Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[😥]

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.

What? If "full and total partners" means forced deportations to Siberia, a ban on the use of the Ukrainian language (you can read about Emsk Ukaz and Valuev Circular if you want), attempts to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture, russification and attempts to impose the Russian language on Ukrainians, then only then will I agree.

As for Crimea, I advise you to read about the forced deportation of the indigenous people of Crimea - the Crimean Tatars in 1944. All Crimean Tatars were deported from the peninsula, mainly to Uzbekistan. And during this deportation, according to various estimates, from 20% to 40% of their population died. In general, by 1783, when Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire, Crimean Tatars made up about 90% of the peninsula's population, but due to repression and persecution, at the beginning of the 20th century their share was only 36%. Therefore, it is wrong to say that Crimea is originally Russian land. Crimea is the land of the Crimean Tatars.

[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.

What? If "full and total partners" means forced deportations to Siberia, a ban on the use of the Ukrainian language (you can read about Emsk Ukaz and Valuev Circular if you want), attempts to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture, russification and attempts to impose the Russian language on Ukrainians, then only then will I agree.

As for Crimea, I advise you to read about the forced deportation of the indigenous people of Crimea - the Crimean Tatars in 1944. All Crimean Tatars were deported from the peninsula, mainly to Uzbekistan. And during this deportation, according to various estimates, from 20% to 40% of their population died. In general, by 1783, when Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire, Crimean Tatars made up about 90% of the peninsula's population, but due to repression and persecution, at the beginning of the 20th century their share was only 36%. Therefore, it is wrong to say that Crimea is originally Russian land. Crimea is the land of the Crimean Tatars.

Pretty sure the upper echelons of the Soviet Union was broadly a mixture of Russians and Ukrainians at core, and those were the most populous republics in the Soviet Union. Of course, Soviet policy oscillated about how it handled Ukrainian things in general.

When I used Russian in that context I mean Russian in terms of it being part of Russian-ruled territory. I will not dispute the historical fact that the Tatars were oppressed by Moscow, and in fact the Soviets treated them worse than the Tsars. I was making no comment about its ethnic makeup; to assume I meant such is strange. But remember; ethnic Russian and Russian by nationality are NOT the same. This war and the hostile reaction the Russians are getting in the SE of Ukraine is proof enough of that, if the centuries of history aren't enough.

[Woody]

Battle for Lyman has started.

https://mobile.twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1521279040853794817

[Yoda]

“Russian security concerns” is a poor disguise for domination and control. They should not be given what they want.

I'm not advocating that we do what Russia wants. I'm establishing the reasoning for this war being rational from the Russian perspective.
If some hostile defensive alliance was expanding into our hemisphere, I'm sure we wouldn't want Mexico and Canada in it...

Explain, with specific examples of NATO being "hostile" to Russia.

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://twitter.com/PhilipPullella/status/1521377471463055360

[BG-NY]

You confided in me on disqus that you were posting pro-Russia stuff on the general forum to upset a mod. Well what’s your motivation here then you immature clown?

(1) I confided in you that most of it is, however I do believe it when I say Russia didn't hack the DNC.
(2) I have a major issue from disinfo from both sides. I have a similar issue with Russia's "Denazification" lunacy.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

“Russian security concerns” is a poor disguise for domination and control. They should not be given what they want.

I'm not advocating that we do what Russia wants. I'm establishing the reasoning for this war being rational from the Russian perspective.
If some hostile defensive alliance was expanding into our hemisphere, I'm sure we wouldn't want Mexico and Canada in it...

Explain, with specific examples of NATO being "hostile" to Russia.

