Russia Gave Up Claim to Ukraine and Baltics

[mendeleyev]

Russia never had a legitimate claim on her parent, the Kievan-Rus. Ukraine's mistake was in the 1600s to seek protection by the Tsars from outside enemies. After the Partition of Poland, Ukraine was forced into the Russian Empire, not by choice but by the sword.

However, there exists legitimate legal precedent in which Russia gave up claim to Ukraine and the Baltic states. It was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, by the  Bolshevik government. Russia was losing the war, and to protect itself, the Russian government made a treaty with the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Russia withdrew from the fighting in exchange for returning territory that had annexed by force during previous wars.

By signing the treaty, Russia gave public recognition to the Ottoman Empire's historic claim on much of the Caucasus regions, and to Ukraine. In the agreement, Ukraine was granted independence and the Baltics were ceded to Germany.

So, unless we have a bunch of lying and dishonest SOB thugs running things today, does it not seem obvious to anyone with half a brain that Russia has no legal or legitimate claim on Ukraine?

[John of Hesperia]

I appreciate your little history lesson, Mendy, but have a few comments.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was made in 1918 between the Bolsheviks, who are (almost) extinct and at least no longer in power, and the Germany ruled by a Kaiser, Austria-Hungary ruled by an emperor and does not exist as a modern country, the Ottoman Empire (extinct), and Bulgaria.  Who is left of these five countries?  Only Bulgaria, and do you realistically expect them to enforce the treaty?
Next, going back to to the 16th and 17th centuries has even less validity, even though memories of past history is long in the old world, and we Americans often cannot remember who we were at war with in my lifetime. So what relevance is there?
Formal treaties broken without consequence, and mutual agreements between countries means even less. 
In international politics, there are only two rules, first:  the Darwin rule, "Survival of the Fittest" and second:  Might makes right. 

[Boethius]

Mendy's post addresses a common argument presented in the Russian media today setting forth its right to most of what is modern day Ukraine.

Mendy, as you know, many Ukrainians view Khmelnytsky as a traitor.  However, at the time of the Treaty of Pereiaslav, the Cossacks were fighting the Poles (Catholics, for the people spoke the same language, what separated them was religion), the Tatars, and the Turks.  So, they needed an alliance, and the Russians were Orthodox.

In the absence of that alliance, which did, in the end, preserve Cossack independence for a a little more than a century, the locals could be speaking a Turkic language.  In any event, the Zaporizhian Sich was not destroyed until 1775, and the Hetmanate abolished in the 1780's.

[BillyB]

there exists legitimate legal precedent in which Russia gave up claim to Ukraine and the Baltic states. It was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, by the  Bolshevik government.

Is this agreement as solid as the Budapest Memorandum Russia signed with Ukraine in 1994?

[mendeleyev]

I appreciate your little history lesson, Mendy, but have a few comments.

Nobody expects Bulgaria, or Turkey as perhaps representative of the Ottomans, to enforce anything. My point was, and continues to be, that Russians are so fond of declaring that Ukraine and the Baltics (and Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the other Stans) really belong to Russia because of history.

Those are false arguments if the only basis for territorial possession is time served under the sword of a larger empire. Russians hare very forgetful people when they need to be, and this is a time and event in history that disputes Russia's claim, and they have therefore swept it under the rug.

We could also easily argue that the Russian Federation is a new nation, as the Russian Empire ceased to exist when the CCCP rubbed it out and started over. The Soviets are gone, supposedly, and the RF is not the kingdom of the Romanovs.