Crimea

10 out of 800 choosing to go to Russia.

Why is all this important? Because it gives the lie to those deluded fools like Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, who this week was reported as saying as recently as 2022 that the Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine was justified because those regions contain Russian-speaking communities and, and I quote, would rather be part of greater Russia than part of somewhere else.

Well, clearly not the case for the inhabitants of Oleshky, and I doubt many other parts of occupied Ukraine either.

But there's definitely talk of peace in the air, however optimistic that might be.

It was literally geographic expansion to include strategic economic seaports.

Crimea came into Russia under her reign.

Belarus, Lithuania.

I'm certainly not sowing any problems for the future there.

was stable and year round where they could conduct international trade, um, and, and have a Navy.

And for them, that means like they can't give up a festival in Crimea.

They can't give up the rest of, you know, on the, the Southern Russian, um, cities that they have to have those it's a matter of life and death for russia if their economy is based off of exporting energy and agricultural products mostly to places like india and africa and elsewhere right they don't have the ability to do that they're they're dead and dead in the water they're going to starve to death in the dark and in the cold so when the united states says we're going to threaten that by making Ukraine like an outright enemy of yours, is it any wonder that they reacted negatively? I mean, put the shoe on the other foot.

If the Mexicans said, hey, we're going to work with the Cubans and we're going to take Puerto Rico from you and we're going to prevent you from exiting the Gulf of America, like New Orleans is no longer like a viable port for you.

There was the Franco-Prussian War, which was an incredible victory.

That's what would put the Prussians on the map.

And there was the Crimea, but the Crimea was very much restricted to localized theaters.

But there wasn't a real modern war.

And so, from the Russian viewpoint, when Ukraine uses these weapons, it's as if NATO itself is attacking Russia.

While ATAKAMs have been used against targets in Crimea, without much retaliation, hitting targets within Russia's mainland borders is a step up the escalation ladder.

So, in response to what it sees as NATO aggression, the Kremlin published a new nuclear doctrine in November 2024, one that lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

This new policy makes it easier for the Russians to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries like Ukraine.

American hegemony and have found a way to work together based on shared interests.

And that's good enough.

For added context, China steadily became Russia's largest economic partner following the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Western sanctions that followed.

the Ukraine war then cemented this relationship.

That said, the first informal discussions had been ongoing for months and internally, we had already done a first draft.

If I look back at the first draft that we had not circulated, it was just for ourselves, in October of 2021, that draft already presented a long-term adversarial relationship with Russia based on everything that had happened since 2014 in the annexation of Crimea.

However, I think that we were able to have such a clear eyed, realist assessment of the threat Russia poses because we were negotiated in the middle of this horrible war.

And that removed a lot of barriers that countries would have perhaps hesitated a little bit more because they wanted to preserve the possibility of building a constructive relationship.

with

Crimea.

Does it not? Yes, it does.

It does.

So we're rolling into probably closer to 15 or 16 years now.

And the war has obviously was escalated because there were some arguments about who Crimea belonged to.

And it was a big conversation of topic.

And the issue is Zelensky really wants to stay in power.

All having eaten, drank, and rested, the surgeons began their rounds, and I took my first lesson in the art of dressing wounds.

it wasn't a festive scene by any means for dr p whose aid i constituted myself fell to work with a vigor which soon convinced me that i was a weaker vessel though nothing would have induced me to confess it then He had served in the Crimea and seemed to regard a dilapidated body very much as I should have regarded a damaged garment, and, turning up his cuffs, whipped out a very unpleasant-looking housewife, cutting, sawing, patching, and piecing, with the enthusiasm of an accomplished surgical seamstress, explaining the process in scientific terms to the patient, meanwhile which, of course, was immensely cheering and comfortable.

There was an uncanny sort of fascination in watching him as he peered and probed into the mechanism of those wonderful bodies whose mysteries he understood so well.

The more intricate the wound, the better he liked it.

It becomes a big issue and a big deal.

Now, whatever your views are of historical events, perhaps a current example might be for Russia back in 2014. the idea of it capturing Crimea was a great, you know, was some great prize that Russia particularly wanted to have, so it could have a warm water port and all the rest of it, but also just the idea of Crimea.

And for some time, I mean, obviously did that back in 2014, the world stood by, but now, right now, if you've been paying attention to the news.

It's a major, major, major headache.