Putin's interview with Newspaper Journalists from G8 Member Countries

[Kuciwalker]

Wait, proximity to Russia is what gives you the right to preempt their foreign policy?

[The Vagabond]

LOTM, if you still keep insisting that Ukraine was a Russian colony, pretty much the same as British and French colonies, I don't know what else I could say.

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Wait, proximity to Russia is what gives you the right to preempt their foreign policy?

Within certain extremes, yes. But I didn't say "the right". It was just imperative to try to do something.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Sorry for being unclear.

What I meant was that when Muscovy gained control of Kiev, they did not move their capital to Kiev. Nor did they through the centuries Kiev was under Tsarist rule. Nor did the USSR. The attachment to the historic capital seems rather recent.

I would contrast it to the cases of Greece, Italy, and Israel, where placing the location of the capital was an important issue as soon as independence/unification was achieved.

BTW - why didnt unified Poland put their capital in Krakow, rather than Warsaw?

Krakow was not the first capital of Poland, If we wanted to go ad fontes, we'd have to move it to Gniezno, altough there are some that think that Poznan was the first capital, before Gniezno (because the first bishoptic was established there, there are explenations that perhaps Gniezno, as the capital, was a centre of pagan cult or something). Krakow only became capital after reconstruction of Poland by Kazimierz the Restorer, when Gniezno was utterly destroyed by Czechs. Also, Warsaw was the capital of Poland before the partages. It is a complicated question; Warsaw was chosed as a place for meetings of the parliament and the elections of kings (because it was close to Lithuania). It is claimed that it was Sigismund III Vasa that moved the capital to Warsaw at the end of XVI century, but it not quite true: Warsaw became the residence of king, and de facto capital, but the official capital remained in Cracow until the end of PLC. The only non-Russian king crowned in Warsaw was the last, S.A. Poniatowski.
It is assmumed that among other reasons, including a fire of Wawel and pestilence or something, Sigismund has chosen Warsaw because Masovia was at the time the only part of Kingdom of Poland that was almost clearly catholic.
After ww2 there were plans of moving the capital to Lodz, due to Warsaw's destruction.

Anyway, I don't think it's a good arguement. You don't have to restore a former capital to have sentiment to it. You can not imagine Poland without Major or Minor Poland, yet the capital is elsewhere.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Poland lost all this so long time ago that this is not even true anymore.

Time will pass also in Moscow-Kiev relations...

As for the language, it's not for a Pole to raise such a question. Wasn't it you (together with the Germans) who cooked up an artificial language for the Ukranians in order to alienate them from Russia?

That's a joke, right? official ukrainian is based on eastern, Dniepr region dialects. Western ones are, or were, much more similar to polish.

This was so long time ago. I am speaking about the recent history and fresh wounds.

Well, The Great Famine is a relatively fresh wound.

Besides, what is in reality "unvoluntary" and voluntary is a big philosophical issue, which I don't want to enter here.

Bah, You have to if You want to prove that Ukraine, Georgia etc are not acting according to their own will.

No, we can't. They won't let us in.

I believe they would, if You only insisted on that (and stopped bullying others and supporting dictators)

Very well. It grabs the countries that want to join voluntarily.

What should they tell them: "sorry, we recognise You're independant, and we really like You, but Moscow's wishes towards your destiny are more important to us than yours. FO"

Of course. One must never surrender.

So You can't afford to play the game, and therefore, You want to force others not to play it by crying and hitting the table?

And up to recently we had a common state with these nations, of which they were an organic part.

Not quite voluntarily, they weren't even partners, there were more states in that union, and at least officially, the thought of panruthenism was allien to international communism.