Sarah Paine

They did that.

And then they tried moving countries, right?

Poland to the west.

Mongolia, I haven't talked about it.

It was to the east in the Chinese territory.

And then they want to take some stepping stones for later expansion.

So that's what Kaliningrad is all about.

Another one is Moldova.

That is territory between Romania and Russia on very important river systems.

And Moldova's got problems with a place called Transnistria, which the Russians have poached.

So that story is still ongoing.

And also places like Azerbaijan, it's split between Iran and, well, now it's independent Azerbaijan, but it was split with the Soviet Union.

And then there are the divided states of Germany, Korea, Mongolia, and China.

You want all your neighbors quarreling over their borders so that Russia can then set the terms and that it can nibble them away a bite at a time, or if it can take a whole thing, good for them.

So Russian national identity is not only about empire, territorial extent, it also has some big ideas attached to it.

An ideology that somehow this territorial expansion is either progressive, beneficial, or positive.

It's a myth.

So under the Tsars, the ideology was this Third Rome of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Third Rome was in Moscow.

I know this is news to you.