Russia and Ukraine: New Tardfight?

[DGuller]

Besides the two languages are very similar and I understand it's not all that hard for a Ukrainian speaker and a Russian speaker to comprehend each other.

I don't know, I personally find it a lot easier to comprehend Polish rather than Ukrainian, and I actually spoke Ukrainian for part of my life (you were endangering the intactness of your face by not doing so in Lviv).

[Barrister]

Knowing all of a dozen words of Ukrainian I'll defer to your expertise.

[KRonn]

Besides the two languages are very similar and I understand it's not all that hard for a Ukrainian speaker and a Russian speaker to comprehend each other.

I don't know, I personally find it a lot easier to comprehend Polish rather than Ukrainian, and I actually spoke Ukrainian for part of my life (you were endangering the intactness of your face by not doing so in Lviv).

I guess some of those squabbles make our US "English first" type stuff a bit tame by comparison!

[Queequeg]

Besides the two languages are very similar and I understand it's not all that hard for a Ukrainian speaker and a Russian speaker to comprehend each other.

I don't know, I personally find it a lot easier to comprehend Polish rather than Ukrainian, and I actually spoke Ukrainian for part of my life (you were endangering the intactness of your face by not doing so in Lviv).

Ukrainian has some weird spots IIRC; Russian gs are hs, like in Czech, and they have a guttural sound like gh that is nowhere to be found in Russian.  The grammar seems a bit more conservative as they don't have a preopositional (pridlozhny) case, and maintain the Indo-European locative and vocative.  They are also a lot more consonant cluster averse, so stuff like the genitive plural of medicine, the impossible to say lekarstf, are rare.

It is probably easier to read than to listen to, same as it is with 'mutually uninteligable dialects', like Schweiss Deutsch for High German speakers or or any kind of Arabic from another.  To me, Ukrainian sounds a lot like Czech while Polish sounds more like Russian, but I'm not fluent in Russian yet and don't have a huge amount of experience with Ukrainian or Czech.

[Viking]

Just because both are similar, that doesn't mean that both understand. It's quite possible for Ukrainian speakers to understand Russian while the reverse is not true. It's like this with most Swedish speakers and Norwegians. The Norwegian understands the Swede (unless he's from skåne) and the Swede almost never understands the Norwegian.

[Neil]

2) Turks and Russians have been fighting for the better part of a thousand years.  They are natural enemies, with almost a thousand years of constant slaughter and slavery between them. They hate the Russians with a far more visceral passion than maybe even the Poles.  You Islamophobe motherfuckers drove the Turks into Russia's (childish but far more shrewd) arms. 

I would imagine the creation of some buffer states has relaxed tensions somewhat.

As a Russophile, you analysis can't be trusted anyways.

[Siege]

I care.

Send weapons to the Ukraine.

Heck the Ukrainians have nukes right?  What is Russia really going to do?

They got rid of them years ago.

Once again, the folly of not having nukes.
Not having nukes if far more expensive, in treasure and blood, than having nukes.

[Siege]

Well, it seems ukranian and russians have fought each other in Africa:

"Eritrean-Ethiopian War. In February 1999, according to some reports, Ethiopian Su-27 pilots shot down four Eritrean MiG-29s. Some of these sources claim that the Ethiopian planes were flown by Russian pilots, and the Eritrean planes by Ukrainians. (It is certainly true that local pilots were trained by instructors from those nations.[19]) "

[DGuller]

They fought against each other in the Caucasus as well. 

[Zoupa]

They fought against each other in the Caucasus as well.

When? I'm curious.

[Zoupa]

Ukraine is a shithole. Nobody cares, and that's fine.

You are a bloody idiot. Ukraine is and has always been the key to the Russian Empire. Russia becomes the empire whenever it has Ukraine and is not when it loses it. Keeping Ukraine out of the Russian reach is crucial to keeping Russia in check.

That's nice, but what's keeping Russia in check is the fact that it's a third world country.

[DGuller]

They fought against each other in the Caucasus as well.

When? I'm curious.

I don't remember exactly, but it was during the various wars and conflicts after USSR collapse (for example Abkhazia war).  Ukrainians obviously didn't fight in their uniform, but they fought as mercenaries.  Russians were supporting the sides that Ukrainians didn't fight for, and helped along a genocide or two along the way.

[Razgovory]

What's with your people DGuller?  Send a letter back and tell them to cut this out.