Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 10, 2024, 05:03 PMPutin explained that the area under dispute is Russian.  He is correct, but Americans do not know history or the demographics of the region defined as Ukraine is an area populated by a diversity of peoples.  The most dangerous thing for America is that Putin presented himself as the refined gentleman he is.  That truth is not supposed to be known in America.

This type of mismatch between nation state borders and the ethnic makeup of the population is very common all over Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia.  It's the result of millenia of warfare and treaties redrawing border and creating new states out of fracturing empires.  Quite a bit of it happened throughout the colonial era and as a result of the 2 world wars.  People don't know about this because they don't know history, just like they don't know math or science. They also don't read.  None of this is secret information, all you need to do is go to the library and read.

The nation-state is a form of political organiztion that grew out of the development of agriculture.  As primates, our closest relatives are Bonobos, 98% genetically identical to homo sap.  Like Bonobos, evolutionary biology makes us tribal social animals.  As long as the nation state is the dominant political organization, we'll always have mismatches like Donbass being integrated with Ukraine.  They are simply tribal Russians who lived on the wrong side of a border drawn long after the tribe occupied that piece of property.  In a way, it's a consequence of the property ownership concept.  I'll let you guys stew on that.  ;)

RE