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[Sheb]

Or just keep renting it. They had a lease until what, 2045?

[Knit tie]

It certainly wouldn't be cheap to build a new port, but compared to the cost of hosting an Olympics/financing a war ..... maybe...

The current war in Ukraine is not that costly for Russia to support, really. On the contrary, shipping supplies there boosts domestic food, medical and arms industries. War is quite a profitable thing, you know, as long as it's not your territory that the fighting is going on.

Or just keep renting it. They had a lease until what, 2045?

Yes, but the new government in Kyiv had second thoughts about that lease due to its nationalistic party line and the political situation in Ukraine in general and Crimea in particular was rapidly deteriorating - not the best environment for a strategic asset of Russia to be in, I hope you'll agree. Not to mention that the rent for the Sevastopol port has been borderline extortionist in the last few years, anyway, which is also further evidence of the fact that Yanukovich was not a puppet of Putin.

[da_nang]

Well, speaking of ports, Novorossiysk is/was scheduled to replace Sevastopol in 2016.

[SirQuiamus]

...
EDIT: Who wanted to talk about Russian achievements? We can now into smartphones!

The Yotaphone 2 was partly designed by Finns, so don't be disappointed if it turns out to be as crappy as Nokia's finest innovations.

[Knit tie]

...
EDIT: Who wanted to talk about Russian achievements? We can now into smartphones!

The Yotaphone 2 was partly designed by Finns, so don't be disappointed if it turns out to be as crappy as Nokia's finest innovations.

And made by the same chinese guys who make blackberries and motorolas, by the way. But the reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive.

Well, speaking of ports, Novorossiysk is/was scheduled to replace Sevastopol in 2016.

Back then nobody in Russia could've predicted that we would be able to nab the real thing, so of course there were plans for eventual replacement.

[SirQuiamus]

Well personally I'll be glad if all Western-lovers and liberals went away into their beloved European countries and stopped living in my country. Maybe then the remaining ones will be able to build a better state.

This is a pretty good idea, actually. If you want to build a brave new, stronger loving society, all you need to do is buy plane tickets for all the undesirables you don't want in your country; not a big expenditure by any standards, only a few million people at most. If you run out of money, you can simply kick the rest of them right across the border; Finland could use some well-educated Russian immigrants. Seriously though: What, in your opinion, is the purpose of society? Is it about getting along with others, or getting rid of them?

[Helgoland]

Well, speaking of ports, Novorossiysk is/was scheduled to replace Sevastopol in 2016.

Back then nobody in Russia could've predicted that we would be able to nab the real thing, so of course there were plans for eventual replacement.

... contradicting your earlier claims of economic infeasibility. And since you can't build such a port within two years, work at Novorissiysk must be pretty far along, diminishing the real value of Crimea to Russia even further.

[Knit tie]

Well, speaking of ports, Novorossiysk is/was scheduled to replace Sevastopol in 2016.

Back then nobody in Russia could've predicted that we would be able to nab the real thing, so of course there were plans for eventual replacement.

... contradicting your earlier claims of economic infeasibility. And since you can't build such a port within two years, work at Novorissiysk must be pretty far along, diminishing the real value of Crimea to Russia even further.

Come on Helgo, no need to push me on every apparent contradiction in my claims, this isn't an Ace Attorney game. Novorossiysk wasn't going to be a copy of Sevastopol, it was going to be a half-assed, inferior, cheaper, hastily assembled, poor man's copy of Sevastopol. And now they can build another civilian port there instead of trying to somehow make all the facilities big enough to house the entire Black Sea fleet.

[Owlbread]

Change that couple decades into the last two centuries. Sebastopol was the nexus of the Russian Empire's heydey of expansionism - that long forgotten period of time following the Napoleonic wars where Russia was considered the police of Europe, the hammer that was supposed to drop on any great power that got too big for its britches. Unfortunately for Russia and the Concert of Europe, the French and British decided to take the opportunity to show Russia who the real Empires were in the Crimean War, setting the stage for the first world war...
It's sad, really. It's a clearly Russian city, chock full of Russians and Russian history. But because of moronic communist land swaps (oh, how they loved to make sure ethnically unified territories didn't exist back in the USSR. It made it very hard to imagine revolt if your neighbour didn't speak your language or follow your faith) it wound up in the Ukraine, when they should have just been building a bridge.

I think the Crimean Tatars who have lived there for around 1000 years, rather than the past 200, have a rather different concept of whom Sevastopol belongs to. For as long as they remain in Crimea I will never recognise it as a Russian territory.

[Knit tie]

Change that couple decades into the last two centuries. Sebastopol was the nexus of the Russian Empire's heydey of expansionism - that long forgotten period of time following the Napoleonic wars where Russia was considered the police of Europe, the hammer that was supposed to drop on any great power that got too big for its britches. Unfortunately for Russia and the Concert of Europe, the French and British decided to take the opportunity to show Russia who the real Empires were in the Crimean War, setting the stage for the first world war...
It's sad, really. It's a clearly Russian city, chock full of Russians and Russian history. But because of moronic communist land swaps (oh, how they loved to make sure ethnically unified territories didn't exist back in the USSR. It made it very hard to imagine revolt if your neighbour didn't speak your language or follow your faith) it wound up in the Ukraine, when they should have just been building a bridge.

I think the Crimean Tatars who have lived there for around 1000 years, rather than the past 200, have a rather different concept of whom Sevastopol belongs to.

Considering that it was founded, built, inhabited and defended in several wars by Russians, no they don't.

EDIT: Regarding's Ukraine's worship of Bandera being morally reprehensible or not: first, there is a difference between a medieval warlord who beheads rebels and thus follows the legal code and the general morality of the time and a 20th century warlord who ethnically cleanses civilians in clear violation of both legal and moral norms of his civilisation and second, unlike Charlemagne, and Stalin, for that matter, Bandera did absolutely nothing significant in his political career aside from starting those ethnic cleansings and occasionally collaborating with the Nazis.

[Owlbread]

Considering that it was founded, built, inhabited and defended in several wars by Russians, no they don't.

That's not how it works. Decolonisation didn't mean Jo'burg belonged to the Afrikaners. Arguably it did, but in an independent state of equal rights unto all ethnic groups.

[Darvi]

Didn't somebody somewhen link that one image where, no matter how long or how many of your people have been living in an area, it always ends up as being an excuse for why it's ours (and those rules didn't apply to the anybody else)?

[Owlbread]

I wonder if anyone showed that image to ANC activists back in the 80s.

[Knit tie]

Considering that it was founded, built, inhabited and defended in several wars by Russians, no they don't.

That's not how it works. Decolonisation didn't mean Jo'burg belonged to the Afrikaners. Arguably it did, but in an independent state of equal rights unto all ethnic groups.

And Sevastopol currently belongs to the Crimean Tatars to the same extent to which it belongs to all other peoples living there. I'd say that's fair.

[Sheb]

So Knit Tie, you're basically saying that Russia nabbed Crimea because it though it could get away with it and wanted it?

Regarding Sevastopol: I find it interesting that unlike the rest of Crimea, it wasn't part of the Ukraine SSR, but an independent federal district. I'm not sure how it ended up in Ukraine.

In other news, a bunch of american foreign security grandees have published a call to arm Ukraine.