Would eastern and western Ukraine be better off going their separate ways?

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No.

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The idea that more borders could solve problems has already too often proven fatal in European history. Ireland, former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo), also Czechoslovakia with the Sudeten Germans, are only a few points in case to demonstrate that each new border tends to bring forward the next minority-majority issue, just on a reduced geographical scale.

Indeed. Free Carpathian Ruthenia from the domination of Western Ukraine!, etc.

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Plenty of American military bases in countries that are not America (like the one I reside in), despite the Cold War having ended.

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Shut up.

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Ummm no... Look at Lviv, Brasov or Cluj for example and remember those were the largest cities in their respective regions.

...and then you remember that a) these linguistic boundaries will often have been more complex (and often to the point of making a mockery of the word 'boundary') at a local or even regional level, and that b) a very large ethnic group in the area at the time is not included on the map (Jews). And that there were other ethnic groups not denoted either (Roma, of course, but also Rusyns and so on).

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Let's take the city marked on the map as 'Lviv' as a totally unrandom example. Majority Polish (so Lwów), but Jews, not Ukrainians, were the second largest group - over a quarter of the population - (so Lemberg over Lviv).

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