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Russia, Putin, Ukraine: Some Background

Posted on 03/18/2014 9:10:05 PM PDT by varmintman

I'm not the world's foremost expert on Russia... But I believe I know enough to at least try to clear up a few of the misconceptions I see on forums and have been listening to on talk radio for the past few weeks.

A bit of Russian history for starters... Slavic farmers invited Vikings (Verangians) into what you'd now call Russia and set up the Kievan state which adopted Christianity around 988 AD so that the territory controlled by the city of Kiev was the dominant power in Russia prior to the Mongol invasion in 1236. In other words, they'd fought Polovyetski/Cumins and other nomad tribes to a sort of a standstill which appeared to be a workable state of affairs and then they got run over by a military avalanch and an empire whose military technology was 300 years ahead of the rest of the world.

Russia spent the next 140 years or so under the "Mongol Yoke" before the princes of Moscow managed to win a huge battle over the Golden Horde at Kulikovo in 1380, only to have the white and golden hordes unite a couple of years later and plow Russia under foot again where she would have remained for another century or two, nonetheless shortly thereafter Tamerlane came through and annihilated the Golden Horde. Unlike the situation with Genghis Khan who had utterly competent heirs, Tamerlane's empire began to crumble shortly after his death in the first few years of the 1400s, leaving much of Russia a sort of a shambles and Southern Russia what was called "wild fields". Jews living in what had been the remains of the Khazar kingdom prior to that time finally had enough and started moving to Poland and Germany and for a period of a century or so until Russia started to get organized again, Poland and Lithuania began to look like serious countries on maps. In those days, the Ukraine was part of Poland and one of the biggest if not THE biggest celebrations there ever was in the Ukraine was when Russia took it over in the 1700s.

The Ukrainian language is basically the language of the principality of Kiev while modern Russian is basically the language of the principality of Suzdal and the city of Moscow. At some point, the languages of the various places which comprised Russia must have fused, which is presumably why you have more than one system for verb formations and declension endings. The difference between Russian and Ukrainian is similar to the difference between our English and Chaucer's and anybody in the Ukraine who isn't retarded can speak Russian.

The city of Moscow featured the most paranoid design for a city in the history of the world, basically a system of concentric rings, each more difficult to break into than the last. That is because up to a very late date, Crimean Tatars, remnants of the Golden Horde, used to ride into the city as far as they could get, capture children and stuff them into baskets on their horses and ride off to sell them so that the word "Slav" morphed into "slave". The fact that any Crimean Tatars remain alive at all strongly indicates that Russians are an unusually tolerant people, less given to holding grudges than most.

The official title of the tsars was "Tsar of all the Russias", meaning primarily 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'White Russia' (Belorus), and 'Little Russia' (Ukraine). That is the heart of the Slavic Orthodox world and Ukraine is the breadbasket of that world. The Ukraine could feed everybody from the Volga to the Atlantic and that in fact was Hitler's plan; the idea was to build a super-gauge train to haul foodstuffs from Ukraine to Europe and, as I read it at least, to get Western Europe pretty much out of the food business altogether.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn

"Early plans for routes considered India and Vladivostok as the ultimate goals of the railways, but [b][i][size=150]by 1943 the planning was focused exclusively on European cities.[1] Ukraine and the Volga Basin were seen as especially important targets, as these areas were viewed as the future granaries of the Nazi empire[/size][/i][/b],[1] potentially through the "settlement strings". orSiedlungsperlen of the proposed Wehrbauer settlements within the conquered Lebensraum territories, which would also be linked by the planned easternmost reaches of theReichsautobahn freeway network.[5]...."

But you get the idea. The idea that anybody should have expected Vladimir Putin to just sit there and watch George Soros, Monsanto, and the US state department to just walk off with the Ukraine is idiotic. For that matter, the Crimea had been part and parcel of Russia for at least a couple of centuries before Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine in 1954; it didn't seem to make much difference when everybody was a citizen of the CCCP one way or other, but expecting Russia to just let go of he Crimea under present circumstances is doubly stupid.

