(03-16-2022, 08:53 AM)mikesez Wrote: Russia and Ukraine both want perpetual access to Ukraine's reserves of coal (mostly in Donbass, under Russian control) and iron (mostly due north of Crimea, currently under Ukrainian control).
This is similar to the backstory of both world wars.  Alsace Lorraine had coal and the Saarland had iron.  These territories changed hands between Germany and France multiple times until Germany and France signed a treaty in 1951 to economically share them.  They had to agree to keeping their borders open to trade in those goods and agree to keep their currency exchange rates relatively stable.  These are the things Ukraine and Russia should be doing, and Ukraine joining the EU does the opposite.  But Ukraine's stance is understandable.  Russia is a corrupt dictatorship, while the EU upholds democratic rule and fair play.  Russia needs to reform itself to be the kind of trade partner that would be attractive to Ukraine.

That is somewhat true but you are missing the Ukraine corruption.

Crimea is basically left alone now. While Russia has in the past controlled everything, you should really look into how Russia is now. The local oligarchs have much more control now. It's not as centralized as it once was and people even have spoken out against Putin and the war. They are still alive and not rotting in a cell in snow.

As much as you don't want to admit it, parts of Ukraine are worse than Russia with the corruption, treatment of people that are different, etc. Neither of the countries are free democratic countries, no matter what they say about elections. Ethnic violence or nationalism, disappearances and exiling of opposition, closing of companies and media for voicing a non-approved message, and more have all happened in Ukraine in the last few years.

That doesn't even begin to touch on the level of corruption that exists there. Just start looking into the human trafficking that exists there and all the orphans, baby mills for Chinese, and babies that disappear and are claimed to be dead.

The elites are pushing this Ukraine is a great democratic country that needs protection from the big bad Russia because the elites have been involved in all the corruption. Come clean and show both the countries are corrupt and bad. Then we can talk about a solution that keeps the people from suffering at the hands of the corruption of both leaders.

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