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[Owlbread]

Nobody should try to emulate Bosnia & Herzegovina, it's a political clusterfuck that has produced one of the world's most bloated and corrupt governments.

At least they aren't butchering each-other though, you've got to give them that. Plus they're on their way to joining the EU, I'm sure we'll sort it out then.

Here's an interesting blog post that I agree with showing the naked hypocrisy of Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister.

[Guardian G.I.]

As for languages, the recent events demonstrated that having Yiddish speaking people  in a country is dangerous, so the stare must work hard to reduce their number.

Since you love Nazi Germany parallels so much, here's another: with "Russian" above replaced by "Yiddish", this sentence would not look out of place in an SS propaganda broshure distributed before the Kristallnacht.

You see
a) Russia claims that Russian speaking people are persecuted in Ukraine. If we do start to persecute them Russian actions will not change. So, why not? Warning : it's sarcasm
b) Racism and.... khm... how to name it... Languagephobia are different worlds. And yes, I am afraid of Russian language. It is dangerous
c) If you want historical parallels look at postwar Czechoslovakia and ask yourself why German language died  in the region where it was the main one. In the first half of 20th century many urban Czechs used German language as their main language.
But I do hope that we'll not go revenge route like Czechs did
d) I find it fun that you, Russians, understand my "work hard" as a genocide against Russian speaking people. No, I mean soft but determined reukrainization

I'd be rather careful with that rhetoric if I were you, though. A Yugoslavia-style bloodbath should be avoided, both by Russians and Ukrainians.

[scrdest]

I personally don't consider invasion as reasonable grounds for ethnic purging. If a country A with a dominant nationality X invades another country B, it is still morally wrong if country B responds by killing/deporting all the X people in its borders.

Wouldn't have to go that far, I imagine. Just don't allow russian as an official language and refuse further russian immigration and let the problem sort itself out.

Though it's not quite as clear cut as you present, KT. If it were like that, then yeah, but when Country A is using the existence of Nationality X in Country B as the reason for invasion... well, it's perhaps not moral to want (and perhaps encourage, so long as it doesn't come to violence) members of Nationality X to gtfo, but at that point it might not be immoral, either. Not when having the ethnicity in your boarder is a literal existential threat for your nation.

It's a really, really tough situation. Even discarding the possibility of Russia playing the 'WAA(G)H OPPRESION OF RUSSIANS' card, it's either:
a) Punish people whose only fault was being born to people who were born in another country, or who were forcibly relocated to live there;
b) Leave them be and have a couple thousands of living Casi Bellorum in your country;
c) Try to install a sense of belonging to the nation, and end up with weak points of both a) and b).

[da_nang]

Seriously, why not just support government documents in both languages? I get that Ukraine wants to stay as far away as possible from Russian culture, but if you use both, everybody is happy.

We tried that in Finland. I still get Finnish papers. It's like as if they don't bother looking me up in the register and notice the "Native Tongue: SWEDISH" sign in big red letters.

[Knit tie]

I personally don't consider invasion as reasonable grounds for ethnic purging. If a country A with a dominant nationality X invades another country B, it is still morally wrong if country B responds by killing/deporting all the X people in its borders.

Wouldn't have to go that far, I imagine. Just don't allow russian as an official language and refuse further russian immigration and let the problem sort itself out.

Though it's not quite as clear cut as you present, KT. If it were like that, then yeah, but when Country A is using the existence of Nationality X in Country B as the reason for invasion... well, it's perhaps not moral to want (and perhaps encourage, so long as it doesn't come to violence) members of Nationality X to gtfo, but at that point it might not be immoral, either. Not when having the ethnicity in your border is a literal existential threat for your nation.

Good point, but I honestly doubt that Putin, if he needs to keep up the landgrabbing spectacle to stay in power, would not interpret the deportation of russian speakers as "obvious oppression" and thus an even better casus belli.

[smjjames]

Well, Estonia and Latvia are NATO members, so he can't touch them, I don't know how many Russians live in Finland, but that doesn't seem likely. If he were to go after Poland, he would have to get through Belarus and I don't think anybody is going to fall for that 'massive military drill on the border and then invade' trick again.

If he were to try attacking Finland, well, Finland kicked Russian butt before and Norway and Sweden will definetly help defend.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Good point, but I honestly doubt that Putin, if he needs to keep up the landgrabbing spectacle to stay in power, would not interpret the deportation of russian speakers as "obvious oppression" and thus an even better casus belli.

Options for states bordering the nu-USSR:
- Cooperate with the Kremlin, implement dual language laws and act steadfastly in the face of opposition to integrate and respect their rights as fellow countrymen, even having Russian language textbooks in schools. Get invaded for changing their leadership to a non-Kremlin aligned philosophy.
- Do not have open borders with Russia, do not implement forced dual language laws, and assimilate Russian culture into your own while respecting their rights to self determination [Like every real society]. Get invaded for 'not respecting the rights of Russians'

[olemars]

If anything might give another attempt at the repeal legs, yeah, this would be it. The people who most benefited from official russian language stuff are now gone.

The law didn't apply to Crimea, they have their own language laws.

-snip-

The bill has nothing to do with the official bilingualism in some Western democracies where the citizen has priority while the state (state officials) must provide services in the customer’s language of preference. The Soviet type of “bilingualism,” on the contrary, prioritizes the state, i.e. the bureaucracy that chooses the preferable language (inevitably Russian) and imposes it upon citizens.

Meanwhile, in Finland, you'd be damn lucky to find state services in Swedish despite Swedish being the second state language, mandated by law. You really have to live in the right places to get that quality or cry to high heaven.

I still remember reading with horror through Finnish court papers last Summer.

