(Photo/ www.understandingwar.org)
BY ED FELIEN
I believe the people who live on the land must be recognized as the rightful owners of that land. No foreign army should determine their sovereignty. There must be plebiscites to allow the people of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk to vote on whether they want to align with Russia or with Ukraine.
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, they held a referendum on whether the people wanted to align with Russia or Ukraine. According to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea there was an 83 percent voter turnout and the result was 97 percent in favor of integration into the Russian Federation. Surely, with such a resounding affirmation, Russia should welcome an internationally supervised plebiscite to reaffirm that result.
The struggle between East and West in Northern Europe has existed for more than 2,000 years. Evidence of the Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th Century is visible in the Mongolian fold of the eyes and the linguistic difference of the non-Indo-European language of the people of Finland and Hungary from the rest of Europe. Perhaps the last remnants of the Mongol occupation of Northern Europe is evidenced by the Sami people in Northern Sweden and Norway.
When peace was finally made between the Germanic tribes and the Mongols, the dividing line between East and West was the Dnipro River, and the people in the land immediately to the East were called the Kievan Rus. And that territory eventually became Russia.
Today, Trump is calling for an immediate cease fire, giving Crimea to Russia and settling on an agreement not to include Ukraine in NATO. Despite my belief that Trump is a stooge of Putin and our village idiot, I believe these are reasonable demands for the beginning of negotiations. There must be an immediate cease fire. Crimea should decide in an internationally supervised plebiscite whether to join Russia or Ukraine, and it really doesn’t matter if Ukraine joins NATO since most of Europe already supports Ukraine militarily. Further, I believe Russia should be made to pay indemnities to Ukraine for the loss of life and property resulting from initiating this war.
And the people of Luhansk and Donetsk should be allowed to determine their own national destiny.
