Posted on 03/20/2022 6:10:45 AM PDT by Travis McGee
To understand current events, you need to understand history, and to understand history, you need to study the maps. I've been doing this for a while, and now I have enough of them to make a Ukraine map study thread. Naturally, your opinion may differ, but maps are history frozen in time. In an important way, maps are the historical record.
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Russia purchased Crimea from the Ottoman Empire in the same manner that the USA purchased Alaska from Russia. (In gold, FWIW.)
If Russian Crimea has to be handed over to Ukraine, again, then for sure we have to give Hawaii back to the Hawaiians. Our annexation of Hawaii was done by brute military force, under the policy of "Manifest Destiny." We just outright stole Hawaii, because we wanted it due to its strategic location.
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By all means, the independent nation of Ukraine MUST be kept together, within its modern borders, which go all the way back in time to 1991!
Better to escalate to Nuclear World War Three, than to alter these ancient unchangeable historic borders.
/sarcasm
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How would America react if, during a national economic depression, in the future a stronger China formed an alliance with Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Latin America, and moved troops, tanks and missiles, country by country, closer to the borders of the USA? This is how Russia views NATO in the post-Soviet era.
You can scoff, and protest that NATO is purely a defensive alliance....but tell that to the Serbians, the Libyans, and the Afghans. And don't forget Kosovo, carved out of Serbia by NATO.
The Russians are now faced with American "defensive" ABMs in Poland and Romania. What is the difference between an ABM and a MRBM? Its launch angle, and its warhead.
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I realize they don't teach much history in American schools, but the "Great Patriotic War" map shown below is extremely real to Russians, and very much on their minds. The USSR came within a whisker of total defeat by Germany in 1942. If the Nazis had not been stopped at Stalingrad, Germany would have cut off the Soviet Union's oil supplies, and total defeat and racial extermination would have rapidly followed.
Ukraine joining NATO, with Article 5 guarantees, would mean that American, German and British troops, tanks and missiles would be staged directly against the heart of Russia. The NATO tanks would be just days from cutting off Russia's oil. Missiles would be bare minutes from Moscow. At least the German Nazis had to fight hard to get across Poland and Ukraine to get to Stalingrad.
Ukraine in NATO means that the next time, European military forces will already be located in an advanced attack position. Yes, NATO. Russians are very aware of history. Last time, the Germans were joined in their attack by French, "Viking," and Ukrainian SS divisions, as well as the Spanish Condor Legion, Romanians, Italians and other national military formations. So yes, in NATO, Russians see the potential for a reprise of 1942, but this time with NATO getting a head start by being pre-positioned in Ukraine.
You can laugh, you can scoff, but trust me, this is no laughing matter to the Russians.
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As shown in the last map, much of Ukraine's strategic importance is still related to energy transportation.
Why do you think Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars to be on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate? Why did the sons of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney and other American elites all have their snouts in the trough in Ukraine?
It's about controlling the distribution of energy from Russia to Europe, and mega billions of dollars are involved for the players in charge.
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So who believes that possible escalation to World War 3, with nukes involved, is a better solution than a national divorce in Ukraine?
Yugoslavia was created on the map from whole cloth by politicians in 1918 at the Versailles Conference, and it broke apart into separate nations during a bloody civil war in the 1990s, but at least nuclear weapons were not involved.
Czechoslovakia was also created by politicians in 1918, and after the fall of the Soviet Union it amicably divorced to become the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Ukraine, invented by V.I. Lenin as the Ukraine SSR within the Soviet Union around the same time as Versailles, is also an artificially invented political construct. The entire history of the current version of Ukraine as an independent nation goes back only to 1991, and the collapse of the USSR.
So which is a better solution? A national divorce, or risking World War 3, with nukes?
I saw where Logan questioned the loyalty of Lt. Col Vindman and suggested they both were spies. A very distinct possibility that should be examined in detail.
IMHO this fiasco is about the playground that Ukraine has become. From Money Laundering to sex slavery and any other depravity you can imagine and the ability to keep it that way.
If you are using Wikipedia you get an automatic F grade. Not even in liberal colleges is Wikipedia allowed to be cited as a reference.
