Paul Goble reports on the extent to which Russians have alienated their closest neighbors. If you think Russians will now ask themselves how they’ve offended, think again.
With the exception of only one country and the partial exception of a second, ten post-Soviet states are now using textbooks that present Russia in all its historical forms as the enemy of the peoples of these countries, a pattern that is likely to make it more rather than less difficult for these countries to cooperate in the future.
That is the conclusion of a 391-page report released in Moscow on “The Treatment of the General History of Russia and the Peoples of the Post-Soviet Countries in the History Textbooks of the New Independent States” (a summary is also available .
Supported by a grant from the Government Club Foundation to the Moscow Center of Social Technologies, a group of researchers examined 187 school history textbooks and teacher guides from 12 non-Russian countries (books from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are not included) to see how schools in each are presenting both Russian and national history.
The scholars concluded “with regret” that “except for Belarus and (to a lesser degree) Armenia, all the remaining countries have moved to present the rising generation with a nationalistic view of history, based on myths about the antiquity of one’s own people, about the high cultural mission of its ancestors and about ‘the cursed enemy’” – the Russians.
Often, these textbooks present these messages together. In an Azerbaijani history textbook, for example, there is a report that in 914, “Slavic militias” for months “without stopping” attacked and despoiled “population points on the Azerbaijani shores of the Caspian Sea … killing peaceful residents and taking women and children prisoners.” And in a history textbook for Estonians, students learn, the authors of the Moscow text say, that “the Baltic crusade was part of a conflict between East and West, between the Catholic world and Orthodox Byzantium and Rus,” adding that by not pressing its advantage against Rus at that time, the West “missed a chance” to change the world in a positive way.
Alternatively, they separate these issues but place primacy on the way in which Russia and Russians were and are the enemy. A Georgian textbook says that “enemies did everything to sow hatred between the Georgian and Abkhazian peoples with the goal of taking Abkhazia away from Georgia.”
But some of the most problematic passages of the textbooks, the authors say, concern efforts to promote the antiquity of nations, many of which most historians say emerged far later. Thus, an Estonian textbook traces that nation back to “the stone age,” and an Azerbaijani one suggests that Azerbaijanis descend from the Sumerians.
More recent history, the Russian authors of this study say, is even more distorted in an anti-Russian direction. One Georgian text they cite says that “the final goal of the colonial policy of Russia was the weakening and destruction of anti-Russian forces sin Georgia,” the takeover of Georgia’s natural wealth, and “the assimilation of the Georgian people.”
After 1917, this same text continues, “Soviet power pitilessly struggled against the national movement, attempting by all means to reduce Georgian national self-consciousness and deprive Georgian culture of its uniqueness and nationality,” a program that provoked rather than stilled the national movement there.
And as for World War II, the Georgian text says, “the majority of people conceived the war as a patriotic one. But another part of the Georgian people recognized perfectly well that in this case, Georgia is a conquered and dependent country, that namely Russia had deprived the Georgians of their state independence and … forcibly united it into the Soviet Union.”
But according to this new study, “the Soviet version of history” is mostly being driven out of the minds of young people mostly by neglect. Thus, according to a poll they cite, 58 percent of young Uzbeks have not heard about the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and 50 percent of young Armenians do not know anything about the February 1917 revolution.
The figures for other countries are even lower, and as the authors say, these figures are what the students in these countries claim. The real figures, the study concludes, are 10 to 20 percent lower, and suggest that it is clear that in many of these countries, eliminating any positive memory of the Soviet past is “one of the tasks of the national school.”
“If these tendencies continue,” the new book concludes, “then after 15 to 20 years, the events of the 20th century will be completely forgotten by the population. In the consciousness of the peoples of the former USSR will be formed an image of Russia as an evil empire which for centuries destroyed, oppressed and exploited them.”
(What this study does not do is focus on how some Russian texts are doing exactly the same thing, blaming all the problems of Russia on others and projecting Russian history implausibly back. To give but a single example of this: one new book traces “Russian” history from the time of Noah.
La Russophobe 
‘…the former USSR will be formed an image of Russia as an evil empire which for centuries destroyed, oppressed and exploited them…’
The truth hurts, and is stranger, obviously for Russia and Russians.
As for claims of distortions concerning history Russians need to look closer to home eg with regards to their creeping rehabilitaion of Stalin and minimisation of the Russian role in his mass murder nad oppression. Crimes which not only caused the deaths of millions of non – Russians when it was exported outside of of erstwhile Soviet borders during, and post WW2 but also millions of Russians.
