Cernauti was part of Moldavia before Austria annexed the Bucovina. Moldavia was an Ottoman protectorate for 300 years and marked on the maps as in Turkey. It became the third biggest city in Austria after Vienna and Prague. A large proportion of the population was Jewish in the late 19th century and German was the lingua franca.
It was part of Romania from 1918 until Stalin seized the Northern Bucovina, which he did between June 28 and July 3, 1940. It became Romanian again in June 1941, when Romania joined with Germany in attacking the Soviet Union. Many Jews were slaughtered there during the war by Romanian soldiers, on the pretext that the Jews had welcomed the Bolshevik invaders.
The Jews and Germans are gone. Most people are Ukrainian now, while perhaps ten percent of the people of the city speak Romanian, a language they call Moldovan or Moldavian.
Marie Yovanovitch -- the former US Ambassador to Ukraine under Trump who testified against him in the 2019 impeachment, and was lauded as a hero -- suggests that if Trump were in office, he'd have averted the war diplomatically. But she thinks this would've been a terrible thing.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1517807790605148161?
I have pointed out here before the shocking fact that the war in Ukraine is actually between the USA and Russia. Ukraine and its suffering people are being used as a battering ram by both sides. Some people think I have imagined this.
Let me give you two good reasons for believing that I am right. The first is a recent statement by Leon Panetta. Mr Panetta was Secretary of Defence in the US government from 2011 to 2013. He was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2011. He was White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997. He knows what he’s talking about. And on March 17 he said in an interview with Bloomberg Politics: ‘It’s a proxy war with Russia whether we say so or not. That effectively is what’s going on.’
The second is that there is no serious effort to make peace, from any direction. Why is this?
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2022/04/didyou-ever-see-in-the-old-yellow-pages-or-on-the-web-anyone-advertising-himself-as-an-emergency-journalist-no-nor-i.html
The French election this weekend really does hold the fate of the world in balance. The victory of Macron will set the fate of Europe on its course with destiny and the end of the West as we know it. Macron wants a European army and he really believes that the EU can defeat Russia. A Macron victory will indeed set Europe on course for war and 2023 will not look very bright. From a realistic model projection, Le Pen should win, but from a practical perspective, Macron will win because Europe must simply face its destiny.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/the-french-elections-this-weekend-fate-of-the-world/
THANK YOU, Toma - for that tweet and clip about Marie Y. This says it all. Nobody who thinks (which rules out most people) can believe this war and the crucifixion of Ukraine would have happened had Trump won in 2020.
DeleteI largely agree with Peter Hitchens too, for which more thanks.
Katie Hopkins is on very witty form here. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=notif&v=1097435200807979
DeleteOh you are extremely pompous sometimes Paul, the war was already happening under Trump just in slow motion. Putin’s stated aims and ambitions going back to his 2001 speech were always the reintegration of the Ukrainian industrial heartlands into not just a quasi union, but Russia. Trump did nothing to stop or slow it except take the cash.
ReplyDeletehttp://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/26909
ReplyDeletehttp://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/26909
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