The View From NATO’s Russian Front

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ^ | Feb. 6, 2015 | Sohrab Ahmari

[Ivan Mazepa]

:) The word normally used is “Bandershtat”.

[tcrlaf]

Oh please, stop your lying.
After a full year, nobody buys it anymore.

[tcrlaf]

I’m really surprised you can stay on FR, with all of your insults and childish name-calling.

[Drew68]

The Russian language isn't banned--

Thanks to Yanukovich. When I traveled to the Donbas in November, 2005 to get married, all official documentation had to be provided in Ukrainian --despite the fact that residents of the Donbas speak Russian. Something you will learn when you visit there.

[Drew68]

You're a scumbag who is still spreading this lie even after I already proved you wrong. How many ethnic Russians are there, you dimwitted monkey, compared to Ukrainians, even in the Donbass? And how many ethnic Russians want to join Russia or "be autonomous"?

Your Washington Post polls prove nothing. Why won't you take me up on my challenge to vacation in Donetsk? Airfare is cheap. You might even have fun! The Kiev train ride is a blast! You'll definitely meet some smoking hot chicks.

[Ivan Mazepa]

Why are you speaking for them? Time and time again, "they" say they want to be part of Ukraine. i.e. they don't believe the Russian TV fairy tales of being oppressed in Ukraine for one simple reason, they live there and know that stories about ethnic cleansing is BS.

Another poll from couple of days ago had less than 5% of people in Southern and Eastern Ukraine wanting to separate from Ukraine. one fifth for federalization but part of Ukraine, and more than half for unitary government in Kyiv. Yet here you making up nonsense. "They don't wish to be governed by Kiev" - wtf? it's moronic, like that idiot Putin, living in parallel reality.

[Drew68]

You're a scumbag...

I've asked my post #106 be deleted for unnecessary vulgarity. I'm above you.

As I've suggested countless times, visit the region and then get back to me.

[Ivan Mazepa]

It's amazing you would give a link to this song and argue that Russians aren't into empire building.

The chorus has a line "Мы в империю верим с новой силой" - "We believe in the Empire with new strength"

Then the next verse, "we'll march on to the west" with US, nukes and Statue of Liberty in the background

My goodness, why would you give this link?? LOL

Here's some better music

[Ivan Mazepa]

It's amazing you would give a link to this song and argue that Russians aren't into empire building.

The chorus has a line "Мы в империю верим с новой силой" - "We believe in the Empire with new strength"

Then the next verse, "we'll march on to the west" with US, nukes and Statue of Liberty in the background

My goodness, why would you give this link?? LOL

Here's some better music

[Verginius Rufus]

I can't read Hungarian, but the striped area represents the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. The thin sliver just west of present-day Hungary was historically part of Hungary but the people voted to be part of Austria since most were German-speaking. There are some Hungarians in the present-day Slovakia and in Vojvodina (part of Serbia) and Transylvania, but the Slovaks, Croats, Serbs and Romanians in those areas have no reason to want a revival of the Kingdom of Hungary.

To be sure, the Hungarians have ample reasons to resist Russian expansion--memories of 1849, 1945, and 1956.

[Verginius Rufus]

I can't read Hungarian, but the striped area represents the Hungarian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. The thin sliver just west of present-day Hungary was historically part of Hungary but the people voted to be part of Austria since most were German-speaking. There are some Hungarians in the present-day Slovakia and in Vojvodina (part of Serbia) and Transylvania, but the Slovaks, Croats, Serbs and Romanians in those areas have no reason to want a revival of the Kingdom of Hungary.

To be sure, the Hungarians have ample reasons to resist Russian expansion--memories of 1849, 1945, and 1956.

[Drew68]

Yet here you making up nonsense.

Nonsense? We know what you think of the Russian-speaking Donbas in regards to my wife;

Ivan Mazepa to Drew68. She will always be a foreigner in Ukraine, like an unwanted immigrant. Good riddance she left.

Don't pretend to be ignorant of the reasons Novrossiya wants independence.

[Ivan Mazepa]

all official documentation had to be provided in Ukrainian --despite the fact that residents of the Donbas speak Russian. Something you will learn when you visit there.

That's like asking immigrants coming to US to learn English when they fill up official documents. That's just crazy. My goodness, how did your wife take to all the English being spoken in America?

[Drew68]

That's like asking immigrants coming to US to learn English when they fill up official documents. That's just crazy.

No, its closer to demanding all official documents in Ireland be written in Gaelic.

[Drew68]

That's just crazy. My goodness, how did your wife take to all the English being spoken in America?

She learned English just fine. Why should a Russian be forced to speak Ukrainian? But she lived in Ukraine, you might say. And we come to the crux of this dilemma.

[GeronL]

It was Russia that forced other countries to learn Russian, which they are now doing in Crimea, not the other way around.

[GeronL]

1 million westerners left Russia in the second half of 2014

http://www.businessinsider.com/westerners-leaving-russia-2015-2?utm_content=buffer20d2a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[desertfreedom765]

Refer to Jim Noble’s comment about the ethnic composition of Eastern Ukraine, he knows a lot more about this situation than you do.

Right now this is small nasty border war. We should be trying to help them settle it.

The first time an American weapon kills Russian Civilians or soldiers it’s going to change into something different all together.

Sorry you lack the basic common sense to see that.

[Drew68]

It was Russia that forced other countries to learn Russian, which they are now doing in Crimea, not the other way around.

Crimea has been predominately Russian since the 18th Century, since Catherine the Great. Everyone speaks Russian in Crimea --even moreso than in the Donbas. I was in Sevastopol in August, 2013, before the re-annexation. Russian flags flew everywhere. Russian was spoken everywhere. They loathed Americans. I was shunned and ignored until I attempted crappily to speak Russian. At that point, the locals became friendly, respectful of the fact that I at least made an effort to speak their language.