Yes Why Do The West Treat Russia As The Bogeyman?

[anotheoldgit]

One may not always agree with Peter Hitchens, but is he speaking some sense here?

/// It never occurs to them that Russia has good historical reasons to fear its neighbours. It never crosses their mind that the borders drawn by the victorious West in 1992, like those drawn at Versailles in 1919, are an unsustainable, unjust mistake. ///

/// They never ask why Britain (or the USA) should be hostile to Russia, or what the quarrel between us actually is. What is it to us whose flag flies over Sevastopol? Yet it matters greatly to those who live there. ///

/// They cast every Russian action as evil, and every Ukrainian action as saintly. The world is not like that. ///

[anotheoldgit]

At least as far as we know hardly anyone was killed which is something to be grateful for.

If Russia had not got involved and the Russian people of the Crimea revolted and started a civil war, surely that would have been much more serious?

At least the majority have now got their wish without the need for bloodshed.

[ichkeria]

AOG if the Russians hadn't intervened no one would have revolted. The Russians have been stirring it in Crimea for months - years - as a matter of fact. And the TV channels have been churning out anti-Kyiv propaganda trying to scare the Russian part of the population after the ousting of Yanukovich.
What happened in Crimea is as much a move by organised crime barons in the region to hold on to their power base as anything else. You take on the mafia at your peril, as Ukraine's new government is now finding, with the same stirring and destablisation now occurring in other parts of the country.