As do I. I just wish Mr. Pres and Mr. Kerry would quit with the empty warnings of "grave mistake" and all. Will just make us look even weaker when we fail to follow through.
It's kind of a strange story. Crimea was annexed by Russia by Catherine the Great in the late 1700's and remained a part of Russia (except for briefly after WW1 for 2-3 years). In the 1950's Khrushchev as premier of the USSR formally gave Crimea to Ukraine as a thank you for their sacrifices in WW2. At the time it didn't matter who "owned" it as it was all the USSR anyway. When the Soviet Union fell Ukraine split off, Crimea briefly was it's own country and then rejoined Ukraine. Over the few hundred years that Russia owned Ukraine they wiped out over 50% of the indigenous Tatars* and have it to the point where Russian's hold a slim majority ~ 55% of the population.
Russia has spent the last 300 years in that territory. Interestingly even though that area backed a Kremlin puppet candidate most opinion polls show that they still prefer to remain independent though tied to Russia. I think we'll see new elections soon where the people "overwhelmingly" support closely ties to or even becoming a part of Russia again in these areas. Pretty easy to win elections when your have tanks and troops in the street "insuring the peace" .
I don't know, but there might be a causal relationship between these two maps.
Oddly, this could be good for us. Back in the cold war days we would have been arming the Tatars (and Chechins if we could) to the teeth as we did with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Now we can't and our post 9/11 policies make supporting them much harder as it could very easily be seen as State sponsored terrorism. So why will this be good? Well, it gives the Muslim world a much closer and a much more real enemy. And the Tatars are Sunni Muslims which means that they will likely be getting funded by our "Friends" the Saudi's. By doing this the Russians could take some of the heat off us in the Muslim world while also diverting terrorism support dollars toward this cause and away from fighting against us.
interesting map. looks similar to the southwest US. but i digress.
I don't know, but there might be a causal relationship between these two maps.
Judging by that map, the Taters are land locked.
I don't know, but there might be a causal relationship between these two maps.
Not a good position since tartar sauce is used mainly on sea food
