[staytrue]

“I think it is ludicrous to expect a state that wants to leave the union to have to get everybody else’s permission to go their own way.”

Actually, the coastal states could secede and land lock the remaining states eventually destroying them with a trade/travel embargo.

This is why russian is not allowing Ukraine to secede. It is because russia would be landlocked except for the Pacific ocean route.

For example, CA, OR and WA plus TX, OK MO, IL, WI, and MN could pretty much completly land lock a bunch of state via secession.

[jospehm20]

If ND, SD, Nebraska, Kansas, OK and Texas seceded all at once they could cut the country in half. So what? Ukraine does not have to secede from Russia, it is already its own country. Russia is trying to get it back by force.

[BroJoeK]

staytrue: "This is why russian is not allowing Ukraine to secede.
It is because russia would be landlocked except for the Pacific ocean route."

You sound to me like a very confused, woefully misinformed, puppy.
Who in the wide world told you such blithering nonsense?!

Where did you receive your education?
Are you the product of failed US schools, or some post-Soviet propaganda machine (but I repeat myself)?

Just so we're clear:

1. Russia has access to the Baltic Sea & Atlantic Ocean at St. Petersburg, to the Arctic Ocean at Murmansk, Archangel & many other places, to the Pacific Ocean at Vladivostok & many other eastern ports, and to the Black Sea at numerous places outside the Crimea, including Rostov & Sochi.
   So any claim that Russia is somehow "landlocked" is just ludicrous.

2. The old Soviet Union broke up in 1991, that is when Ukraine became independent of Russia -- not today!
   So Putin's Russia is now trying to reestablish its hegemony over Ukraine and annex the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

3. So far, Russian military occupation of Ukrainian Crimea has been done peacefully, but the fact remains it's an act of war against Ukraine, and only Ukraine's abject surrender has thus-far prevented bloodshed.

4. The western world is today possessed of the same illusions as Neville Chamberlain in the years before the Second World War.
   They fantasize that if they just appease & appease the aggressive dictator, he will be satisfied, and they will have "peace in our time".

History shows us that appeasement doesn't work for long.
Peace through strength does, but our leaders seem to have forgotten all that...