I don't know, in my own language it's still called Kiev, but I mostly saw Kyiv in English language media recently, so I wrote that. I don't really care either way - and yes, would be in favour of writing München, as well, except that the American keyboard makes it a pain in the ass to type the ü.


A lot more likely than the opposite though - and now, as unlikely as it always seemed, it actually has happened that Russia openly invaded a neighbour.

Different parts of Central Asia and with a number of centuries inbetween, so that's a pretty big stretch, and I didn't even mention Germany. As for your last sentence - overblown rhetoric misusing the term 'fascism' or farfetched Holocaust analogies may be annoying but have little relevance for geopolitical strategy.

As I said, different parts of Ukraine have belonged to Russia for longer or shorter periods, but none of them since the Mongols so you're just wrong entirely. Kiev since the 17th century, Odessa and many other parts of the country since the 18th, while Lviv and the western-most part have essentially never been Russian, only Soviet after WW2. Of course Kiev also played a key role in the Middle Ages as the birthplace of the Russian civilization, but that was before Muscovy-Russia even existed, and after the Mongols sacked Kiev, it lost most of its importance and became Lithuanian-Polish until the 17th century.

I'm not sure if the argument you're making is the same as Tom's, but anyhow, you're wrong on how much Ukrainian is spoken. Look it up: a majority of Ukrainians call Ukrainian their native tongue, or both Ukrainian and Russian. Many of those with Ukrainian as native tongue may speak as much or more Russian on a daily basis than they do Ukrainian, but still. For all that the extremists on the Ukrainian side may disparage Russian, and the extremists on the Russian side may act as if Ukrainian isn't even a real language but just some stupid dialect, the reality is that the majority of Ukrainians is bilingual and will use both depending on context.

So yes, when in 2014 the newly elected Ukrainian government took steps to undermine the legal status of Russian, that was completely moronic and they deserved the backlash they got, no argument from my side on that. But Putin's speech last week in which he basically denied that there is such a thing as an Ukrainian nation, at most a handful of fascist Ukrainians lording it over an essentially Russian nation, followed by the invasion with which he seems to expect to prove that point, is an entirely different category.

Yet only decades earlier, some parts of the US were essentially majority German-speaking... it's fascinating stuff, the linguistic history of the US. And to be clear, obviously that whole bit was facetious, meant to illustrate the absurdity of basing political judgements on one's esthetic appreciation for a language.

Have you listened to, or read about, any Putin speech ever? Their victory in WW2, obviously - and don't bother arguing about how much or little credit they deserve for that, it's not about whether I think that was an achievement, it's about what Putin thinks. Another obvious example would be their achievements in the space race, especially early on.

My point was, when the Soviet Union dissolved, Russia essentially acted as its successor state, keeping all of its nukes - Ukraine initially had some but gave them up, which was when Russia made that commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity - as well as the Security Council seat and all sorts of other stuff like, say, the Soviet Union's sports records to take a less controversial example.

As I said, this is a favourite activity of nationalists everywhere, and it's bullshit everywhere. Either you identify with what your country has done in previous decades/centuries, both the good and the bad, or you don't, but reveling in its past glories while acting as if you couldn't possibly have anything to do with its crimes, that's just sad. And if Russian nationalists want to identify with Russia but not the Soviet Union, okay, fine, but then be consistent about it.

And it was a perfectly fair position - up until the moment that one side actually declared war and invaded, which was utterly and completely uncalled for, as most others including most Russians can see. Which, besides many other bad things, is also going to make the Ukrainians look like heroes and innocent victims, which actually annoys me as well - in fact, there's suddenly even talk of Ukraine suddenly jumping the queue for an 'emergency membership application' to the EU, ahead of the existing membership candidates who already have made considerably more progress in terms of rooting out corruption, ensuring human rights are respected everywhere, and so on.

I'm really not honestly sure if Putin had any rational goals that he could have rationally expected to achieve from this crazy invasion, but most definitely he is pushing Ukraine into Europe's arms and away from Russia, not the other way around.

We will stay out of it, militarily. But that doesn't mean we have to stand back and let it happen, encouraging Putin to try more of that in the future.