Remember that hostile is defined in terms measuring what the target of said defensive alliance sees (and NATO is pretty explicitly targeted at Russia). This is basics in how geopolitics works. If you are looking for an "objective standard" that is applicable in equal amounts to both sides of an international political divide, sorry. There aren't any, at least in this way. What matters in politics is not truth but rather what people perceive to be the truth. Pretensions to objectivity have no place in the discussion, when whatever actions are taken by whichever actors is based off perceptions, and whichever objectivity means is decided by your nationality and upbringing far more than anything else. This is as true of senior politicians as it is of the common man. A Chinese equivalent of you would probably be neutral in this conflict, and a Russian one might even be supporting Putin to the hilt, distrustful of the Americans and rallying around the flag.

Fact is that under this test, NATO expanding this far east IS hostile, and the unhinged Russian demands that NATO expel a lot of its members was an extreme manifestation of their aspirations for what they would see as a fairer status quo. The fact they demanded this is testament to the concerns these expansions have created in Russia.

Because I am focused more on China than Russia, I am quite open to some settlement that leaves Russia some space, thus making it feel less reliant on China. A China that has vassalized Russia is even more destabilizing to the world than a Russia that has vassalized Ukraine; it represents a ironclad bloc capable of contesting American leadership in a way that really hasn't been possible since 1945. But for us to get to some kind of settlement, we need a Russia willing to talk first.

Moreover, we need Ukraine to get all the arms and armor and everything else it needs, because to hold up against the Russian war machine, it needs our help. Russia having Ukraine in its pocket, anchoring itself along natural barriers and having more of the Northern European Plain, will make it harder for America to hold the line in the Pacific, forcing us to commit more resources to Europe to defend our allies.

On the other hand, a Ukraine free of Russian control, along with Turkey and Poland and the Scandinavian countries, is a strong bulwark against Russian expansion, criss-crossing the Eurasian landmass from Anatolia to the Arctic. Eastern European governments have switched their loyalties to the US of A; we help both them and ourselves by helping them keep out Russian influence.

And if what Oryxslayer said upthread is true, then Ukraine, one of the successors to the Kievan Rus, developing along our model might inspire other "Russians" (from the Russian national's POV) to consider other options too. Zelensky may not be a perfect leader, but he's the man the country needs to move ahead, and all the pieces are in place for him to put his plans into fruition. He deserves to succeed. For Ukraine's sake, and quite possibly for Russia's too.

[Yoda]

“Russian security concerns” is a poor disguise for domination and control. They should not be given what they want.

I'm not advocating that we do what Russia wants. I'm establishing the reasoning for this war being rational from the Russian perspective.
If some hostile defensive alliance was expanding into our hemisphere, I'm sure we wouldn't want Mexico and Canada in it...

Explain, with specific examples of NATO being "hostile" to Russia.

Remember that hostile is defined in terms measuring what the target of said defensive alliance sees (and NATO is pretty explicitly targeted at Russia). This is basics in how geopolitics works. If you are looking for an "objective standard" that is applicable in equal amounts to both sides of an international political divide, sorry. There aren't any, at least in this way. What matters in politics is not truth but rather what people perceive to be the truth. Pretensions to objectivity have no place in the discussion, when whatever actions are taken by whichever actors is based off perceptions, and whichever objectivity means is decided by your nationality and upbringing far more than anything else. This is as true of senior politicians as it is of the common man. A Chinese equivalent of you would probably be neutral in this conflict, and a Russian one might even be supporting Putin to the hilt, distrustful of the Americans and rallying around the flag.

Fact is that under this test, NATO expanding this far east IS hostile, and the unhinged Russian demands that NATO expel a lot of its members was an extreme manifestation of their aspirations for what they would see as a fairer status quo. The fact they demanded this is testament to the concerns these expansions have created in Russia.

Because I am focused more on China than Russia, I am quite open to some settlement that leaves Russia some space, thus making it feel less reliant on China. A China that has vassalized Russia is even more destabilizing to the world than a Russia that has vassalized Ukraine; it represents a ironclad bloc capable of contesting American leadership in a way that really hasn't been possible since 1945. But for us to get to some kind of settlement, we need a Russia willing to talk first.

