Exactly as we refer to former USSR or former Yugoslavia.
Look at a map. It's gone. I suppose I could refer to #UkraineSSR Lenin created.
Or to #theUkraine pre 1914 that did not include any #BlackSea coast (Odessa and Taurida were oblasts of Russia proper and that reflected their population).
Crimea was never ceded formally by the Duma and it's status as an "autonomous republic" reflects its tenuous connection - beginning only 1954 - with #UkraineSSR.
It's ethnically almost entirely Russian & given context and threats & actions of 2014 chose various ways to rejoin Russia.
That's over.
1. If Putin owns Trump he owns everything in the USA. #Russiagate is Democrat cope.
2. Putin's objective is #Novorossiya, Russian land severed by Lenin to put Russian loyalists in vastly expanded #UkraineSSR. He has it all except #Odessa & #Zapororhye.
3. Russian #maskirovka mandates looking weak.
