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Posted on 10/09/2022 8:51:58 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The land within the borders of modern Ukraine, a Texas-sized nation often called the “breadbasket of Europe,” has long been coveted by the region’s powers. During Antiquity, the Greeks, Romans and Huns, along with a slew of lesser-known empires, from the Scythians to the Sarmatians, each established a presence there at one point or another.
More recently, from the Middle Ages to the present, the Vikings, Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Ottomans, Swedes, French, Austrians, Germans, Romanians and Czechoslovakians have all marched in, with some staying far longer than others.
Never fully independent until the collapse of the Soviet Union, though there were periods of semi-autonomy, Ukraine has been divided up and stuck back together several times. (Fittingly, the name “Ukraine” means “on the edge” or “borderland,” and its national anthem declares, “Ukraine has not yet perished.”) Through it all, Ukrainian history and identity has been a highly contentious topic, particularly in the context of the 2022 Russian invasion.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin, for example, has stated that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” and that Ukraine isn’t a real state, an echo of when earlier generations of Russians referred to Ukraine as “Little Russia.” Yet many Ukrainians vehemently disagree with these characterizations, pointing to their country’s distinct language, culture, traditions and shared civic principles.
“A lot of really important history that Putin and Russian nationalists see as their ancestry happened in Ukraine,” says Stephen Brain, an associate professor at Mississippi State University, who specializes in Russian history. He adds that “for very long periods” Russia and Ukraine were “part of the same state.”
“On the other hand,” Brain says, “Kiev was the capital of its own state before Moscow existed.” Ukraine spent long stretches outside Russian control, and, according to Brain, “Ukrainians increasingly do perceive themselves as a separate nationality.”
(Excerpt) Read more at history.com ...
Freeper Brian Griffin profile page, has a history of Ukraine and Russia territories:
Kevian Rus (scroll down to UKRAINE at his profile):
https://freerepublic.com/~briangriffin/index
Interesting. Thanks for providing the link to his page.
My previous reply, I referred to your Freeper profile, Kevian Rus history. Interesting info, there, and thank you.
Bkmk
Couple of years ago, before this war....I was reading a demographic breakdown of the Ukraine. More than 30 different minorities in the country, and some date back to 2,000 years ago. To say that the nation is just ethnic Ukrainian and ethnic Russian...is not correct.
How they’ve managed to survive as a nation the size of Texas and this divided, is pretty much a miracle in itself.
Communist dictators and people in the upper echelons of their societies tend to express sweet sentimental reasons for their penchant for invading and plundering other countries and enslaving their peoples. But they seek more wealth and military power to continue to plunder the world, its people, and its resources.
There are cultural boundaries. Not sharp, but they exist.
If you refer to geographical boundaries then the Eurasian steppe stretches from Mongolia to the Netherlands with few boundaries besides rivers
Well, they are a nation, however the minorities are either small communities of neighbouring nations such as Poles, hungarians etc or small communities like Pontic Greeks or Crimean tatars.
That’s actually one of the more honest History articles I’ve read. It leaves out some MOSTLY minor details - including President Petro Poroshenko, who himself became a victim of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his mudslinging campaign and trumped up charges that Poroshenko aided Russian separatists in the East through some kind of strange coal deal.
The rather fragile and often broken peace of the postwar era rests on the notion that the large and powerful countries will act together to guarantee the borders of the smaller and weaker countries. When Mussolini decided that wasn’t his concern in 1935, the League of Nations basically ceased to exist as a useful entity. This is a fairly similar situation. There is really no justification for the presence of Russian military forces in Ukraine, but to be realistic, the western allies of Ukraine should probably have made it clear that Crimea could stay under Russian control, that part of the border demarcation was accidentally made into a post-USSR crisis when it began to matter where the border was (in Soviet times it hardly mattered as the republics had only limited sovereignty especially in military matters).
As to claims on various other sections of Ukraine, these appear to be overstated and Russia is clearly forcing people to submit to their rule whatever they think of the situation.
This crisis can only end if Putin is replaced by somebody willing to terminate the operation, or if he changes his mind and does so. I doubt that it will end with a total collapse of Ukraine or its government given how many powerful countries support Ukraine. What we think about it of course has no bearing on the outcome at all.
The relevance of the United Nations has always been rather limited and this is making it even more so. We are basically in a similar situation to the 1935 collapse of the world order that encouraged Hitler to start annexing territory, while Mussolini went on to further misadventures. Also Japan had violated the League charter as early as 1932 in northern China. We all know how that buildup to world war ended, but it seems like we may be on that same path, especially if China decides that the rules don’t apply to them either.
The rules only work if there is adequate restraining force or a culture of compliance. There was neither in the 1930s and there is not really much restraining force now, beyond what China (or other bad actors) may fear from the U.S. and its allies. Russia clearly does not fear NATO enough to be restrained although they say they fear its influence (even though at one point in time they wanted to join NATO).
This is of course largely our own fault, first of all for trusting this world order to work (why would it?) and then putting idiots in charge when there were sensible people available. When I say “our fault” I mean of course the majority of people in our foolish western countries, not in most cases those who frequent FR.
The situation is getting so extremely dysfunctional that I have to wonder if some kind of benign military dictatorship under appropriate supervision might not be the only way we are going to maintain any semblance of freedom or prosperity, there isn’t much point in having free elections if there is a guaranteed result of having morons running our countries with predictable chaos the result of it.
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Thank you for that detailed perspective.
I wonder if NATO isn’t less benign than you briefly describe, however. It seems very much, to me, to be a bad actor in this matter.
I do not really understand NATO’s current function. It now includes what used to be East Germany, that it defended other NATO countries against, in a former life. Now, Germany supposedly defends other NATO countries using old GDR hardware that probably needs Soviet hardware to operate. NATO defense has smoothly transitioned to Russia, and apparently not China, even though Trump had easily demonstrated Europe and Russia’s interdependence as well as the international belligerence of China.
My thinking is that Mrs. Clinton used her stay in Foggy Bottom to bring NATO into the Clinton Crime Syndicate, or at least subvert it to criminal ends. The UN seems to take a back seat to the US and NATO in these matters.
LOL, sure idiot, lets return Russia to the size it was 500 years ago
Ukraine's political division
Deceptive idiot shows old election, not last election of Zelensky
its because Ukraine was a key German invasion route
Once again, deceptive, Russians first used that 'key invasion route' to invade and partition Poland with the nazis.
In 1939 the German–Soviet victory parade took place in Polish town of Brest-Litovsk. As allies, Russians-Nazis celebrated liberating Poland from the Poles
Nato expansion
Only an idiot doesn't understand why former Eastern Bloc countries join NATO
Tanks
bkmk and link in thread
Pretty simple. Grain and oil.
From its inception in 1949 to 1982, the member countries of NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty organization) had at least some relation to the North Atlantic.
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