Russian Imperial Thought

This lovely appeared in the last seventy-two hours. I remember writing that the Tsar wanted Alaska. It was apparent when Vladimir Putin started talking about Russian lands. Now it’s transparent:

“Russia claims Alaska and vast swathes of Asia under Vladimir Putin’s new order”: The West was seriously spooked by the president’s decision to seek Russian assets, seeing it as a territorial claim.

“The new order affects all of Moscow’s historic holdings on three continents, including former colonies of the Russian Empire in the United States. The document provides means to search, register and provide legal protection for Russian property abroad, including land and buildings in the territories of the former Russian Empire and the USSR. Among the regions affected by the new decree is Alaska, which was sold to the United States in 1867 and where communities with close ties to Russia still live. Parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and large parts of Asia were also once part of the empire. The Institute for the Study of War suggested that Moscow could use the president’s new executive order to destabilize its neighbors.”

Now I am shocked Putin is not claiming the west coast to the Russian River in Sonoma County. That would give him multiple deep water warm ports, including Victoria and Naval base Kitsap, a merging of both Bremerton and Bangor. Did I mention the port of Seattle?

So this would add to the bases the Russian navy could enjoy. But they are sticking to Alaska, claiming some Russian speakers want to return to the Rodina. This is precisely what they said about the Donbas as they took place in 2014, and Crimea.

So what about Central Asia? These are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. And yes, their propaganda is starting to talk of these places as nonexistent fictional countries, like they did with Ukraine.

Europe, anything and everything to Berlin. This is the imperial claim. This is where Putin is at right now. We are heading toward a much larger conflict, even if, objectively, Russia is losing. Here is the view from Yigal Levin on this:

One of the most important reasons why the intensity of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities is now lower than in the “same period last year” is that…