nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

I think the US has been involved in so many wars that were not nuclear that they have become stupid (Biden) about it. They somehow think Russia/Putin would not use them. But if Russia/Putin feels cornered and in danger of losing big time, they will. Hell, I think Putin has been holding the hard liners back for some time now. But no, Putin is not bluffing.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Did they v**e in the referendums of 2014?

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

Not all of those areas have had referendums and a couple were not old enough to v**e at that time. Putin moved in and seized Crimea in 2014 and only held a v**e after seizing control. The only ones who recognized the v**e was Russia. Referendums in the Luhansk and Donesk oblasts only passed after Russia invaded and held sham e******ns that were believed by no one except Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Iran.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

No right to privacy there.

Even if merely maintaining a "finger on the pulse" regional poll, NSA Signal Intelligence [Communication Intelligence] is tracking that for their bulk data collection.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Why, you sound just like the Obama U.S. State Dept.

In 2014, we preceded Russia into the area, just less visibly and more insidiously, after consistently backstabbing Putin and betraying our lying promises to the Russian government.

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

I'll let you debate that with officials from the Obama-Biden administration. Crimea was, and still is, part of Ukraine. Did we invade or enter Crimea without the permission of the Ukraine government? Did we try to incorporate it in the United States? Russia forcibly seized Crimea and has attempted to annex it as part of Russia.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

Crimea is not, historically, a part of Ukraine. Read about it. Read it!

Jesus!!

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

1954: Khrushchev T***sfers Crimea to Ukraine - The Soviet government under Nikita Krushchev t***sfers Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in a gesture of “eternal friendship,” a move that receives little attention at the time since both Russian and Ukraine remained within the borders of the Soviet Union (USSR).

1986: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster - A safety test goes awry at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, leading to a deadly reactor meltdown that the Soviet authorities initially try to cover up. The disaster, considered history’s worst nuclear accident, is often blamed for hastening the Soviet Union’s demise.

1991: Ukraine Declares Independence - With the Soviet Union in its death throes, Ukraine’s parliament declares independence, a decision that’s overwhelmingly approved by Ukrainian v**ers in a national referendum. Ukraine is now fully independent for the first time.

1994: Ukraine Gives Up Nuclear Weapons - Negotiations between the United States, Russia and Ukraine result in a deal under which Ukraine gives up its inherited nuclear weapons in exchange for, among other things, a Russian vow to respect “existing borders.” Thereafter, Ukraine becomes a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid.

The Crimean peninsula has loomed large for Russian leaders ever since Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great annexed it from the Ottoman Empire in 1783. The strategically located peninsula has given Russia military leverage not only in the Black Sea, but the greater Mediterranean region.

When Russia signed the Treaty of Paris in 1856, accepting defeat in the Crimean War—which had decimated its military and ruined its economy—it agreed to dismantle its naval base in the port city of Sevastopol. These were the terms demanded by Britain, France and their allies, who sought to eliminate Russia as a military presence in the Black Sea.

Russia began to rebuild Sevastopol during the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870. And throughout history, Russian leaders would return to Crimea again and again. After Germany’s bombing of Crimea during World War II, much of Sevastopol was in ruins. Joseph Stalin declared the port a “hero city” and ordered it restored to its former neoclassical beauty.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, a 1997 treaty with Ukraine allowed Russia to keep its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, under a lease that has since been extended until 2042.

Kickaha Loc: Nebraska

How far back do you want to go to decide who has the 'legitimate' claim? Historical records show the Ukrainian language and country predate both the Russian language and country. When the Soviet Union was formed, Ukraine was the second largest republic that was part of new nation of the United Soviet Socialist Republic.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

When people want to declare independence, when they have v**ed multiple times to do so, when they have welcomed help from outside, why does Ukraine continue to try to hold onto Crimea and the donbas? When they have been abusing ethnic Russians for so long, why do they want to continue to abuse them??

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Kickaha, First and foremost, the United States of America has no claim.

I lay the blame for the contemporary Russian-Ukrainian conflict at the feet of the insatiable avarice of past and present United States "establishment" players (of all persuasions), unethical government wielders of power.