Moreover, there is a very big problem with language convergence. Television and the Internet are radically shrinking the world. TV has in fact killed the Southern accent in Texas so that I hear it only amongst people over 60; I expect TV and the internet to kill most of the world's languages in the next 30 years. My guess would be that languages which will still be in use by 2050 will include:

Basically, Ukrainian is a dead language walking and the idiots who just took over Kiev know that, which accounts for at least some of their irrational behavior. Ukraine has a border with Russia, their culture is tied up with that of Russia, and Russian is the main language of those which will survive, with which they are most familiar. My money says that in 20 years, Ukrainian will be spoken only amongst people over 60. The future of the Ukrainian people clearly lies with Russia.

That brings up an obvius question: what are the people in the US state department smoking? What did they expect to see happen?? Another question is, what reasons could there be for wanting to start a major war over any of this stuff?

A century or two ago the reasons for starting wars were simple: Gold, land, women, treaties... That stuff was heinous enough but it was at least comprehensible. In today's world, unfortunatley, you have to at least consider the most paranoid possibility i.e. that the LaRouche group may be right and that the idiots may actually have in mind to start a nuclear war to reduce the human population of the planet to less than one billion as per their stated ideology, for the glory of Gaea.

It turns out the sniper killings around Kiev a month ago were the work of the hoodlums WE are supporting, and not that of Yanukovich or Russians:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/behind-kiev-snipers-it-was-somebody-new-coaltion-stunning-new-leak-reveals-truth

We have now seen two of these false-flag ops in the past six months (Syria and Kiev). At some point, the world has seen this **** one too many times and gets wise to it, and starts to look on Americans as a bunch of lunatics. It's hard not to get the idea that somebody in the US State Department is trying to start a major war.

Aside from that, the world can clearly see that Vladimir Putin is the best Ruler Russia has ever had since Tsar Peter, and that Bork Obunga is just as clearly the worst ruler any advanced state has ever had since Nero and may in fact be WORSE than Nero since I don't view Bork as being bright enough to play a fiddle. More likely we'll get to listen to rap while America burns.

Vladimir Putin is the main force responsible for bringing the global warming lunatics into global disrepute and disrepect. Putin apparently got a number of Russia's best hackers in a room and said something like "Guys, I'm not gonna wreck Russia's economy over a bunch of bullshit, I want you to blast your way into that East Anglia Email Database and spread to the four winds whatever you might find there", and they did that:

http://www.climategate.com

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?221759-Is-Putin-behind-the-leaked-Climategate-e-mails

In other words, aside from needing to learn how to pronounce the guy's name properly, commentators like Limbaugh and Hannity need to understand that Putin is primarily responsible for their not needing to rub sticks together to make fire.

I mean, how many times does that make that Russia has bailed our hiney's out of some really awful kind of ****? Picture living in a world in which Sweden was a major power, i.e. picture yourself cruising in a 57 Volvo:

Guy a half mile up the road had one of those when I was a teenager. The thing was so ugly that just having it parked at the curb reduced housing values within a three-block radius. Tsar Peter saved us from that ****:

I EXPECT libtards and demoKKKrats to be clueless; it's painful to listen to stupid **** coming from right of center commentaters like Limbaugh and Hannity. Again they should start by at least learning to pronounce the guy's name properly:

"vla-DEE-mir POO-Tin" The accent is on the second syllable in Vladimir and nobody swallows a T or pronounces it like a D in Russia.

There is a question of communism in the picture and the thing you have to grasp is that the Soviet state had an absolute monopoly on weapons under the CCCP so that there was no possibility of the people ever rising up and overthrowing that system. That system fell because the people running it finally realized it couldn't work and gave it up. There is zero possibility of Russia going back to socialism or communism.

They ARE however going back to their original Christian roots and aside from building some 200 Christian churches in and around Moscow, they have actually rebuilt that gigantic cathedral which the commies tore down and made into a swimming complex:

Aside from all of that, Putin and the people around him have clearly taken a hard look at the ongoing suicide of the West and determind that Russia is not going to participate in any of that happy horse-****. Not allowing gays to recruit or prosylitize in schools or allowing girl bands to desecrate a church are signs of a recovered righteousness.

