# Is Russia determined to be an empire again? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370 "2008-08-09T02:18:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/321 "2008-08-15T14:11:38Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] Wholesale population transfer to dilute ethnicity as a potential basis for opposing russian communist control of the USSR has always been soviet policy. It has left a ‘legacy’ of Russian ethnic cuckoo’s all over the map including the baltic republics. [/QUOTE] [This Human Rights Watch report](http://hrw.org/reports/1996/Russia.htm) has incidental details of the ethnic cleansing that went on in the early 90’s > [@](#): > > As a result of a war in the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast (A.O.), which is part of Georgia, thousands of South Ossetian refugees were forced out of their homes in both the South Ossetian A.O. and in Georgia proper and fled to North Ossetia. There some of them played a significant role in both the tension that led to the fighting, in the fighting itself, and in the destruction that followed. These ethnic Ossetian refugees-many of whom settled in the Prigorodnyi region-created new economic and demographic problems for an already creaking social infrastructure in the North Ossetian ASSR and competed with Ingush for jobs.55 As of mid-1994, 43,168 Ossetian refugees lived in North Ossetia, most from Georgia. Of these, 16,000 lived in Prigorodnyi. South Ossetian militias played a significant role in the wanton destruction of Ingush homes after open hostilities ended on November 5, 1992. > > Between 1989 and 1992, fighting flared in the South Ossetian A.O. and in Georgia between ethnic Ossetian paramilitary troops and Georgian Interior Ministry (MVD) units and paramilitaries.57 South Ossetia had demanded to secede, and Georgia cracked down on the renegade area by sending in troops. Approximately 100,000 ethnic Ossetians fled Georgia and South Ossetia, and another 23,000 Georgians headed in the other direction. One hundred villages were reportedly destroyed in South Ossetia. Also the North Ossetia-Georgian border went largely uncontrolled, providing an almost unhindered access point for weapons, fighters, and ammunition. in both directions. [The 1991-92 War wikiperdia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991%E2%80%931992_South_Ossetia_War) > [@](#): > > On the night of 5 January 1991, Georgian forces entered Tskhinvali. The Ossetian militants responded by firing at Georgian schools and houses in the city, while Georgians attacked Ossetian villages. The fighting in Tskhinvali first resulted in a divided town: An Ossetian-controlled western part and a Georgian-controlled eastern part. Towards the end of January, the Georgians withdrew to the hills around the city according to the Russian-mediated ceasefire. > > On 29 January 1991, the Speaker of the South Ossetian Supreme Soviet, Torez Kulumbegov was invited to the negotiations in Tbilisi, but was immediately arrested and charged with inciting ethnic hatred. His trial had been postponed several times before he was released in December 1991. > > The most intense period of war was in March and April 1991, after a period of relative calm in July and August, violence resumed in mid-September. Georgia imposed economic blockade on the rebel region: It disconnected electricity supplies to Tskhinvali and blocked the road by which the city received food and other products. The Ossetians blockaded Georgian villages and several atrocities occurred on both sides. All this talk of who nominally controlled what, when is irrelevant. These people are never going to live peaceably together. You might as well expect the Israeli’s and Palestinians to live together in a United Palestine or Greater Israel just because the land was administratively joined in the Ottoman Empire or Kosovo to go back to being part of Serbia. Whoever has the upper hand is going to put on the chain mail glove and start pounding on their enemies. I’m sorry people don’t like the term but until you come up with a better one these people act like savages towards each other. They give a shit about stuff the rest of Western Europe grew out of decades ago. There is no democratic politics in the way we understand it - with rules of the game and respect for the rights of others. It’s winner takes all and all Georgia wants is to embroil NATO in its primitive ethnic feuds. Which is how the last two World Wars happened. Big Powers drawn into or using ethnic conflicts as an excuse. If and when places like Georgia, Serbia, the Ukraine etc can conduct themselves in a civilised fashion with regard to ethnic minorities or somehow come to a mature democratic solution that doesn’t mean ‘we win and you’ve got this coming’ then they have no part of NATO. NATO is not there to hold their coats while they settle ethnic scores. NATO is not there to enable former soviet republics to trigger ww3 whenever they feel like kicking the shit out of a minority. If Georgia wants to be part of NATO then they can drop their specious claims to other ethnicities and preferably establish some sort of track record. Put up a sign at their border maybe: 300 days without ethnic cleansing. If they don’t want to be called savages they can stop behaving like them. Particularly when there is a bear-like savage just itching to be provoked. The proper response of Georgia now is to quietly accept they have lost big time, that all the provinces that they have never controlled and don’t want to be with them are gone. What happens in them now are none of their or the West’s business. The proper response of the west should be a plague on both your houses and whatever diplomacy it takes to keep an independent, peaceful, unprovocative Georgia for the oil pipeline. