[briandear]

Probably because they have one of the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet? Who wouldn’t be concerned? The only reason Russia doesn’t own most of Europe right now is because of that American “obsession.” You think that Russia would have stopped at the Crimea if it weren’t for the heavy US presence in Poland?

[evook]

Yes, you can't compare Crimea with western Europe. Crimea was mostly Russian to begin with.

[JumpCrisscross]

Poland, by that argument, as well as swaths of Germany, were arguably once "mostly Russia to begin with". Almost every civilisation can look back into its history and find convenient boundaries.

[insertnickname]

The argument is that Crimea is mostly Russian _today_, not just 50, 100, or more years ago.

>According to the (2001 census), the ethnic makeup of Crimea's population consists of the following self-reported groups: Russians:1.18 million (58.3%), Ukrainians: 492,200 (24.3%), Crimean Tatars: 243,400 (12.0%) [...]

>According to the 2001 census, 77% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their native language, 11.4% – Crimean Tatar, and 10.1% – Ukrainian.

>Ukrainian was until 2014 the single official state language countrywide, but in Crimea government business was carried out mainly in Russian.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea

[azinman2]

So that makes it ok to take over parts of a country? If so, the Europe should take over parts of the US, Taibet should give up on independence, parts of Jordan should become Palestinian, etc.

Russia on purpose flooded the area with Russians when they last had it, much like China is doing now with Tibet.

You can’t argue this justifies war from another country. If the people vote for (or otherwise self-select) independence and to join another nation that’s very different than a war where the soldiers hide their identity in order to take a region forcefully.

[insertnickname]

I never said that. I just provided facts to back up evook's claim that "you can't compare Crimea with western Europe. Crimea was mostly Russian to begin with". Even if you look at the 1897 census, it was 33 % Russian.

[pulse7]

How was Kosovo different from Crimea?