5 Reasons Why Leftists Should Defend Russia | New Eastern Outlook

[Tommy_Carcetti]

174. Not sure what your ultimate argument/endgame is here.

Is it a dissolution of the "fictitious" Ukrainian state, with its land being ceded to Russia and Poland or other countries which you may claim have a historical right to Ukrainian land? Clearly you have some sort of serious antipathy towards Ukraine and its culture, despite the existence of documentable facts showing that people identifying themselves as Ukrainians with a distinct Ukrainian culture have been living within the land contained by modern Ukrainian borders for centuries now? I just wonder what the reason for your clear hostility is.

No one is denying that Ukraine is a bit of a melting pot, that the country has been influenced by Russian culture and Polish culture to some extent. On the other hand, Ukrainian culture and language is arguably the most direct descendant to the ancient Kievan Rus people, even more so than Russian culture that splintered off from the ancient Rus. And the Rus empire at its height--when it was centered in Ukraine, covered just about all land contained in modern day Ukraine with the exception of Crimea, which was Tatar.

You talk about "Novorossiya"/the Donbass region having ethnic Russians settled into it by the Soviets. Funny though why you don't talk about why so many Russians were brought in to that area of Ukraine in the 30s and 40s....basically it was because many of the ethnic Ukrainians living in that portion of Ukraine were starved off in the Holodomor. So whether you've intended to do so or not, you've essentially glossed over genocide and ethnic cleansing. Congratulations, I hope you're proud of yourself.

As to Crimea, Russia's historical ties to it are not nearly as long standing as you want to have us believe. Basically Russia could claim less than two and a half centuries of influence on Crimea during which time the region was Russified. But the Tatar people have a much longer standing historical claim to Crimea. Sadly, the vast majority of Tatars were deported from Crimea by Stalin, but they had begun to return up until Russia's annexation last year. Arguably, Crimea is neither historically Ukrainian or Russian, but given that in the absence of independence the Tatar people are far more inclined to identify with Ukraine than Russia, the inclusion of Crimea within the Ukrainian state is not that far fetched. Clearly it makes sense geographically. And Khrushchev's transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR is pretty much a non-issue, since it was an internal transfer of Soviet land.

But your blatant denial of the existence of a historical Ukrainian ethnicity in the face of facts and what you wish to do with that denial is, well, curious.