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/322 "2008-08-15T14:13:53Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] Many, but not all, particularly if they are married to members of the local titular ethnic group and/or speak the local language. Sorry, I fell asleep last night before managing to dig up some of my census statistical links, but in many cases the non-indigenous Slavs fled back to Russia in cases like those of the Baltics or Central Asia, in which most never learned the local language or intermarried or otherwise assimilated into local culture (you will just about never find an ethnic Russian who speaks Uzbek or has converted to Islam, for example). [/QUOTE] I’m not clear. Would you say that those ethnic Russians remaining are predominantly assimilating? Learning the language and, more gradually, the culture of their “new” homeland? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/323 "2008-08-15T14:20:18Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] I’m not clear. Would you say that those ethnic Russians remaining are predominantly assimilating? Learning the language and, more gradually, the culture of their “new” homeland? [/QUOTE] Which ethnic Russians, and where? I suppose the answer is “it depends.” Most of the ethnic Russians have left Georgia proper, but they were never as close to being a majority there as they were in, say, Latvia, or even northern Kazakhstan. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/324 "2008-08-15T14:25:56Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] Which ethnic Russians, and where? I suppose the answer is “it depends.” Most of the ethnic Russians have left Georgia proper, but they were never as close to being a majority there as they were in, say, Latvia, or even northern Kazakhstan. [/QUOTE] I meant in the places where they had more of a presence, like the Baltics or Kazakhstan. I assumed that the Russians in a place like Georgia were pretty hopeless anyway (except in a Russian enclave like S. Ossetia, where clearly they’ve been ramping up again). ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/325 "2008-08-15T14:28:07Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] I’m not clear. Would you say that those ethnic Russians remaining are predominantly assimilating? Learning the language and, more gradually, the culture of their “new” homeland? [/QUOTE] [You might want to read this on Russians in the Baltic states](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/baltic-states-braced-for-backlashby-russian-minorities-765034.html) > [@](#): > > It is a problem that affects all three Baltic republics to varying extents. For many indigenous Balts, Russian-speakers are an unwelcome leftover of a brutal 50-year occupation, during which their languages and cultures were suppressed and tens of thousands of their compatriots killed or deported to the gulags. The friction with Russia over oil and gas, along with a recent row over the passage of Russian submarines through Estonian waters, has done little to ease the situation. > > But among some sections of the Russian-speaking population, an angry backlash is gathering force. Next month, four men are due to go on trial in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, for their part in riots which were sparked last April by government plans to move a Soviet war memorial. The men are all members of a pro-Russian group called Night Watch. Two of them have been released from custody pending trial after their defence lawyers argued that, as holders of the “grey” passports issued to resident aliens, they would be unable to flee the country. > > When Estonia became independent in 1991, only those whose families had been living in the country before the Soviet occupation were granted citizenship. Those who moved there during the occupation were required to demonstrate knowledge of Estonia’s history and language to qualify. Non-citizens cannot vote, obtain an EU passport or travel abroad, leaving them effectively stateless a situation which has drawn sharp criticism from the United Nations, the Council of Europe and Amnesty International. > > Despite the fact that about 30 per cent of the population are Russian speakers and the language can be heard in shops and on the streets, it is all but invisible. There are no Russian signs or advertisements to be seen as the result of the country’s draconian Law on Language. > > Unemployment is twice as high among Russian speakers as among Estonians, and research by the University of Tartu has found that, for those in work, the pay gap has widened since 1989, to peak at 25 per cent in 2003. > > Russian-speakers account for 58 per cent of Estonia’s prison population and approximately 80 per cent of HIV-positive cases. They have a higher incidence of respiratory diseases, alcoholism and drug addiction and, according to a paper published in the British Medical Journal in 2004, significantly higher rates of suicide than native Estonians or Russians in Russia. > > Amnesty International warns that the Russian-speakers in Estonia are “impeded from the full enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights”. Last year, it condemned the country’s Language Inspectorate, which carries out spot-checks on workers to see if they can speak Estonian if they fail, they face losing their jobs as “repressive and punitive in nature”. Treating other ethnic minorities as second class citizens is never right. Germany used it as an excuse to start WW2. Russia is clearly itching to ‘protect’ Russians wherever they are. But still, in the Baltics and the other former soviet states minorities are being openly persecuted. Lithuania seems an exception. I’m sure this will all resolve in time but these ethnic conflicts were frozen by Soviet repression and intensified with the fact that many minorities enthusiastically sided with the Nazi’s - storing up further hatred like with Croats and Serbs. But for now they are unresolved and as supposedly western democratic Georgia showed with its repeated history of severe violence towards its minorities, nowhere near solution. It is simply no use the West trying to fit such complex situations into simplistic Black Hat, White Hat narratives. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/326 "2008-08-15T14:41:28Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] [You might want to read this on Russians in the Baltic states](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/baltic-states-braced-for-backlashby-russian-minorities-765034.html) \ It is simply no use the West trying to fit such complex situations into simplistic Black Hat, White Hat narratives. [/QUOTE] Good heavens! Were you a Babylon 5 watcher? It’s always a shock to encounter a Night Watch! I can understand the Russian viewpoint, but at the same time, for someone who has spent their entire life in Estonia to not speak Estonian and then gripe about losing a job working with the public seems a bit naive. You’re right - no one should be second class citizens, but the fact is, Russians were artificially supported in these Baltic states for decades, permitted to avoid learning local languages and customs, and to effectively lord it over the local people. They’re getting a small taste of their own medicine, and in general, they usually have the choice of leaving to return to Russia if they find it unbearable. That’s more than most Estonians had in the Soviet era. What Estonia is doing doesn’t differ all _that_ much from what Montreal has done to preserve French as the primary language there. Are they savages in Montreal? Oh wait, they’re French. Don’t answer that! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/327 "2008-08-15T14:48:41Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] War is war. You don’t get to make convenient self-serving distinctions. NATO bombed because the West is casualty-averse. [/QUOTE] And robbery with violence is robbery with violence. But there is still a clear distinction between a mugger who beats the victim over the head until he gets their wallet and then quits, and a mugger who gets the wallet and then spends the next fifteen minutes kicking the victim into a pulp. In the case of Kosovo the Serbs knew from before it started exactly what they needed to do in order to end the NATO attack - get our of Kosovo. It’s still not clear to me exactly what the Russian objectives were when they went on the offensive, or if there were any demands the Georgians could have acceded to which would have halted the offensive. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/328 "2008-08-15T14:56:28Z")
[QUOTE=slaphead] And robbery with violence is robbery with violence. But there is still a clear distinction between a mugger who beats the victim over the head until he gets their wallet and then quits, and a mugger who gets the wallet and then spends the next fifteen minutes kicking the victim into a pulp. In the case of Kosovo the Serbs knew from before it started exactly what they needed to do in order to end the NATO attack - get our of Kosovo. It’s still not clear to me exactly what the Russian objectives were when they went on the offensive, or if there were any demands the Georgians could have acceded to which would have halted the offensive. [/QUOTE] Kosovo was part of Serbia, they were not invading it - it was part of their country. More so that South Ossetia was part of Georgia because at least Serbian writ had actually run in Kosovo. Unlike in SO. If it is okay for a superpower to snip off one part of one country to protect a minority that wants out then the same is true elsewhere. Georgia could do what all countries losing a war badly can do - they can surrender. They lost. Sucks to be them but they should have thought about that before attacking in the first place. Anything short of being re-incorporated into Russia is getting off lightly. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/329 "2008-08-15T14:56:37Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] I can understand the Russian viewpoint, but at the same time, for someone who has spent their entire life in Estonia to not speak Estonian and then gripe about losing a job working with the public seems a bit naive. You’re right - no one should be second class citizens, but the fact is, Russians were artificially supported in these Baltic states for decades, permitted to avoid learning local languages and customs, and to effectively lord it over the local people. They’re getting a small taste of their own medicine, and in general, they usually have the choice of leaving to return to Russia if they find it unbearable. That’s more than most Estonians had in the Soviet era. [/QUOTE] Seconded. Is it really so horrible to ask people to speak a bit of the language amd know a bit about the country of which they are citizens (and in the case of ethnic Russians, in which most have lived for most, if not all of their entire lives)? Let me tell you, though - I was in Estonia for a few days in 1989, and things