Moreover, we need Ukraine to get all the arms and armor and everything else it needs, because to hold up against the Russian war machine, it needs our help. Russia having Ukraine in its pocket, anchoring itself along natural barriers and having more of the Northern European Plain, will make it harder for America to hold the line in the Pacific, forcing us to commit more resources to Europe to defend our allies.

On the other hand, a Ukraine free of Russian control, along with Turkey and Poland and the Scandinavian countries, is a strong bulwark against Russian expansion, criss-crossing the Eurasian landmass from Anatolia to the Arctic. Eastern European governments have switched their loyalties to the US of A; we help both them and ourselves by helping them keep out Russian influence.

And if what Oryxslayer said upthread is true, then Ukraine, one of the successors to the Kievan Rus, developing along our model might inspire other "Russians" (from the Russian national's POV) to consider other options too. Zelensky may not be a perfect leader, but he's the man the country needs to move ahead, and all the pieces are in place for him to put his plans into fruition. He deserves to succeed. For Ukraine's sake, and quite possibly for Russia's too.

I legitimately laughed my a** off when I clicked my user alert and saw the length of this answer. I laughed again when in the first sentence you qualified the definition of the word 'hostile.' My God my rib actually hurts a little now.

Bonus points for a rambling non-answer.

[Yoda]

I think this is a very incomplete and oversimplified way of looking at it.
The length of the NATO-Russia border and the secondary impact that territorial possession has are at least as significant as whether Russia and NATO have a border at all. Ukraine in NATO rewrites the entire playbook and forces Russia to commit immensely more resources on defending its southern flank, all while it is more vulnerable from attack from both its southern portions and its northern ones.
Ask the Germans in the world wars how well it went for them that they had to defend themselves on two fronts...

Who exactly is going to invade the Russian Federation, a country with the largest nuclear stockpile on Earth and an explicit military doctrine stating they will use nuclear weapons on an invasion force that threatens the Russian state's existence?

What your saying is what Russia says, and it's ridiculous. It's not going to happen, if for no other reason than that no country is willing to trigger a guaranteed salvo of nuclear missiles aimed right at their population centers.

Well, I was operating on the assumption that nukes were off the table.

Why would you assume this when Russia threatens nuclear retaliation almost daily?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

“Russian security concerns” is a poor disguise for domination and control. They should not be given what they want.

I'm not advocating that we do what Russia wants. I'm establishing the reasoning for this war being rational from the Russian perspective.
If some hostile defensive alliance was expanding into our hemisphere, I'm sure we wouldn't want Mexico and Canada in it...

Explain, with specific examples of NATO being "hostile" to Russia.

Remember that hostile is defined in terms measuring what the target of said defensive alliance sees (and NATO is pretty explicitly targeted at Russia). This is basics in how geopolitics works. If you are looking for an "objective standard" that is applicable in equal amounts to both sides of an international political divide, sorry. There aren't any, at least in this way. What matters in politics is not truth but rather what people perceive to be the truth. Pretensions to objectivity have no place in the discussion, when whatever actions are taken by whichever actors is based off perceptions, and whichever objectivity means is decided by your nationality and upbringing far more than anything else. This is as true of senior politicians as it is of the common man. A Chinese equivalent of you would probably be neutral in this conflict, and a Russian one might even be supporting Putin to the hilt, distrustful of the Americans and rallying around the flag.

Fact is that under this test, NATO expanding this far east IS hostile, and the unhinged Russian demands that NATO expel a lot of its members was an extreme manifestation of their aspirations for what they would see as a fairer status quo. The fact they demanded this is testament to the concerns these expansions have created in Russia.

Because I am focused more on China than Russia, I am quite open to some settlement that leaves Russia some space, thus making it feel less reliant on China. A China that has vassalized Russia is even more destabilizing to the world than a Russia that has vassalized Ukraine; it represents a ironclad bloc capable of contesting American leadership in a way that really hasn't been possible since 1945. But for us to get to some kind of settlement, we need a Russia willing to talk first.

