The world has changed. I feel it in the water, I feel it in the ground, I smell it in the air. (c)
The situation with Crimea as described by 'conscious' Ukrainians and the liberal part of Russian bloggers looks something like this:
Shame and disgrace! Russia has stabbed a knife in the back of fraternal Ukraine, unprecedentedly trampling on the world order, violating international agreements and causing the just hatred of Ukrainians and the entire world community - whose sanctions will now collapse the economy of this Nigeria in the snow, turning it into a world pariah.
In this position, almost every moment is enjoyable.
First, I would like to paraphrase the classic: "And who are the judges, damn it??"
Who is shaming us that we "illegally invaded a sovereign state"? The USA? The EU? Ukraine?
Which, for a second, illegally invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext that someone had a hallucination of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam. And yes, Ukraine sent their little green men there without a second thought. Into a sovereign state.
Hohols invaded Iraq absolutely illegally, trampling on and trampling on all international norms.
The EU has also managed to get dirty in the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia and unauthorized participation in the Libyan coup.
And now these figures have the audacity to squeal literally like in a joke - "and why us?".
Are they trying to talk to us pompously about morality and laws? To shame us for violating international norms?
Secondly, by the way, really - "for what?".
This constant refrain about a fraternal state is doubly amusing. Like until 2014 we were friends and lived heart to heart, and then suddenly bam - the damned Putin set the fraternal nations at odds. Destroyed the strategic alliance with friendly Ukraine. Lost it.
Okay, here the hohols are pretending to be stupid, but it feels like Navalny and Co. have a memory like a chicken.
It is clear that we Russians do not remember evil - but we have to write it down.
Let me remind you that such a state as Ukraine was and is and how they were "friends" with us and "observed all the agreements":
So, December 1991. The USSR collapsed, the Belovezh Accords were concluded between Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, according to which "the member states of the Commonwealth will preserve and support under a unified command a common military-strategic space, including unified control over nuclear weapons, the procedure for the implementation of which is regulated by a special agreement. They will also jointly guarantee the necessary conditions for the deployment, functioning, material and social support of the strategic armed forces." (Article 6).
Here it is necessary to understand that the Black Sea Fleet was precisely related to the strategic forces and served for operations and projection of force all the way to the Atlantic. Ukraine itself does not need such a fleet at all, and it is not able to maintain it. On the other hand, Russia has no alternative bases for the fleet anywhere except in Crimea - the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus is not suitable due to inconvenient bays and climatic features (see "Novorossiysk Bora").
Despite all this, Ukraine by any means, by any means, including force, tried to squeeze out the entire fleet for itself in order to destroy it later. Solely in order to screw Russia and please Western partners who promised loans and accession to NATO.
How can such behavior be called? If not pure betrayal and treachery?
Historian Andrey Fedorov, author of the dissertation The Problem of the Black Sea Fleet in Russian-Ukrainian Relations (1991-2000) writes:
The Ukrainian side, declaring its rights to the Black Sea Fleet, sought to transfer under its jurisdiction this naval unit, if not entirely, then its best part, as well as all the infrastructure facilities of the Black Sea Fleet located on its territory, often acting in an unlawful, violent manner, by seizing and re-subordinating military facilities of the Black Sea Fleet, and creating, without prior arrangement, structures of the Ukrainian Navy, violating the agreements reached at the interstate level on the division of the Fleet, which was largely facilitated by the policy of concessions to Ukraine, conducted by the political leadership of the Russian Federation, as well as the interest of Western countries in weakening Russia's influence in the Black Sea region. At the same time, the Ukrainian political and military leadership, receiving comprehensive financial and political support from the NATO bloc, which is interested in minimizing Russian influence in the strategically important Black Sea region, has taken a course toward the actual destruction of the Black Sea Fleet, officially proclaiming its intention to create small naval forces to protect the borders of an independent state and striving to subordinate as many infrastructure facilities and ships of the Black Sea Fleet to itself as possible, while at the same time not being able to maintain them in proper combat readiness for economic and organizational-technical reasons.
