Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Eastern Ukraine would be a very expensive cow for Russia to buy.
So they don't want it until they want it?
Pravda? Really?
Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Eastern Ukraine would be a very expensive cow for Russia to buy.
Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Eastern Ukraine would be a very expensive cow for Russia to buy.
It's a mouthpiece of the Russian government, so straight out of the horse's mouth as far as their position is concerned.
Crimea was not giving Russia any milk, it was allowing Ukraine to milk Russia.Crimea is an expensive cow but they paid for it.
The problem is, we're not sure how pragmatic Putin is any more and how much he's driven by his personal ambition and grievances. Or if he's able to put the ultra-nationalist genie back into the bottle now that he's unleashed it.
And I also disagree that Crimea is a leverage against Russia. Years ago, Russia had started building a new naval base, to the northwest of Sochi; any leverage Ukraine would have over Russia by way of the Crimean base would be short-lived, as the new base isn't that far from completion. That, and the Black Sea Fleet is pathetic and pretty much useless anyway--it's more of a floating symbol than an actual fleet.
The West did not expect Russia to take Crimea because isolation is not in Russia's economic interests, and Crimea is not strategically important. Yet Putin did so anyway, because he's driven by impulses that the West had foolishly deemed irrational.
Crimea is strategic. There is a reason it has been fought over again and again. He who controls it, controls the Black Sea.
Bosporus.
That just lets you in and out of the Black Sea, it doesn't give you control of it.
It's a mouthpiece of the Russian government, so straight out of the horse's mouth as far as their position is concerned.
Crimea is strategic. There is a reason it has been fought over again and again. He who controls it, controls the Black Sea.
I don't see much, if any, value in "controlling" the Black Sea in these modern times.
If Russia's fleet, pathetic as it is, is harbored in the Black Sea the Bosphorus will likely mean the fleet will remain bottled up and contained to the Black Sea in time of war. Ships are very vulnerable while in the Bosphorus.
Fern
Crimea was not giving Russia any milk, it was allowing Ukraine to milk Russia.
Russia was paying Ukraine (in gas price discounts) for hosting its fleet in Crimea. The West (through loans to Ukraine) will be paying Russia for gas that Eastern Ukraine consumes.
The problem is, we're not sure how pragmatic Putin is any more and how much he's driven by his personal ambition and grievances. Or if he's able to put the ultra-nationalist genie back into the bottle now that he's unleashed it.
And I also disagree that Crimea is a leverage against Russia. Years ago, Russia had started building a new naval base, to the northwest of Sochi; any leverage Ukraine would have over Russia by way of the Crimean base would be short-lived, as the new base isn't that far from completion. That, and the Black Sea Fleet is pathetic and pretty much useless anyway--it's more of a floating symbol than an actual fleet.
The West did not expect Russia to take Crimea because isolation is not in Russia's economic interests, and Crimea is not strategically important. Yet Putin did so anyway, because he's driven by impulses that the West had foolishly deemed irrational.
(the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the five Central Asian stans of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) that were part of the Soviet Union until 1991, as well as many East European states that were subject to Russian occupation from the end of World War II to 1989 have become very nervous.
who writes this crap? the author doesn't recognize that most of these 14 countries were never part of the empire--they were also occupied along with the other "eastern european nations from the end of world war 2."
What became independent Ukraine was built to be a divided country easily controlled by Russia."It's New Russia," he trumpeted. "Kharkiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, Odessa were not part of Ukraine in czarist times; they were transferred in 1920. Why? God knows."
Actually, every Russian historian knows: Lenin drew those borders to make sure Ukraine's population included plenty of reliable Russians.
some of those countries were never considered seperate areas like they were in the soviet union
most of the soviet union was actually conquered by the russian tsars
in fact during the 1800s russia and england were competing for influence in southern central asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
the caucausus countries, poland, the central asian countries, siberia, ukraine, belarus, the baltic countries, and finland were all under the rule of the tsars
The Baltic States were not under the rule of the tsars. They were "under rule" of the German/Prussian empire for nearly 500 years, back and forth. They were briefly occupied by the Ruskies during WW1, during the bolshevik revolution, and fought for and won their independence at the end of the war. Latvia was an independant nation from 1918 until Russian invasion and occupation in 1941 (when the first 50k or so citizens were removed and sent to the Gulag). The German army then invaded and occupied until 1944, when the Russians returned, occupied, killed another 20k or so people, and solidified their occupation. If any other nation has a "legitimate claim of occupation" on that territory, it would be the Germans. But, again, it's essentially a feudal claim, then followed by a history of occupation under soviet rule. But the actual offense that I am pointing out is that these countries should somehow be considered different from countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia that were "occupied," where as the Baltics were somehow "a part of the Soviet Union." There is no legitimate distinction there, as the Baltics were equally occupied, and never officially recognized by any western nation and the UN as part of the USSR. Throughout the history of the USSR, they were always recognized as occupied; unless one was a soviet sympathizer.