Do any regions in Estonia or Latvia want to break away and join Russia?
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  Do any regions in Estonia or Latvia want to break away and join Russia?
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Author Topic: Do any regions in Estonia or Latvia want to break away and join Russia?  (Read 1674 times)
Blue3
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« on: August 28, 2014, 05:45:18 PM »

Do any regions in Estonia or Latvia want to break away and join Russia?

I thought I remembered hearing that a few months ago, perhaps on here.
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SPC
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« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2014, 05:48:21 PM »

I believe Narva is ~75% Russian. That does not necessarily mean the majority of the population has irredentist goals though.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2014, 06:05:11 PM »

Both have large groups of Russians (I recall numbers being roughly 1/3 in Estonia and 1/2 in Latvia, but those may be off). They also have a fair bit of tension between Russians and natives. And Russia has already hinted they may intervene. Not sure if many people want to break away though. My guess would be not - while the Ukraine is poor and sh*t, Estonia and Latvia are EU members which have in the long run done well economically.
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ag
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« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2014, 07:06:37 PM »

I believe Narva is ~75% Russian. That does not necessarily mean the majority of the population has irredentist goals though.

More like 90%. And so are, really, Kohtla Jarve and Sillamae. A LOT more Russian than, say, Crimea. Daugavpils is majority Russian in Latvia. Creating a credibly-looking separatist movement in all of these areas (and more) would be a piece of cake for the Russian security services.

Do not kid yourselves. This is WAR. And it will not stop in Ukraine.
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jfern
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« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2014, 07:09:27 PM »

Probably not without Putin's interference.
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Nhoj
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« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2014, 07:27:54 PM »

Tallin is also plurality Russian I believe. of course they are probably more integrated than the ones in Narva
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2014, 08:01:55 PM »

If they do I wouldn't blame them, given that the governments and people of the Baltic states openly admire genocidal Nazi collaborators.
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patrick1
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« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2014, 10:25:51 PM »

If they do I wouldn't blame them, given that the governments and people of the Baltic states openly admire genocidal Nazi collaborators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_the_Baltic_states_(1940)
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Snowstalker Mk. II
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« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2014, 10:28:14 PM »

The Balts actually slaughtered their own Jewish populations before the Germans even passed through.
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patrick1
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« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2014, 10:46:39 PM »

The Balts actually slaughtered their own Jewish populations before the Germans even passed through.

No, there were some incidents in the brief period between Soviet occupation and Nazi arrival on the scene but it is a dubious claim.  Enisatzgruppen directed the Holocaust  and most certainly received assistance from locals.   Anyway, original point is that there are historical reasons for the Baltic states being anti Russian because many crimes were committed against them by Soviet Russia and earlier than that.
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ag
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« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2014, 11:40:38 PM »

If they do I wouldn't blame them, given that the governments and people of the Baltic states openly admire genocidal Nazi collaborators.

I know: you prefer the genocidal GULAG guards.
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ag
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« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2014, 11:51:37 PM »
« Edited: August 28, 2014, 11:53:22 PM by ag »

The Balts actually slaughtered their own Jewish populations before the Germans even passed through.

I had an uncle, who survived the Riga ghetto. He fled and was hidden by Latvian underground. The group that saved him, saved dosens of Jews - and a lot of people participated in the operation, risking the necks of their own and of their kids. Stop listening to Russian propaganda - you have already seen how much they lie, why do you insist on paying attention to them?

And, yes, we also lost many family members in the Holocaust in Lithuania. They lived in Alitus: it was taken over by the Germans within 14 hours of invasion. But many others would not flee the Germans: they could not imagine they could be any worse than the Russians. Just a week before the German attack, Russians deported over a 100 thousand Balts to concentration camps in Siberia, where a lot of them died. They had no reason to love those sadistic murderers - the Soviets. It is not their fault that the Germans turned out to be no better. But Germany was defeated and recoiled from its past. Russia continues to celebrate its inhumanity.

Yes, for Eastern Europeans WWII lasted till 1991. They have no love lost for the totalitarian dictatorship that enslaved them for decades. That does not make them fascist.
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ag
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« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2014, 11:54:30 PM »

Tallin is also plurality Russian I believe. of course they are probably more integrated than the ones in Narva

It is called Tallinn.
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ag
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« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2014, 11:58:36 PM »

This was the guy who saved my uncle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jānis_Lipke

note the stamp those Latvian Nazis produced to commemorate him.
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ag
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« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2014, 12:03:42 AM »


But he will interfere all right.
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ingemann
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« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2014, 12:05:28 AM »

Outiside Narva the vast amount of Russians in Estonia and Latvia lives in the capitals and a few other larger towns. Russia can not really get them without occupying both countries fully.

