Larisa, if you do a quick survey you will find that there are literally hundreds of articles and forum topics on RT to which I have never contributed a syllable. This article is about the Soviet Union, Crimea, Stalin and the alleged generosity of Soviet territorial manipulations. The Baltics are scarcely off-topic in such a context. My original reference to the Baltics was limited, but then others took up the discussion, sometimes by posting material which I believe does not coincide with facts. I have brought relevant facts to bear on their assertions, and discussions have proceeded from there. Obviously the subject must be of some interest, else people would not participate. I suggest that the interest stems from the fact that Moscow continues to maintain and vigorously promote a position which is historically and factually indefensible. When I bring relevant facts to bear, some readers react in a fairly volatile way. And by the way, the facts that I present, being facts, are not something I dreamed up myself last night. They are commonly available from all relevant reference sources. Many entire nations find Russia’s embrace of certain Soviet-era fictions highly offensive, and this constantly handicaps Russia’s foreign policies and harms its image abroad – perhaps you have noticed. One would think that Russian policymakers would have noticed as well, and initiated changes that would bring genuine advantage to their country. The real question is, why does Russia maintain such positions, not why do I and others refute them.

Jsmith: the opening lines of the Soviet anthem go, "Unbreakable bond of freeborn republics / put together by great Russia." Some leading Soviet personalities were indeed not Russian. But the Soviet Union itself was a Russian thing, built as an aggrandizement of Russian chauvinism, not the chauvinism of any other single Soviet "republic" nor of the lot of them together. Of course the Soviet Union oppressed Russians in Russia. The foolishness of the Soviet Union was, that dogma was always and forever much more important than people. But in non-Russian areas like the Baltics, local Baltic people were discriminated against at the hand of Russians and in the service of Soviet dogma even more than Russians themselves were. There are more examples of this than could be fitted into a hundred forum posts.