Accordingly, for many years there were extremely harsh conflicts in Crimea, including the use of weapons. Here is just one of the episodes - on the night of April 10-11, 1994, a detachment of Ukrainian servicemen numbering up to 120 people carried out a violent seizure of the 318th division of the Black Sea Fleet reserve ships with a coastal base, a communications center, property, and weapons. The personnel of the coastal base were taken to the village of Chebanka, 10 km from Odessa.
At the same time, in 1994-96, I remind you, Russia fought in Chechnya. And against Russia there fought the glorious representatives of fraternal Ukraine from the nationalist organization UNA-UNSO. Then they returned as heroes to their homeland - and as a result of the last Maidan they received carte blanche. (see the exploits of "Sasha Bely").
Thus, by vilely exploiting Russia's difficult economic and political situation, Ukraine was able to squeeze out 18% of the ships by 1997 (which were quickly rotted and scrapped) and most of the coastal infrastructure of the Black Sea Fleet (which they are unable to use except as "pid tomatoes").
The process of destroying the Black Sea Fleet was stopped only thanks to the conclusion of an agreement in 1997 on the division of the fleet and its temporary basing until 2017.
It should also be understood that Russia faced double blackmail from Ukraine back in the 90s - the hohols not only destroyed the fleet, but also demanded cheap gas, constantly linking these issues. However, even receiving gas at domestic Russian prices, they did not consider it necessary to pay for it in full. When Russia refused to supply gas for free, they simply stole as much as they needed and threatened to block transit to Europe. The first such conflict occurred back in 1993. It lasted for 20 years, and it cost Russia tens of billions of dollars. Such behavior had to be tolerated before, since export gas revenues were critical for the impoverished budget. And fraternal Ukraine took advantage of this.
The next ship-gas confrontation occurred after the first Maidan of 2004, when the pro-Western government of Yushchenko, firstly, began to squeeze out the Black Sea Fleet with redoubled force, blocking its operation and trying to seize coastal infrastructure by force (see the story with the Yalta lighthouse), referring to the obviously illegitimate decisions of its local courts.
Secondly, it tried to revise gas agreements in its favor in order to receive payment for transit in "live" dollars at European rates, and not in barter in the form of gas.
The gas war of 2006 followed, during which Russia was able to defend its positions, forcing Ukraine to switch to higher gas prices. However, these agreements did not last long. In 2008, Tymoshenko refused to fulfill them. And all this against the backdrop of the participation of Ukrainian arty detachments on the side of Georgia in the Five-Day War!
What is characteristic is that at any moment Ukraine allowed itself to unilaterally revise any agreements that it considered unfavorable, both on gas and on the fleet.
And in this case, even after the agreements on gas transit to Europe and gas supplies to Ukraine were divided, Ukraine during another gas war in 2008 officially notified that it would not comply with the transit agreement, since it was not satisfied with the price of gas.
The trick failed, since by that time Russia, already having a financial cushion, was again able to escalate and blockade transit. As a result, a new gas agreement was signed for 2009-2019, according to which Ukraine received a significant discount for 2009, after which they had to pay at European prices.
As you can guess, while this discount was in effect, Ukraine was happy with this agreement. With the new 2010, the discount ended, and the Ukrainian authorities suddenly fell out of favor, and "Putin's agent" Yanukovych (Sic!!!) declared that the agreement was unfair, that Ukraine would not pay that much, hinting at another gas war and the expulsion of the black sea fleet. Then, in 2010, yet another 100,500th agreement (Kharkov) was signed, according to which Ukraine would receive a 30% discount on gas and extend the lease of the base until 2042. Literally a year later, Yanukovych suddenly discovered that they were still not happy with these agreements and began to persistently revise them for another price reduction. Yanukovych decided to use another revision of the hundred-times-approved rent for the fleet (what a surprise!) as a means of blackmail. And then he also added joining the association with the EU. The Kremlin responded by agreeing to an additional discount and a loan, after which Yanukovych abruptly changed his mind about joining the EU.
