Posted on 11/19/2019 10:40:27 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
kraine is ready to accept a "reasonable compromise" at a four-way summit on settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Yeah. That egg is never going back together
Russia won’t give Crimea back. If that’s a condition for Zelenskily, no deal will be reached.
The people of Crimea don’t want to go back in the first. The same is true for Donbas but free elections and de-facto independence formally within Ukraine for the latter is the best they can get.
Addition by subtraction: by shifting the border between Ukraine and Russia a bit to the west, the percentage of people within Ukraine who are Russian-speaking falls. The remaining Russian-speakers won’t be so large a minority as to divide the political spectrum in Ukraine along Ukrainian-speakers and Russian-speakers. This change in the electorate will secure the slightly-shifted border.
Having said this, I will now say what is the danger of this: To a junkyard dog like Putin, compromise is seen as a sign of weakness and an opportunity to again go on the offensive. It is one thing to say that changing the electorate will secure the border. That’s only partly it. You also need a wall backed by a border patrol and, if necessary, the military.
Ukrainian joke: In Ukraine, an optimist learns English, a pessimist learns Russian, and a realist cleans his gun.
When Poroshenko took office, the first thing he did was say no Russian was to be spoken in Ukraine. That was changed shortly thereafter.
Russia wants to include Ukraine as US wants to include Mexico. Doesn’t worth the trouble.
Yeah, what a novel concept, that you should know the language of the country you live in.
“Russia won’t give Crimea back. If that’s a condition for Zelenskily, no deal will be reached.”
Considering that Crimea was 90% ethnic Russian even BEFORE Russia took it back means you’re totally right about it staying Russian.
Not sure how the Eastern Ukraine will play out, where it’s closer to an even split between Russians and Ukrainians.
Good article, thanks. So basically Obama installed a Russia-hating nationalist in the Ukraine and Russia, along with ethnic Russian Ukrainians, didn’t like that very much. Not much different than the Chinese installing a Marxist in Mexico and then tell us to suck it up.
Oh well, I guess when Russia sees a problem in their backyard, they deal with it.
IIRC, Crimea had its own constitution and government. It’s complicated. IMHO, Crimea belongs to Russia...
Yea, it was given to the Ukraine under Stalin, which was meaningless. Not much different than transferring a kid from one public school to another, also meaningless, since a jail is a jail in both cases.
Except that, a very large percentage of Ukrainians have never been Ukrainian speakers because the Ukrainian language just wasn’t a “thing”. The language was heavily promoted after independence, mainly for political purposes.
So you’re arguing if people live in a country for many years and are too lazy to learn the countries language they should be accommodated? Read about Estonia, after gaining freedom, they would not let anyone become a citizen if you couldn’t speak the language. Languages unite countries.
The situation in Ukraine is quite a bit different though. Let me draw a hypothetical analogue. Lets say you lived in California all of your life. Your speak English of course, and maybe you had some Spanish in school, but you are barely competent in it, if that. Most people in California speak English, except for some pockets of cities and other areas where Spanish dominates. Now lets suppose that tomorrow, California seceded from the US, and elected a radical government that decided that the official language of the new country would be Spanish, and that everyone must learn Spanish.
In this example, would you consider all the people for whom English was the first language "lazy" if they didn't want to start speaking Spanish? Of course not. Its very unreasonable to require people to change their first language when they haven't moved or intentionally put themselves in such a position. A very large portion of the territory of Ukraine contains people for whom Russian is their first language. They learned it in school, and they have never spoken anything different for their entire lives. Its just not reasonable to expect these people to switch languages just because the US installed some idiot President who wants to promote idiotic nationalism.
Estonian citizenship test has a language section. Many Russians are living in Estonia since 1991 and have never learned the language and therefore are not citizens. If you live in a country learn the language and not expect everyone else to accommodate you.
Anyone else getting sick of the damned Ukraine? The nazi Svoboda/right sector coup overthrow the government and had the western Ukraine and Kiev, and solidly everything west of the Dneiper river.
Ok done. But a coup only gives you the right to grab what you can take by force. People in the east and Crimea were bitterly opposed to the coup, possess the same rights as the Kiev coup to grab what they can, and and happily for them, Russia shared their interest in not wanting NATO to roll right up to their border.
And Russia was as likely to give up the Sevastopol navy base as we would be to give Norfolk to the Chinese. So Russia helped them keep the nazi armies out of the east. (The coup leaders were smart and formed Azov and Direlwanger brigades out of the most radical Kiev coup soldiers and sent them east to get them outta town and hopefully dead)
Bottom line. Nothing in the life of any American involves Ukraine. Its sickening to watch the whole US government grind to a halt over Ukraine. Ukraine was a McCain and Obama operation that enriched the Bidens and Kerrys. Ukraine is the source of the Russia/Trump narrative. It hurt their enemy, and helped their allies, the democrats. So far 8000 Americans have had the sum of their lifetime taxes given away to Kiev. And it’s less than a sparrows fart in importance to America.
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