From a speech yesterday:
If you look at our map, our big map, Crimea and Sevastopol look like a small dot, but we are talking about the restoration of historical justice. We are talking about the importance of this land for our country and our people. Why? It is very simple.
Our ancestors have been developing this territory since ancient times. In the 10th century a large part of it was simply incorporated into the Ancient Russian State. Prince Vladimir and his warriors were baptized here in Korsun or Chersonesus. This means that this is a sacred place, the centre of the formation of our spiritual unity. Eventually, this place became the foundation of the Russian nation and a united centralised Russian state.
This place is vital to our heart, soul and faith. But there is more to it. Later, in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries these lands fully returned to their lawful owner, the Russian Empire. When foreign hordes invaded our country in 1853–1856, and when it was attacked by Nazi invaders in 1941–1945, every part of this land was soaked in the blood of Russian and Soviet soldiers. Of course, this is a holy land for us, for Russia.
In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks, as they formed the Soviet Union, gave away vast territories, geopolitical spaces, for reasons still hard to understand, to quasi-state entities. Later, as they themselves collapsed, collapsed the party from within and destroyed the Soviet Union, Russia lost great territories and geopolitical spaces.
However, I would like to say that we are ready to live under today’s geopolitical conditions. Moreover, we treat our neighbours not only as geographical neighbours, we treat the peoples of those countries as fraternal peoples; we are ready to lend them our shoulder and give them a hand to ensure progress, to move ahead together by using our competitive advantages, which are many.
But we will never tolerate one thing – someone using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the Russian Federation. I hope this will be heard.
Agree with the sentiment or not as you will, but it always cracks me when I see Western takes that Putin is trying to restore the Soviet Union.
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Crimea Day! It should be a public holiday everywhere!
Simple facts. Sevastopol was never Ukraine, it was centrally governed city in the USSR. Drunk traitor Yeltsin decided to cede Sevastopol and Crimea, which was one of his many crimes. Crimea did not want to remain in Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. They held several referenda on the issue. Crimea was an autonomous republic with its own president until Kiev government unlawfully cancelled its autonomy. Crimea was deteriorating in Ukraine, as nothing was invested into it. I visited it in 2015: main roads were repaired after its reunification with Russia, but side roads remained in their dismal Ukrainian state. No wonder Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia. In fact, the great majority of Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea promptly switched sides after its acceptance into RF. Some of the military personnel who ran away to Ukraine subsequently returned and wanted to join Russian military. If the referendum in Crimea would be held today, the results would be either the same as in 2014, or pro-Russian vote would be even greater.
Another disassociation from bolshevism indicated after longer period of time. Nice to read that.
7 years now and Russian opinion seems almost totally accepting that Crimea is Russian. I suppose those Russians in favour of returning Crimea to the Ukraine must be in the lower single digits ( What’s the latest opinion poll ? ).
Certainly, the Crimean Bridge is a masterstroke in achieving complete economic integration of Crimea with Russia. Putin must be given full marks for its construction. It also limits Ukrainian access to the Sea of Azov, so it’s clever on that level, too.
It will be interesting to see which is the first neutral or even Western country to recognise Crimea as Russian. And when ?
The most important thing in this is that Crimeans overwhelmingly want to be in Russia. Virtually no one in Crimea wants to return to the Ukrainian madhouse. Eight countries, Afghanistan, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, have recognized the Russian-held referendum in the Crimea (https://www.quora.com/Has-any-country-recognized-Crimea-as-a-part-of-Russia).
But as far as foreign recognition goes, Crimeans don’t give a hoot.
Eight bastions of civilization, science and high culture!
I guess Afghanistan is by far the funniest of these.
Somewhere I read that some Latin American countries existed for decades without international recognition. But I’m not sure if it really was so. The Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was never recognized by most NATO powers, including the US, and as a result even the UN didn’t recognize it. The People’s Republic of China gained full international recognition only by the 1970s (though most countries recognized it by the 1960s…), while Taiwan keeps existing as a de facto independent sovereign state ever since, despite basically no one recognizing it since the 1970s. Kashmir is in a state of limbo, part of it under Pakistani rule, but it’s unclear how much international recognition the de facto border enjoys.
Israel is perhaps the most famous example of border changes not being internationally recognized, though apparently the US recently recognized the Israeli annexation of Eastern Jerusalem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan
Interestingly, one of the 15 states which fully recognise the ROC ( Taiwan ) is Nicaragua, which you mocked in #7 for recognising Crimea as Russian.
We now know the next American war for Biden. Not only would it remove one more state which recognises Crimea, but Taiwan too.
NICARAGUA, EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE
They’ll leave Ukraine and Syria till next year.
