O-Trap;1593661 wrote:How do you know this?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/transcript-putin-says-russia-will-protect-the-rights-of-russians-abroad/2014/03/18/432a1e60-ae99-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html
Vladimir Putin.
After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons – may God judge them – added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic make-up of the population, and today these areas form the southeast of Ukraine. Then, in 1954, a decision was made to transfer Crimean Region to Ukraine, along with Sevastopol, despite the fact that it was a city of union subordination
Millions of people went to bed in one country and awoke in different ones, overnight becoming ethnic minorities in former Union republics, while the Russian nation became one of the biggest, if not the biggest ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders
What about Russia? It humbly accepted the situation. This country was going through such hard times then that realistically it was incapable of protecting its interests. However, the people could not reconcile themselves to this outrageous historical injustice.
What we proceeded from back then was that good relations with Ukraine matter most for us and they should not fall hostage to deadlock territorial disputes. However, we expected Ukraine to remain our good neighbour, we hoped that Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine, especially its southeast and Crimea, would live in a friendly, democratic and civilised state that would protect their rights in line with the norms of international law.
However, this is not how the situation developed. Time and time again attempts were made to deprive Russians of their historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation.
Putin's speech is in the context of Crimea (but make no mistake its not just Crimea) and like any good dictator who feigns democracy with rigged elections that produce outrageous numbers in favor of his will it does have quite a few lies in that regard.
This has gone on for centuries in Europe and the history of the world. Hitler made the same arguments. I am all for people wanting to leave or identify with another nation if they so choose. But like Hitler, Putin is facilitating these events by force. Honestly I think that Crimea would likely vote to join Russia but it would probably fall on more of a high 50 low 40 split. It would depend on what the choices were being more autonomy from Ukraine, independence, or union with Russia. But we will never know. It won't be the last time the Russian map gets larger.
That part about the language and history did not go unnoticed. At this point though Russia is not going to attack a NATO member country. Its seeking to for now carve off areas of its former republics that have large Russian populations that have entertained that notion of becoming NATO members themselves. Its really quite smart NATO will not admit a new member that has an open major territorial dispute with Russia. Its too risky for NATO and the Russians know it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/19/us-russia-estonia-idUSBREA2I1J620140319
