#The Baltic States

[blahwithasideofblah]

In light of the conversation i just had, I feel like I need to remind people that the USSR and gulags existed and were not fucking good and people were not "fine" or "thankful"

[perfectlybriefmoon]

For me the only issue I have with the land dispute in season 2 is that why didn't the Davidsons kick the Walkers of their land sooner and before someone says that its illegal well guess what Russia pulled this crap against my people for CENTURIES

[lightdancer1]

I admit that the bit where the writer admits one of his grandfathers was a Polish secret policeman makes me curious:

After all, ACAB seems to have an 'except when Iranian or the state security apparatus of a Communist regime' exception that qualifies 'all'. All forms of history have very specific freighted assumptions with specific words, hence the feuding over how much the 3,000 years of ancient Khemet count as Black Africa or not, or in this case the specific choice of Eastern versus Central Europe and the Balkans. This is less a history in a chronological sense and more of a topical and topological survey of various facets of the long-vanished world in what's now Poland, the Balkans, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Ukraine. It begins with the ancient history in the time of the Romans and goes up to the end of the USSR.

People looking for a detailed history of the events in Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria (not Greece), Romania, the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine would be advised to look elsewhere, this is more of a social bottom-up history with a good degree of personal family semi-collective biography attached from someone whose family does touch across the entirety of the region...and one of his grandfathers in the 20th Century was a secret policeman for Communist Poland.

It does, however, have one merit of shining light on all the neglected facets of the region that elites prefer to forget, like the Shtetl world of the Jews, the role of Islam, and the degrees of how official Communism and the unofficial version co-existed very uneasily at best and often murderously and that this was so much of why the regime ultimately fell in the ways it did.

8/10

[stillunusual]

Meanwhile in tankie clownland Russia became the largest country in the world because of "counter-offensives"…. It's almost funny how most tankie clowns claim to be communists while simultaneously embracing Russian fascism, supporting the imperialism of Russia’s mega-rich ruling class, mindlessely repeating the Kremlin's propaganda and cheerleading their war crimes. These morons seem to have no idea that the Russian Federation is an empire made up of many conquered states that Russia invaded, occupied and colonised in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, or that Russia's war against Ukraine is a brutal attempt to reassert control over one of its former colonies. Russia's history of imperialism is at least as bad as that of any western country - and they're still doing it in the 21st century….

[justacynicalromantic]

In early 2014, Ukraine was a neutral country, with a pro-Russian president, and with 70% of Ukraine's population against NATO membership. Yet Russia bluntly violated Ukraine's neutrality and annexed Crimea, then launched a covert invasion of Ukraine in the east.

Petro Poroshenko won the presidential election later in 2014 having promised a settlement with Russia, keeping a special status of the Russian language in Ukraine. He was initially sceptical regarding NATO accession, underlined Ukraine must rely on its own strength to provide security.

Did Putin meet Poroshenko halfway? Not at all. The regular Russian army entered the Ukrainian territory in mid-2014 to fight the Ukrainian troops, which led to the Minsk-1 agreement signed in September 2014.

Further text - down under the cut, or you can follow the Twitter link to the original post:

Few weeks later, Ukraine's parliament adopted a law that would guarantee the then Russia-controlled part of Donetsk and Luhansk regions additional economic, financial and cultural powers.

How did Putin react? Russia staged sham local elections in the occupied Donbas, and then sent the regular army again to Ukraine in early 2015, which led to the Minsk-2 agreement signed in February 2015.

Zelensky was even more sceptical regarding NATO accession. Asked about NATO, he once famously said he never pays anyone a visit if he has not been invited. He won the presidential election promising to compromise with Russia - to stop shooting, sit down with Putin and talk.

Did Putin meet Zelensky halfway? Not at all. He actually raised the stakes by issuing the Russian passports on the occupied territories of Ukraine even before Zelensky assumed the office, putting him in a difficult political position since the start.

Zelensky was ready to drop Ukraine's NATO bid in an exchange for the Russian troops withdrawing from Ukraine. The talks were held already before 2022. What did Putin do? He launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In the first weeks of the invasion, Zelensky was yet again ready to drop Ukraine's NATO bid. But he wanted to obtain international security guarantees. What did Putin do? He demanded that Russia must be consulted before any aid would be given to Ukraine in the event of aggression.

