“A fallacious statement regardless of context.”
When you get a divorce you’ll find that no one is swayed by your claims that, “I was married to him/her for 30 years!”
Because the marriage is irrelevant once the divorce is final.
Just like how the final divorce of the USSR ended up with the three kids (Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine) going their separate ways.
That they used to be one country no longer matters.
Unless you’re Tsar Pidor Putin who wants to undo the divorce and bring back the USSR. And he’s just a sick old man who will hopefully die a painful death sometime soon.
No kidding, he’s on my Champagne List. When he dies I’ll be corking my 2009 Dom Perignon Brut to toast Pooty’s first day in Hell.
(The concept of divorce is irrelevant in the eyes of God as far as sacramental marriage is concerned, but we'll ignore that for the sake of argument.)
You misunderstand my point.
Territory changes; borders only have meaning so long as a nation is willing to enforce them.
To illustrate (as the great Mark Steyn points out so often on his '100 Years Ago' segments), we are still living in the shadows cast by the decisions made during and after World War I.
Going even further back are ethnic feuds, religious strifes, and cultural divides that have persisted for longer than some nations have even existed. Did the enmity between Catholics and Protestants cease because of the Peace of Westphalia, for example?
By your logic, when the southern states seceded from the Union, the fact that they were previously one United States no longer mattered, and should have been left to go their own way. It goes without saying that the northern states (or the Lincoln Administration specifically) certainly didn't think the same way.
It would be an interesting world if every nation wiped the slate clean with every new treaty or agreement or partitioning or declaration of independence, but that's not reality, and it never has been; otherwise, every single independence movement would be treated as 100% legitimate by every single nation-state on Earth.
You may certainly think that the history between Ukraine and Russia prior to the dissolution of the USSR is (or should be) irrelevant, but both parties involved clearly don't think the same; otherwise, you wouldn't have so many 2022 articles floating about talking about how the civilization originating from Kiev is much older than that of Moscow.
To borrow your divorce analogy: the man may no longer be living with the woman he married, but the history of that marriage will always affect him going forward.
Especially if he has a hefty monthly payment for alimony or child support.