I need look no further than this very timely online Newsweek for substantiation of my belief, Thu, Mar 02, 2023: https://www.newsweek.com/us-nato-helped-trigger-ukraine-war-its-not-siding-putin-admit-it-opinion-1685554

"The Russian leaders and several Western policy experts were warning more than two decades ago that NATO expansion would turn out badly — ending in a new cold war with Russia at best, and a hot one at worst. Obviously, they were not "echoing" Putin or anyone else.

George Kennan, the intellectual architect of America's containment policy during the Cold War, perceptively warned in a May 2, 1998 New York Times interview what NATO's move eastward would set in motion. "I think it is the beginning of a new cold war," he stated. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake."

...and so it was.

As for seniority, if authentic, verifiable "Historical records show the Ukrainian language and country predate both the Russian language and country," as you state, please reference your reliable source.

In the mid-9th century, when a group of Vikings calling themselves “Rus” (pronounced “Roos”), established control over the Slavs living in what is now central Ukraine and northwestern Russia, they made Kyiv their capital. Moscow was a settlement on the frontier of medieval Rus.

The local Slavs, who in the long run came to identify as the people of the Rus land, called themselves Rusyns — a name that in some parts of southwestern Ukraine survived well into the 20th century. Today, the three East Slavic nations of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia all claim Kyivan Rus as their heritage; the ancient Rus heartland and its capital, Kyiv, are now encompassed within modern Ukraine.

Russian and Ukrainian emerged from the same ancestor language, both part of the Slavonic (or Slavic) language family. This group of related languages in central and eastern Europe also includes Polish, Czech and Bulgarian. A thousand years ago, the language spoken across Russian and Ukrainian territories would have been similar, like different dialects of the same language. Over time, under different historical influences, divergences appeared.

Popular understandings of “language” versus “dialect” are usually based more on political criteria than linguistic ones. As sociolinguist Max Weinreich succinctly put it, “a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”

The Muscovites, inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Moscow that predated the Russian Empire, moved to the east and the north, taking over Kazan and Siberia during the 16th century. By the end of the 19th century, the Russians had conquered Central Asia, all the way to the border of China. Following World War II, the Soviet Union extended its sphere of influence into Eastern Europe.

Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union in 1922. In 1991, it gained its independence, when the Soviet Union broke apart.

Of Russian’s 260 million speakers, roughly 40% – 103 million – speak it as a second language, a sign that people see value in learning it. It’s a lingua franca across Central Asia and the Caucasus, and is widely spoken in the Baltics. In Ukraine – Russia’s largest European neighbor – Russian is used by about one-third of the population, which is around 13 million people.

Ukraine became the eastern part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, absorbing significant amounts of Polish into its language. Moscow united the cities of the north and east into an independent state, eventually called Russia. So its language was shaped by contact with and immigration from areas to the east and the importation of foreign technical and cultural terms from western European countries like France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Today, Russian and Ukrainian are close relations: they share more vocabulary, grammar, and features of pronunciation with each other than they do with the other Slavonic languages. They both use the Cyrillic alphabet, but slightly different versions. There are four letters in Ukrainian missing from Russian (ґ, є, і, ї), and four letters in Russian missing from Ukrainian (ё, ъ, ы, э).

...and so it goes.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

They may have close relations but they h**e each other. The Ukraine gov news has said openly that there can be no peace until every last Russian is dead, and that was before the invasion.

Great Newsweek article, BTW!!!

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

The t***h is out there, a little bit here, a little bit there, is allowed to seep through.

They couldn't get along well enough to form a single nation 1,000 years ago; 1,000 year old grudges have cemented into bitter hatred.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

True story!! European history is filled with h**e, bitterness, betrayal, and all kind of dishonest and dishonorable shenanigans. Russia was kind of late entering the "fray" so to speak.

Some like to say it goes back to Stalin and the starving of thousands in Ukraine.

Bottom line is that they h**e each other and the Ukraine gov has been abusing the ethnic Russians for a very long time to the point that they decided to declare independence and asked Putin for help. The shelling of the peoples of the donbas has been nothing short of an attempted genocide/war crimes.