To sum up, Ukraine has consistently tried to reach a deal with Russia over the last decade, and was open to giving up on its NATO bid in exchange for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Ukraine. Russia never reciprocated, never showed a good will, kept raising the stakes.

Both Poroshenko and Zelensky were initially sceptical regarding Ukraine's accession to NATO. Both wanted to get a deal with Putin. And Putin himself pushed both of them to seek NATO membership out of no other viable alternatives.

Up till now, Putin has shown absolutely no willingness to compromise with Ukraine. His war aims remain maximalist - subjugating Ukraine and changing its regime. He seeks Ukraine's partition, and will turn what is left of Ukraine into Russian protectorate.

Russia's imperial self-conception is that of Russian elites at large, and not just Vladimir Putin. The Russian leadership simply cannot reconcile with the existence of a sovereign Ukrainian statehood.

Therefore any sustainable Ukrainian-Russian compromise is currently not possible unless the Russian cost-benefit calculus changes. Only credible risk to the stability of the Russian regime would impact this calculus. The easiest way goes through defeating Russia in Ukraine.

[flagwars]

[odinsblog]

[qweenofurheart]

i really like the look of winter in lithuania.

[misfit-among-the-angels]

I've been tagged by @lord-worms-shakespeare-class, @radaghastly, @soulofawander, @havocinthebluebox, @kladivonacarodejnice and @thecolombianviking to post a selfie, thank you.

I haven't taken any selfies up until this month 😅 But i finally took some on the trip i had and tbh, i love these two. 🥰

Tagging: @the-merry-gnome, @the-softest-sunflower, @vampiress-x, @rotting-sword-maiden, @healution, @rickythelvl20fighter, @asylumsammet, @lollobendix, @akasztofavirag-por, @emmadangerheart, @daedradevotee, @distantsonata, @scarsoftheshatteredsky and @thoughts-of-an-x-factor

[fliegenengel]

sunwater

[randombook4idk]

internet: omg wouldn't it be so cool to travel back in time? spend a day in the past? it would be so fun😋

baltic states:

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

We live in a country where one presidential candidate has to apologize to leaders of other countries for the other candidate's massive fuckup in international relationships

[elektrostantsiya]

High voltage power lines ⚡ in Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia)

[stillunusual]

Will they ever stop westsplaining? It's a shame that western commentators continue to routinely describe countries that were forced to spend a tiny fraction of their history as part of the Soviet Union, or the Soviet bloc, as "former Soviet" or "post-Soviet" or "ex-Soviet satellite" states, even though the USSR has been dead as a dodo for decades.

Strangely enough, you'll never see the same people referring to "the former Nazi state of Germany", or "America, the former slave-trading British colony", or even "Moscow, the former provincial Mongolian village".

Hopefully, condescending terms like "former Soviet", the stereotypes that go with them and the pernicious idea that these independent countries still somehow belong to "Russia's sphere of influence", will eventually disappear as they continue to develop and evolve, but I'm not holding my breath….

[justacynicalromantic]

THIS.

This guy from Romania put everything down splendidly.

I understand, most "woke" US teens want to push "US bad" narrative nowadays to look cool, but for those of you guys who feel depressed - because your media has been constantly telling you about America's many failures in foreign politics in the last 50 years as if it was all a failure.... But guys. Guys. My guys. Americans.

YOU LITERALLY FREED A DOZEN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

FREED. Do you understand me?

People here in Eastern Europe CELEBRATED it like they celebrated the end of WWII. People CRIED and hugged and went to the streets when the fucking empire fell.

People created human chains that SPANNED COUNTRIES to tell the world they do not want to be part of USSR (Google "The Baltic Way").

In Ukraine, the all-country vote for leaving USSR got the overwhelming ~90% in favor support throughout all the country (YES, IN RUSSIAN-SPEAKING DONBAS TOO)

The propaganda (fed by Russian spies in the West) has warped your own impression of yourselves, so I am putting it all in perspective so you would know - you did some incredible good too, guys. You helped a dozen of previously military occupied countries free themselves.

And now you are helping the same countries protect their Independence when the same regime that had occupied them previously have now recovered its strength and have started trying to re-collect them all again.

[flagwars]

Flag Wars Bonus Round