I also wanted to bring Rob Smith’s post at RealClearMarkets to your attention. I don’t agree with everything in it but IMO it’s a point-of-view worth knowing about. Here’s a snippet:
In my last article, I explained how the real world is different from the Hollywood movie script of Putin v. Zelensky. Putin was born in 1952, and his parents survived the Siege of Leningrad, where some Russians ate each other to keep from starving. It would be impossible for Hitler’s invasion of Russia not to be permanently a part of Putin’s consciousness. Perhaps the greatest time of peace and prosperity in Ukraine was during the 263 years it was part of the Russian Empire (1654 to 1917). Crimea is overwhelmingly ethnic Russian, and Russian was its predominant language. A referendum was held, and Crimea voted to join Russia. Although it was a “rigged election,” a fair election would have certainly delivered the same result. Yes, Putin seized Crimea, but it was only after Victoria Nuland and Obama deep-state operatives executed a coup overthrowing pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. At the same time, Ukraine, with the help of the United States, began to oppress the native Russian population in the Donbas. A regional civil war ensued. The majority of the Donbas are also ethnic Russians, and they too have voted for independence and to be part of a Russian federation. Isn’t self-determination mentioned in the preamble of the UN Charter? Who’s to say that the people of these regions won’t be better off, happier, and more prosperous being part of Russia?
I want to offer a few corrections. To the best of my knowledge the Donbas does not have an ethnic Russian majority and the author presents no sources. Ethnic Ukrainians held a narrow majority in the 2001 census, the Soviet census of 1970, the Soviet census of 1939, and the imperial census of 1897. Again to the best of my knowledge the territory of Ukraine has always been multi-ethnic and multi-confessional and still is.
He’s right about Crimea, though. It has never had a Ukrainian majority. In the 2014 census ethnic Ukrainians comprised about 25% of the population there.
I would also say, contrary to Mr. Smith that we don’t really know what has been happening in Ukraine. Much is a question of whose propaganda we choose to believe.
Western Ukraine was part of Lithuania-Poland until the mid 17th Century (Lvov = Lemberg), and it was largely Catholic. Bits of the west were taken from Romania and Hungary. The east was part of Russia, and Russian Orthodox, since about the time the first English colonists showed up on the Atlantic coast.
The Banderite/Nazi junta that the Obama administration installed in Kiev are virulent racists, and they are determined to exterminate all ethnic Russians. Such people cannot be negotiated with, as the three failed agreements prove. Russia’s current goals require that Russia occupy all of Ukraine, and install a Russo-friendly regime. That is actually doable, whereas the expulsion of the Russia army is not. The fighting won’t end anytime soon.
Pretty convenient that he leaves out history after 1917. In the 30s and in the 40s-50s, before and after WW2 Russia killed millions of Ukrainians and deported many more. They kidnapped and deported thousands of children. The Donbas by most reports was always majority Ukrainian and one of the reasons it had so many ethnic Russians was they were brought in to populate the fertile farm land of the people that were killed. The same holds true in the Baltics.
If the ethnic Russians in Ukraine think being Russian is so important they can always move to Russia. Also, the claims about Nulland organizing a coup remain entertaining but unfounded. I am not interested in going over all of the claims but one of the most frequent one was Nulled supposedly saying we spent $5 billion on a coup when in fact she said the US had spent a total of $5 billion since the country became independent in 1991 on pro-democracy programs.
Steve