Crimea is very much misunderstood in the West. It has been Russian since Catherine the Great annexed it in 1783. Prior to that, it had belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
In 1954, Kruschev transferred Crimea within the USSR to Ukraine, to win support from Ukrainian bosses for his ascension to supreme leader after Stalin’s death.
Here is an analogy: Long Island is part of New York since 1783 or so. Then in 1954 it is transferred from NY to CT in return for critical CT electoral votes. A half century later, NY state takes Long Island back.
The Russian RE-annexation of Crimea is not a cause for the USA to meddle in.
And it’s not much different with Eastern Ukraine. The borders between Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Belorussia etc have shifted over and over during the past century. There are no natural boundaries (mountain ranges or rivers) so the borders are mostly based on who has joined what rising or falling empire.
Ethnic/linguistic populations often find themselves on the “wrong” side of newly-drawn borders, and a few generations later, they want to rejoin their ethnic/linguistic brothers on the other side. Again, this has happened over and over and over again across the plains of Eastern Europe.
Imagine Russia now demanding that we give the Southwest back to Mexico, or demanding the return of the “swindled” territory of Alaska. We’d laugh in their faces.
Only the Perpetual War Party wants to go to war with Russia over Crimea or Eastern Ukraine.
“Only the Perpetual War Party “
Notice much of the Cold War was prompted by and continued to be pushed by the democraps. There didn’t even need to be a Cold War, but Truman was an idiot who found war to be a party platform.
Imagine Russia now demanding that we give the Southwest back to Mexico, or demanding the return of the “swindled” territory of Alaska. We’d laugh in their faces.
Imagine the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans living in Los Angeles ejecting the gringos and demanding the city be returned to Mexico. Following your “logic” that would indeed be legit.
Any reason in particular you air brush history like a good Bolshevik? I expect better from you.
Western Ukraine (Lemberg/Lwow/Lviv) and its hinterlands in Galicia and Volhynia are historically Central Europe. If they want to join the Visegrad group, especially if Vienna gets in, I’m fine with that.
The Donbass and Crimea are Russia, period, end of story.
The unitary Ukrainian state is a fiction, not worth the dusty bones of a Pomeranian grenadier, as the saying goes.
Whether the US should be involved at all in saving (again) a Europe bent on suicide is unclear. For myself, I’d vote “no”.
Even the 1954 Supreme Soviet vote to do this was defective, as there was not a quorum.
[Only the Perpetual War Party wants to go to war with Russia over Crimea or Eastern Ukraine.]
The sad thing is Ukraine lost it long term ability to maintain its sovereignty (and hence its control of Crimea!). They did this when accepted the “agreement/treaty” that the USA & UK could “guarantee” it’s sovereignty if it gave up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the collapse of the USSR. USA & UK guarantees on that are worth a stale tepid Starbucks coffee! Does anyone really believe we & the UK will go to DEFCON-Launch over Ukraine?