Rank: Elder Joined: 3/18/2011 Posts: 12,069 Location: Kianjokoma
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Some background history of the area going a few centuries back Crimea: Whose land is this? by Sergei KhrushchevPart 2 from former Soviet PM Nikita Khrushchev's sonQuote:At the end of 1953, when the five-year plan for 1955-1960 was being prepared, two irrigation canals included: South-Ukrainian and North-Crimean.
The first canal was going through Ukrainian territory in its entirety, while the second one began in Ukraine and ended in the Russian Federation, in Crimea. The planners decided that this will necessitate the splitting of construction authority, which will cause confusion in the building process and slow it down. So they came up with a suggestion to the government: Since the canal passes mostly through Ukrainian territory, then the rest of it should, along with the whole of Crimea, pass from the supervision of Moscow to that of Kiev.
My father Nikita Khrushchev who headed the leadership of the Soviet Union, agreed with this argument, especially that an anniversary was approaching:
In February 1954, it was 300 years since Ukraine joined Russia. It was said - it was done. The Higher Council of the Russian Federation decided to pass Crimea over to Ukraine. In this way, Crimea came under the jurisdiction of Kiev, but just formally. In fact, it remained part of the Soviet Union and was our common holiday destination. Quote:And as for the accusations and insults thrown at President Vladimir Putin, let's think about them. Twenty-five years ago, his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev turned his face westward, declared his adherence to Western values and friendship with the US. Boris Yeltsin followed the same policies, and even Putin in his early years did so.
The US did not abide by any of its promises to Russia, neither the written ones, nor the spoken ones. They promised that NATO would not enter Eastern Europe, and what is the reality today? Russia supported the US war on Iraq and even the intervention in Libya aiming at regime change. As a result, Russian companies have been squeezed out of the markets of these countries.
From Russia, they expect unconditional obedience, without any attempt to defend Russian national interests. And on top of that, it's threatened by sanctions. It seems that they perceived the friendship between Russia and the US to mean that Russia would remain a small nation in the American orbit . Maybe Putin simply got tired of doing that?
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