>> They've also suffered a lot to end two world wars that they didn't start. > This is even more true of the Russians No, it is not. The First World War was

>> They've also suffered a lot to end two world wars that they didn't start. > This is even more true of the Russians No, it is not. The First World War was started because Russia backed up Serbia's refusal of Austria's ultimatum after a Serbian operation assassinated Austria's crown prince (and France & the UK backed up Russia, while Germany backed up Austria, and the whole powder keg blew up). The Second World War started because of the German invasion of Poland — and who else invaded Poland sixteen days later? The Soviet Union, which had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with its supplementary German-Soviet Frontier Treaty. Moreover, modern-day Poland is really an amalgamation of western Poland and what used to be eastern Germany: the Soviet Union kept about one third of what had been Poland.