Any concession offered to Russia results in more territorial demands.
Territorial power grasp and forceful spread of influence of Mongolian Empire reached in 12-15 centuries all the way to Russia. Three centuries of Mongolian rule left its mark on the Russian mentality as we can clearly see today. During the rule of the Czars, Russia usurped 17 smaller neighbor states. Its independence lost five bigger states in Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan and Kirgizstan. In the Kavkaz area, three former independent states – Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia were usurped. In the west Baltic See area, three other states lost their freedom – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Same fate met states in the Eastern Europe – Byelorussia and Ukraine. On the North, Easter Karelia was usurped at first as a Soviet Republic, and later incorporated as a firm part of the USSR.
Here is a difference – 250-years of British rule and colonization of India, when the Great Britain left 1947, left behind country with democratic rule that was so benevolent in its nature that allowed, even over the almost pathetic pleas of Mahatma Gandhi, the obstinate and stubborn President of the Muslim League Muhammad Ali Jinnah to separate the western part of British India and create two new states, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The marked difference between Russian’s effort of forceful territorial spread of their imperium, and the new Indian democracy, clearly and emphatically points out that any concession to Russia, no matter how big or small, always results in more and more territorial demands. Today, we are witnessing the usurpation of Georgian’s South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Crimean peninsula, and military paralysis of about 200-year of Chechnya’s fight for independence.
Karel Mrzílek, 2.11.2015
Read more...