South Ossetia and Abkhazia which would probably be reintegrated into Georgia and pave the way for potential NATO or EU membership.
Transnistria integration into Moldova.
LDR / DPR maybe even Crimea back to Ukraine.
Abkhazia fought a war in the early 90s to split from Georgia. South Ossetia also fought several wars to become independent. So both those territories might strive to become fully independent but will absolutely refuse to be re-absorbed by Georgia.
Moldovans are actually a minority in Transnistria, which has also seen open tensions since the fall of the USSR.
Lastly, Crimea, which was Russian until 1954, will definitely require a war and ethnic cleansing if Ukraine want to take it again and to keep it.
I bet they would be much richer than today. Being a part of Russia sucks from the economic point of view. IDK if Crimean Russians are so nationalistic that they would rather live in a semi-starved, heavily sanctioned, economically isolated country.
It's not because Russia has taken Crimea back in a rather cavalier way that they should be split again just to weaken Russia. This can only perpetuate resentment and problems.
Having Russian military bases on their south flank is a major security problem for Ukraine.
I would not be starkly opposed to Crimean independence, nor even Russian-integration, but in essence it looks like Russia took Crimea and then held a fake referendum to legitimize it.
But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
How should governments determine actual stake and determination over a specific part of land?
So I think this is a case where Putin's actions did align with what the people actually wanted even if that's too hard for the West to acknowledge publicly (I'm sure that they accept that Crimea is not going back to Ukraine).
So are parts of Ukraine who are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion.
Identity is tricky. Many once ethnic and/or linguistic Russians may choose to identify differently, to be governed differently, and that’s their right. The modern “Russian” ethnicity, as one distinct from e.g. Ukraine, is only a few hundred years old [1].
To be pedantic, Ukraine's regular military forces are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion, not parts of Ukraine. Regarding the ethnic and identity composition of Ukraine's military forces -- I have no idea.
There is widespread protest and limited insurrection in occupied cities, together with mass enrolment by the population in the military. The Ukrainian people, perhaps more than the state, are repelling this invasion. (In strong alliance with Moscow’s military incompetence.)
> But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
Why drawing a line? It's either you allow everyone to choose their country, or noone. Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia is the worst solution. Right now, it's completely arbitrary, and this arbitration is what leads to wars and conflicts.
I would say, let them all decide for themselves.
Do you want to allow Ukraine to be independent? Then also allow Donbas republic to be independent of Ukraine, and consequently allow cities in Donbas that wish to stay in Ukraine to secede from Donbas. And even within those cities, allow neighbourhoods that want to stay in Donbas to stay.
Why not, if that's what people want? And that would mean no war. Yes, it may be complex in an administrative way. Who wants to show passport to cross the street and go to the store. Or to cross borders twice when going to work? Or to apply for a work permit? But exactly that complexity would quickly lead to different agreements and territorial rearrangements if people decide it's better for them. Again, why not? If they agree, they can change the state every year or so. If you let people power to decide, they will be more responsible for purely selfish reasons. That's how capitalism works, why not politics?
As soon as you draw a line who can and who can't decide, you are creating a conflict that may or may not lead to war and other atrocities.
What is so controversial about giving the right of self-determination to everyone?
If everyone, regardless of the colour, race of gender has equal right, why some people should, and some should not determine if they want to live in one country? You can even choose your gender now, but can't live in an independent state?
Maybe I am missing something obvious. I Would really like a counterargument here instead of simple downvotes.
> Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia
Slovakia had a popular recognised referendum and decided to vote for the velvet divorce
Catalonia had an informal referendum that was not legally recognised, but afaik there is still technically a path to do so.
Kosovo - I do not know a great deal about Kosovo.
California can secede and there doesn’t seem to be a huge interest in doing so.
Mexico … idk where you’re going with this one.
But importantly in Crimea the Russian “little green men” showed up, took over, hastily ran a referendum that was very dubious and happened to just coincidentally deliver the result that said exactly what the Russians wanted. It was a fix.
I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
> I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
I learned a new word today. Thanks, although I don't think I'm engaged in it, since I idealistically think that everyone, with the accent to everyone, should have a right of association and disassociation with willing partners, and that our current state system is not the healthiest way of governing humans.
Yes. The Tenth Amendment reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' There is no power delegated to the United States by the Constitution to eject states, therefor the power to leave the union is reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Secession was and is perfectly constitutional. The fact that the Confederate States did so for a truly bad reason doesn't change that fact. The right thing would have been to … let them go.
Brexit is a great example of how things should work: a state freely decided to leave a suprastate body, and that body let it.
Scotland voted against its independence referendum in no small part due to fear-mongering about an independent Scotland being barred from joining the EU. The independence issue was then considered absolutely settled for a generation at least. However post-Brexit that has rightly called this into question, with still strong SNP support Westminster will have to reckon with that soon enough. Irish reunification isn't something I'm too familiar with the intricacies of, but they were pro-EU too and the Irish Sea border doesn't exactly strengthen the unionists case.
Looks like you are spreading Russian propaganda in bad faith.
The whole point of their struggle was Russian invasion so Russians could build military bases there (which they eventually did)
Also, there are no "oppressed minorities" in Georgia, never was. That would be part of Russian propaganda.
Georgian language on other hand is the most widely-spoken of the Kartvelian languages and serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related language.
Before Soviet Union, it was Georgian territory for thousands of years, South Ossetia - is Russian name, in fact it is named Samachablo, Ossetians migrated there from North Ossetia en masse during Soviet Union times and re-named area to South Ossetia to give it impression as if two Ossetia's where same area.
The point incorrect, Chechens do not desire to go back to Russia and fought war over it, but they lost because Russians committed their genocide.
You can not simply settle somewhere and then want to break-away, Why is this so hard to understand?
Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, those territories only decided they didn't want to be part of their countries when Russian troops rolled in and made totally non-threatening offers.
That's not entirely true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz%E2%80%93Georgian_confli...
Sure, there may be a slice of population that wants to leave but how can that be gouged properly when Russia keeps influencing the people and supplying weapons to separatists? There's a cause and effect here.
I don't know much about Crimea and its situation but I've spent considerable time in both Abkhazia and Transnistria; I have a number of businesses that I have based out of Tiraspol and Sokhumi. While far from a fan of Russia's interventions in both regions, I have long felt, form talking to as many people as possible in both nations, that the majority (although not necessarily an overwhelming one) support the countries being independent from Tbilisi and Chișinău, respectively.
I'm more than happy to have my priors re-adjusted here.
Can anybody confirm this? I haven't seen any state official talking about getting Königsberg or Karelia back. Where has this positioning been hinted? I might have missed something.
The Kaliningrad exclave is a huge territorial and security headache for the EU.
A small, Russian-speaking nation under EU's influence (and presumably future EU member) would be a good thing for the EU, to show off to the world (and specifically to Russia, as a positive example).