I mean, if I've missed anything or left anything important out here or gotten anything wrong, somebody let me know, but this is the picture I'm seeing. I don't see anything not to like with Putin or the vision of the current Russian government.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: crimea; ibtz; putin; putinsbuttboys; russia; surrendermonkeys; ukraine; varmintspam
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To: Marguerite

Nope, we are not the same country anymore.

Demographics is Destiny.


101 posted on 03/18/2014 11:30:57 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Mount Athos

Even yet it’s not quite the same. I don’t see any signs that Crimea was putting up a civil war here, for anyone to take sides in.


102 posted on 03/18/2014 11:34:17 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Mount Athos

“The precedent was set when the USA bombed the hell out of Serbia to strip Kosovo from its sovereign territory.”

Exactly.

USNATO intervention in Kosovo created a precedent in international law, we can see now its consequences.

US supported every secessionist group that wanted to break away from Yugoslavia, they bombed Yugoslavia into smitherness in 1999 for 80 days non-stop, to split it in two, and they declared the Yugoslav Army to be an occupier on its own territory.
The Assembly of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, approved an unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, when foreign troops were stationned on its territory. Kosovo was soon recognized as a sovereign state, first by the United States, and then by Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and others ...

The West cannot have it both ways. They can’t say that the right of Albanians to self-determination in Kosovo trumps Serbia’s right to territorial integrity, and then turn around and say that Ukraine’s right to territorial integrity trumps the right of Russians in Crimea to self-determination.


103 posted on 03/18/2014 11:38:17 PM PDT by Marguerite (When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm even better)
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To: Marguerite

I’m not sure what a “smitherness” is, but anyhow this didn’t even rise to the level of a civil war.


104 posted on 03/18/2014 11:40:32 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Marguerite

Can you find anything about Putin or Russia that’s worthy of criticism, foreigner?

I’m glad you’ve stopped copying and pasting from Alex Jones website ever since I called you out on it, by the way. I’m sure you’ve seen the error of your ways (not), sneaking text here from a site where everyone thinks Bush and Cheney were behind 9/11 and Sandy Hook was a false flag.


105 posted on 03/18/2014 11:46:58 PM PDT by Corporate Democrat
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To: dfwgator
He's not Hitler because he's a trained and experienced man, and not crazy.

The comperable trait is his end game. he's going to move to the West, and you just don't see it. I am talking about Europe, not the US.

We will destroy ourselves before he finishes up his plan. he's not playing checkers. He's playing the long game of Chess without the clock.

106 posted on 03/18/2014 11:48:33 PM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: dfwgator

Let’s hope Putin is overthrown by someone who realizes that you can have an assertive Russia without waging a covert war on a peaceful neighbor who is no threat to you. The people who are supporting this bully should be happy though since at least one Ukrainian has been killed by his thugs.


107 posted on 03/18/2014 11:59:14 PM PDT by elhombrelibre (Against Obama. Against Putin. Pro-freedom.)
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To: varmintman

You should get this history published. You could name it “Putinism Propaganda History for Dummies”


108 posted on 03/19/2014 12:00:22 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (Against Obama. Against Putin. Pro-freedom.)
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To: dfwgator

LNG is more expensive.

WE have recently began to build out capacity, but not enough.

Permits are hard to get because they might increase fraking.

But the need to export is obvious...and the price may have to comedown..The cost in elecrical power, and equipment to compress it is very high. and the ships to do it are also very costly.


109 posted on 03/19/2014 12:00:50 AM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: elhombrelibre

I was thinking the same thing.....


110 posted on 03/19/2014 12:01:58 AM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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To: kabar

Pussy Riot is just an example of the way dissent and free speech are treated in Russia. Read the latest State Department Human Rights report on Russia I posted earlier.
Putin is curtailing civil liberties in Russia.


So homosexuals stripping and acting like perverts in public and in churches is “free speech” and okay with you?


