Ancient history would imply history prior to the Common Era (CE).
We're dealing essentially with modern history - since the 1700s.
We're also dealing with issues that Russian people find offensive in relations
to their western counterparts and that Russian politicians have been able to exploit. To this day, and I challenge you to ask any Russian person you know in SA, they will tell you that they 'regret' the fact that people ethincally close to them west of them chose to look westwards and accept that culture. It
is a sore point and an issue upon which many Russians feel an inferiority complex towards Europe which is aided by the fact that Central European
countries chose to follow the Western European alphabet, religion and culture.
This is a fundamental point.
Firstly, Ukraine has a financial contract with Russia to supply gas. They also have a contract to berth ships at Savastopol.
2006 began dramatically for Ukraine. On 4 January, Kyiv (Kiev) and Moscow signed a deal that ended their increasingly acrimonious gas dispute and resumed Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe. Barely one week later, on 10 January, the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) voted to dismiss the government of prime minister Yuri Yekhanurov, ostensibly for having agreed to unfavourable terms in the gas deal. In turn, President Viktor Yushchenko called the vote unconstitutional and vowed to continue with the current government until parliamentary elections on 26 March.
The gas explosion
The row over Russian gas supplies to Ukraine had been brewing throughout 2005. In summer 2004, Russia had agreed to unusually low gas prices – $50 per thousand cubic meters – in order to tip the balance in favour of Viktor Yanukovych, its candidate in Ukraine’s presidential elections. But Ukraine’s voters preferred the democratic opposition’s Yushchenko, and subsequent regime efforts to falsify the election results sparked the “orange revolution” that brought Yushchenko and his then ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, to power.
Although Yanukovych lost the election, the biggest loser was Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Democracy was clearly making inroads in his self-proclaimed sphere of influence, Ukraine appeared to have been “lost”, and Russia was saddled with a ridiculously low gas price that it granted only to vassals, such as Belarus. Small wonder that Russia’s state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, insisted on renegotiating the price upwards. Small wonder as well that Ukraine’s new orange government, recognising a good deal when it saw one, insisted on retaining the terms of the 2004 contract.
By mid-December 2005, with no revised agreement in sight, Gazprom upped the ante, telling the Ukrainians that, unless they accepted a fivefold price increase, it would cease pumping gas to Ukraine as of 1 January. Yushchenko refused, insisting that a gradual increase in the price, introduced over several years, was the only equitable and economically non-damaging way to proceed. Gazprom ignored his arguments and, as promised, reduced gas flows on new year’s day. Resulting gas shortages in Europe immediately led to howls of protest and a hasty retreat by Gazprom. Soon thereafter, Kyiv and Moscow announced a deal that doubled the price of gas and raised Ukraine’s transit fees.
...
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-ukraine/gas_crisis_3185.jsp
You can find lots more info on Moscow bulling of it's surrounding satellites.
Do you really think an Empire Mentality, Russia has had since its beginnings as
the Mucovite Kingdom can be erased by 15 years of democracy - the first time that Russia has had a democracy.
Anti-Russian? I have friends who are Russian. I do however have grown up
under Soviet troops - you could say I'm a bit biased, who wouldn't be. Especially if you consider that Russia still awards medals to war criminals (NKVD officers and the like and other veterans) and has not acknowledged history. Germany has apologised, the Soviet Union has not.
My POV is also based on truth after detailed research.
It isn't helpful to announce that I don't know about these things when I do. Russia doesn't want the Soviet Union back, and they have openly said so.
I think you're correct about not knowing too much about this subject otherwise you'd be in agreement with me.
I admit the quote my memory reproduced is a little off but is essentially the same:
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4480745.stm
Even more troubling is Putin’s unapologetic nostalgia for the days when Russia ran the affairs of nearly all its immediate neighbors. “We should acknowledge,” he recently declared in an astonishing speech, “that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” Putin clearly intends to restore Russia’s influence over the Commonwealth of Independent States, the vestigial association of former Soviet republics. “We need not turn this CIS space into a battlefield,” he said. “Rather we should turn it into a space of co-operation.” The idea that these are the two options being considered by Putin is not reassuring.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/2912921.html
Putin did not "create the office of PM". Please do some research.
Putin consolidated the power. Putin appointed PMs under him and then made the new President Medvedev appoint him as PM.
Olga Kryshtanovskaya, head of the Center for Elite Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology. She adds that while Medvedev will be the de jure head of state, Putin will rule de facto.
Means Of Control
Kryshtanovskaya and other Kremlin-watchers say Putin will partially rely on Medvedev's loyalty to maintain control over the political system, but also will use other levers of influence.
One such lever is Putin's control over the Unified Russia party, which on December 2 won a two-thirds majority in the State Duma. That majority is enough to initiate constitutional amendments -- and to impeach the president.
Putin is also expected to maintain at least informal control over the military, security services, and Foreign Ministry -- which under current legislation report to the president.
And despite Putin's pledge not to decrease the president's powers at the expense of the prime minister, analysts nevertheless say constitutional changes are likely.
"This tandem will hardly last the whole four-year presidential term without changes" in the balance of authority, Kryshtanovskaya says. "I think the process of amending the constitution will soon start. At first it will be just discussions. Later a Constitutional Assembly will be convened. This is a long process. The goal will be to change the political system."
http://www.rferl.org/content/Article/1079272.html
The islands near Japan are perfectly legally held. More research required.
Japan secured control of the islands -- Etorofu, Habomai, Kunashiri and Shikotan -- through a treaty signed with Russia in 1875. However, the Soviet Union retook them toward the end of World War II, a move strongly protested by Japan ever since.
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2959
Yeah. You know maybe Russia would like to take Alaska back too eh?
Except there is this thing called US Armed Forces preventing them from doing that. No doubt they'd like to.
Nope, I do not hate America or Americans, so you can adjust your assertions.
Your pro-Russian/Soviet bias is very obvious. However, the comment wasn't only aimed at you but at many in the Islamist camp who see Russia as a counterpoint to the US. I can understand their issue, sort of - the enemy of your enemy is your friend. However they choose to overlook the oppression
of felow Muslims by that enemy elsewhere.
They can call the war anything they want. After all they lost a HUGE number of people.
They can also retake Eastern Europe if they want, the lost a lot of people in WW2. However they did not loose all those people to Hitler, but to their own leadership, they committed massive war crimes which have gone unpunished against various Soviet populations, Eastern Europeans, and the Russian people themselves.
Seriously...
Your last statement is crazy, but maybe springs from a lack of understanding of the situation.
Russia, TODAY, does not see WW2 as starting in 1939. They don't acknowledge their illegal action of entering a sovereign nation (Poland) as an illegal and despicable act. They ignore the events prior to Hitler's invasion of Russia. That says a lot and if you choose to ignore it - I assume you're doing it purposefully because the connection is no rocket science, Russian mentality does not see anything wrong with events prior to 1941, the same
mentality continues to this day. That is wrong. German and Japanese mentalities have changed. When is Russia going to change it's mentality and appetite for regional militaristic bullying?
I don't think Russia has apologised for attacking Finland either no have they apologised for their actions against the Baltics. Heck no-one apologised to the people who were forced to endure 50 years of Soviet oppression and communism - but unlike for these people the collapse of the Soviet Union was not a 'calamity' but a godsend. See the differences ???
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