[throwaway599281]

> They view Ukraine as part of Russia

And it is. So is Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia Oblast) part of Hungary, and other parts or Ukraine that should belong to Romania and even some to Poland.

Their current borders are an accident that should have long been solved diplomatically, but alas here we are.

>Danger is, if Putin can portray this as west vs Russia, he could start enlisting people from far-left and far-right.

The danger was these maneuvers that even in the Bush era, people recognized they would be deemed unacceptable by Russia.

And the whole handling of the relations with Ukraine since the events of 2014.

This situation is far more complex than "Kremlin man bad".

Unfortunately the people who will pay for these are not diplomats or the big interests that played this situation as a game, it will be the average Ukrainian who see their country torn apart, and in a lesser extent the average Russian, severely affected by sanctions.

[soco]

And who gets to decide which moment in time should be taken as reference for the "true" borders? Because borders in Europe changed so much and so many tomes over history, that pretty much everybody can make territorial claims about everybody else and not be totally wrong. I wish I was exaggerating.

[throwaway599281]

You don't even have to look at old maps that much, when as in this case a great part of the population didn't migrate elsewhere.

Just look at the ethnic/linguistic distributions in the area.

This would not work that well for example, German population in territories lost during WW I, afaik.

[throwaway828492]

Parent post is prime example of this nationalism. Changing borders in Europe (or elsewhere) is very dangerous. Even in central asia, there is hints of separatism in many small areas, fuelling those fires will lead to mass graves.

If you look at the map in Europe, many of them make no sense, if you travel in Europe many people tell you weird feuds with their neighbors. Even between Polish and Ukrainian nationalists there have been massacres and mass graves, these memories still exist between each other.

If we allow changing borders based on history books, blood will be spilled way more. Unfortunately the genie might be out of bottle, because this war will be very long one.

[yuppie_scum]

Are you replying to yourself?