@(books from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are not included)
If this is some indication, Tukmenistan banned everything Russian – including Russian double citizienship.
Russians ‘flee’ Turkmenistan (2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3007598.stm
“Russians are being fired from workplaces, and none taken on,” a woman flying into Moscow told Russia’s NTV television channel.
“The president is closing down Russian schools. He has prohibited the Russian language so that no a single letter of Russian can be seen anywhere.”
(He was also a friend of gasPutin. Well, (gas) business is business. Never mind the persecution of Russians.)
We are truly living in a society that suffers from the Russian post-imperial syndrome. But what is most important is what is left after the empire falls.
Consider the Roman and British empires. The subjugated people hated their colonialists and revolted. But when those empires collapsed, it turned out that the vast Roman and British cultural heritage continued to dominate even after the local populations gained independence. The Latin language survived longer, and over a broader territory, than did the Roman Empire itself.
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=26142
The Soviet Union, however, was built more along the lines of the Mongol empire. It ruthlessly destroyed everyone and everything, and the first to fall victim were the Russian nobility, peasantry, merchants and intelligentsia. The Soviet Union left the same legacy in Russia as the Mongols did in Afghanistan — destruction. None of the former Soviet republics will ever put up monuments to Pavlik Morozov, the mythical 13-year-old Pioneer who was praised for turning in his own father to the authorities. The former Soviet colonies also do not sing the praises to the NKVD, nor have they adopted the Soviet legal code.
Yet the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union represented Russia’s last historic opportunity. It could have become an attractive metropolis for surrounding countries, a reliable trade partner or a place where other countries’ elite came to study — just as people from Britain’s former empire still come to Oxford and Cambridge. The Soviet Union of Josef Stalin and Lavrenty Beria suffered a crushing defeat, but the Russia of Pushkin and Dostoevsky still had a chance to fill the void. Gogol, though Ukrainian by birth, wrote his masterpieces in Russian. Chechen insurgents who die beneath Russian tanks write poems about the freedom of their people in the Russian language, much like Lermontov before them.
The former KGB thugs who now control the country are stomping Russia’s last historical chance into the dirt. They are doing everything to show the world that Russia is led not by civilized, respected leaders, but by a street gang from Lubyanskaya Ploshchad.
The simple fact is that many of the nations opressed by Russian barbaraism ARE much much older than Russia.
Western Georgia (Cholchis) is mentioned in Homers “Iliad”, and in “Jason and the Argonauts” for example. Winemaking has an 8000 year history in Georgia (according to the British Museum, and many archaeological finds they have made in Georgia), one of the oldest metalworking cultures on earth, and a long history of archaeological and historical cultural continuity stretching back to the earlky bronze age (including the Georgian prescence in Abkhazia and “South Ossetia” one might add).
Several of the central Asian republics had flowering civilisations that were smashed by the twin hammers of the Mongols and then the Russians.
And the fact is that Russia, be it Tsarist, Communist, or now “Neo-Fasist” was, is, and probably always will be an evil empire in fact.
That should be “Neo Fascist”
Muscovy [moskali] stole the name Rus from the Ukrainian people.
So, when you say Kievan Rus, you are referring to the present day Ukraine.
The very name “Russia” reflects its nomadic nature. From earliest times their northern tundra was known as Muscovy. It was not until Muscovy started building its wannabe “European” empire that Muscovite propagandists adopted the name “Russia” as part of their efforts to hijack neighboring Ukraine’s history (Kyivan Rus’) as their own. In fact, the name “Russia” has nothing whatsoever to do with the “Rus’” of Kyivan Rus’.
“Russia,” pronounced “Rass-I-ia” in Russian (NOT “Roo-ssI-ia”), derives from the Ukrainian verb “rozsiyaty,” meaning to scatter, as with the sweeping movement of the arm when seeding a field with grain. The early Ukrainians described their northern neighbors as “Rossiiane” – “the scattered ones” – which in fact, with their small nomadic settlements scattered all over the cold and forbidding northern tundra, they were.
http://cybercossack.com/?p=1408
Ukrainian is an East Slavic language spoken in Ukraine and in Ukrainian communities in neighboring Belarus, russia, Poland, and Slovakia. Ukrainian is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus (10th–13th centuries).
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/613050/Ukrainian-language
Actually the Rus’ first appear at the frozen shores of lake Ladoga. Their city was known in Scandinavian sagas as Aldeigja, which in turn comes from some early Finnish language: Alodejog, “low river”. This period was around 800 – 850 AD and is called as Rus’ Khaganate.
