Sovereign nation under Soviet influence is how we, in the West, understand Soviet bloc. Completely standalone except for the Brezhnev Soviet invasion after the Prague Spring, when Dubcek tried to liberalise and remove some of the Soviet yoke.
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland were all Soviet Bloc - from a Western Europe understanding - not part of the USSR, but certainly subject to their regimen and control. Like being required to sell goods at below market to USSR.
Oh, it certainly wasn't part of the Soviet Union, if that's what you are referring to, but wasn't it part of some political configuration that made it possible for the Soviet Union to treat it as a satellite state and as a battleground of communist ideology against western democracy? Wikipedia, in the article on Soviet-Czechoslovakian relations[0], states that: "After February 1948 Czechoslovakia was firmly set into the Soviet sphere of influence."
Again, I am not arguing from any ethical perspective; I am not saying that the USSR had the right to do what it did; I am merely saying that a bit disingenuous to suggest that Western European countries, including modern-day Czech Republic or Poland, are under any risk of Russian invasion. Ukraine might be; but even that doesn't seem all that likely.
> I am merely saying that a bit disingenuous to suggest that...countries...are under any risk of Russian invasion. Ukraine might be; but even that doesn't seem all that likely.
The risk of Russia invading the Ukraine is 100%, because it already happened. The Russians even annexed part of it, to worldwide condemnation.
> The risk of Russia invading the Ukraine is 100%, because it already happened. The Russians even annexed part of it, to worldwide condemnation.
Oh, I meant in the future. The risk of lightning striking the same house, as it were. Admitting a historically conflicted piece of territory whose population at the time is reported to have been overwhelmingly pro-russian and to have felt slighted by the anti-russian revolutionary government, and which even went through the perfunctory motions of a referendum to add some semblance of legitimacy to the process, is a fairly confusing case, for which, of course, Russia has its own exculpatory narrative. I was thinking of something more clear-cut. A declaration of war, an open military confrontation, that sort of thing.
Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland were all Soviet Bloc - from a Western Europe understanding - not part of the USSR, but certainly subject to their regimen and control. Like being required to sell goods at below market to USSR.