I got indirectly told off by my wife's English tutor for putting "the Ukraine" in an English sentence, where she told her touchly it is a country it should be just be Ukraine. Having their own independent country is important to them, which when you see how badly they have been treated by mainly the Nazis in WWII and Russian occupiers on and off through several centuries, you can understand.
Ukraine has spent about 50% of the last 500 years under the occupation of foreign powers, which has primarily been Russia and Poland An enclave in west Ukraine on the Ukraine / Polish border is very Polish culturally. Ukrainians where their country is relatively poor and systems don't work too well, along with where they ignore authority and laws as much as possible, have a favourite saying for things being the way they are: "because this is Ukraine"!
Most Ukrainians are patriotic, and proud of their independent country especially in west Ukraine, so you can expect at some point a backlash from Putin's invasion by a 5th column and a take over by a minority in the east of the country. I hope their fire services and police and more competent when it comes to dealing with large fires from fractured transit gas pipes, where some of the very old partisans from WWII are warning of a return to these strategies if Russia carries on invading by stealth in east Ukraine, which is why I think Putin is reluctant to formally invade. Strategists have estimated that he would need an army of occupation of 0.5million troops in the east of the country, with regular replacements, where ethnic Russians are only 20 to 40% of the population in the most densely populated Russian regions. Much better for it to be federated by proxy to Russia where they own the regional politicians in control, through Putin style elections, where the
GRU right people are in control and arrange for the right result by getting their people to vote early and vote very often, and by dissuading anybody from voting, who isn't going to vote in the right way, like in Crimea.
Where Putin is trying to recreate a more capitalist version of the old USSR, so he can cling to power for longer, the next few years are not going to be pretty or pleasant for anybody within his sphere of influence who disagrees with him or his henchmen.
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Topic: THE Ukraine? (Read 1032 times)