Rus’ were thus just another Finnish tribe, like the other founders of early Rus’ state. In chronicles they are called: Chud’ and Ves’. Kiev became new capital of the Rus’ through conguest.
The Rus’ were not slavic at all. This bickering between Russians and Ukrainians looks sad indeed.
Could you please correct the links?
Wilhelm,
Then why is Moscovy Language so filled with Fino Ugric Words and Ukrainian is not?
Rashan Moscals took on the identity from Kyiv and were transformed by Peter the First into what he called a “Russ like People”.
To this day in the Rashan Moscal language of the Kremlin. Russia is declined as an Adjective and not a proper Noun.
There was a much more “Old Church Slavonic used at the time of Moscovy’s renaming in the 17th century.
Aleksander Pushkin, partly a negro “cleaned up” the Rashan language but wrote; “Beware the Russian Riot, always meaningless and brutal”.
In my opinion there is a big difference between the old British Empire and the Russian/Soviet Empire.
The British colonised lands that at the time were less advanced. In countries like India the British worked with local leaders to form partnerships mostly based on trade, At the height of the Raj there were 250,000 British in India 50,000 were soldiers India then had a population of 600 million, so without co-operation the British could never have stayed.
In countries like Australia and Canada, these were wildernesses when the British arrived now these are great nations it was the British that laid the foundations for this, both countries still have the queen as head of state their education, health and legal systems are based on the British system.
When Britain handed back Hong Kong to the Chinese in 1997 they left all the business, banking sector and stock market in tact this has been a great assistance to Chinas economic rise over the last decade. The British Empire was not perfect and people did suffer but in the main the people and nations who were part of it benefited from Britain’s technological know how for example roads, railways, hospitals plus education and legal systems. The commonwealth now has 54 member states 15 still recognise the queen as head of state. This is a voluntary organisation and members can leave at any time. I think it speaks volumes about the legacy of the old empire that so many wish to remain.
The Russian/Soviet Empire is quiet different. Russia after WW2 occupied countries that were more technologically advances than they were, had a higher standard of living and were previously democratic. They ripped these proud nations apart murdered or impressed those they saw as a political or intellectual threat; they embarked on a campaign of russifacation to try and destroy the language and culture of these nations.
So is it really a surprise to anyone that when they were freed from their captors the countries of eastern and central Europe turned to the west and now view Russia with suspicion and fear. I would, especially when they chose a Nationalistic ex KGB spy who said the fall of the Soviet Union was the biggest disaster of the 20th century as their leader.
Once more Western imperialist hypocrisy rears its abominable face in the form of British ultranationalist R John’s crooked attempts to defend the British Empire, the empire that brought you the concentration camp (Boer War), ruthlessly destroyed India’s indigenous economic development such that by the time the imperialists left India was poorer in 1947 than in 1750, that orchestrated mass famines in Ireland and India, who herded 300,000 Kenyans into concentration camps for daring to stand for their independence… and which even today continues the neo-imperial project as a laptop of the US, supported by their bootlicking minions like R John. Yes, a great empire indeed. It’s legacy can’t be wiped off the face of the Earth soon enough.
So, if the Brits were such terrible imperial overlords, then i’m assuming you must agree that the Russian Empire of the 20th Century (that is, the Soviet Union) were equally abhorent if not worse overlords? And so it goes that you also can’t wait for the Soviet legacy to be wiped from the face of the Earth soon enough? Or are you just being a joke and trying to fool yourself that the Soviets brought benefits to their subject states? I’m just using your own logic here. But contradiction has never stopped folks like KGB romantic here from spouting on before.
Hey, at least the Brits admitted they had an empire! The Russians pretended that the Soviet Union was a united team of all its states, but it’s history proves it was just a continuation of the Russian Empire. Even on that basic level Russians can’t even be honest!
Hmm, well thats why India has such good relations with the UK then? Or allmost all the other former British subjects who form the Commonwealth today. Hey, even countries that were not part of the empire see great benefit in joining, such as Rawanda. Yes, the British did things that were wrong, but they did much that was right.
Unlike Russia. All of Russia’s former slave states, who can’t wait to escape Russia’s evil embrace.
As for “engineered famines” in Ireland, sorry, that was the potato blight, a natural event, and famines also ocurred at the same time in Germany, Scotland, and England. They just don’t whine as much as the Irish.
