"It is an irony of history that the disintegration of the USSR, which the Moldovan, Ukrainian, Georgian etc. nationalists were so in favor of, deprived those countries of the Russian subsidies they were dependent on. They used to live much better than the Russians, and now they live much worse. I read a particularly gloating article in the Russian press about this a while ago. "Enjoy your freedom!""
Yes, this reminds me of an incident I read about in which one of the governing bodies in one of the former republics was taking up the issue of independence/liberalization.... At one point one perplexed representative stood up and said "I don't understand, why should we be independent? We haven't done anything wrong..."
Still laughing....
Joanna