Sarah Paine

But they don't measure it in wealth because their wealth has always been much less than their Western neighbors, although they often confiscate the wealth of other people.

So what they measure, their strength, greatness, is in vast territorial extent and the ability to run roughshod over others and make them do whatever it is Russia wants.

And also, when they look at their security, they also look at it this way, is that we need this vast territorial extent to be secure.

But they never turn it around, so they're always worried about other people invading them, to think, well...

Do you suppose we pose a threat to anybody else?

They never turn it around that way.

Except Russia has posed existential threat to its neighbors forever.

There are so many neighbors you have never heard of because they've disappeared from the pages of history, courtesy of the Russians.

Let's go to the medieval period where Russia starts out as the princely state of Muscovy, Moscow.

Well, it wipes out the other princely states.

There was Novgorod the Great.

It was the more progressive place.

They wiped that place out.

Upskov, Rostov-Chir, there are a lot of other places.

And then later they're eliminating the Khanates of Central Asia.

These are states.

It's a different way of organizing yourself.

But the Khanate of Crimea, Kazan, Astrakhan, Khokhan, Kiva, Bohara, they get rid of all of it.

And then there's been this repeated vivisecting of European neighbors, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, and Finland, of taking their territory one bite at a time.

And you can see it going on today.