to other post-Soviet states, which gives Russia leverage over them -- it can turn off the lights at any time, as it periodically does in Georgia whenever the Tbilisi pisses the Kremlin off.
"The Ukraine" is what it was referred to when it was part of the Russian Empire. "Ukraine" means "the borderlands," by the way. (Incidentally, the Russian word for "money" is derived from a Tatar word, like many other words involving trade and government. It is derived from the Golden Horde and Genghis Khan.)
Kuchma said publically last year that Ukraine has zero chance of ever joining the EU, which is how he justified joining the Union of Four (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan). When the USSR fell, the Kremlin assumed that the other republics would eventually have no choice but to come back to the fold. With the exceptions of the Baltic States and maybe Kazakhstan, it appears to have been right.
Grant Lee <grantlee at iinet.net.au> wrote: Chris said:
> I do think a community of post-Soviet states will exist; it will simply
not be like the EU. It will be Moscow-dominated and Russocentric (like
> the USSR and the Russian Empire)."
OK, my mistake. But what price/s (economic or otherwise) will Russia have to pay, to get the other ex-Soviet states to sign off on some kind of economic community?
> That said, I agree with the rest of what you wrote. Incidentally, if you
call Ukraine "the Ukraine" to a Ukrainian nationalist, you will probably >
wind up with a black eye.
I'll bear the advice in mind *lol* Is there a particular reason for this, other than formality?
Grant.
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