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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1387 thread views

Transnational Thursday for August 29, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Western Ukraine(and the astroturfed "Ukrainian" identity is mostly Galician supremacy) was not, historically, part of Russia, it was part of Poland(well technically Austria for much of the period, but you get the point). Claiming there to be no real distinction from Russia is simply dumb; the closest culture is a western Slavic one.

Now anti-Americanism as a basis for supporting Russia at least makes sense, but 'Ukraine isn't really based' doesn't.

Correct. Galicia is certainly distinctive. Preserving Galician identity makes complete sense there. But the Crimea, the Donbass, Novorossiya are not Galicia.

Neither is the Chechen Republic Russia, yet if you say that in public in Russia you'll be charged with advocating for secession. Borders are even more fake than ethnicities. And certainly, the only reason the Russian government has started to trump up the "historical Russian cities" bullshit in the past few years is the geopolitical convenience.

False equivalence. Galicia was never a nation, not even a sovereign entity as far as I know, and probably shouldn't be one either (but that's another matter). You can say Chechnya was never a part of Muscovy, and that'd be correct.

Muscovy didn't spawn from the ether as an ethnic atom, either. The rules are made up and the points do not matter. What matters is that some countries take a bloody war to convince being/remaining a part of another country and some don't. Out of pure personal pragmatism, I consider only the latter arrangements legitimate.

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