BTW, during the 20th century alone, the Ruyssian government killed 61,900,000 innocent people.
Russia is the most evil empire in history.
End of story.
1. The reason some former colonies like Britain is because of its cultural imperialism, which I admit was far more ruthless and successful than the Soviet one (which cared for nationalities).
2. Furthermore, some former colonies still have elites that are dominated by Britain and other European imperialists.
3. Nobody wants to escape Russia’s loving embrace. Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia love Russia. So do many Ukrainians and Georgians, but they’re under foreign-sponsored “colored” tyrannies.
4. Some 25% of the Irish population was killed even as shipments of food continued to Great Britain (farmed on the estates of British settlers / oppressors), which the Russophobe rag The Economist praised as free trade in action.
5. That figure is an odious calumny against the memory of the Soviet Union, the spearhead of global struggle against Western tyranny. That’s the sign of the worthless degenerate… kicking his enemy when he’s down. But the USSR is going to rise again and kick your sorry ass.
I have not met any Georgians who love Russia.
Quite the opposite in fact.
As the Georgians say “Russians as individuals can be lovely people, but get them together in large groups, 5 or more, and they become a big problem”
“Foreign sponsored coloured tyrannies”? Are you kidding? You are seriously biased and looking through rose-coloured glasses at your beloved country’s history. The facts are way off from what you say. You insult us all and yourself with your ignorance. Try reading a non-soviet propaganda book some day and get an education. Until you do, Mr KGB romantic, i’m pretty certain no one will take anything you say seriously. It’s pathetic.
My question is simple, with all this chaos, if Russia goes the way of Yugoslavia, what to do with all nuclear weapons? Are there any plans in Washington?
NATO thanks Georgia, Ukraine for cooperation
NATO calls upon international society to respect Georgia`s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General announced at the news conference held in Brussels today.
Rasmussen reiterated that the decision of the NATO Bucharest summit was still in force and that Georgia and Ukraine would become the members of the Alliance when they meet required standards.
`The commitment made in Bucharest to both countries [Georgia, Ukraine] still stand. They will become NATO members when they meet NATO standards. We will be discussing progress in reform, which NATO will continue to support. We also thank both countries for what they are contributing to our operations and missions,` Rasmussen said.
http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=19433
If both Georgia and Ukraine meet the criteria set, they should be welcomed with open arms into NATO; each nation has the right to choose its own destiny. Russia has no right to dictate who joins and who doesn’t. They are not a global power (you need a decent navy for that) they are regional powers who are declining year on year.
Russia keep using the argument that NATO expansion threatens their boarders, well this boarder stretches for 20,000 miles how much space do these idiots need to feel un-threatened.
PS Mr Comrade I am proud to be British and I love the USA…. so up yours!!!!
Georgia’s place is indeed in NATO, but it’s unlikely Ukraine will meet NATO standards anytime soon. Ukraine may not be quite as barbaric as Russia, but it’s still not really a democracy, it has an appaling human rights record with regard to minorities (again, not as bad as Russia, but still pretty bad), a needlessly aggressive foreign policy and a population that doesn’t want to be in NATO and that generally admires Putin and Russia. So Ukraine in NATO would be a Trojan horse, especially since pro-Russian forces are expected to win in the upcoming elections.
But Georgia should be fast-tracked into NATO, they do need NATO protection, unlike Ukraine.
Hi a,
Are you an orphan?
A I agree with you completely! well said
A,
Where do you get the “Ukrainian needlessly aggressive foreign policy” other than trying to demarcate a border with Russia?
The Ukrainian President stuck his neck out for Georgia. The best reason for most of these flaws you describe is that Roosia has a “fifth column” and a Rashan Naval Base that does as it pleases.
Ukraine is still unfortunately spending more than half of its educational budget on the Rashan Language Education and not willingly.
Most of the Parliament is Rashan Oligarch and Soviet leftovers. If Ukraine goes the way of Belarus with a dictator and a one party system and joins some kind of Union with Rasha there will be problems for Europe which rejected Ukrainian efforts to clean its system of Rashan Mafioso Oligarchs. Ukrainians don’t want to be under Pootin. In fact over 90% voted to get out of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine desperately needs NATO for the civic institutions as well as the psychological boost.
Rasha refuses to send an ambassador to Ukraine, meaning that Ukraine is doing something right. If politicians could be directly elected instead of party lists sold to the highest bidder progress could be made to send the Rashan Mafia home and secure the country. Thank you for your interest.
