Re: Russia
Yep, it's not like taking over parts of Ukraine
It goes both ways.
Do you expect the relationship to be any good after we have sponsored, trained and armed the people who have taken hospitals, theaters and primary schools as hostages for decades?
Do you expect the relationship to be any good after have told them in writing that we will sponsor whoever we like, regardless of that person intention and terrorist status relative to Russia (the letter by C*ntolezza to Putin regarding this has been declassified on the Russian side, dig it and you will find it).
As far as Baltics are concerned, after they joined NATO they shipped every single piece of surplus armament they had to Dudaev and other terrorists/separatists around the Russian borders.
My mother has a framed "service reprimand" on her wall for calling a Lithuanian pilot a cunt. The incident happened after he tried to request low level wind sheer for Hankala airbase (next to Grozny) with an official flight plan from Sofia to Rostov-Na-Don carrying "cucumbers". For some reason the "cucumbers" landed from Lithuania the previous day.
Now, let me ask you a question, how level will be let's say (for sake of arguments) Haiti or the Isle of Man and at how many Sieverts it will tick in a Geiger counter if it shipped weapons for "independence fighters" in let's say Texas (or Wales) and they took a primary school and slaughtered most of the children in it? Now add a theater to it. Now add a hospital. Now add supplying ~ 50 aircraft for a suicide bomber run (what happened on 9/11 was planned there first, just never executed due to lack of pilots). Now add 20+ buses, trolleybuses, etc bombed with the people on them. Now add two passenger aircraft. All of that while getting a shipment per week or more of weapons out of the surplus coffers of at least one Baltic state as well as financial, diplomatic and political cover by US and UK.
I actually admire Russian restraint on the subject. We would have not been anywhere as patient. If the tables were turned, the Baltics would have been glass glowing in the dark.