Quote from: byteball on November 28, 2018, 03:40:23 PM

Quote from: TECSHARE on November 28, 2018, 03:30:08 PM

They are also pushing the rhetoric of violence and civil war to the point people are physically attacking people just for wearing a MAGA hat.

Same here. Numerous people were attacked in Ukraine for wearing Order_of_St._George ribbon. Originally established November 26, 1769 as the highest military decoration of the Russian Empire by Empress Catherine the Great.
Which is now, in post-Soviet era a symbol of victory in WWII as unifying fact of history for post-Soviet countries. It's officially prohibited in UA unlike MAGA hats in US (yet).
At the same time, you can wave Ukrainian flag in Russia (even in Crimea) and nothing happens (apart from maybe some uneasy looks in your direction - not more). So the level of tolerance is really different.

Interesting also (I was long overlooking this fact in my analysis) that 'gift' of Crimea to Ukrainian SSR was widely rationalised and explained in USSR as 300-years celebrating gift of Union of Pereyaslavl Rada when the successor of Rus of Kiev merged with Moscovy, ending its occupation by Poland/Lithuania. The gift was a "sacrifice" made by Russia in 1954 to immortalise the Union. And neglected politically and economically by Ukraine all the way until 2014 when they suddenly wanted it back.

It seems to me that intelligence operatives within the US and EU establishment cartels moved to overthrow the government of Ukraine and put in place actual open fascists... until that point Russia had no reason to "take Crimea back". However as it is Russia's only warm water port it is of critical strategic military importance, and letting it fall into the sphere of US/EU influence was unacceptable to Russia. Given as how Ukraine was never expected to be divided in this way, I am not at all shocked Russia seized Crimea as the West creeps further East.