elites and silovik believe. None of them have ever accepted the idea of an independent Ukrainian state that orients itself to the West instead of Russia. It's something every Russian intellectual and leader from Solzhenitsyn to Yeltsin and Putin shares.

Ah, the "soliviki" (i.e. enforcers)? I saw a Caspian Report video about them appear in my Youtube recommendeds, haven't got around to watching it yet.
Not going to pass up on a free chance to plug in a Caspian Report (definitively my favorite geopolitics-related channel on Youtube) video, here is the video I'm talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO88kFvlE2k

Some choice excerpts. Russian neo-imperialism isn't something Putin invented!
https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1506649291485458435
https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1506650496051732482

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Arguing with TimTurner is a waste of time.

The man literally believes that might makes right, really no better than BigSerg, just more agreeable.

I've literally changed my mind on multiple things since this war began (in some cases because of reasoned arguments with people), and I do not actually believe in might makes right (if you look at things overall), but you know what they say, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Stay on-topic, drive-by hater.
EDIT: I'll note that I've deleted no posts about this war, as far as I recall, no matter how wrong they were in retrospect. You can look through them if you like.

Great. Then you can have a long overdue change of opinion on this subject of Russia's motivation for invasion and just take the L. Russia's theory of Conquest here, key word being Conquest, is nothing more geopolitically complex than "Russia want, Russia take!!", which is as obvious as the nose on one's face.

We need to distinguish between what caused this war in the long term, and what has directly driven it in the very short term.

I still believe firmly that NATO expansion has had a pivotal role in creating this war, and we+European allies are the driving force in the region. Russia's hand is extremely weak. Zero need to take an L on something I'm entirely right about.

There are also things like the break of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church away from the Russian one, that have likely had a particular impact on him. Add to the growing distance between the two countries and the fact he's been so isolated during the pandemic (why did he write and publish an essay? He had so little else to do! Perhaps he was despairing that not as many people have been taking the vaccine....) and unhappy feelings of his America has always, at most, merely nodded at...

This war has multifaceted causes and was not at all necessarily inevitable, even with the existence of the "expand or die" mentality in Russia.

The problem with conflating long-term causes of this war with the short-term ones is that those are distinct and very different, coming from different places. Reality is naunced.

You should actually read what the Russian elites and silovik believe. None of them have ever accepted the idea of an independent Ukrainian state that orients itself to the West instead of Russia. It's something every Russian intellectual and leader from Solzhenitsyn to Yeltsin and Putin shares.

Ah, the "soliviki" (i.e. enforcers)? I saw a Caspian Report video about them appear in my Youtube recommendeds, haven't got around to watching it yet.
Not going to pass up on a free chance to plug in a Caspian Report (definitively my favorite geopolitics-related channel on Youtube) video, here is the video I'm talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO88kFvlE2k

Some choice excerpts. Russian neo-imperialism isn't something Putin invented!
https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1506649291485458435
https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/1506650496051732482

Ukraine and Russia are closely entwined historically and I'm not sure I can say Yeltsin was *100%* wrong in his view Ukraine and Russia were one nation. Ukrainians have a very long history of contributing to the nation of the "Great Russians", going back at least to the late 1600s. Also, he was very correct to note that Ukrainian nationalists did take and pick from that communist legacy quite selectively (not to say he was any more principled than they were - my default assumption about politicians is that they are self-interested and self-driven).

Minor nitpick there: as far as I'm aware, the Donbass was NOT a territory Khrushchev gave Ukraine. Crimea is another matter. And Crimea also has had a very long history as being a part of Russia. I've also heard Ukrainian nationalism was weak and possibly getting even weaker in the 1980s (not entirely sure where, it was years ago).

Nonetheless, it is fact that these sentiments are basically in line with Putin and his inner circle today (to the best of my knowledge) and "revising" borders in this fashion is, in effect,  imperialism under at least most workable definitions. And Ukraine and Russia have both changed since then as well.