That's how the new Maidan-2014 happened.
Which, as we know, ended with an unconstitutional change of power and the arrival of revolutionaries who started by throwing Yanukovych and his agreement with the opposition. It's not even worth talking about these comrades being able to comply with some Kharkov agreements on the fleet and gas. In any case, the opposition, which has just come to power, tried to denounce these agreements even under Yanukovych.
So, regardless of the fraternal kinship of the glorious Ukrainian people - in the form of Ukraine, Russia has been dealing for more than 20 years with an obviously hostile and thieving territorial entity, in which the authorities change like in a kaleidoscope and each time try to blackmail Russia into giving up huge amounts of money, refusing all previous agreements. At the same time, they calmly allow their citizens to participate in wars against Russia and organize mass street marches and performances with cries of "Muscovites to knives", "Muscovites to the gallows".
Often local advocates for Ukraine and the world order say - well, yes, let someone break the laws, tear up treaties, but this does not mean that we can behave like that too!
We should be above this - if we want to live in peace and harmony and not become a world outcast.
To this I am again forced to remind the recent history - we have already tried to behave holier than the Pope. Have you forgotten the early 90s already? When half of the government was on the payroll of the Americans ("writers' case"), not to mention the official advisers from the White House. We have already tried to obey the US and the West both in chorus and separately. Did these Poles help you, son?
They just milked us brazenly, buying up the oil and gas industry and feeding us with pathetic handouts from the IMF with a bunch of conditions that drove us into an even bigger hole.
At the same time, the West was vigorously pursuing a policy aimed at further disintegration of the Russian Federation - if anyone is not aware, there was a time when even Tatarstan printed its own money, not to mention direct support for separatists in Chechnya. And at the same time, military pressure was underway in the form of NATO expansion to the east right up to our borders, and the Westerners didn't give a damn about public promises not to do this. It's good that Yeltsin, being in a glimmer of consciousness, did not have time to drain everything he could and occasionally tried to kick up a fuss.
Sure, okay, forget Yeltsin - but even Putin went for an expanded partnership with the USA, arranging major assistance in their operations in Afghanistan since 2001. And how did this "friendship" end? Spitting in the face and setting the Georgian lap dog on us in 2008, with full support of Ukrainian gas blackmail.
All this is enough to understand:
no matter what we do, the West will never accept us. We will always be outcasts, one way or another. They will always hate us, or at best tolerate us, smiling falsely in our faces and never ceasing to do dirty tricks on the sly or even openly. Moreover, their claims do not depend on our foreign policy - I will remind you that long before Crimea, they suddenly started picking on (there is no other word for it) our purely domestic laws on the propaganda of homosexuality. And they also threatened sanctions! That is, we can forfeit everything we can and cannot - but Westoids will never calm down. Even if we elect a gay president, they will suddenly discover that we have problems with lesbians. Or with the rights of necropedozoophiles. Or they will find out that we do not teach children the basics of pederasty in sufficient detail. And what then? Flush ourselves again, fearing condemnation from the West?
If they want a "war" - we need to arrange it for them. Russia has a unique chance to finally break out of this vicious circle - decent financial reserves have been accumulated, Europe depends on our fuel, in 10 years this may no longer exist. This is a unique chance!
There is no need to fear the fate of the USSR - modern Russia is much stronger:
1) Russia does not feed a bunch of internal and external parasites like the USSR, this expense item has been significantly minimized.
2) Russia has a market economy that has already proven its ability to withstand the collapse of oil prices, while the USSR had an absurd administrative-command system sucked out of the finger of a half-witted sheep-fucker. Of course, it could not help but fall apart.