111 posted on 03/19/2014 12:09:22 AM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: kabar

“Pussy Riot is just an example of the way dissent and free speech are treated in Russia.”

“Putin is curtailing civil liberties in Russia.”

Civil Liberties?

Does this look like an exercise of civil liberties to you?

(please watch video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY

Shouting mocking vulgarities in a holy place, disrupting people praying? They also broke into the sanctuary with the altar.

Maybe you think people have a right to do this at your church, your families funeral or wedding?

I guess world sentiment would have been different if they done this in a mosque.


112 posted on 03/19/2014 12:11:09 AM PDT by Mount Athos (A Giant luxury mega-mansion for Gore, a Government Green EcoShack made of poo for you)
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To: Girlene
Russia has bailed our hiney's out of some really awful kind of ****?

Seriously?

Yes. WWII would have been a lot harder to win without the Russians.

Had Hitler not been stupid enough to attack Russia, we might all be Nazis speaking German now, if we were alive at all.

113 posted on 03/19/2014 12:11:14 AM PDT by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: Mogger

We gave the Russians a LOT of help.


114 posted on 03/19/2014 12:11:43 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: KOZ.
putin bootlickers

Do you remember the speech Putin gave and the letter he wrote to the same effect the December after Zero was elected?

He warned the USA, "Not to go down the road to communism, because that is what destroyed Russia."

115 posted on 03/19/2014 12:13:50 AM PDT by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: little jeremiah; kabar
Yeah, the media obsession with Pussy Riot was nauseating. For Christ's sake, it was a obscure band who broke the law trespassing and shamelessly pushed anti-Christian slogans while inside.

In other words, not worthy of news and certainly not worthy of sympathy. If anything it showed how petty the MSM was and gave Putin a rare chance to take the moral high ground.

116 posted on 03/19/2014 12:23:59 AM PDT by Corporate Democrat
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To: varmintman

A very nice view of the forest. I am sure the Soros Bund faux-cons will attack it accordingly.


117 posted on 03/19/2014 12:32:51 AM PDT by Psalm 144 (My citizenship is not here.)
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To: varmintman

“I don’t see anything not to like with Putin or the vision of the current Russian government.”

lmao. You have no historical perspective. This article reminds me of the Louis Farrahkan speeches with numerology, which unfortunately, has more logic than this diatribe.

Ukrainians despise the Russians and would have fought against the Soviets had the Nazis realized the intense hatred of the Russians/Soviets.


118 posted on 03/19/2014 12:34:27 AM PDT by rbmillerjr (Lectio Divina...Adoration...Mass)
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To: dfwgator
We gave the Russians a LOT of help.

Yes, we did. And they gave a LOT of blood, far more than we gave.

Did you ever read of the mass charges the Russian Army made against the Germans?

They didn't have enough rifles for everyone.

Everyone would run towards the German lines. Only those in front had rifles.

The ones following each carried a stripper clip of five shells. As those in front were killed the followers picked up the rifles, re-loaded and continued until they were killed, and so on.

The Russian bodies stacked up under the fire of the German machine gunners until they formed a wall closer to the Germans.

As the attacks on the Germans went on, the Germans eventually either ran out of ammo or their machine guns overheated.

The Russians would continue picking up rifles from downed comrades, reload them and charge on upon the Germans until the Germans were either shot, retreated, or were bayoneted.

While not being an expert on Russian history, I have obviously read more of it than many who have commented here.

The ignorance of many is simply pathetic. (I also speak and read Russian, but am now very rusty).

The original poster who started this thread, is overall, mostly accurate in his condensed presentation of Russian history.

With the internet and libraries, there are plenty of historical sources. Read them before making a fool of oneself.

119 posted on 03/19/2014 12:36:57 AM PDT by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: Mogger
Heard the same identical stories about the Chinese during the Korean war.

The Japanese during WWII...

120 posted on 03/19/2014 12:43:14 AM PDT by Cold Heat (Have you reached your breaking point yet? If not now....then when?)
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