So you admit to being a fascist ultra-nationalist then? Thanks.
Stop talking to the mirror retard.
Russia is the current home of more than half the worlds fascist ultra nationalists, with a significant proportion of the remainder in Serbia.
First, where do you get those stats? From your ass?
Second, the majority of Westerners are in fact fascists. They just conceal it under the guise of political correctness, which is in itself just another tool of Western cultural imperialism.
No, from a Russian report actually, by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10008515&pnum=1
“A report claims Russia’s youth is embracing the ideology their grandparents fought against so implacably, and that Russian skinheads, or britogolovy, now account for almost half the world’s “skins”.
Adhering to a blend of neo-Nazi ideology and rabid Russian nationalism, Russian skinheads are among the most violent, and have staged a wave of savage attacks on non-Russians and children as young as 5 in the past year, leaving many of their bleeding victims to die slowly.
AND
“And who are the people that make up this subculture?
“They’re young men, predominantly,” said Putzel. “They come from families that are not necessarily very well off. Their futures are very uncertain. They’re not very well educated. And this is something for them to believe in.” In a country that lost more people defeating the Nazis than any other country, there are now an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 neo-Nazis, half of the world’s total. They even have supporters in parliament.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3718255&page=2
Actually retard boy, “political correctness” is a tool of the socialist left, and a tool of Russian imperialism in the 20th century, of course the Russians are actually the most racist scum on the planet with the possible exception of the Japanese and Chinese.
Forty-four people were killed in racially motivated murders last year, more than double the previous year, human rights activists say. Many perpetrators were young, white skinheads shouting neo-Nazi or nationalist slogans. They rarely shoot their victims, preferring to stab them repeatedly or beat them to death with chains or knuckle-dusters.
The odds are always stacked in their favour because they hunt in packs of at least three and pick vulnerable targets. Their ranks seem only to swell, from about a dozen in the early 1990s to up to 60,000 today.
The report, How to quell the neo-Nazi setbacks in a country that defeated fascism, was produced by the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights and is among several that throw the spotlight on a dark underbelly of Russian society the authorities would have you believe barely exists. It comes at a time when Russia is celebrating its part in liberating the victims of the Nazi concentration camps.
“Today in Russia there are 50,000 skinheads at the very minimum while in the rest of the world, including America, Europe and other countries, there are about 70,000,” says Semyen Charny, the report’s author. The real number could be much higher, he adds, because neo-Nazi groups actively try to keep their organisations secret.
If nothing is done to combat the skinhead menace, experts warn that their numbers could swell to 100,000 within a few years.
With names such as “Blood and Honour”, “Moscow Hammer Skin”, “United Brigades 88” (H is the eighth letter in the alphabet. HH stands for Heil Hitler!), and “Skin Legion”, there are estimated to be up to 10,000 in Moscow and perhaps 5000 in St Petersburg.
Their code is simple: they don’t drink vodka (beer is the Aryan drink), they do not do drugs, they do not do petty crime (only murder and assault), they are supposed to have a good knowledge of Russian culture and to be able to hold their own in a 15-minute fight. Girls are welcome and are often used to spot targets without attracting attention.
But what unites them above all is a hatred of foreigners, in particular of anyone with dark features hailing from the Caucusus region of southern Russia or from Asia or Africa.”
Minorities in Ukraine support the countries efforts to make progress away from Moscow.
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — The outgoing leader of Crimea’s Tatars says that NATO membership for Ukraine is the safest way to avoid a repeat of the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service reports.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, the head of the Crimean Tatars’ Mejlis or parliament, spoke to RFE/RL on December 4 ahead of the Kurultai, or Crimean Tatar Assembly, to be held in Sevastopol on December 5-6.
Dzhemilev said he supports Ukraine’s moves to join the European Union and NATO. He added that although a referendum in Ukraine might show a lack of support for joining NATO, it is the duty of politicians to convince people to take “the right direction.”
Dzemilev said European integration will be useful for Crimean Tatars in terms of protecting human rights and gaining support for minority issues.
The agenda of the Kurultai will include discussion of the January presidential election in Ukraine and the election of a new head of Mejlis, replacing Dzhemilev.
He said his decision to leave the post is not supported by many members of the Crimean Tatar diaspora or the Kurultai.
Dzhemilev, who spent many years in the gulag as a Soviet dissident, has been the chairman of the Crimean Tatar Assembly since 1991.
He said incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had unfortunately failed to keep his campaign promises.
