You can't help but ask when reading what follows:
Russia signaled concern on Wednesday at Estonia's treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority, comparing language policy in the Baltic state with what it said was a call in Ukraine to prevent the use of Russian.
Russia has defended its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by arguing it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders, so the reference to linguistic tensions in another former Soviet republic comes at a highly sensitive moment.
Russia fully supported the protection of the rights of linguistic minorities, a Moscow diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to a summary of the session issued by the U.N.'s information department.
"Language should not be used to segregate and isolate groups," the diplomat was reported as saying. Russia was "concerned by steps taken in this regard in Estonia as well as in Ukraine," the Moscow envoy was said to have added.
The text of the Russian remarks, echoing long-standing complaints over Estonia's insistence that the large Russian minority in the east of the country should be able to speak Estonian, was not immediately available.
But amid the growing Crimea crisis, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - which like Ukraine were all parts of the old Soviet Union - have expressed growing apprehension over Moscow's intentions.
Hard not to conclude that Putin, his appetite whetted, is looking to further leverage Western weakness by eyeballing other former Soviet Union states which brings an opportunity.
Todd Worner has an interesting, and related, piece on the appetites of men that's well worth your time:
Communism is a distant memory in modern day Russia, but the figure of Vladimir Putin is not. Whether regarding military intervention in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 or Crimea in 2014, his fuel-based blackmail of European countries, his heavy-handed management of dissenting oligarchs or journalists, or his budding cult of personality reminiscent of classic Russian strongmen, this is a man who
understands the nature of power. While he doesn’t actively promote the ideology of Communism, he clearly endorses a worldview of the historical greatness of Russian nationalism with himself at the center. In the current crisis, many will quibble about the historical, geopolitical complexities surrounding the relationship between Russia, Ukraine and Crimea. They will debate whether Crimea’s former inclusion in the Russian Empire or Crimea’s restive Russian population justifies secession especially with a strong Russian hand involved. Papers will be written. Conferences will be convened. Experts will be consulted. Perhaps these are all prudent and thoughtful notions to consider and actions to undertake. Perhaps.
But perhaps we should, like George Kennan, return to the same questions we have been asking about human nature since the beginning of time. Maybe we are, at times, overthinking things. Perhaps we would do well to step back and consider something more fundamental, something more base, something more reliable than the calculus of geopolitics and ideology…Perhaps we ignore the simple math that is often before our very eyes. May we open our eyes to the appetites of men.
Read the whole thing.
Carry on.
