Why is Poland weaker than Russia?

Can you rephrase the last two sentences or write them in Russian? The meaning seems interesting but is not clear.

Well... Poles and baltic states population constantly told that russians are coming. But Russians should have something there to be valuable enough, to come for it and accept all possible consequences. What it can be, which very valuable resource can attract russians in baltics and Poland? Land with brainwashed population? I doubt that. There is abundant of unused land in Russia. It is even given away in some far east and northwest regions to anyone who will start to use it for some lawful economical activity (or will build house and settle there). Apples? I doubt, because after start of "counter-sanctions", local retailers quickly switched to local supply and there is no more happy pigs eating russian apples while polish apples occupy supermarket shelves. Potatos? I doubt it even more. Industrial products? Well, in the past there was some shipyards that could be really useful. But now it may be easier to start new ones from scratch somewhere else.

The only thing that REALLY may be interesting is safety from surprise nuclear attack from nearby bases with very short missile flight time. And while there is governments that start every talk with a sentence mentioning something "euroatlantic" and begging for more foreign troops and weapons on their soil - it MAY BE much more reliable to take a control over that territory to avoid deadly surprises originating from other side of Atlantic but with Poles or Latvians framed to accept revenge.

Can you remember how upset was NATO officials once Putin told that not only attacking bases will be targets for responce, but "centers of decision making" will be targeted as well?

Well in living memory the Russians (in the form of the SSSR) had come to both (with massively disastrous effects) so... why shouldn't they worry about an unrepentant Russian government that acts like an aggrieved infant?


No brainwashing is ever needed to convince populations that the Russian state is not a good thing... just direct experience with it has always been enough.

For those who sucked this idea with a mother's milk - maybe. ;) So, land with such desperate population is not very much valuable for Russia...

Rational considerations have never limited Russian state foreign aggression before... why would they now?

Any examples?

Crimea? Any fool with a map could see that it's a useless white elephant without a secure water supply which only Ukraine can deliver, so...

Eastern Ukraine? Essentially useless land with the least social capital in the country?

Invading Poland in 1939?

Occupation of the Baltic states?

Katyn?

Budapest in 1956?

Prague in 1968?

The residents might not agree.


20% of Ukraine's industrial base.

Who knows? It was under foreign military occupation when the 'referendum' was carried out... The fact is that something like a fifth of the population has no reliable access to safe drinking water and agriculture is dying through salinization of the soil... yeah, they had hoped to create a land bridge through the bvllsh1t Novorossija project but Putin has ended up being one of the architects of modern Ukrainian nationalism so.... not a smart move.


At a time when industrial bases are less important (and a friend from the area says it's the Ukrainian equivalent of Radom...)

A rigged vote, and al about Russian strategy/pride.


It's not Radom, more like the Katowice region with less inward investment. The problem is that the production, supply chains and capital flows in any country are indivisible; remove one part and the whole economy is affected.

Crimean oblast was transferred from Russian Federation to Ukrainian SSR by Khruschev in 1954. And it was made with violation of Constitution (approved by Chairman Board of Supreme Council while by Constitution any territorial changes must get approval of whole Supreme Council). There was post-factum approval of Supreme Council that still leave whole thing questionable.

As for City of Sevastopol - it was never transferred to Ukrainian SSR and was a city with direct subordination to Union (i.e. on same scale as Ukrainian SSR itself). It was "forgotten" once Ukraine get independency and local nationalists started to grab everything they can (so later they begging that they need foreign financial help for safe utilisation of huge amounts of outdated artillery shells in a army warehouses they quickly declared property of Ukraine). Status of Sevastopol was questionable until 2014.

If you are interested which referendums was in Crimea in beginning of 1990's and how their results was finally ignored by ukrainian nationalistic politicians - you have to google little bit. But referendum of 2014 sorted it out.

Concerning usefulness - Sevastopol is the only really good navy base on this side of Black Sea, and key to defense of Southern Russia from any military threats from Black Sea..


There was personnel of russian navy base that was stationed there on a legal basis. And not a single round was shot in process.


Eastern Ukraine, AKA Novorossia is again Russian land with predominantly russian population that was de-facto secessed after german occupation and transferred to a newly created ukrainian republic. Also, far from "historical ukrainian lands".

Soviet gobbledeegook made null and void by the Budapest memorandum, an international agreement which Russia violated (Russians breaking promises... imagine my shock!).
And russia has singlehandedly ensured that no country will ever willingly give up nuclear weapons again (as doing so is an invitation to heavily armed neighbors to invade).