Leaving that aside, it's honestly hilarious that Yeltsin was threatening to do this when Russia couldn't even hold down freaking Chechnya.

[Storr]

Thread about Gerasimov. Note that his direct superior in the Second Chechen War was Vladimir Shamanov (shown in the photo in the 4th tweet), known as the "Butcher of Chechnya". An Andrei Sakharov quote from Shamanov's wikipedia page: "His subordinates are definitely guilty of war crimes, and I believe a serious investigation would show Shamanov’s direct guilt in war crimes as well, that he ordered them. He has a serious xenophobic streak. He’s cruel, but it comes from his sense of duty. He’s honest about it, but that doesn’t make it less frightening."

https://twitter.com/MassDara/status/1521162652206129153?s=20&t=uMZE_w8bktF8C...

https://twitter.com/MassDara/status/1521162657629356032?s=20&t=uMZE_w8bktF8C...

https://twitter.com/MassDara/status/1521162666655600640?s=20&t=uMZE_w8bktF8C...

https://twitter.com/MassDara/status/1521162668677255168?s=20&t=uMZE_w8bktF8C...

[2952-0-0]

Edit: my point is that a majority, possibly a large majority, of these are the results of wartime Sabotage by very brave ukrainians rather than mere industrial accidents

Zelensky did say that he wanted Ukraine to become a giant Israel. Maybe that included having a ruthlessly efficient intelligence service.

Though, I suspect that a lot of these incidents are occurring because the factory managers are protecting themselves by destroying evidence that implicates them in corruption, now that the true state of their products has been revealed.

It's amazing how lowly the institution really is (in how it is treated). You'd think they would be treating them better, given how wealthy Russia's elite is. This kind of puts the role the Russians give the Chechens and others in perspective.

It's shocking, because it isn't that hard to actually put it into practice where the military becomes an elite class who are given privileges denied to the plebs.

A long thread about how, while official Russian propaganda glorifies the army, it's socially seen as a dumping ground for the outcasts of Russian society. Result: a vastly disproportionate number of Russian KIA's are from ethnic minority areas or from the poorest of the ethnically Russian areas.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1521147854949036032

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1521228157961089024

[Mopsus]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1521228157961089024

I hope the Ukrainians are able to put an end to the Russian Army’s genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas as soon as possible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ukraine and Russia are closely entwined historically and I'm not sure I can say Yeltsin was *100%* wrong in his view Ukraine and Russia were one nation. Ukrainians have a very long history of contributing to the nation of the "Great Russians", going back at least to the late 1600s.

Similar comments could be made about Britain and Ireland, for instance. I do not think that many people would use this to argue that the two islands are functionally indistinguishable apart from a few minor and ultimately irrelevant matters, or that political unity between the two follows on logically from that.

Crimea is another matter. And Crimea also has had a very long history as being a part of Russia.

Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783, remained part of some sort of Russian polity until 1991 and was annexed to the Russian Federation in 2014. That isn't a short history, but from a European perspective it is certainly not a 'very long' history either. The tendency to regard it as part of Russian proper is also rather new: while it was certainly never regarded as part of Ukraine historically, it was generally seen as being its own strange self, as Crimea. Under the Tsars it formed the core of its own Governate, along with a stretch of southern Ukraine including Melitopol and Berdyansk that was predominantly ethnic Ukrainian. Crimea itself did not acquire an ethnic Russian majority until Stalin's expulsion of the Crimean Tartars in 1944, and Russians did not become the largest single ethnic group until around about 1910 or so. In fact, ethnic Russians were a small minority on the peninsula until the middle of the 19th century.

