>>>>True, ... sort of, but presented one sidedly. Most all the monarchies were as bloody or worse, AND, like the old Russian joke, Russians can’t name a (European or Asian) nation that HASN’T invaded Russia.
As I recall, the French, the Swedes, the Mongols and the Muslims all got their asses kicked INSIDE Russian/Slavic territory...
For why were they there with their military? Famine relief?<<<<
In case of Sweden, Turkey and Iran it is only a half truth.
The main factor behind it was a Russian thrust to the open seas.
Russians has started against Sweden as far as 1187 with their fleet destroyed Swedish navy in when the capital of Sweden - Sigtuna. They have looted and burned the city after. An idea was to secure Baltic for a Russian commercial shipping and avoid taxation by the Swedes.
It was simmering for another 500 years until Russians has teamed with the France, Norway and Denmark, unhappy with Swedish dominance in the area + Finnish separatists and annexed some 2/3 of Swened into Russia in 1809. It has effectively finished Sweden as any significant power.
They did pretty same against muslims in the South at the time, using alleged persecution of Christians at Balkans, Armenia and Middle East as an excuse.
The real idea behind all of these was to get access to North Atlantic and Mediterranean.
>>>>Russia supplying and backing the English Crown.<<<<
It is quite an irony but Britain has directly backed both Sweden and Muslims against Russia and it’s allies.
As for Mongols and French it might be mostly true, but Russians hasn’t stop liberating their territory at the time.
In case of Mongols they have destroyed every their population center effectively finishing Mongols not only as a super power but as a nation. No diplomacy was ever involved, they have relied on firearms technology they got from the West while mongols have stuck with cavalry and bows.
They did pretty same to the French to some degree considering the fact that literally all the decent Frenchmen perished along with the Grand Armee. They looted and burned Paris too.
What are France and Mongolia now? Did they win any war after?
To make things worse Russians continued their international engineering into modern era.
Just look at the Germany. It was a militarily powerful troublemaker for centuries. Prussian officer was always a role model as a military expert and Prussian Junker aristocracy was always behind a German expansion.
For some strange reason Prussia or Koenigsberg was choosen by the Russians as a single German territory to annex in 1945. Ethnic cleansing has followed. Where are Junker aristocracy and Prussian war spirit now?
Germany is a guilt-ridden pacifist nation about as important militarily and Mongolia and France now.
I can continue. What about Commintern? Russians might have finished with communism a couple decades ago but it still brings them. Just look what it has done and still doing for US and Western Europe.
Yes, yes, yes. This is what it has always been about, Russian access to warmer water ports in the Atlantic and Med. Communist Russia continued this policy unabated until the collapse, and Putin picked it up again in his operation against Georgia.
BUT Putin executed the Georgia operation in retaliation and punishment for the NATO action against Serbia.
The point is that with all the warring going on, Russia is not always the aggressor and Swedes not always the peaceful victims. The Vikings (Norsk) sacked the Western European coastline for a couple of centuries before their "victimization" in the Twelfth Century. The Swedes, Turks, or whoever, are not more inherently peaceful than Russians.
They did pretty (much the) same against Muslims in the South at the time, using alleged persecution of Christians at Balkans, Armenia and Middle East as an excuse.
As did King Jan III and Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, and they would disagree with "alleged".
... annexed some 2/3 of Sweden into Russia in 1809. It has effectively finished Sweden as any significant power.
What are France and Mongolia now? Did they win any war after?
Where are Junker aristocracy and Prussian war spirit now?
You lament that Russia is big and strong and is reprehensible for crushing the spirit out of assorted peoples they war with for whatever reason.
I propose that this resides with those individual peoples themselves.
Russia did not permanently beat down the Swedes, they refused to get up and protect their daughters from Muslim gang rapists.
Russia did not permanently beat down the Turks, they finished the disarmed Armenians, and then gladly let Islam finish them off.
Russia did not permanently beat down the Persians (Iran), the stupid Persian Communists and Jimmy Carter thought that the Bolsheviks were the only ones that could steal a revolution. They laid down for Islam, too.
Russia did not permanently beat down the Germans, in fact, the Germans are the second best example of how Socialism (Fascism, a form very close to Communism) is actually the monster you believe Russia to be. The German people entirely did it to themselves, and it was the Communist Soviet Union that kept their boot heel on Eastern Europe after WWII, not the Russians.
Which brings us back around to the NATO Serbian campaign. Was it the closet Communist Clinton that started up or was it the ex Communist Putin?
So Putin learns from Serbia/Kosovo and engineers Georgia to discourage Eastern European states from cozying up to NATO, and re secures her Ukrainian port and control of the Georgia petro pipeline.
What about Commintern?
This is irony at it's finest, Putin opposing Communist influenced US and Western European policy, while it was pre Putin Russian Communists that exported Communist influence to the US.
The same Communism that is allowed little influence in Russia today.
I would guess that the American Democrats only hope is that Putin will laugh himself to death.
Russia will likely be powerful once again, but what we need to fear far more is Socialism and Islam.