[thriftwy]

Why then do you preach to me instead of just waiting for your victory to realize?

Karelians has never made dominant part of the population of what is now republic of Karelia. The problem here is that the name Karelia comes first and Karelians are an ethnicity of people who also happen to live in Karelia alongside larger nations. Which, ironically, included a lot of Finns and even Swedes before the Revolution.

Currently, ethnic Karelians make up 6% of the population of the republic. So the fact they've got a republic with some support for local culture shows the deep left-leaning woke organization of Russian Federation. But that's the most what they can ever have with 6%.

Meanwhile, Crimea was what, 80% Russian? Donbass was between 60% and 95% Russian speaking depending on the metrics?

In short, you could keep these lands

[mopsi]

> Karelians has never made dominant part of the population of what is now republic of Karelia.

Nor did Russians form the majority in Donetsk or Luhansk or Mariupol before the war, yet you have no issue making territorial claims. This is just another invented excuse. Why was Kherson oblast officially annexed by Russia when barely 14% of Kherson's population identifies as Russian? Who invited you?

[thriftwy]

Kherson oblast, unfortunately, is spoils of war and a bargaining chip.

The part that Russia now holds is essentially an empty steppe with, IDK, perhaps ~150k population in total and most of its territory evacuated.

[mopsi]

> Kherson oblast, unfortunately, is spoils of war and a bargaining chip.

And thus crumbles another excuse.

> The part that Russia now holds is essentially an empty steppe with, IDK, perhaps ~150k population in total and most of its territory evacuated.

A great example of the kind of misery Russia brings to the world. Shit country with trash people.

[thriftwy]

Why is it an excuse? USSR occupied Berlin in 1945 not because it wanted to annex it, but because that was obviously conductive to the victory.

Russia wants a land bridge towards its 2 million strong Crimea and that's why Genichensk is now a seat of government of Kherson oblast of Russian federation.

You should hear one day what Russians think about countries such as Latvia or Poland.

[mopsi]

> Russia wants a land bridge towards ...

A man in Finland can take a bike and ride through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Austria to the southern tip of Italy, then head west to visit the westernmost point of Europe in Portugal, and return home following the Atlantic coast through Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden without being distrubed, stopped or questioned even once. No-one will ask who he is and what he carries in his pockets. He does not have to apply for visas, he does not have to get permits nor go through any ID checks. And not only can he bike through Europe, but he can also move to any place for work, study or leisure as if he was moving to another town in Finland. The Schengen agreement provides undisturbed travel across Europe, and European Union's four fundamental freedoms guarantee the unrestricted movement of people, goods, capital and services. Countless academic, business, cultural and other kinds of relations stand on these foundations. Foreigners from other European countries can even vote at local elections if they are permanent residents.

Russians never had anything comparable, nor will have anytime soon no matter how many people you sacrifice, because your Führer with his "land bridges" is an uneducated moron who doesn't understand how the world of the 21st century works. He has failed to take advantage of the opportunities it offers. He is a Soviet dinosaur who has literally never experienced any of it. Never took a free semester in another country under the Erasmus program, never held Eurail pass or backpacked through Europe as if national borders didn't exist.

The 30-something countries in Europe have achieved through peaceful cooperation much more than Russians ever had through violence, at any point in time.

I find it incredible how you take the stance that "In the 1990s, we were weak and stupid, but now we're smart and strong!" while still acting like total morons, incapable of developing past the ridiculously obsolete 19th century gunboat diplomacy that keeps the entire country retarded. Only complete losers talk about "land bridges" in 2024. Winners talk about AI, chipset designs, clean energy, electric vehicles and reusable rockets, and not of the kind that blow cancer-stricken children into tiny pieces as they rain down on hospitals.

For countries that are run by smart people who are good at diplomacy, national borders lost any real meaning a long time ago.

[thriftwy]

> Russians never had anything comparable

Russians had something comparable in 1990.

You could take a bike from St. Petersburg through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, then enter Belarus, go over Ukraine, back into RSFSR, then bike through Sochi, Abkhazia AR, Georgia and into Armenia. Return home biking through Karabakh AR, Baku, Dagestan ASSR, and beyond.

Now you may feel the pain.

Russia had internal-ID based border crossing arrangement with Ukraine up and into 2014, but Ukraine circa 2000 has started talking about how it will cancel that arrangement and require passports and introduce visas and will banish Black Sea Fleet from Crimea, and did three coups against reasonably pro-Russian governments in Ukraine of various success, and now we have zero trust in such arrangements. See also: COVID. The only lands where you may be confident you are able to roam is one under that Russian tricolor flag.

So Russians will absolutely forfeit any kind of agreements and goodwill for having more land, because land is something definite and agreements can be canceled at any moment by the other party without further notice.

There were hopes that CIS will be EU-like commonwealth with USSR-like integration between parties without USSR-like command structure, but it quickly turned sour. Which showed to us the paramount importance of borders and where they're drawn.

> Never took a free semester in another country under the Erasmus program, never held Eurail pass or backpacked through Europe as if national borders didn't exist

Yeah, that is basic Russian experience of not having access to all that stuff. It does definitely highlight the idea that state borders are important, the access to the stuff beyond these borders is complicated and may be denied, so it totally makes sense to have as much useful stuff as possible within your own borders. States 101.

Russians did not care about borders that much in 1990 when you could cross any of these on your bike without noticing, but they definitely started to care a lot about borders in 1995 when they discovered that customs and border guards has now sprang up and the borders are major PITA. They have also started questioning why exactly these borders were drawn in the way they were.