So we got the Russian Milosevic
Gripping TL, looking forward to more.
Thanks, I will keep the updates coming...
So we got the Russian Milosevic
Gripping TL, looking forward to more.
Interestingly enough, I've heard Russia being accused of something similar OTL: the argument was that the Black Sea fleet in Ukrainian Crimea serves no purpose post-Cold War and the only reason Russia wants to keep it there is to increase the Russian population in the area (via sailors and their families living in Odessa, marrying Ukrainians, swaying population statistics and opinions of the population in favor of Russia, etc). Make of it what you will.
Hmm, so with a (admittedly half-insane) Russian government in power and with collective possession of a spine & some testicular fortitude. The Latvian & Estonian nationlist are paying a hefty price for their OTL racist polices and loudly expressed anti-Russian sentiment.
Just who ''wins'' this civil war? In OTL Yugoslavia the Serbians had superior combat ability despite relying on rag-tag paramilitaries. ITTL the Baltic Russians have direct support from the motherland...
200.000 Estonians killed and almost half a million ethnically cleansed? Russia just commited the greatest crime against humanity in Europe since WWII, seeing as there were only about a million Estonian's in the 90's. I doubt the world would ignore something like that.
Hmmm, very interesting. I think the evidence is Stalin tried to tilt demographic numbers quite a bit, but I always assumed that even into the 80s that the Russians were always keenly aware of the need to play the numbers game when it came to the Russian population.
An excellent update and a great continuation to the TL, this is very well thought out.
I am curious to know how the Estonian Civil War affected Finnish attitudes and policies. On one hand, Finns woudl be very supportive of the Estonians and I could even see Finnish volunteers to go and fight for our brethren to the south. On the other hand, the Finnish government could not take a firm stand on behalf of Estonia to keep up at least some relations to Russia. Initially, for example, the Koivisto administration was very careful in officially recognizing the Baltic states, even if unofficially Finns went to great lengths to pave way for an independent Estonia. The recognition issue was ultimately resolved by saying that Finland never not recognized the Baltic states, that is it did not officially accept their annexation by the Soviet Union. While that was true, some might call it a cop-out to avoid making overt noises in support of the Baltics...
Finland would certainly be the first destination to many Estonian refugees, even if many would continue on to Sweden and towards west. That would both make the plight of the Estonian people more visible to the Finnish people, leading to widespread sympathy, but also enhance anti-immigrant sentiments towards the Estonians in some circles. Estonians ITTL would be something like the OTLs Somalians in Finland, different from the generally-accepted "gastarbeiters" they are IOTL. It seems TTLs Finland would also have other sizable refugee groups coming from the former Soviet areas, more than IOTL.
The whole Baltic situation will definitely increase anti-Russian attitudes in Finland and lead to more support for joining NATO. IOTL this was the time of the center-right Aho cabinet that pushed Finland to the EU arguably against the wishes of the main stream of the Prime Minister's own party. It would not be hard to see the same or very similar cabinet to ram through NATO membership too, that is if NATO would take Finland under the circumstances...
That the situation in Estonia was finally "resolved" by a treaty signed in Helsinki would suggest that the Finnish government is seen as at least somewhat "neutral" by the Russians. I assume that by 1995 it still keeps sitting on the fence and has not joined NATO, or is not officially about to?
How are the changes in Russia, BTW, affecting the EEC/EU and NATO expansions ITTL?
This is an excellent timeline! I can see Finland having to take in many refugees from the Baltics, possibly hundreds of thousands. I wonder how they would deal with such an influx of population?
Can't wait for the next installment!
Wow, that's just low.When she sent her three children out of the country in 1993 to seek asylum in Great Britain, Mr. Zhirinovsky famously claimed that the move was because she found it too difficult to “explain to her children why she was a prostitute,” and that it was easier to get rid of her children than to “stop sleeping with any Latvian or Turk with ten rubles in his pocket.”
Wow, that's just low.
It's Zhirinovsky. His OTL rhetoric is very similar to TTL, only in this case he has to back up all he says. Whilst if I lived in TTL I'd be as outraged as anyone else outside of the UIS that he'd say such a thing because I wouldn't have that context to draw on, now with context in mind I'd agree that it was a low blow, but he's just acting like Zhirinovsky. Amongst other things, he had backed polygamy and, in addition to his anti-Turkish feelings which are also applied in TTL, he's also called for all Chinese people to be deported from Russia.
His 1994 world tour should also give some insight into some of his eccentric views.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,979934-1,00.html
I wonder when some in the West will start reacting. (You may want to try and find a copy of "Second Generation", the autobiography of the late Mary Tamm, which dovetails her life story with a visit to Estonia after the end of the Cold War.)
This. Right now in TTL Burbilus and others are trying to keep the lid on Zhirinovsky's crazy rants that we, in OTL, know so well. By 1994 we see that they no longer can control what comes out of his mouth, and perhaps he no longer has a reason to try and appease the west since they no longer have any hope that he is anything but a dictator
Greater Russia looks good on a map, no doubt, but if the country's population is crashing in a world without numerous wars....
If the economy was dependent on oil price without huge military budget requirements....
This made me laugh. Is he gonna be that insane in this timeline?In 2008, during the resulting political row between the United Kingdom and Russia, he suggested dropping nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to flood Britain