Kalinigrad was Prussian. L'viv and Vilnius were Polish. Szczecin and Wrocław were German. That was only 80 years ago. 100 years ago there was no Poland, and no USSR.
These cities changed hands every 50 years or less for last few centuries. It's useless to argue about these things.
Basically whole C&E Europe is a huge barrel of powder. If you start to do this stuff (this is MINE because history) the powder will explode.
That's why nobody (except Russia) do it. Even the worst nationalists in Poland don't actually want L'viv or Vilnius. Even though L'viv was a very important city for Polish culture and still 80 years later there are songs about how great a city Lwów was (French wouldn't understand, you only have one city ;) ). It was Polish San Francisco, and we don't want it back.
That's because we know that we are only safe because we're past the WW2 era of petty nationalisms. We've learnt our lesson.
Putin doesn't care - he knows EU is not united enough to react, so he basically replays Hitler 1938 strategy and he goes away with it. French traditionally don't want to die for Danzig(Donetsk this time), they even sell weapons to Putin. Great job, guys.
It's very frustrating to see it in real life and see how useless and clueless western politicians are. Like nobody learnt anything from WW2.
These cities changed hands every 50 years or less for last few centuries. It's useless to argue about these things.
Basically whole C&E Europe is a huge barrel of powder. If you start to do this stuff (this is MINE because history) the powder will explode.
That's why nobody (except Russia) do it. Even the worst nationalists in Poland don't actually want L'viv or Vilnius. Even though L'viv was a very important city for Polish culture and still 80 years later there are songs about how great a city Lwów was (French wouldn't understand, you only have one city ;) ). It was Polish San Francisco, and we don't want it back.
That's because we know that we are only safe because we're past the WW2 era of petty nationalisms. We've learnt our lesson.
Putin doesn't care - he knows EU is not united enough to react, so he basically replays Hitler 1938 strategy and he goes away with it. French traditionally don't want to die for Danzig(Donetsk this time), they even sell weapons to Putin. Great job, guys.
It's very frustrating to see it in real life and see how useless and clueless western politicians are. Like nobody learnt anything from WW2.