It's one of the oldest tricks in the book. Remember that Russia invaded and annexed Crimea "to save Russian citizens".
This is all hypothetical though. What happened in reality is that Russia rolled tanks into a neighboring sovereign country, invading it, and stole a part of it. It's a blatant and egregious act of war.
Not quite a take over but NATO bombing of Serbia does count as foreign interference.
>All these regional problems are mainly due to the language. If Ukraine allowed Russian as it's second official (or at least regional) language, Donbas would return back in a blink. And Crimea might follow.
What? History goes back farther than the 20th century.
So Moscow should be handed back to Ukraine, the late seat of the Kievan Rus' [1]? Or perhaps the whole thing goes to Mongolia.
Originalist interpretations of border disputes are infinitely flexible, and justification for constant warfare.
And much farther than 18th century. Crimea has a long and rich history, Russian power is relatively young and not justified in the modern world. Wasn't one of the ideas of Helsinki's agreements to agree on non pursuing historical territorial disputes?
Please tell this to many thousands of people who moved out and never looked back. Also, hundreds of Crimean Tatar and various active citizens were imprisoned during these years. The danger is very real if you are not willing to keep your mouth shut there.
I wonder how long it will take for russia to get tired of subsidizing crimea and they will beg to go back to the ukraine.
Starting already. I mean, more than before. I found Crimeans not very understanding Russia's realities, so now even thought money go to Crimea from the rest of Russia, the people in Crimea start to compare unfavorably to the alternative.
History moves slowly. However, Ukraine going closer to Europe would be a good illustration.
Care to provide examples? Crimea annexation was almost bloodless, right, but annexation nevertheless - ?
What do you mean "now invading Ukraine"? Russia already did that, when they invaded Crimea, which is Ukraine.
There's a whole lot of the Southwestern US you are agreeing that Mexico can and should invade and occupy, with a much stronger case, if you claim that this justifies Russia in Crimea.
Cool, any invasion and occupation and annexation is justified if you stage a vote to retroactively justify it after the fact.
Russia invaded Crimea back when British red coats were stationed in New York City. The Russian military has been there ever since.
When did the US invade the Guantanamo section of Cuba?
As mentioned in article 2, the High Contracting Parties shall respect each other′s territorial integrity and reaffirm the inviolability of the borders existing between them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guant%C3%A1namo#United_States_...
About 15 km away from the city lies the Guantánamo Bay, a superior natural harbor which has been utilized by the United States since 1898, when it was captured from Spain in the Battle of Guantánamo Bay. In 1903 Cuba leased it to the U.S. as it had committed to in the Cuban–American Treaty of Relations, and remains the site of a US Navy base, as well as the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Does YCombinator ban trolls, these days?
I mean, isn't this also the tactic used in the late 1800s in the western U.S. to give a reason to pacify Native Americans? Promote U.S. citizens into frontier homesteads and then use the military to protect them/annex land?
Why? What purpose does this serve?
What's the point of saying "America bad too"? So? America HAS done awful things in the past, that's not valid justification for a hostile annexation of another country's land.
Topics on Russia ALWAYS have whataboutism nonsense. It seems supporters of Russian actions so badly want the rest of the world to be shitty too, as if that would justify their actions instead of condemn them as well as everyone else
I made no claims that it changes whether the practice is morally or ethically correct. I also didn't claim "America bad too."
I merely pointed out another data point relevant to the GP comment about it being an old tactic to annex land.
*btw, it's Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of California. The book Blood and Thunder is a great read about the history of expansion of the West