[lodi90]

You might need some “research”, too. Putin said it was “farmers and miners” fighting against Ukrainian “nazis” and then later handed out medals to Russians from Moscow and regular army Russian soldiers. Something doesn’t add up there.

If the cause was just the lies from Putinist Russia would never have been necessary. Russia stole Crimea and murdered thousands of civilians including nearly a hundred children on that airplane. None of that was necessary. They chose to do that and own it all. Period.

[Jim Noble]

Russia stole Crimea

Cut it out.

Russia only gave Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 for heaven's sake, and then only because Khrushchev had been sent by Stalin to govern that part of the USSR.

[Wallace T.]

There isn't really a clean break between nations in Eastern Europe as distinct as in Western Europe. Spain, Germany, France. Italy, and the U.K have distinct physical boundaries and a long history of independence. There are restive regions such as Catalonia and Scotland but both have been under the thumb of Madrid and London, respectively, for centuries. Germany and Italy have been independent for only 150 years, but certainly existed as linguistic and cultural countries for many centuries. On the other hand, the nations east of Germany and Italy have had constantly shifting boundaries and until 1918 were ruled by Moscow, Istanbul, Vienna, and Berlin. Ethnic groups often overlap, without the clean breaks that, say, the French have vs. their German neighbors, with Alsace being distinctly German but inside French borders.

Putin rules over far less land than the Tsars or the Communists did. Despite still being the largest country in land mass, Russia has about half our population and its GNP is tiny compared with ours. However, they don't have the massive moral decadence that America suffers from. Trump wasn't in power long enough to restore our military strength, and in any case, the Pentagon was part of the Deep State cabal that toppled him.

The U.S. has too many domestic problems to get involved in Russia's back yard. If Germany, Poland, and France want to get involved, more power to them.

[NorseViking]

Thank you for a regular doze of the popular propaganda but I asked a different question.