What does President Putin mean by ‘But we will never tolerate one thing – someone using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the Russian Federation.’?
Several important countries abstained ( in other words, accepted without enticing sanctions) the reunification you dimwit.
WTF makes a nothing country voting against it, as Estonia, a “bastion of civilisation, science and high culture”?
Anyway at least 4 of those countries that voted for Russia, the US has attempted to destroy and seriously harmed in the last 50 years, so don’t be so disrespectful you myopic lesbian.
Afghanistan vote is a genius kudos for Russia – the country still managed by America in many aspects, history of Soviet war there….. and I think their President is ( or was at the time) a University graduate at an American University – so America approved candidate.
It probably relates to previous paragraph which indicates the perception of RF neighbours as brother/fraternal nations (Ukraine?) and readiness to help them to develop and go on while accepting current borders drawn by bolsheviks in disadvantage of historical Russia (as mentioned before). Using Russia’s rich gifts to damage the RF may relate to the experience of oligarchs draining the wealth and moving it abroad. Perhaps another signal to domestic oligarchs to stay in line with Kremlin/Russia… just guessing.
I think that by “rich gifts” he refers to the territories, or geopolitical spaces, “given” away by the Bolsheviks to “quasi-state” entities.
In other words, he says Russia will not tolerate these spaces being used as a “spring board” for any hostile actions against Russia. This is a veiled reference, primarily, to Ukraine but may also apply to other former SU republics.
Russia allowed Crimea to be part of Ukraine when it more naturally should have been part of Russia. Same goes for other regions of Ukraine and regions in Kazakhstan and Belarus. But Russia accepted the situation as long as these countries doesn’t start to antagonize Russia (in particular at the behest of a foreign sponsor).
This is misleading rhetoric. With Crimea, everything is simple – the state of Ukraine that has existed since 1991 has ceased to exist, as extremists with foreign help carried out a coup d’etat, trampling on the constitution of Ukraine. Accordingly, Crimea received a full and legitimate right to self-determination. All the talk about historical rights only obscures the point
Yes, your explanation of rich gifts (not to be used against Russia proper) as territorries stripped from Russia by bolsheviks is more straightforward then mine guessed previously (wealth given to oligarchs).
It is a no very subtle advertence to the Ukrainian regime.
Yeltsin likely ceded Crimea to Ukraine because he wanted to eventually lure all of Ukraine back into the Russian orbit. It was only when this failed in 2014 that Russia outright annexed Crimea.
Ideally, Crimea should belong to the Crimean Tatars. But this was no longer possible after the 19th century due to the extremely extensive Slavic colonization of Crimea.
When it comes to UN Population Projections, Pakistani-controlled Kashmir appears to be treated as a part of Pakistan while Indian-controlled Kashmir appears to be treated as a part of India.
AFAIK, though, by this move, the US still DIDN’T foreclose the possibility of an eventual Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.
Why Tatars? Why not Greeks? Or Scythians?
The Tatars are nothing, but a wandering tribe of bandits, originally from Central Asia. A more virulent form of gypsies essentially.
Ideally, Crimea should belong to Neanderthals (like southern Spain – this is the last refuge of this species)
https://ds05.infourok.ru/uploads/ex/0911/00033d60-1e700cf1/hello_html_5b9e69fa.jpg
And it would be nice to have elves living in the Crimea. The Elven Kingdom of Crimea
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/38/bb/f038bba105ee69b438e0fa26b33f2dc0.jpg
Why the Tatars? They are a minority. They took the place by force and lost it by force. They are no longer the majority, not even close. And others have lived there before.
Exactly the reason why I found it the funniest. I’m not saying it’s not a diplomatic victory for Russia, my point was just that what the deceloped world thinks matters more.
Hmm and who were the two groups that bought slaves from the Tatars and later sold them in the slave markets of Constantinople and Middle East?
On a massive scale they practiced enslaving of Slavs and unlike Christians they feel no shame for their evil deeds…
Only around 1/5 of the Crimean Tatars are of Central Asian Nogai Turkic origin, the rest are descendants of Islamised and Turkified Greeks, Goths and Circassians, so majority of them are closer to Europeans than to Türks of Central Asia.
So why do they call themselves Tatars, and not Goths for example?
Why do “turks” of Izmir call themselves Turks and not Greeks? Or why do French call themselves Franks and not Gauls or Celts?
Actually original Tatars were a nomadic tribe situated in border areas of PRC and Mongolia, genetically those original Tatars were ancestors of present day Mongols, and not ancestors of Tatars of Tatarstan(Volga Bulgaria), Astrakhan or Crimea.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Mongol_Empire_c.1207.png