Dzhemilev called for a tolerant election campaign to take place without insults and social polarization, and said many people still have to overcome “Soviet propaganda” and review their personal values.
Dzhemilev said that any discussion about Crimean Tatar separatism or annexation to Russia is baseless, but he said that one of the most important and worrying questions for Crimean Tatars is the preservation of their national identity.
He added that more efforts should be made in terms of security because of attempts made by Russian authorities to undermine Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar bodies.
Dzhemilev said he believes that Russia’s Federal Security Service is behind reported operations to assassinate him. He referred to the arrest on October 26 of two alleged members of an Islamist group, At-Takfir wal-Hidjra, who were reportedly planning to kill Dzhemilev.
Georg, I’m sure all non-Russian minorities in Ukraine want Ukraine to be independent from Moscow. The question is, do Ukrainians want that, given that Yanukovich or Timoshenko are set to win the elections next year? As for minority rights, I don’t know the situation of the Russian minority, but Ukraine still denies basic rights for the Romanian, Hungarian and Polish minorities (native populations on territories given to Ukraine by Stalin and Khrushchev). And by aggressive foreign policy I meant hostile actions towards its western neighbors, such as the construction of the infamous Bstroe canal, or complicity with Russia in the perpetuation of the “frozen conflict” in Transnistria. So while I’d like to see Ukraine fulfill the requirements to be a NATO (and hopefully also an EU) member, realistically speaking it won’t happen in the foreseeable future.
As for Georgia, what did Ukraine do when Georgia was attacked?
As for LES, you are just an imbecile. You keep babbling obsessively about the “Holodomor” yet on other threads you’ve defended Stalinist aggression against Europe and Stalinist genocide against non-Slavs. You are a pathetic Little Russian neo-fascist.
A, You should just douche your vag. Les never defends Stalinists aggression against anyone. Ukrainians are not “Little Russians”.
There is no complicity with Rasha that has not been forced on Ukraine with Allied help. Romanians were and are the real Fascists since WWII, but now are in Nato and EU ironic isn’t it. Transnistre has Rashan Military and Mafia arms smuggling and gets financial support from Moscow.
This is a big problem for Ukraine which recently demarcated its border with Moldova, but still cannot with Rasha because they like to leave things “open”.
This is used for Human smuggling from Asia and Africa into the EU by Rashan Mafia. Ukraine has to deal with whomever is ejected from the EU to be cared for by Ukrainian Government, which has agreed to accept into its care these illegal crashers of the Shengen zone. Ukraine however did not get anything since Ukrainians themselves cannot have Shengen Visas. To freely travel across Europe to their jobs.
The Poles and Ukrainians get on quite well now, and know where the problems come from. I speak Polish and so is my wife. Khruschev gave Ukraine Nothing, but oppression and Genocide and once complained that, Stalin only allowed him, to kill only 1,900 Ukrainians a month. Crimea was a basket case that Rasha at the time could not help so Ukraine had to rehabilitated it and was repaid by having their population sent to Siberia so more Rashans could move into their comfortable homes.
Ukraine is accused by Moscali of supplying weapons and tanks to Georgia long before the last outbreak of Rashan Territorial Aggression. One Ukrainian move to defend Georgia was a resolution that ships entering or leaving Crimea must notify Ukrainian Government 2 weeks ahead. Not really much more Ukraine could have done because of the “support” given by countries like Germany and France regarding NATO .
At the time when Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal Ukraine gave it up under the Budapest Treaty. So West has to intervene in case of Kremlinoid attack. Unfortunately Georgia is not protected by this treaty. I do wish the best for Georgia, and it is in the heart of most Ukrainians, and I know.
Georg, what are you talking about? When was Romania “fascist”? Stop parrotting Stalinist garbage. It’s funny to see accusations of “fascism” coming from a Ukrainian.
Khrushchev and Stalin gave you nothing? How about Northern Bucovina, Herta, Southern Bassarabia, Hotin, Crimea, Transcarpathia, Lwow etc? And how about the fact that Ukrainians were given the houses and jobs seized from Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians etc who were killed or deported to Siberia?
You’re right about Transnistria, but don’t forget Ukrainian complicity. Transnistria could not function without that. And let’s not forget that in Transnistria before 1991, Ukrainians were the second largest ethnic group after the Romanians, so the ethnic Russians couldn’t have taken control on their own. Ukraine most likely hopes to come to a deal with Russia and annex at least part of Transnistria, as if they hadn’t stolen enough Romanian territory.