Comments by "Dale Crocker" (@dalecrocker3213) on "Russian warship ‘Sergei Kotov’ is sunk by Ukrainian boat drones in raid on Crimea" video.

Whatever else results from this conflict, naval warfare has changed forever.
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No. It's Russia and only temporarily part of Ukraine between 1991 and 2014.
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@joeordinary209 What expansion? He's having a tough time trying to hold on to what he's been left by Yeltsin.
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@SergiiBoiko Crimea was Russia before the Soviet Union was created, having been taken from the Turks in the late 18th century. It was passed over to the semi-autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1954 as a matter of administration and logistics. Note "semi-autonomous". Ukraine, like all the other Soviet Socialist Republics was ultimately subservient to Moscow. When the Russian Federation was created Crimea was mistakenly and foolishly made a part of the new country of Ukraine. Russia recovered it in 2014 in a virtually bloodless coup. All in all this gives Russia a far greater claim than Ukraine, I think.
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That was then and this is now.
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@joeordinary209 He hasn't got very far though, has he? All he has done in fact is to attempt to maintain control over satellite countries and prevent them from being taken over either by Western capitalists or Muslim fanatics.
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@foxbat7288 It didn't have any nukes to give up. They were Soviet (ie Russian ) nukes. The fire codes were all in Moscow.
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@joeordinary209 Ukraine only became independent in 1991. Before that is was a semi-autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Note the term "semi-autonomous". It was ultimately controlled by Moscow. And Crimea, as I say, was only added on 1954. It was Russian before that and is Russian now.
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@foxbat7288 They weren't Ukrainian nukes, strictly speaking. They were Soviet nukes and the launch key codes were kept in Moscow. They were stationed there to protect the entire Soviet Union, not just Ukraine.
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@joeordinary209 I think there is probably a statute of limitations on imperial influence! If Mongolians ran Russia's factories and mines and had invested billions of their money in them, then they might well object to them being taken over by America.
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@ChucksSEADnDEAD I don't think its quite a simple as that! In any case that's hardly the point. The nukes stationed in Ukraine were there not for Ukraine's exclusive benefit, but for the SU as a whole. They were not, therefore, the property of Ukraine.
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@joeordinary209 And America has taken full advantage by persisting to imagine that Russia wants them back and so extending NATO - to its considerable political and financial gain. Trying to establish NATO in Ukraine, however, is a step too far for the Russians, who believe the two countries have a far closer relationship than it has with other countries.
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@joeordinary209 I agree with you that this war is primarily about mineral rights, rather than the question of Ukraine joining NATO. That possibility is deeply offensive and troubling to Russia, but it is not sufficient to start a war. What is sufficient cause is the fact that after 2014, under cover of the Minsk Treaties, America and its NATO stooges spent billions on creating a new Ukrainian army which by 2020 was preparing to retake the Donbass republics and Crimea. This was unacceptable to Russia. After the disaster of the Budapest Accords Russia managed to keep some sort of hold on the mining and steelmaking industries it has created in these areas. This compromise was severely threatened by the coup of 2014 and Putin took the decision to retake Crimea and provide support for the Donbass separatists. It is clear that he has throughout hoped to maintain a peaceful solution. It could well be that pragmatists in Kiev would accept Crimea becoming officially part of Russia and for Donbass to become an independent republic, with relations with both Ukraine and Russia. The West, however, with its eyes set on grabbing the estimated $14trillion of gas, oil. coal and rare earth minerals under the soil of the disputed territories, had other ideas and Zelensky was persuaded to go to war. It is a war which Ukraine is likely to lose. At the end of the day Putin will end up with more than he asked for and over half a million people will have died to no purpose.
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@bilboriches7216 No. It's Russia, temporarily occupied between 1991 and 2014. The population is 70% ethnic Russian and there are more Tatars and Greeks than Ukrainians.
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@dmitry_dev As I say, made part of Ukraine only in 1954 for purely administrative reasons. Like the rest of Ukraine it was still controlled by Moscow. Like Donbass and other areas east of the Dnieper this was steppe, inhabited largely by tribes of wandering Tatars. Since then the Turks and the Greeks have claimed it and the Russians took it back at the end of the 18th century. The population is largely ethnic Russian, descendants of many imported there by the Soviet Union to replace the Tatars who were considered unsuitable as workers. It was developed by Russia, with Russian blood, Russian sweat and Russian roubles - as indeed is so much of Ukraine. (No agreements last forever. They must be abandoned when circumstances change, as they have now.)
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@ekope6396 What independence? Ukraine's oligarchs were being bribed by the Americans to sell off its mineral wealth. Since this mineral wealth has largely been developed and invested in by Russia and Russians Putin's desire to prevent this is entirely understandable. And Crimea was merely lent to Ukraine as recently as 1954 as a matter of administrative convenience.
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@dmitry_dev Any country can.
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@dmitry_dev This is often a matter of dispute and such disputes can lead to war, as in this instance. I am British. We are quite expert in the mechanisms of decaying empires.
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@dmitry_dev It isn't a question of being fair or unfair, it's a question of likelihood. None of these scenarios is possible, but it is entirely possible that Russia will retake those parts of Ukraine to which it feels entitled.
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@bilboriches7216 History is history. And history makes Crimea Russian.
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@dmitry_dev International agreements and recognised borders have brief shelf lives. If they didn't there would be no wars and the Sioux and the Apache would still rule America. In this instance over 200 years of history and the investment of billions of roubles far outweigh a piece of paper signed by a drunkard in the aftermath of the collapse of an empire.
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