The Tartars themselves (who, for quite understandable reasons, are much keener on Ukrainian than Russian sovereignty) are descended ultimately from Crimea's ancient inhabitants - Goths, Pontic Greeks and so on - and so really do have a very long history there, albeit an increasingly partial and tragic one since the 1940s. Crimea's unassimilated Greeks were, of course, deported by Catherine the Great to the region around Mariupol shortly after the Russian conquest of the peninsula. The obsession of the Russian elite with Crimea has nothing to do with the laughable idea that it is an integral and essential part of Russian territory and rather more to do with the presence of the Black Sea Fleet at the Sevastopol Naval Base.* The strategic value of the Black Sea Fleet and thus of Sevastopol has always been at best questionable (it's hard to think of a substantial navy with as little to say for itself, for all the wars that Russia has fought), but its association with the rise of Russian imperial power makes it symbolically critical. It's Empire all the way down.

_{*That, and the fact that the city is associated with two famous and heroic defeats at the hands of foreign powers.}

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1521228157961089024

I hope the Ukrainians are able to put an end to the Russian Army’s genocide of ethnic Russians in the Donbas as soon as possible.

Ironically, the most pro-Russian parts of Ukraine are also the parts of Ukraine most devastated by Russia.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ukraine and Russia are closely entwined historically and I'm not sure I can say Yeltsin was *100%* wrong in his view Ukraine and Russia were one nation. Ukrainians have a very long history of contributing to the nation of the "Great Russians", going back at least to the late 1600s.

Similar comments could be made about Britain and Ireland, for instance. I do not think that many people would use this to argue that the two islands are functionally indistinguishable apart from a few minor and ultimately irrelevant matters, or that political unity between the two follows on logically from that.

Crimea is another matter. And Crimea also has had a very long history as being a part of Russia.

Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783, remained part of some sort of Russian polity until 1991 and was annexed to the Russian Federation in 2014. That isn't a short history, but from a European perspective it is certainly not a 'very long' history either. The tendency to regard it as part of Russian proper is also rather new: while it was certainly never regarded as part of Ukraine historically, it was generally seen as being its own strange self, as Crimea. Under the Tsars it formed the core of its own Governate, along with a stretch of southern Ukraine including Melitopol and Berdyansk that was predominantly ethnic Ukrainian. Crimea itself did not acquire an ethnic Russian majority until Stalin's expulsion of the Crimean Tartars in 1944, and Russians did not become the largest single ethnic group until around about 1910 or so. In fact, ethnic Russians were a small minority on the peninsula until the middle of the 19th century.

The Tartars themselves (who, for quite understandable reasons, are much keener on Ukrainian than Russian sovereignty) are descended ultimately from Crimea's ancient inhabitants - Goths, Pontic Greeks and so on - and so really do have a very long history there, albeit an increasingly partial and tragic one since the 1940s. Crimea's unassimilated Greeks were, of course, deported by Catherine the Great to the region around Mariupol shortly after the Russian conquest of the peninsula. The obsession of the Russian elite with Crimea has nothing to do with the laughable idea that it is an integral and essential part of Russian territory and rather more to do with the presence of the Black Sea Fleet at the Sevastopol Naval Base.* The strategic value of the Black Sea Fleet and thus of Sevastopol has always been at best questionable (it's hard to think of a substantial navy with as little to say for itself, for all the wars that Russia has fought), but its association with the rise of Russian imperial power makes it symbolically critical. It's Empire all the way down.

_{*That, and the fact that the city is associated with two famous and heroic defeats at the hands of foreign powers.}

In terms of the Russian Empire, the Ukrainians and the Russians (using terminology customary at the time, Little Russians and Great Russians), had a relationship very much akin to the Scottish and English respectively.
That's why you have Ukrainians settled all over Russia, not unlike how you had Scots living in all major sections of the British Empire. Ukrainians lived as far east as what is now Primoskiy Krai, in the lands that were host to Russia's equivalent of European settler colonialism over the centuries. There is, undeniably, a shared cultural background that Ukraine and Russia share, one that England and Ireland really don't, at least on the same level.