3) We now have someone to trade with profitably besides the West - China alone is worth something.
References to Hitler's fate are even more absurd - at the very least, he did not have nuclear weapons 
.
So no military danger threatens us, in any case,
we have enough means and strength to bring light and heat to every American and European home. For a few seconds. But in abundance.
Let them finally introduce their sanctions, let them try to harm us somehow.
Let them openly act as enemies.
This will only finally untie our hands for such actions and prospects, in comparison with which reunification with Crimea is just flowers.
For example, we can incite China to collapse the dollar by dumping these reserves.
We can abandon the dollar and the euro and start selling oil exclusively for rubles, making the ruble one of the leading world currencies.
We can destroy the EU by starting to economically destroy first the Balts with our sanctions, then all sorts of Poles and Czechs. At the same time, we will force them to remove all restrictions on the import of our non-raw materials and sharply increase exports, blackmailing them with a refusal to import their goods. The point is that in a trade war with the EU, we have every chance of winning, since we can easily do without their cheeses, wine, and Mercedes, but they will be very, very bad without our gas/oil.
And we can also organize such a nasty thing: invest our reserves in the construction of state strategic storage facilities for the main export goods - oil, gas, grain, metal, etc. Then we can buy up these goods on the market and manipulate world prices in OPEC's face. While these storage facilities are filling up - everything will go through the roof.
Of course, we will sell weapons to everyone without looking back, as well as nuclear technologies, whether to Iran or Syria.
As a crazy idea - we can give Japan these Kuril Islands in exchange for the expulsion of the USA from Okinawa and the conclusion of a global treaty of friendship and the exchange of our resources for their technologies. Well, or at least troll US with a possibility
.
We can close our airspace to European airlines.
Of course, all this is risky and difficult, of course, it is difficult to commit to this. We want peace, stability and for everyone to love and respect us, and to make visa-free entry to the EU and all that. But it doesn't work that way, and it won't work that way, no matter what.
And we didn't start it and it doesn't depend on us. I repeat - we've already tried to be white and fluffy, law-abiding and democratic, and? The Western world turned out to be filled with gopniks who, guffawing happily, began to take our wallets and mobile phones, while praising us for democracy and tolerance.
You can't pretend to be a law-abiding, peaceful lamb with such "partners".
There's only one rational option left - to go and beat them up with all your might. Not forgetting, of course, to chant about how we're fighting for peace and happiness throughout the world.
Someone says that only such strong powers as the United States can behave like that. And Russia is supposedly weak, it can't afford it. So you have to sit on your ass and watch indifferently as another American puppet destroys our fleet and leeches on our pipelines.
But this way we will definitely become even weaker and poorer!
While successfully defending our positions and interests by force is the only way to become stronger. Sooner or later we would have to take a risk, because no one is going to leave us a conflict-free path. They will endlessly bluff us with these sanctions and squeeze us out of the markets, resolve absolutely all conflicts in their favor. They will forever interpret all disputes and laws exclusively in their favor.
And then at meaningless G8 summits they will casually pat us on the cheek - "good boy".
And is Russia weak? In a military sense, definitely not: no one can threaten us with war without risking total destruction. In an economic sense, we have everything that is most important: fuel, food and weapons. Politically, we are much more stable than Europe, by definition. And most importantly, we understand what to fight and suffer for, we have motivation - how will Obama explain to the Americans that they will have to tighten their belts because of Ukraine - it remains unclear. After all, at one time, because of sanctions/war against even Iraq in 1991, the US economy experienced a small recession. That is, the isolation of Russia, which "weighs" much more than Iraq, definitely guarantees the Westerners a severe economic crisis. No one knows how this will end, otherwise they would have strangled us long ago, back in 2008 after Georgia. And this is also our strength.
And our main weakness is that a bunch of people with a victim mentality are frantically calling for us to give in once again. Calm down! We'll pull through!