between Russian-speakers and Estonian-speakers were…tense. In fact, though participants in my academic program had to sign a pledge that we would only speak Russian except in case of emergency, that pledge was suspended for the excursion to Estonia. And good thing, too - the one time anyone in Estonia was nasty to me was when I accidentally bumped someone on the street and said “excuse me” in Russian. One classmate tried to buy some candy in Russian, and was asked to show proof that he lived in Tallinn (which the Estonain-speakers were not; many food items were in shortage in Russia then, and so many Russians would cross over to go shopping in the Baltics, where the food situation was better than in northern Russia). And one of our (RUssian) professors, who was born and raised in Tallinn, offered to go make dinner reservations for us in a famous old restaurant in the Old City in Tallinn, and was told “no tables are available,” though the restaurant was completely empty. So one of the other American students went back with a Berliltz Russian phrasebook, pretended to stutter and speak Russian much worse than he actually did, and make reservations; our group got the best table in the house, and lots of curiosity and chatting and personal attention from the waitstaff. I can’t tell you about Estonia specifically ATM - I have to get back to work - but I’ve had to research a Latvian residency issue for work recently. Soviets residing legally in Latvia at the time of independence are eligible to naturalize in most cases (though they do have to pass a language and a civics exam, both of which are fairly basic). If they don’t naturalize, that doesn’t mean they have no rights or ability to travel, however; they can get a non-citizen passport and are allowed to live and work in Latvia and travel freely otuside of Latvia (and return to Latvia). [Here’s more on Latvian non-citizen status.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizens_(Latvia)) Frankly, I don’t consider having to learn the local language and history to be persecution. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/330 "2008-08-15T15:01:32Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] Frankly, I don’t consider having to learn the local language and history to be persecution. [/QUOTE] So you support disenfranchising Hispanic-only speaking Americans? You support them having their jobs taken away? You support ‘English Only’ rules? You’re generally okay with persecuting ethnic minorities in the way Russians are in Estonia. And no - you don’t get to redefine what is going on with that sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/331 "2008-08-15T15:23:30Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] So you support disenfranchising Hispanic-only speaking Americans? You support them having their jobs taken away? You support ‘English Only’ rules? You’re generally okay with persecuting ethnic minorities in the way Russians are in Estonia. And no - you don’t get to redefine what is going on with that sentence. [/QUOTE] If the Hispanics had come in to the US over the past 100 years and done to us what the Russians did to the Baltic states, refusing to learn English and maintaining rigid superiority over people who’d been here for years, I’d feel pretty comfortable in making some fairly basic minimal language and history requirements for Hispanics to become citizens here now, especially assuming they had a single, large, much-better-off-economically country they could go to if they wanted. The thing of it is, **tagos** , yes she does get to parse it. The situation is _not_ exactly comparable. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/332 "2008-08-15T15:27:04Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] If the Hispanics had come in to the US over the past 100 years and done to us what the Russians did to the Baltic states, refusing to learn English and maintaining rigid superiority over people who’d been here for years, I’d feel pretty comfortable in making some fairly basic minimal language and history requirements for Hispanics to become citizens here now, especially assuming they had a single, large, much-better-off-economically country they could go to if they wanted. The thing of it is, **tagos** , yes she does get to parse it. The situation is _not_ exactly comparable. [/QUOTE] Then you are playing into Russian hands by leaving an excuse for intervention. The Baltic states have been independent for 15 years. Add on 18 years for childhood and therefore no one under the age of 30 or so had any part in whatever ‘lording’ you think went on yet it appears you are both okay with persecuting them too. I think it stinks any way you look at it. Morally and pragmatically. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/333 "2008-08-15T15:32:06Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] So you support disenfranchising Hispanic-only speaking Americans? You support them having their jobs taken away? You support ‘English Only’ rules? You’re generally okay with persecuting ethnic minorities in the way Russians are in Estonia. And no - you don’t get to redefine what is going on with that sentence. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure what your point is. Everyone has to show English proficiency and pass a history test in order to become a US citizen now. No one is talking about “English only”-- that’s a strawman. And there is no such thing as a “Hispanic-only speaking American.” All that **Eva** said was that she is not too sympathetic to Russian speakers who have lived in Estonia all their lives and never bothered to learn the local language. I agree. I’d say the exact same thing about Americans who spend years living abroad and don’t make an effort to learn the language of their adoptive country. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/334 "2008-08-15T15:44:13Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] So you support disenfranchising Hispanic-only speaking Americans? You support them having their jobs taken away? You support ‘English Only’ rules? You’re generally okay with persecuting ethnic minorities in the way Russians are in Estonia. [/quote] Nobody is talking about the analogue of English-only rules. We are talking about requiring people in jobs that require public contact to speak the local language. Nobody is keeping Russians from learning the local language. Frankly, it boggles me that people manage to live somewhere for decades without learning the local language - and that goes for Spanish-speakers in teh U.S. What, you believe people who don’t speak the language of the majority of the people they are serving should have the right to hold jobs that normally require speaking ability? > [@](#): > > And no - you don’t get to redefine what is going on with that sentence. I can, and will, clarify my opinions in any way I believe they should be clarified - you don’t get to define how I express my opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/335 "2008-08-15T15:45:17Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] Then you are playing into Russian hands by leaving an excuse for intervention. [/QUOTE] The Russians don’t need an “excuse” for intervention. I’d have thought that the events of the last week made that clear, and if not, their dealings with the rest of Europe in the last two years ought to have. What happened in Georgia has nothing to do with protecting ethnic Russians and everything to do with intimidating former Soviet vassal states, eager to free themselves from the yoke of their old oppressors. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/336 "2008-08-15T15:53:25Z")
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party] The Russians don’t need an “excuse” for intervention. I’d have thought that the events of the last week made that clear, and if not, their dealings with the rest of Europe in the last two years ought to have. What happened in Georgia has nothing to do with protecting ethnic Russians and everything to do with intimidating former Soviet vassal states, eager to free themselves from the yoke of their old oppressors. [/QUOTE] And lets not forget about controlling the flow of petroleum and natural gas to Europe. I think it’s time we had Hans Blix send the Russians a very nasty letter. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/337 "2008-08-15T17:02:24Z")
Update: just spoke briefly to one of my best friends, who served as an OSCE election monitor during the Georgian Presidential election a few months ago. (Too briefly - he is about to board an international flight, but I hope to have a good long debriefing when he gets back to the U.S. in a couple of weeks.) His take on the current situation: Russia will not occupy Georgia proper for any extended period of time, but will take South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He believes the Russian military is in the process of “neutering” the Georgian military (his words): blowing stuff up, sinking ships, taking equipment back to Russia, etc. Let me tell you one thing about Caucasian males - they don’t take kindly to being neutered. And one thing about Caucasian politics - this ain’t gonna end here. ETA: this is all quite surreal to type as fighter planes are flying outside my office window; the Air and Water show is this weekend, and the U.S. military spends the couple of days before doing practice runs. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/338 "2008-08-15T17:15:14Z")
[QUOTE=Eva Luna] Update: just spoke briefly to one of my best friends, who served as an OSCE election monitor during the Georgian Presidential election a few months ago. (Too briefly - he is about to board an international flight, but I hope to have a good long debriefing when he gets back to the U.S. in a couple of weeks.) His take on the current situation: Russia will not occupy Georgia proper for any extended period of time, but will take South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He believes the Russian military is in the process of “neutering” the Georgian military (his words): blowing stuff up, sinking ships, taking equipment back to Russia, etc. [/QUOTE] **Eva** , two things. Did your friend in the past say anything about the quality of the Georgian elections in the first place? Were they Kosher? And are the Russians still making noise about ‘regime change’? ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/339 "2008-08-15T17:19:06Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] **Eva** , two things. Did your friend in the past say anything about the quality of the Georgian elections in the first place? Were they Kosher? [/quote] His feeling was that they were as kosher as any election in that part of the world is likely to be. > [@](#): > > And are the Russians still making noise about ‘regime change’? Haven’t gotten to poke around much today - darn work! - but my favorite quote so far on this conflict was from NPR last Sunday (I think it was Sergei Lavrov): “sometimes leaders become obstacles.” ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-russia-determined-to-be-an-empire-again/459370/340 "2008-08-15T17:26:58Z")
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