Various Russian states, for as long as there has been a Russia, have typically not been built mainly by (Great) Russians alone. Present-day Russia still isn't, despite it being more ethnically homogenous than most other versions of "Russia" have been. There's a reason the Russian language distinguishes between Russian by nationhood and Russian by ethnicity.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's amazing how lowly the institution really is (in how it is treated). You'd think they would be treating them better, given how wealthy Russia's elite is. This kind of puts the role the Russians give the Chechens and others in perspective.

It's shocking, because it isn't that hard to actually put it into practice where the military becomes an elite class who are given privileges denied to the plebs.

A long thread about how, while official Russian propaganda glorifies the army, it's socially seen as a dumping ground for the outcasts of Russian society. Result: a vastly disproportionate number of Russian KIA's are from ethnic minority areas or from the poorest of the ethnically Russian areas.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1521147854949036032

I am reminded of stories early on in this conflict where soldiers were given rotten/old/expired rations.
Why do the soldiers just take it?

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1521256202318999552
In the battle of Donbas the Russia advance out of Izium has gone from moving at a snail’s pace to of stopping all together while Ukraine continues a successful out offensive out of Kharkiv in the north 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ukraine and Russia are closely entwined historically and I'm not sure I can say Yeltsin was *100%* wrong in his view Ukraine and Russia were one nation. Ukrainians have a very long history of contributing to the nation of the "Great Russians", going back at least to the late 1600s.

Similar comments could be made about Britain and Ireland, for instance. I do not think that many people would use this to argue that the two islands are functionally indistinguishable apart from a few minor and ultimately irrelevant matters, or that political unity between the two follows on logically from that.

Crimea is another matter. And Crimea also has had a very long history as being a part of Russia.

Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783, remained part of some sort of Russian polity until 1991 and was annexed to the Russian Federation in 2014. That isn't a short history, but from a European perspective it is certainly not a 'very long' history either. The tendency to regard it as part of Russian proper is also rather new: while it was certainly never regarded as part of Ukraine historically, it was generally seen as being its own strange self, as Crimea. Under the Tsars it formed the core of its own Governate, along with a stretch of southern Ukraine including Melitopol and Berdyansk that was predominantly ethnic Ukrainian. Crimea itself did not acquire an ethnic Russian majority until Stalin's expulsion of the Crimean Tartars in 1944, and Russians did not become the largest single ethnic group until around about 1910 or so. In fact, ethnic Russians were a small minority on the peninsula until the middle of the 19th century.

The Tartars themselves (who, for quite understandable reasons, are much keener on Ukrainian than Russian sovereignty) are descended ultimately from Crimea's ancient inhabitants - Goths, Pontic Greeks and so on - and so really do have a very long history there, albeit an increasingly partial and tragic one since the 1940s. Crimea's unassimilated Greeks were, of course, deported by Catherine the Great to the region around Mariupol shortly after the Russian conquest of the peninsula. The obsession of the Russian elite with Crimea has nothing to do with the laughable idea that it is an integral and essential part of Russian territory and rather more to do with the presence of the Black Sea Fleet at the Sevastopol Naval Base.* The strategic value of the Black Sea Fleet and thus of Sevastopol has always been at best questionable (it's hard to think of a substantial navy with as little to say for itself, for all the wars that Russia has fought), but its association with the rise of Russian imperial power makes it symbolically critical. It's Empire all the way down.

_{*That, and the fact that the city is associated with two famous and heroic defeats at the hands of foreign powers.}

In terms of the Russian Empire, the Ukrainians and the Russians (using terminology customary at the time, Little Russians and Great Russians), had a relationship very much akin to the Scottish and English respectively.
That's why you have Ukrainians settled all over Russia, not unlike how you had Scots living in all major sections of the British Empire. Ukrainians lived as far east as what is now Primoskiy Krai, in the lands that were host to Russia's equivalent of European settler colonialism over the centuries. There is, undeniably, a shared cultural background that Ukraine and Russia share, one that England and Ireland really don't, at least on the same level.

