The Rooinek BS is totally ignorant and a brainwashed fool at best. . It is a total farce at best and shows total ignorance of Russian History. First of all the Russia size were in the main stemming from the reign of Ivan the Terrible. So lets start first, with the expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Even though the Yellow Hoard - the Mongolian Empire - conquered the Southern Part of what is today Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria and when Kiev fell to them the Russian Church went to Moscow. The Principality of Moscow was about 600 square kilometers in size. The Grand Prince of Moscow became the Prince of Vladimir and was the tribute collector for the Golden Hoard rulers.
The expansion of the Princedom started under Dimitry Donskoy who fought against the Mongol Empire and was the first Muscovy Prince who fought n won a battle against the Mongol Empire and accordingly started with the gradual expansion of the Muscovy Prncipality, which grew to the incorporation of virtually the whole of European Russia under Ivan the Great in the late 15th and early 16th century, but never included Crimea and Ukraine. A Major Part of Siberia came under Ivan the Terrible who became the first Muscovy ruler who became the first Tzar of Russia in 1547. That was followed by the conquest of Moscow in the early 17th century during what was called the The of Troubles when the Rurik rulers of Russia became extinguished and in 1613 a new Russian Tzar from the House of Romanov, who started restoration of what was then Russia as established under Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great eventually became Tzar in 1696 and his ambition was to modernize Russia and turned it into a true European Country - he did not expand the Russian Empire as much as Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible did more than near to 200 years before he became Emperor (and not Tzar) of Russia..
The next phase of Russian Expansion started under Catherine the Great who was married to his Grandson and became Empress in 1762. She added about 200 000 square kilometers to the Russian Empire, which included the Crimea - previously a sultanate under the Constantinople Empire - the Ukraine that was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom, Alaska and the Baltic. States to the Russian Empire and turned Russia into one of the most powerful countries in Europe, She modernized Russia and was the creator of Russia as taken over by the Communists in 1917 - with the exception of Alaska - which her Great Grandson sold to the USA in the late 19th century.
Peter the Great was not as successful in expansion of Russia as was Ivan III and Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) and as was the case with Catherine the Great. So the quotation by Bell is total historical BS. The Communist takeover of Russia was largely funded by the extreme wealthy Americans - who saw a dictatorship in Moscow as a means to enrich themselves further..
The American Government became involved in the situation when they funded the coup of 2014 in Ukraine and Ukraine became a major component of the kickback systems to USA politicians ever since.
So if that idiot Bell referred to Catherine the Great in what he said he would be historically correct. His reference to Peter the Great was actually total historical BS anyway. As to the Communist Regime - the system of dictatorship in Russia fell apart due to pressure put on Russia by Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl in the early 1980's when the money supply to the Soviet Union was terminated. By 1985 the volume of agricultural produce in Russia was similar to what it was in 1914 - and the major upswing on agricultural production and export of food came after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia today are not interested in conquest of Ukraine or any independent European Country at all. They never threatened any country that used to be part of the Soviet Union. The present day Ukraine was an artificial creation by the Communists in 1953 and a huge swath of mainland Russia with a Russian speaking people were incorporated into Ukraine to balance out the population of Ukraine and strengthen Russian control of Ukraine. It worked out well and there was relative peace in Ukraine until the unconstitutional coup in.2014. The Russian sector of Ukraine came under threat and the Donbas area and in particular the 85% Russian speaking component of the Crimea felt threatened by the illegal Government take-over in Kiev. The result was that the Crimea Parliament decided to secede from Russia and a referendum confirmed that decision. A Civil War in the Donbas areas broke out and a peace Agreement was reached in Minsk in 2015.
In terms of that agreement the Ukraine would lose the Crimea and the rest of Ukraine would remain a Federal Republic with strong elements of security guaranteeing constitutional protection of all of Ukraine as a country and that Ukraine will NOT join NATO as was agreed upon by the USA in 1990. The Ukraine Government and the Russian authority in the Donbas area was supposed to organize a referendum to approve the agreed new Constitution.
The corrupt US Politicians saw the Ukraine as a hotbed of corruption benefitting them and the agreed referendum was never held. Trump inherited a mess in Ukraine and he decided to follow a neutral route in Ukraine guaranteeing peace In Ukraine and in Europe. He also endeavored to stop corruption involving US politicians like Biden, Clinton, Pelosi and Schiff in the Ukraine.
Corruption of politicians in the USA started with the elder Bush as President with his links to the armaments and oil industries and as fine-tuned the Clintons with their Clinton Foundation being the centerpiece. That was followed by a critically corrupt younger Bush Administration by the more corrupt Obama Administration who was involved in the 2014 coup and the stream of corruption exploded. Trump got near to clean up the mess of corruption in the Democratic Party leadership - but the Democrats used the Russian Hoax and the fake impeachment to stop further investigation of their own criminal activities.
When Biden took over the kickback system in Ukraine was implemented again. The situation was tragic. In the Civil war in 2014 more than 14 000 Russian speaking people were murdered by Ukraine Government forces and that number increased to a further 4500 by 2020. Ukraine banned the speaking of Russian in public and the new education law of the Kiev Government banned the teaching of Russian in Ukraine schools. Germany and France together with Putin tried to get back to the Minsk agreement but the corrupt American politicians would have none of it. They undermined efforts to settle the situation peacefully and encouraged the Ukraine to take back control of the Crimea and the Donbas area. In the weeks before the Russian invasion the Ukraine Government arrested the Russian-speaking members of the Ukraine Parliament - despite the fact that they voted against a potential attack by Russia and supported the Ukraine Government on that score. When renewed fighting broke out in the Donbas area initiated by troops of the Ukraine Army Putin lost his patience with the crooks in Government in Washington and Kiev and the invasion of Ukraine followed.
A war in Ukraine would entail massive corrupt benefits of Democrats like Biden, Pelosi and Schiff - as well as the now Archangel of the Democrats- Cheney. The lie is that Ukraine is winning the war and they must get new armaments from the USA and the EU. with the kickback system in full swing in the case of the USA, The Democratic and Republican Party crooks gets the kickbacks - while the people of Ukraine - both Ukrainian and Russian speakers - suffer the terrible consequences of the War. The propaganda arms of the Washington regime claims that Ukraine is winning the War with the exact opposite being true. As long as the war in Ukraine drags on so long the corruption benefits will flow to the corrupt US politicians.
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