[goldstategop]

This is Putin’s favorite pretext - a pro Moscow local leader asks for “fraternal assistance” and Moscow obliges.

Today the Kremlin is doing it is not for Communist ideology but out of good fashioned national pride.

And with a 70% approval rating in Russia, Putin can do whatever he wants coming off a very successful Olympics. That’s why he’s such a masterful politician.

[sunrise_sunset]

Its not national pride. Without a warm weather port they are finished as an independent world power.

[dfwgator]

This issue should have been addressed back in 1992, but Yeltsin punted.

[Zhang Fei]

This is Putin’s favorite pretext - a pro Moscow local leader asks for “fraternal assistance” and Moscow obliges. Today the Kremlin is doing it is not for Communist ideology but out of good fashioned national pride. And with a 70% approval rating in Russia, Putin can do whatever he wants coming off a very successful Olympics. That’s why he’s such a masterful politician.

The concern here has nothing to do with communism or Putin. It wouldn't matter if a monarchy were re-established in Russia and the Tsar enthroned. The annexation of foreign territory is the very definition of imperialism and that is what Russia doing right now.