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.
60% of the population ARE ethnic Russians. They would definitely vote for joining Russia. 24% are ethnic Ukrainians, but most are Russian speakers and all have been subject to tons of media saying that Svoboda and other violent organizations have taken over Kiev. I would guess that half of the Ukrainians at least would vote to join Russia. The Tatars at 12% would not have voted to join Russia
however, I believe that the Tatars and many ukrainians boycotted the referendum
Even if everyone voted and this was utterly fair, Crimea would be returning to Russia
this is not, not simple like an invasion, it's not as simple as "free and fair referendum" -- it's some area of gray.
If you consider Eastern Europe as being lands east of a line on the eastern borders of the Balkan states + poland + slovakia +hungary+ romania, then yes, somewhat he already controls it with the exception of Georgia (though I guess Georgia is Asian)
If you mean the former Soviet bloc, then no -- the Baltics, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians revile their time under Soviet rule
That's what the Poles I meet keep saying. Poland is setting up it's own alliance with the Baltic states that will probably now draw in Romania and Hungary.
They're all small on their own, but combined they are half the population of Russia and able to pretty much match the Russians militarily (except for nuclear weapons)
Also, economically, they are moving away from dependency on Russia -- this movement by Putin is only accelerating that.
The ironic part is that by doing this, the French and English brought hell on themselves -- the German General Jodl pointed out that there were only 23 divisions of German troops on the west opposed by something like 110 divs of French and English. The French tanks and artillery were actually better than the German.
If the French and English had actually attacked Germany instead of just talking, they would have ended the war in 1939 and saved millions of lives -- a lot of it their own.
Quite correct — this is hypocritical
Far better to point out Putin's shutting down of Novosti TV station.
yes, WWII would have been a lot harder to win without the Russians, but this was also because of Nazi stupidity. Instead of playing nice with the people they conquered, they went Mongol on them. So the Russians and Ukrainians and others realized that they had only two choices: fight or die.
If the Russians had collapsed, I don't believe the Nazis would have survived past the 60s. Their harsh power already stirred up counter-reactions and at some point they would have strained too far and collapsed. Just as Napoleon did..
they didn't care how many died.
Read also about Bolshevik tactics in the Russian Civil war. The same treatment of soldiers as cannon fodder
You refresh my memory of pre WWII days when I would spend time in the summer with relatives in Grand Rapids Michigan. My grandpa who was an immigrant from Russia enjoyed very much going to Polish weddings across town and to tell us about it the next day’
EXACTLY!!!
People seem to forget that the Soviets were the aggressors who started the war with the Nazis.
Two evil neighbors decide to partition the land of the neighbor between them. Then they turn on each other. BOTH are to blame and both are/were evil
REally? I haven't noticed that. To me it sounds like Russian but with a few Polish words. It doesn't use the softer sounds of Czech to my ear (but then that's just my opinion)
I watch it and watch CNN and my belief is that the truth is somewhere in the middle -- neither side is telling the whole truth and I wouldn't trust either without verification.
Tsarist russia included the Baltic states, much of Poland as well as Georgia, Armenia, Kazakshstan etc.
My fiance who is Ukrainian say that Ukrainian when properly spoken is very light sounding, almost like singing. Having heard her speak I think it is true, although my ear is not good enough to separate Ukrainian from Russian.
People forget that....and our oh so peaceful Soviet Allies, raped the Baltics and attacked Finland, before Hitler attacked them.
They started WWII in Europe with the Nazis.
You're right. In regards to the demographics I should have asked whether there was a single oblast dominated by Russians rather than Russian speakers.
As in every land conquered by the Soviets, Russian was taught to all the school kids. This was true even in the Warsaw Pact countries. So you will have many people identify as Ukrainian that speak Russian. I have a friend from Kazakhstan that considers himself Kazakhstani but Russian is his first language.
I don’t see the long game that the Russians are playing. i don’t think they have a long-term plan. What Putin did in Crimea is short-term, a pique to his chosen man Y being kicked out.
This was low-hanging fruit for Putin.
Honestly, any Russian leader who allowed Crimea and her bases to go to Ukraine would have been run out of Moscow faster than you can say “Peter the Great.”
Did you see that Putin in his speech announced that he was adding the Tatar language to the list of official languages of Russia?
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