The Russian state is simply not a reliable partner and cannot be counted on to honor its word. That's why the Baltics, Poland (and now Ukraine) don't trust it.

Well, Be as it may but in that case you should simply return Smolensk to Poland. Not to mention Konigsberg oblast.

Hm. Russia can be reliable partner for Germany, but not for Poland. Probably, problem is in Germany in that case. ;)

Your trust or mistrust (if you a real and not a "plastic" Pole) is not a problem of Russia, of course. And it is not a problem at all if you reside somewhere in Canada or UK and not interested in Polish people prosperity.

Russia is a pusher and Germany is the addict (Russian gas) not really a partnership.


I'm not Polish but I live in Poland.


I'm very interested in Polish prosperity and Russia has never contributed to Polish posterity, quite the opposite.

So, 3+ times more expensive LNG from US will cause much less addiction? ;)

What about Pozen, Breslau, Danzig, Stettin? And Konigsberg should then go to a more rightful owner.

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.
Von der Maas bis an die Memel,
Von der Etsch bis an den Belt,
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt!
...

English only in this thread please

what about? You street talking about historical rights, eh? It goes both ways.


Poznan? Hey if you go with that. What about Tver then and Moscow.

Posen in German... and Russia already tried to split up Poland with Germany ihn 1939... Second time's the charm? 1939 is another reason that Polish people don't trust the Russian state which has never brought Poland anything but misery.

Come and get it, if you can.

Hard to say that you never tried, by the way.

Well Tver was ours for some time. As for Moscow, weren't really interested in conquest just an union but Muscovites were too backwoods for that. Three years of ownership was enough to know that there is not much in there to like. Hell even Czars relocated elsewhere. lol!


We settle for Smolensk. Not that greedy.

History lessons are boring and useless. It's the guy with the biggest fist and determination today who ultimately wins. The bottom line facts are that Xi and Putin are patriots and want the best for their countries, while the US, just as the UK, is on decline and its ruling class is an incompetent bunch of greedy globalists but only to the extent that it helps them in their sick pursuit of whatever these traitors are pursuing, but not for a direct benefit of the Unites States. That is why, in some way, Xi and Putin are admirable and the US presidents are not.

Pozen (correctly "Posen") became Prussian as late as in 1793 when the Prussians grabbed it in the second partition of Poland. The same is true of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) which became Prussian in 1793, much to the disappointment of the powerful local merchants of Danzig who openly disapproved of the king of Prussia shouting (in German), "we don't want these awful Prussians here!".

Breslau became part of Prussia only in 1741 when the Prussians grabbed it from Austria which caused empress Maria Teresa Habsburg sleepless nights until her death in 1780. Austria, contrary to Prussia, became the legitimate owner of Silesia when it subdued Bohemia to which it belonged ever since the Piast dukes surrendered themselves to Czech supremacy in the 14th century.

The history of Stettin is the most complicated of them all.

Konigsberg and Eastern Prussia was supposed to be given to Poland by the Russian empress Elisabeth II in exchange for Curland (today's Latvia). Unfortunately, the empress died before the exchange could have taken place. The next Russian tsar was truly mad about Germans and his pro-German madness virtually saved the very existence of Prussia. Otherwise, the planned exchange could have been one of the best deals for Europe. Prussia would have been thrown out of this area being quite remote from Germany proper which fact could probably save Europe the development of the infamous Prussian militarism and calls for expansion (Drang nach Osten) in the future.

Smolensk was a very important city in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After it was lost to Moscow as a result of endless wars between Poland and Lithuania on one side and Russia on the other, the local elites of Smolensk moved out from the city and subsequently settled in the city of Vilnius.

You forgot to mention that the German/ Prussian history in the area goes back much further than the partitions.

The Prussian land reforms during the early to mid-19th century substantively reshaped the political map of Europe at the time as well as into the future!

Von Stein expanded the hegemony of Prussia, fulfilling a life-long dream of Frederick The Great.

By the way, is there anything in this memorandum that may declare null and void the right of self-determination of population of Crimean republic?

You think that any sort of referendum or voting conducted by Russia is even slightly honest?

Do they have the right of self-determination now? What about the oldest residents the Tatars? Hearing an apologist for the Russian government talk about self-determination is hilarious....

If not to count the Greek community. Those are probably the oldest nation of all in Crimea.

The referendum would be a lot more compelling if the Russians didn't kill close to 25 thousand the day before and deported 125,000 opponents to Siberia two months prior. Yeah, those bad Russians.