Johnson Goes To Kyiv ...

[ichkeria]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60204847

Presumably now Liz Truss has been stricken with Covid, or at least tested positive.

A cynic might say first the Met rides to the rescue and now an LFT ...
But I couldn't possibly comment.

Sorry to raise this subject again.
I wonder that sort of diplomatic talks the PM can have with President Zelensky have in the matter of "avoiding further bloodshed". 13-14,000 have already died in this conflict in the past 8 years, since the "imminent invasion" in 2014.
This whole thing is most odd.

[Stickybottle]

johnny.5
will the headline tomorrow be
He's No Chicken ?
or
He's Gone to Bury His Head In The Sand ?
or
Putin On The Style?
or
Th Pest From The West ?
———
Luckily for him it is not Putin he will be meeting face to face or the headline might be :

Big Dog Sh*ts Log !

[Gromit]

// What's even more odd is that suddenly the city of "Kiev" has begun to be referred to as "Kyiv". Another example of the ridiculous name changes that abound. //

Not a recent change. I first noticed it in 2008 when Manchester United played Dinamo Kyiv in the European Champions League. (United won 4-0).

[Peter Pedant]

Mr Zelenskiy is a comic - Mr Z shows Boris round the presidential palace - and says of the kitchen - "this we call ze Cool Room"- oh pourquoi Boris asks ( fluent in Ukrainian see). Z says well it is cooler than the House of Commons at the momnet

ter daah !

[Peter Pedant]

Kiev - kyiv - since the break up of the soviet union
altho ....
Lvov and Lviv are different places innit?

[ichkeria]

Nope same place

[Peter Pedant]

eek ! thank you

In canadee - I said "you must know I am a Brit". and the Canadian Leddy, she say " O I thought you were english!"

[Khandro]

THECORBYLOON

Does the name, "Kiev" not have Russian origins?

Yes, as does Ukraine itself, & Kiev was once the capital of Russia long before Moscow.
As I've pointed out on another thread, in an atlas I have published in 1988, "Ukraine" isn't even in the index or on any map, Kiev the city is though.
There is no real Ukrainian language as such, most people speak Russian or a dialect of it combined with Polish.

[ichkeria]

Ukraine wasn’t an independent country in 1988 (!)
Nor were Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Rep, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, N Macedonia or South Sudan.

Apologies for shy omissions :-)

The comments on the language, aside from being inaccurate, are irrelevant.

[ichkeria]

“Any” omissions

[Peter Pedant]

// real Ukrainian language as such,//
um no - my brudda went into a Ukrainian community centre to practise his Russian and got chucked out ( 1970s)

Poles wd not welcome being called Russian - altho they all spoke Russian ( seventies) as a result of being liberated by trotsky in 1920. Marie Curie won a school prize ( when she was at skool for chrissakes, nobel later) and the Russian inspector gave her a book of poems - - in Polish ( Irene Curie's Biog - o god that is a pair where mother and daughter fought like cat and dog)

o hahahaha - I organised a conference. Brill it was. I asked one grateful attender what she remembered about it and she said ( no honestly) - "you greeting the Ukranian in Russian!"

[ichkeria]

… apologies to Timor-Leste ;-)

[Peter Pedant]

Stalin having his borsch and eating it
The average ABer ( not itch who knows Everything!) must know that Stalin insisted that Ukraine, ByeloRussia, er and the other were all independent countries because.....
it gave extra seats in the UN

[Peter Pedant]

I prefer shy omissions -
little san marino squealing - - meep meep meep
(OK it was never in doubt)

[ichkeria]

Ukraine SSR was a founder member of the UN indeed.
But not Ireland, as Stalin vetoed their membership on the grounds they stayed neutral in WWII (and despite the fact they’d never signed a pact with Hitler!)

[Peter Pedant]

chrisst ABers - itch really does know everything

[ichkeria]

I don’t know what Putin is going to do…. ;-)

Tho I’m fairly sure it doesn’t invoke tanks in Kyiv …

[Khandro]

ichi: /Ukraine wasn’t an independent country in 1988 (!)
Nor were Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Rep, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, N Macedonia or South Sudan.///

True, Ukraine wasn't an independent country in 1988, nor had it ever been, it was region.

As to the others you name, without going tediously into every case (which you are welcome to do) many of them were in fact countries in their own historic right, with their own languages & cultures.

[ichkeria]

(Sigh)

I though you read history khandro ;-)

[ichkeria]

It depends what you mean by “country” which is a pretty recent concept
I mean, just as an example: I mentioned Ireland earlier.
Ireland only became a “country” in 1947.

So what, really …