Looks like “Taken from Romania” and “Taken from Poland” refer to the same territory.
The district just north of that area in red was also taken from Poland and contains the formerly Austrian city of Lemberg (Polish Lwow, Russian Lvov). The sewer mains under the streets were made in Vienna.
Those people are the most passionate “Ukrainian nationalists”, and, after all, they have a point.
Area 2, taken from Romania/Poland, also contains the tail of Slovakia taken by Stalin after WW II.
It still doesn’t make it our business, much less an issue to potentially trade nukes over. I’m sure if US indian tribes were polled in the 1800s, they would have voted to keep the white man out. Popular votes mean nothing if you can’t win your own freedom outright.
Ukraine’s corruption killed them. They didn’t cherish freedom. Their national focus should have been on defense instead of bilking the system. That rings true for the United States today.
“Russia illegally annexed Crimea by force, as they created the Donbas independent areas by force of arms.”
Crimea, a Russian area, was given to Ukraine in 1954 by force. You lie when you don’t mention all the related facts.
Since we’re talking political/military history, and the fact that Russians know it very well while many Americans do not - it should be noted that the West burned Moscow to a crisp. Napoleon and the French, 1812.
I know you know that, but many do not, or need to look at what is going on from a Russian perspective. And that event very much affects that perspective.
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Lara is the opitamy of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.
I saw that yesterday, it gets my voter for rant of the month.
People, if you haven’t taken the 5m to watch this, DO SO, it is worth it.
She is one of the few journalists out there worthy of the name.
Something to add in support of your materials is Russia’s stated six demands.
1. No NATO membership and a neutral position.
2. Russian should be the second official language of Ukraine, with laws prohibiting it abolished.
3. Recognise Crimea as Russian territory.
4. Recognise the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk.
5. Demilitarisation of Ukraine and abandonment of weapons that could be a threat to the Kremlin.
6. Banning of ultra-nationalist parties and organisations in Ukraine.
https://charliekirk.com/podcasts/?ep=08852422-5a69-47dd-86ea-ae56000ff31d
https://charliekirk.com/podcasts/?ep=6918f1fa-281e-4e7d-984f-ae5a015d3e09
“I saw that yesterday, it gets my voter for rant of the month.
People, if you haven’t taken the 5m to watch this, DO SO, it is worth it.
She is one of the few journalists out there worthy of the name”.
BINGO!
*bump for later*
thx... forwarded
Per the following map, it would be the eastern borders of Rivne and Ternopil Oblasts, which were originally Polish-Lithuanian. Volyn and Rivne were Russian for over a century, and then became part of Poland between WW I and II. They are somewhat less Catholic than the Southwest oblasts that were Austro-Hungarian.
There is also another political dimension in that Ukraine was one of the last areas where the White Army held out against the Red Army during the Revolution.
For those partaking in Russian propaganda, Crimea was taken by military force and coup. Russian was booted from the G8, making it the G7, due to their illegal annexation by force.
“In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine...
... On 23 February, pro-Russian demonstrations were held in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. On 27 February, masked Russian troops without insignia[41] took over the Supreme Council (parliament) of Crimea[42][43] and captured strategic sites across Crimea. This led to the installation of the pro-Russian Sergey Aksyonov government in Crimea, the conducting of the Crimean status referendum and the declaration of Crimea’s independence on 16 March 2014.[44][45] Russia formally incorporated Crimea as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol on 18 March 2014.[46][47][note 2] Following the annexation, Russia escalated military presence on the peninsula and leveraged nuclear threats to solidify the new status quo on the ground.[49]”
https://patriots.win/p/142AmxtQHv/ethnolinguistic-map-of-ukraine/c/,,,,,,
RE: For instance, how come you left this map out of your collection? The referendum results by region in 1991 when all of Ukraine voted to become independent:
If a woman who has lived with a man for say, 30 years now refuses to live with him anymore, for what ever reason (abuse, incompatibility, clash of values, etc. ), is it a moral right for the man to force the woman to continue to live with him and refuse to let her go at gunpoint by invoking their life together for 30 years?
In this analogy, the man is Russia. The woman us Ukraine.
Thanks for sharing this.
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