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> Russia has long held that Ukraine is simply "southern Russia". That isn't for Russia to decide. Quoting from the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlos M.
by elihu 4y ago
> Russia has long held that Ukraine is simply "southern Russia".
That isn't for Russia to decide. Quoting from the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlos M. Cipolla:
"Let me resort once again to a banal example. Tom hits Dick on Dick's head and he derives satisfaction from his action. He may pretend that Dick was delighted to be hit on the head. Dick, however, may not share Tom's view. In fact he may regard the blow to his head as an unpleasant event. Whether the blow to Dick's head was a gain or a loss to Dick is up to Dick to decide and not to Tom."
(This was included in the recent printed version, but isn't in the version online at http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit... )
It's also worth pointing out that while the regions Russia has had defacto control of for years have high concentrations of Russian-speaking people, many of whom might prefer to be part of Russia rather than Ukraine, Russia did not try to conquer just those regions, they started their invasion with a direct assault on Kyiv. They would have taken the whole country if they could.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago> That isn't for Russia to decide. *yawn* What happened on March 17, 1995?
- lovich 4y agoI seem to recall Ukraine not doing much but yelling after Russia took crimea in 2014. Funnily enough the current hot conflict occurred after Russia declared Ukraine was a fake country and people and tried to blitzkrieg Kyiv. If Russia had actually kept to the naturally Russian ethnic area this would be a much muddier and ideologically partisan discussion. But as they tried to take the whole country, and had sights on Moldova too, it’s pretty clear cut who the bad guys are now
- justsomehnguy 4y agoThis is not the answer for the previous question. But judging by downvotes someone here knows what happened at that date.
- lovich 4y agoIt’s an answer in that I reacted to the event you were slyly trying to imply. The Ukrainians arrested the local leader of crimea and forced them to rewrite their laws to follow the Ukrainian constitution. When Russia took that region and Ukraine did nothing but yell, Russia had a much more solid argument in terms of it always being Russian land and wanting it returned. They lost that veil of plausibility when they decided to go for the rest of Ukraine in their attempted blitz of Kyiv
- justsomehnguy 4y agoAh, so amusing. "Slyly", "forced to rewrite", "local leader". Okay, okay, just because russkiez bad anything Ukraine did or does is okay, I got it.
- lovich 4y agoIs Ukraine forcing the Crimeans to rewrite their laws not bad? And is local leader not accurate? I can see taking the word “slyly” in umbrage, but the rest are accurate accounting unless you have some extra information you’d like to share
- foverzar 4y agoThat is a curious piece of history, especially since neither Ukraine, nor Russia (!) would want it to be a part of a part of the public narrative. (referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992%E2%80%931995) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992%E2%80... )