Finland and its efforts to drive out the Swedish language is an interesting parallell to Ukraine. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but they were pretty fierce about it and the swedish minority wasn't happy at all (probably still isn't I guess). Then Russia built a naval base in one of the swedish language bastions.

[Guardian G.I.]

Well, Estonia and Latvia are NATO members, so he can't touch them, I don't know how many Russians live in Finland, but that doesn't seem likely. If he were to go after Poland, he would have to get through Belarus and I don't think anybody is going to fall for that 'massive military drill on the border and then invade' trick again.

If Putin decides to be more evil for the sake of being evil by invading Poland, he'll encounter another problem - it is also a NATO member.

[da_nang]

Well, Estonia and Latvia are NATO members, so he can't touch them, I don't know how many Russians live in Finland, but that doesn't seem likely. If he were to go after Poland, he would have to get through Belarus and I don't think anybody is going to fall for that 'massive military drill on the border and then invade' trick again.

More than 70 000, last I checked. And here there be Finns who haven't forgotten the Winter War and Continuation War.

Russophobia is very real here.

If he were to try attacking Finland, well, Finland kicked Russian butt before and Norway and Sweden will definetly help defend.

Considering the laughable state the Swedish military is in right now, it will take more than that I fear to fend off Russia.

[smjjames]

Good point, but I honestly doubt that Putin, if he needs to keep up the landgrabbing spectacle to stay in power, would not interpret the deportation of russian speakers as "obvious oppression" and thus an even better casus belli.

Options for states bordering the nu-USSR:
- Cooperate with the Kremlin, implement dual language laws and act steadfastly in the face of opposition to integrate and respect their rights as fellow countrymen, even having Russian language textbooks in schools. Get invaded for changing their leadership to a non-Kremlin aligned philosophy.
- Do not have open borders with Russia, do not implement forced dual language laws, and assimilate Russian culture into your own while respecting their rights to self determination [Like every real society]. Get invaded for 'not respecting the rights of Russians'

Now that we have seen that 'mass drill on the border and then invade' tactic, it shouldn't fool anybody a second time. Not sure why nobody saw through it the first time.....

[Knit tie]

Good point, but I honestly doubt that Putin, if he needs to keep up the landgrabbing spectacle to stay in power, would not interpret the deportation of russian speakers as "obvious oppression" and thus an even better casus belli.

Options for states bordering the nu-USSR:
- Cooperate with the Kremlin, implement dual language laws and act steadfastly in the face of opposition to integrate and respect their rights as fellow countrymen, even having Russian language textbooks in schools. Get invaded for changing their leadership to a non-Kremlin aligned philosophy.
- Do not have open borders with Russia, do not implement forced dual language laws, and assimilate Russian culture into your own while respecting their rights to self determination [Like every real society]. Get invaded for 'not respecting the rights of Russians'

Now that we have seen that 'mass drill on the border and then invade' tactic, it shouldn't fool anybody a second time. Not sure why nobody saw through it the first time.....

Perhaps the ukrainian government did, but was in too much chaos to react properly, like the soviet government was before Hitler invaded USSR.

[smjjames]

Well, Estonia and Latvia are NATO members, so he can't touch them, I don't know how many Russians live in Finland, but that doesn't seem likely. If he were to go after Poland, he would have to get through Belarus and I don't think anybody is going to fall for that 'massive military drill on the border and then invade' trick again.

More than 70 000, last I checked. And here there be Finns who haven't forgotten the Winter War and Continuation War.

Russophobia is very real here.

If he were to try attacking Finland, well, Finland kicked Russian butt before and Norway and Sweden will definetly help defend.

Considering the laughable state the Swedish military is in right now, it will take more than that I fear to fend off Russia.

Excuse my lack of knowledge of Scandinavian military. Finland is apparently not in NATO, now would be a good time to join it.

There are a good deal of Russian born and self reported as Russian people in the US, but that only makes up a small percentage of the total US population and Putin would have to be absolutely insane to attack the US.

This kind of behavior by Russia is what NATO was created for wasn't it......

[10ebbor10]

Seriously, why not just support government documents in both languages? I get that Ukraine wants to stay as far away as possible from Russian culture, but if you use both, everybody is happy.

We tried that in Finland. I still get Finnish papers. It's like as if they don't bother looking me up in the register and notice the "Native Tongue: SWEDISH" sign in big red letters.

We have this in Belgium, but it's not that functional. Doesn't help that both sides will use even the tiniest slip-up to block the other side.

Highlights include, but are not limited too:
Mayor's not being appointed because they sent election letters in French to French speaking citizens, without them having explicitly requested it (which involves a lot of paperwork).
Flemish representatives started to converse in French, on a meeting where everyone is legally required to speak Dutch, in order to be able to block a soon to be voted proposal for constitutional reasons.
Operating without government for more than 500 days, trying to resolve troubles and simplify systems in the municipalities mentioned above.
...

[da_nang]

Well, Estonia and Latvia are NATO members, so he can't touch them, I don't know how many Russians live in Finland, but that doesn't seem likely. If he were to go after Poland, he would have to get through Belarus and I don't think anybody is going to fall for that 'massive military drill on the border and then invade' trick again.

More than 70 000, last I checked. And here there be Finns who haven't forgotten the Winter War and Continuation War.

Russophobia is very real here.

If he were to try attacking Finland, well, Finland kicked Russian butt before and Norway and Sweden will definetly help defend.

Considering the laughable state the Swedish military is in right now, it will take more than that I fear to fend off Russia.

Excuse my lack of knowledge of Scandinavian military. Finland is apparently not in NATO, now would be a good time to join it.

There are a good deal of Russian born and self reported as Russian people in the US, but that only makes up a small percentage of the total US population and Putin would have to be absolutely insane to attack the US.

This kind of behavior by Russia is what NATO was created for wasn't it......

There are certainly talks of joining NATO in the air right now.