In exchange for economic support from United States, the government of Kazakhstan agreed to transfer 30 biological laboratories from Ukraine to its territory. This was announced by the dir. of the Agency for ethno-national strategy, Aleksandr Kobrinsky.
(en.reseauinternational.net)
Dziekuje, America!
Indeed. I was just correcting your over simplification of "all" former SSRs.
So we're in agreement that most were not in fact Rus Empire territory leading up to the 18th century.
All of these former SSRs were either autonomous nations or part of other empires pre 1700.
I completely concur about the Ukraine territory though. Same goes for Belarus and the lower half of Finland. I too am a bit lost regarding the post Napoleanic state of the Caucauses.
Additionally I would add that the list I just bulleted the new Russian constitution written in 1991 does not claim or cede land territory to Russia, but it does offer blanket protection for all Russian speaking people in those countries. It's a bit similar to our own policy in America when "rescuing" citizens abroad. E.g. Russian constitution would figuratively "cover" a military operation in any former SSR if the govt deemed the Russian population of (insert SSR here) in detriment.
Which is why Russia was/is legally covered by their own constitution to invade Ukraine, period. Even the UN & NATO agreed to this IRT 30 years ago.
Agreed. There is a distinction between the original 11 pre 1940 SSRs and all the rest. The two added in 1936 might also be suspect. Conversion from Russian Territory held at the time of the Revolution in 1917 into SSRs, and then back into autonomous countries does not appear to be legal. Conversion of sovereign states into occupied SSRs and then back into sovereign states with removal of occupier DOES appear to be legit (per your nice distinction on the Baltic States). 1940 and after SSRs appear to all be "war trophies" or "occupied territories" from an international law standpoint. Law of War appears to apply to those.
Interesting that there are some "temporary SSRs" I did not know about: https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Republics_of_the_Soviet_Union