Moreover, we need Ukraine to get all the arms and armor and everything else it needs, because to hold up against the Russian war machine, it needs our help. Russia having Ukraine in its pocket, anchoring itself along natural barriers and having more of the Northern European Plain, will make it harder for America to hold the line in the Pacific, forcing us to commit more resources to Europe to defend our allies.

On the other hand, a Ukraine free of Russian control, along with Turkey and Poland and the Scandinavian countries, is a strong bulwark against Russian expansion, criss-crossing the Eurasian landmass from Anatolia to the Arctic. Eastern European governments have switched their loyalties to the US of A; we help both them and ourselves by helping them keep out Russian influence.

And if what Oryxslayer said upthread is true, then Ukraine, one of the successors to the Kievan Rus, developing along our model might inspire other "Russians" (from the Russian national's POV) to consider other options too. Zelensky may not be a perfect leader, but he's the man the country needs to move ahead, and all the pieces are in place for him to put his plans into fruition. He deserves to succeed. For Ukraine's sake, and quite possibly for Russia's too.

I legitimately laughed my a** off when I clicked my user alert and saw the length of this answer. I laughed again when in the first sentence you qualified the definition of the word 'hostile.' My God my rib actually hurts a little now.

Bonus points for a rambling non-answer.

I don't see the point of answering such a question with the kind of answer you were seeking, because I reject the idea of claimed objectivity really having much use at all in this sort of situation.
So instead I gave you an overview of my preferences on how we handled Russia's views on this topic in general.
I apologize if that is not what you were asking for, but I felt that was better (and more respectful) than just ignoring your question completely.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I think this is a very incomplete and oversimplified way of looking at it.
The length of the NATO-Russia border and the secondary impact that territorial possession has are at least as significant as whether Russia and NATO have a border at all. Ukraine in NATO rewrites the entire playbook and forces Russia to commit immensely more resources on defending its southern flank, all while it is more vulnerable from attack from both its southern portions and its northern ones.
Ask the Germans in the world wars how well it went for them that they had to defend themselves on two fronts...

Who exactly is going to invade the Russian Federation, a country with the largest nuclear stockpile on Earth and an explicit military doctrine stating they will use nuclear weapons on an invasion force that threatens the Russian state's existence?

What your saying is what Russia says, and it's ridiculous. It's not going to happen, if for no other reason than that no country is willing to trigger a guaranteed salvo of nuclear missiles aimed right at their population centers.

Well, I was operating on the assumption that nukes were off the table.

Why would you assume this when Russia threatens nuclear retaliation almost daily?

Unless good reason exists not too, I at least was not inclined to treat unhinged claims from Baghdad Blyat and his ilk as official Russian policy as opposed to hot air designed to insulate viewers from potentially not buying the government line.
I was not aware that tactical nukes for those invading Russian territory was an element of Russian military doctrine, however.
I still figure the Russians would be cautious about busting out the single most powerful thing in their arsenal. Hopefully this eventuality is not tested however.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

But that's their own fault for not being pro-Russia *enough*, you see.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Day 69 of the special military operation to denazify Ukraine because Hitler was a Jew:

A day after Lavrov's controversial statemens, the Russian Foreign Ministry doubles down on the "Nazi Jews" narrative. Russia seems hellbent on burning the bridges with Israel now.


https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1521424337538064384


https://twitter.com/AOL/status/1521438036537622529

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Day 69 of the special military operation to denazify Ukraine because Hitler was a Jew:

A day after Lavrov's controversial statemens, the Russian Foreign Ministry doubles down on the "Nazi Jews" narrative. Russia seems hellbent on burning the bridges with Israel now.


https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1521424337538064384

https://twitter.com/AOL/status/1521438036537622529

The Russian government of 1904-1905 called, it says this is rank incompetence.
(Good lord. I was 25% joking about Israel likely not wanting to mediate the next round of peace talks, when they come. What a move this is. Wouldn't blame them if they refused now, out of hand.)
Hubris must find a very ready home for itself in the Kremlin right about now.
Is this some kind of misguided gambit to get support in the Arab countries?

