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Originally Posted by AntEater
Ukraine is internally too unstable, especially now that the orange coalition is basically dead.
Yushenko is politically weak, he most likely will not be reelected.
Julia Timoshenko seems to have taken a mildly pro-moscow stand in the whole affair sofar, leading to accusations of her being "bribed by moscow".
Problem is, the Estonians and Latvians and so on can rightly claim that their countries are theirs and the "Russians" (actually a mix of russians, ukrainians and pretty much everybody else) are foreigners.
Crimea, on the other hand, has been russian since Catherine the Great, and before that it was ruled by muslim Khans.
People there regard themselves as russian.
Problem is, while Estonians, Georgians and so on are distinct, non-slavic nationalities, the difference between russians and ukrainians is more gradual.
Simply put, Ukraine is a bit like a blurring zone Poland gradually fades into Russia.
"Real" Ukrainians live in Lviv or Tarnopol and are closer to Poles than to Russians in anything but religion (orthodox vs catholic). Ukrainians in Charkov, on the other hand, are hardly different from Russians.
So who is what in the Ukraine is more often a matter of self-definition than of heritage.
Not to mention Ukraine has a number of minorities which are neither, like lots of Jews, surprisingly many Greeks (both mainly in and around Odessa) and a lot of muslim/tartar peoples.
But why am I wasting words here?
It is absolutely sure that five minutes after I post, a certain Finn will make things quite simple again....
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Here i am.
Thing i agree on, Crimea is something that i would recomend Ukraine in selling back to Russia, for exchange of energy for exsample.
Percentage of native Ukrainian speakers by subdivision.
As we can see there are other Oblasts that could be argued have a case, but Europe is full of minorities so its up to Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, to decide what to do. Russia has it own minorities also. I think Russias possible invasion plan would end on the Dnepr, a natural border. Havent visited Ukraine but i would like to, lots of history and beautiful nature there. I have observed that a real sense of nationhood has developed to many people, especially the young and educated, and we shouldnt undermine that and belittle their desire to be a nation of their own. A potentially a big and wealthy country at that.
I personally hope Ukraine makes the long, hard and dangerous road to EU, in the long term that would have an positive impact on Russia, as i see Ukraine as a bridge between central Europe and Russia.