THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS RACE, JUST CULTURE:

Ukrainians really are "Russian" in every sense of the word. I'm not implying that Ukrainians don't have a sovereign nation--they absolutely do. But culturally, and ethnically, and in any other way that matters--they're the same people. They tell their children the same fairy tales, they listen to the same musicians. Heck, I'm Russian but until the Soviet Union broke up I never even considered that my best friend was "Ukrainian" (he's from Kyiv) or even that my father's parents were both from Ukraine. So maybe this makes me half Ukrainian? It's hard to say. My family were Jews on a long slog from Spain by they time they made it to that part of the world. And today I live in Canada.

The point is: Until the Maidan, Ukraine existed in the same bucket of excrement in which Russia has lived since the revolution. They've had one strongman after another robbing the nation blind and subjugating the people.

But then a small miracle happened: The young people of Ukraine had enough. And they managed to overthrow Putin's puppet and elect someone with eyes squarely on the West.

Now Putin can't have this.

Not because he's jealous or because he's worried about his borders. He can't have it because until recently when Russians looked to, say, Belgium, or France, or Germany, and asked, "Why can't we have what they have?"--the answer was always "Because they're different! We're Russian. We operate differently."

And Russians bought this explanation because there's a grain of truth in it.

But what happens to that sangfroid if Ukraine turns into Belgium? (And they're well on their way to doing that.)

Then Putin would be left standing naked in his garden of lies. 

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