>>The Ukraine is a region not a nation. It isn’t like in “Risk.”
Are you serious?
If so, you need to catch up on current events. And by “current”, I mean more than 25 years ago.
If so, you need to catch up on current events. And by “current”, I mean more than 25 years ago.
And it is precisely because of statements like the one above, that we still need NATO and why the former Soviet bloc countries like Poland and the Baltics are the organization's staunchest supporters.
Totally serious, it was never an independent country until the USSR created a state.
Russia conquered the Crimea in 1783 and it became part of the Russian Empire rather than the Ottoman Sultanate. The Crimea was seceded to the Ukraine in the early 50s by the Soviets.
The Russians fought a war over the Crimean 150+ years ago defending Christians against Moslem oppression. Russia had to fight France and UK in the subsequent war. Sound familiar?
The Ukraine was fought over for centuries being incorporated into various empires and has had a civil war ongoing between the various ethnic groups varying in intensity for centuries.
The peoples in the area have been known by lots of different names: Scythians, Tatars, Huns, Cossacks. It has had German, Polish, and Russian settlers through the centuries.
This is not the kind of fight we should be involved in (it is more complex than Syria) and falls within the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation. That won’t change.