You could see a invasion of Narva, but the Estonians get what their army are needed for, the invest relative much in it and focus on ground troops. Of course they don't have a chance against the Russian army, but as a NATO member they don't need a chance, they just need to be strong enough that the Russians can not just send "volunteers" over the border and start a armed separatist movement, but that they have to invade.

The Russian population in the Baltic countries are split in three groups, some who lived there before WW2 (a relative small group), some who was settled there after WW2 (like the population of Narva) and some who was settled there in the 80ties, to try to stop Baltic separatism.
The Russian population have been falling since independence (the native Baltic population has also been falling but slower), some because they have migrated to Russia (especially in the early 90ties) and but today their falling population are cause by emigration to the rest of EU.

As for the Baltic attitude toward the Nazi. When USSR occupied the Baltic countries they saw a signifficant population descline, this stopped when the Nazi occupied them (except for massacres of communists and Jews in the first year) and their population did infact grew from 1942 to 1944, but restarted with the second Soviet occupation and continued into the early 50ties. Something like 1/4-/1/3 of the Baltic population was killed, starved or deported by Stalin. You don't need to understand a lot of historical context to see why the Balts have a much more positive view of Nazi Germany than of USSR. Of course some historyless hacks don't get this, but that's not the Balts problem.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #16 on: August 29, 2014, 10:38:07 AM »

The Balts actually slaughtered their own Jewish populations before the Germans even passed through.

There were some villages in Lithuania where this is reported to have happened, but it wasn't the general picture, which was more one of an unusually high level of local co-operation in the murders ('unusually high' still does not mean 'everyone').* But there were also people (in all Baltic states) who tried to save their Jewish neighbours, and not a tiny number were killed themselves as a result. There is an issue with what we might euphemistically refer to as 'problematic historical remembrance' in the Baltic states regarding the War and the Holocaust, but that's not an issue unique to them or even to Eastern Europe. Consider Austria or even France.

In any case I don't think the vile actions of some of their grandparents justifies a (hypothetical) Russian invasion today...

*Or was it 'typically high once you ignore Poland?' Depends how you choose to look at things.
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Blue3
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« Reply #17 on: August 29, 2014, 08:36:08 PM »

Obama to make visit to Estonia next week, and meek with Baltic leaders
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-house-putin-dont-even-214107060.html
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Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck
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« Reply #18 on: August 29, 2014, 09:53:21 PM »

The Balts actually slaughtered their own Jewish populations before the Germans even passed through.

Snow, there were many different peoples of Europe who engaged in rampant anti-Semitism before the Nazis invaded.  We blame the Nazis because they ramped it up and brought it to unthinkable levels, but in many cases they were inciting prejudices that already existed.  The Baltic states aren't some glaring exception to the rule in Europe.  If you want that, you should look at Denmark.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews  Sad, but true.   
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Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]
tsionebreicruoc
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« Reply #19 on: August 29, 2014, 10:58:39 PM »

The only thing I'd say about that is the pure shame of EU which annoys everybody for having the same cumcumber size all over Europe and then allows Latvia to have a sub-nationality for those who have Russian origins, while it's supposed to be based on 'Human Rights'...

Something which indeed really helps...

Iirc, the Russian govt already tried some gestures to 'borrow' those citizens (I feel like remembering something about passports or some other advantages but I could mix up with some other of the multiple issues that Russia enjoys cultivating all along its borders, so you gonna look it up for more precisions).

I don't know how all of those things between Russia and West Europe will be sorted out, but something, and personally I couldn't tell what exactly, really needs to be sorted out...
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Brittain33
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« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2014, 06:24:07 PM »

For what it's worth, Estonia's Jewish community in 1941 was tiny and half fled east before the Germans arrived, so it is unjustified to lump in the experience of Estonia with that of Latvia and Lithuania, which had very large Jewish communities wiped out during the war.

(One reason that Macmillan's crack about "Old Estonians" in Thatcher's cabinet wasn't quite as clever as it sounds.)
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Stranger in a strange land
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« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2014, 11:13:48 PM »

Narva might, but nowhere else.
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ag
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« Reply #22 on: August 31, 2014, 12:16:57 AM »


What's the difference between Narva and Kohtla Jarve or Sillamae?
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