[Middle-aged Europe]

The official number of Ukrainian refugees in Germany has reached 400,000 - unofficial number estimated to be considerably higher.


https://twitter.com/BMI_Bund/status/1521399836787978241

[Woody]

Street to street fighting in Lyman. Possible mass mobilization in Russia?

https://twitter.com/AggregateOsint/status/1521354715690577920
https://twitter.com/AggregateOsint/status/1521132659254206465

[Middle-aged Europe]

If anyone wants to have a good laugh at a bit "news" from the parallel universe. He's probably one of those "Jewish Nazis" too:


https://twitter.com/taxibistront/status/1521046238652731392

[GoTfan]

The ABC just reported that Russian forces are storming the steelworks.

[Storr]

Day 69 of the special military operation to denazify Ukraine because Hitler was a Jew:

A day after Lavrov's controversial statemens, the Russian Foreign Ministry doubles down on the "Nazi Jews" narrative. Russia seems hellbent on burning the bridges with Israel now.


https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1521424337538064384

https://twitter.com/AOL/status/1521438036537622529

The Russian government of 1904-1905 called, it says this is rank incompetence.
(Good lord. I was 25% joking about Israel likely not wanting to mediate the next round of peace talks, when they come. What a move this is. Wouldn't blame them if they refused now, out of hand.)
Hubris must find a very ready home for itself in the Kremlin right about now.
Is this some kind of misguided gambit to get support in the Arab countries?

The most brain dead part is where they claim Jews were complicit in their own extermination in the Holocaust.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1521451290710220800?s=20&t=f1jxfxXr...

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1521462101130330114

[DINGO Joe]

Day 69 of the special military operation to denazify Ukraine because Hitler was a Jew:

A day after Lavrov's controversial statemens, the Russian Foreign Ministry doubles down on the "Nazi Jews" narrative. Russia seems hellbent on burning the bridges with Israel now.


https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1521424337538064384

https://twitter.com/AOL/status/1521438036537622529

The Russian government of 1904-1905 called, it says this is rank incompetence.
(Good lord. I was 25% joking about Israel likely not wanting to mediate the next round of peace talks, when they come. What a move this is. Wouldn't blame them if they refused now, out of hand.)
Hubris must find a very ready home for itself in the Kremlin right about now.
Is this some kind of misguided gambit to get support in the Arab countries?

The most brain dead part is where they claim Jews were complicit in their own extermination in the Holocaust.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1521451290710220800?s=20&t=f1jxfxXr...

Just preparing  the Russian public for May 9th when they will declare war on.....Israel!  To denazify it of course.

[Woody]

The problem for the Ukrainians holding Lyman is that since the bridge through the Seversky Donets is blown up, they can't be resupplied by land.

[It’s so Joever]

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.

I assume there also was no Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe, Mr Ford?
Seriously equal partners?! How in the literal f**k does Holodomor mean equal? The math isn’t mathing.

[Logical]

American volunteer with a captured BMP-2. The inscription on the side is a Buddhist mantra written in Buryat. "Arya Baala goncok sume" It invokes the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. It's sad to see colonized Asians fighting for Russian dreams of empire.
https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1521471813594849283

[The Free North]

American volunteer with a captured BMP-2. The inscription on the side is a Buddhist mantra written in Buryat. "Arya Baala goncok sume" It invokes the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. It's sad to see colonized Asians fighting for Russian dreams of empire.
https://twitter.com/jmvasquez1974/status/1521471813594849283

A bit disparaging to think that Buryats cannot be Russian?