Political Crossfire Forums

Ha. Well it got a lot of play in any event.

Russia has always needed Ukraine as a bulwark against the West, what surprises me is that the Ukrainians are so divided and still dependent on Russian oil and gas, I guess the long term Russianization plan has worked beautifully for Putin and his former colleagues.

they're divided because of gas they're divided because half the country is ethnically russian. it's the only reason the current president has any support in his pro-russia actions.

I don't find it surprising at all, oil aside Ukrainians have a lot more cultural similarities with the Russians than with the other EU members as a whole.

most ethnic ukrainians resent what russia did to the ukraine(hence the protests). cultural similarities don't equate to liking someone. look at the balkans.

the Holomodor (hunger-death/plague) killed between 2.5 - 7.5 million ulkrainians by man-made famine, recognized by a number of countires including the ukraine as a genocide inflicted on them by the russian soviets. so the ukrainian people might resent russia, a bit. russia made it look like the industrilization of russia was amazing and awesome in the olympic winter games. despite that, ukrainian people's opinion of russians have only had a slight downward slope, form 90s +opinion in the 90s to 60s-70s today. im sure it's plummeted recently though (last poll was april last year)

the ukraine is dependent on russia as a trading partner and so russia can put the screws to them. everytime ukraine tries to break away they twist harder. medvedev, after there was talk of the ukraine joining nato, put out a video that said he would end the ambassodor to ukraine because of ukraine souring the relationship between ukraine and russia. then the ukraine elected the new guy, the guy int there now who likes russia. but even he tried to join up with the EU (or perhaps was just tring to sweeten the russian deal) and for that, russia started a trade war. a result was closer russian ties... and mass protests. last i saw parts of kiev were on fire

we've gone 61 years without a major conflict between great powers. that's a record, the longest streak in well, ever.

one wonders if a Ukrainian Civil War would be the catalyst to break that streak? although a nice unifying conflict is probably exactly what the EU needs. Get French and Germans and Pole all fighting together and maybe they can learn to be bros....again.

And Putin is looking for a chance to restore russia's glory after today's loss....