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‘I am of Scots heritage’

De ye belong tae Glasgow ?

You must visit Scotland . I had som fantastic holidays there in my youth.

Regarding the present British - Russian barney, there is another factor that the media over here seldom mentions.
Since the late 1990s the Labour Govt granted asylum to several Chechian ‘separatists’, one is Ahmed Dasuev, can’t remember the others. These induviduals are nasty baskets who are believed to have tortured and beheaded civilians suspected of siding with Russia. They are championed by Amnesty International and the way many actors and writers speak about them, you would think that a messiah has arrived here ! The BBC consistently describes the ‘Russian occupation ‘of Chechnia and one correspondent compared the Chechian terrorists with the French Resistance in WW2.
Understandably the Russians are hacked off about this, the UK is supposed to be fighting a war against international terrorism yet we are sheltering these creatures.
As I understand it, this may be at the root of Moscow’s present attitude.
Where is Chechnia anyway ? Is it true that they are of the Moslem loony faith ?

Thanks for the post. I hope a lot of people read this, mindful of the fact that print attacks on the Russian Federation in the US on account of Chechnya have all but dried up. It would be useful for Americans wanting to know where they get the best advice on Russia policy to revisit writing done over the period before international terrorist groups operating there were named by the US State Dept and the British foreign office. I would not be taking Russia-policy opinion and advice from those Americans. There are some familiar US political names among them who ought now to be thoroughly discredited on pretty well anything they say about Russia.

I want to revisit other elements of your post but for now, this has to be it.

The Scots I came from were British North American servicemen, During the American Revolutionary War, the family split. Some came north to what became Canada and the rest stayed in what became the US.

The US has largely stayed out of the Russia-UK spy spat and other assorted grievances including the Chechnya terrorist protection racket the poms are running.

The Russians recently told the Great Game Loser-nation to shed the colonialist mentality and get on with business.I'd love to visit Scotland. I don't know enough about the family before the arrival.