Indeed, none of them, except: Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Moldovans, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Turkmen, Armenians, Georgians, Azerbaijani... did I forget anyone? Notice also that national regions within Russia have autonomy; they are members of Russian Federation - here is the map. Crimea will become another autonomous republic.
I have no intent to deify Russia here. My point is simple and abstract:
a) You, as a territory, may become an independent country.
b) You, as an independent country, will be judged and dealt with as an independent country.
Nothing else. So what do we see here? Chechnya *was* independent. I don't think you are debating this point. Then, as an independent country, they invaded a neighbor. What, in your opinion, would happen if any country invades another? What, in your opinion, would happen if that country loses the war? My answer to that is simple: it loses whatever the victor wants. In particular, it may lose its independence, by being carved out into smaller countries (see Austro-Hungarian Empire) or absorbed into another country (many examples, like Golan Heights, or East Prussia, or Puerto Rico.) Often the goal of control over the defeated enemy is not just to own whatever wealth it has, but also to prevent hostilities in the future by installing a friendly government.
The situation that we saw first in Chechnya and now in Ukraine is not necessarily related to the big, bad nothern bear. The root of the problem is that they were, or are, failed states. Chechnya was an obvious threat, and that had to be eliminated. (Would you want to have a Chechnya-like state on the US border? Fortunately, Mexico is not there yet.) Ukraine was a lingering, on and off, concern about the status of Russian military bases in Crimea. (For a while that concern was alleviated by money that Russia sent to Ukraine.) The rest of Ukrainian problems are largely domestic - all the governments in Kiev consisted primarily of thieves, and the most recent one does not appear to be much different. We will hear more from Ukraine.
Uzbeks. They are the weak link in the great chain of socialism.
The recent former President of the Ukraine is reported to have absconded to Russia and is probably responsible for $36 billion being missing from the country’s treasury. Sounds like Russia was happy to help.