Your analogy about Scots could be made about Irishmen too. Kipling, for one, writes often and with great sympathy and picaresque appeal about Irish soldiers and adventurers East of Suez.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Ukraine and Russia are closely entwined historically and I'm not sure I can say Yeltsin was *100%* wrong in his view Ukraine and Russia were one nation. Ukrainians have a very long history of contributing to the nation of the "Great Russians", going back at least to the late 1600s.

Similar comments could be made about Britain and Ireland, for instance. I do not think that many people would use this to argue that the two islands are functionally indistinguishable apart from a few minor and ultimately irrelevant matters, or that political unity between the two follows on logically from that.

Crimea is another matter. And Crimea also has had a very long history as being a part of Russia.

Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783, remained part of some sort of Russian polity until 1991 and was annexed to the Russian Federation in 2014. That isn't a short history, but from a European perspective it is certainly not a 'very long' history either. The tendency to regard it as part of Russian proper is also rather new: while it was certainly never regarded as part of Ukraine historically, it was generally seen as being its own strange self, as Crimea. Under the Tsars it formed the core of its own Governate, along with a stretch of southern Ukraine including Melitopol and Berdyansk that was predominantly ethnic Ukrainian. Crimea itself did not acquire an ethnic Russian majority until Stalin's expulsion of the Crimean Tartars in 1944, and Russians did not become the largest single ethnic group until around about 1910 or so. In fact, ethnic Russians were a small minority on the peninsula until the middle of the 19th century.

The Tartars themselves (who, for quite understandable reasons, are much keener on Ukrainian than Russian sovereignty) are descended ultimately from Crimea's ancient inhabitants - Goths, Pontic Greeks and so on - and so really do have a very long history there, albeit an increasingly partial and tragic one since the 1940s. Crimea's unassimilated Greeks were, of course, deported by Catherine the Great to the region around Mariupol shortly after the Russian conquest of the peninsula. The obsession of the Russian elite with Crimea has nothing to do with the laughable idea that it is an integral and essential part of Russian territory and rather more to do with the presence of the Black Sea Fleet at the Sevastopol Naval Base.* The strategic value of the Black Sea Fleet and thus of Sevastopol has always been at best questionable (it's hard to think of a substantial navy with as little to say for itself, for all the wars that Russia has fought), but its association with the rise of Russian imperial power makes it symbolically critical. It's Empire all the way down.

_{*That, and the fact that the city is associated with two famous and heroic defeats at the hands of foreign powers.}

In terms of the Russian Empire, the Ukrainians and the Russians (using terminology customary at the time, Little Russians and Great Russians), had a relationship very much akin to the Scottish and English respectively.
That's why you have Ukrainians settled all over Russia, not unlike how you had Scots living in all major sections of the British Empire. Ukrainians lived as far east as what is now Primoskiy Krai, in the lands that were host to Russia's equivalent of European settler colonialism over the centuries. There is, undeniably, a shared cultural background that Ukraine and Russia share, one that England and Ireland really don't, at least on the same level.

Your analogy about Scots could be made about Irishmen too. Kipling, for one, writes often and with great sympathy and picaresque appeal about Irish soldiers and adventurers East of Suez.

It could be made, but it wouldn't fit as precisely well. The Irish were treated differently, in a way the Scots weren't (among other things, the Irish were a discriminated against minority in part because of the religious differences). The Ukrainians were full and total partners in the enterprise of empire, and this probably continued with vigor all until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Not too many pairs of peoples who share a similar cultural background (descendants of the Kievan Rus), sharing the same state (Russian Empire/Soviet Union), and the same religion (Orthodox Christianity), living in close proximity (it's plainly obvious when looking at the map), have ended up massively different from each other. Proximity tends to breed similiarity.

[Frodo]

It's good to see this happen to the Russian government and military for a change:

Hackers wreaking havoc in Russia

Again, Wikileaks is nowhere to be found, to no one's surprise.