With all due respect, I am not in the mood for posts that excuse the rise of old European and Eurasian empires.
with due respect, rmlew didn't do that, he said Russia already controls Ukraine because of the Russian population in the east. They have 45% of the population. So what is more important for you, Kruschev’s borders, or Ukrainian liberty?
De-facto the eastern part of the Ukraine is already Russian. And, more critical, it feels Russian (as I said, the boundaries between Ukrainian and Russian nationalities is vague due to the shared inheritance from Kievan Rus)
And even more critical to us is that the eastern part holds back the Western part.
The Western half is truly "Ukrainian" in the sense that it is building up the concept of a Ukrainian nationality