[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.

[mopsi]

> Russians had something comparable in 1990.

Who are you trying to fool? The USSR had internal passport system and residency permits known as propiskas. People went as far as arranging fake marriages to get propiskas into major cities and settle there. Employers could only hire people with a valid propiska. Living without a valid propiska was a criminal offence. People were essentially serfs tied to the address in their propiska.

In 1990, as Soviet authorities were desperately looking for ways to reform the crumbling country, the Committee for Constitutional Supervision of the USSR had this to say about the system:

  The Constitutional Supervision Committee of the USSR, having considered on its own initiative the issue of compliance of the legislation on registration with the provisions of the Constitution of the USSR, laws of the USSR and the international obligations of the USSR on human rights, found that the current provisions on registration significantly limit citizens' freedom of movement, choice of place of residence, work, education and exercise of other rights.

  The introduction of restrictions on the rights of citizens to freedom of movement and choice of place of residence is associated with the establishment of rules that violate other fundamental rights of citizens. These rules include:

  a) rules prohibiting the heads of enterprises, organizations and institutions from hiring persons who are not registered in the given locality;

  b) rules prohibiting the admission to higher and secondary specialized educational institutions and vocational schools in Moscow and a number of other cities of non-resident citizens in a capacity greater than what they can be provided with hostels and living space from close relatives. These rules contradict the principle of equality of all citizens of the USSR in receiving education, enshrined in Articles 34 and 45 of the Constitution of the USSR and Article 4 of the Fundamentals of Legislation of the USSR and Union Republics on public education, as well as the principle of equal access to education recognized in international human rights instruments;

  c) rules prohibiting the registration of spouses and members of their families in the living space of a spouse living in Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv in a hostel, regardless of its nature, or as a temporary resident, or as a subtenant in the living space of another person. These rules, the application of which leads to long-term separation of families, contradict Article 53 of the Constitution of the USSR, Article 11 of the Fundamentals of Legislation of the USSR and Union Republics on Marriage and Family, as well as the relevant provisions of the International Human Rights Acts.

And so forth. Original source in Russian: https://base.garant.ru/183584/

The system of propiskas was finally abolished in 1997 when the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation also found it in violation of human rights. And this is just about being able to freely move, work and study as a citizen inside your own country.

Visiting other countries, even puppets in the Eastern Bloc such as East Germany, was a total pipe dream that required official recommendation and characterization as a loyal commie from your place of employment and trade union, followed by KGB's border department digging through your personal history to ensure that you will not defect as soon as you can (and for that reason, families were not allowed to travel together). The entire process took months. And even then, KGB assigned their people into tour groups to keep an eye on Soviet citizens. During his time in East Germany, Putin was one of those people keeping a watch over Soviet tourists. For most people, this was irrelevant anyway, because the limited number of foreign travel permits went to those on the higher steps of the communist hierarchy and few people were able to leave the country even once in a lifetime.

As I said, you never had anything close to the cooperation Europe has established through peace and cooperation. You are so far behind that you don't even recognize how outdated everything you say sounds. You are living in the past.

[thriftwy]

I just don't see how that would prevent you from doing that bicycle trip of yours.

Remember that I didn't mention visiting any other countries, just the USSR, which totally did not have these domestic borders that would prevent the bicycle trip you have described. Propiska does not come into equation since you did not mention applying for work and settling permanently.

I wonder if you got the messages that Russians mostly view these borders as a nuisance that they were raped into accepting.

> you never had anything close to the cooperation Europe has established through peace and cooperation

I don't deny it, but then again, so what? I never had anything close to many things. A space trip. A Rolls Royce. A helicopter tour. "Coooperation that Europe has established" as well.

But you know what I do, one Crimea that you can buy a train ticket and visit, with no border controls deciding whether you are entitled to do so this week or no.

[mopsi]

My point was that the freedom of movement is not only for trivialities such as riding a bike, but the same ease extends far beyond that, including being able to permanently move across Europe for work, study or leisure - which I did mention - without any obstacles, to the point where national borders do not have any meaningful impact on everyday lives of Europeans. Just pack your things and go and do whatever you want. The sad story about post-USSR borders keeping Russians apart is as dumb as it gets since Europe has already achieved much more through peaceful means than you ever did through violence.

You are choosing to go through another Afghan war every month, destroy the national economy, flush the last remnants of your reputation down the drain, and bring indescribable suffering to millions of people for something that you could get for free if you had smart people running the country.

There is no other way to describe it than a completely retarded behavior. The worst thing is that you cannot even imagine any alternatives to it. This is truly eye-opening for me. You come across like those dumbasses brainwashed by Nazism who committed suicide during the final days of the WWII because they couldn't imagine a future for Germany without the Third Reich.