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> Russia made similar demands on Finland and Austria during the Cold War, and those 2 countries complied Not only those two. Russia also made such demands to southern neighbours of Finland: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. When they complied, Russians invaded each country, murdered their leaders, sent tens of thousands of top public officials, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other people with leadership skills along with their entire families to die in concentration camps in Siberian wilderness, and established repressive Russification policies to wipe out local population and their culture over time. Those policies lasted until the USSR fell in 1991. Of them, Latvia was hit the hardest. By the time the USSR fell, Latvians were about to become a minority in their own country. And to say that Finland "complied" is a bit generous. Finland and Russia fought two wars during WWII, which resulted in Russians failing to conquer Finland. Russia had even established a puppet government for Finland like they had one prepared for Ukraine with Medvedchuk in 2022, but disbanded it after the failure to capture Finland. Winter War was such a spectacular disaster for Russians that to this day, Finns hold a mythical reputation in Russian collective consciousness. As to constituents, the constant stream of information about crimes against local population and systematic destruction of Ukrainian culture in the parts of Ukraine occupied since 2014 leaves little doubt what kind of peace Russia is offering. |
When do you believe the Baltics states were given such a choice by Russia? I thought that every time they ended up under Russian control they were either invaded without warning or ended up in Russia as a result of Russia's winning wars against Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (where before the war they were the property of Russia's opponent).