Opinion | How the West Gets Ukraine Wrong — and Helps Putin As a Result

[Gunny]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/12/west-gets-ukraine-wrong-helps-putin-little-russia-00007977

Some actual context. Good read.

Of particular note is Putin claiming Ukrainians are culturally Russian people. If one wishes to count the Soviets outlawing Ukrainian as a language and turning everything official in Ukraine into Russian, I guess he has a point.

Otherwise it's BS. Ukranians are as much Slavic and/or Germanic as Russian.

What I don't get is why Ukraine, as other countries have done, let the East and West debate its future as if Ukraine has no say. I'd tell both Putin and Biden to do something anatomically incorrect with themselves.

[Russ]

Even during the days of the Soviet Union, Russia did not consider Ukrainians to be Russians.

[Gunny]

Even during the days of the Soviet Union, Russia did not consider Ukrainians to be Russians.Ukraine has belonged to itself only since 1991. It was originally part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine screwed around with independence following the Bolshevik Revolution with part becoming a Soviet state and Poland getting another part. Poland lost that and itself for that matter, in 1939.

Ukranians were forced to learn Russian in schools, and were taught Soviet/Russian culture. Ukrainian culture and teaching was outlawed.

Putin DOES have a point. Unfortunately, his point was lost to independence granted in 1991 and subsequent recognition by Western countries. The World would have to forget 91-2022 to accept his argument.

Edit: As I started out to say :) ... I always thought Ukraine was part of Russia and was surprised when it was granted independence by Gorbachev. I thought Kiev was also in Russia. When the maps are of the USSR without state delineation, not hard to think that.

I WILL ask my dentist if I remember to. He, his wife and the secretary are from Ukraine.

[jimnyc]

Nitwit Biden NOW says that invasion of Ukraine is NOT imminent, "just imminent enough".

WTF is that supposed to mean?