17 Feb, 2023 15:19

US governor trolled with Zelensky image

Donald Trump Jr. suggested Ohio’s Mike DeWine should have dressed up as the Ukrainian leader to secure disaster assistance

Former US president Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr, has shared an image trolling Ohio governor Mike DeWine for failing to secure disaster assistance from the Biden administration, following a catastrophic train derailment that spilled hazardous materials near the town of East Palestine.

In the image, originally posted to Instagram by an account with the handle that_southern_dude, the governor is illustrated wearing a mask of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky with the caption: "Ohio’s governor after Biden denied his request for disaster assistance.”

On Thursday, the Biden administration turned down a request for federal disaster aid from the state of Ohio, stating it was not eligible for help as the incident does not qualify as a traditional disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane. That’s while the US continues to spend billions of dollars on military assistance to Ukraine.

Last week, a 150-car train carrying ten cars of hazardous materials derailed, allegedly due to mechanical issues involving a rail car axle and emergency brake failure. As a result, a significant quantity of chemicals, including carcinogens, spilled into the air, water and soil.

Norfolk Southern, the train’s operator, then initiated a controlled release and burnoff of the highly toxic gas vinyl chloride from one of the cars, stating that failure to do so would have turned the derailed train into a “bomb.” One issue with burning vinyl chloride, however, is that the process turns it into hydrogen chloride and phosgene, a chemical weapon used in World War I.

Although authorities in Ohio’s East Palestine village have already lifted the initial evacuation order and declared the area safe, a number of residents have complained of alarming physical symptoms, as well as dead pets, livestock, and fish. The Environmental Protection Agency has also pointed out that the water in the area remains unsafe to drink, despite state officials claiming the contrary.

At least five lawsuits have so far been filed against Norfolk Southern over the derailment and failure to properly dispose of contaminated soil, following the leak of toxic butyl acrylate into the Ohio River, which supplies drinking water to about 10% of the US population.

Meanwhile, after over a week of silence, the US Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, who is ultimately in charge of all the country’s railroads, refused to take responsibility for the incident on Wednesday and shifted the blame for the toxic train disaster to the Trump administration.

https://www.rt.com/news/571649-ohio-governor-zelensky-troll/

Follow Nick Sortor reporting directly from East Palenstine, OH. He took this video of the chemicals in the water yesterday. Has over 12 million views.

Nick Sortor

@nicksortor

Even MORE proof that the EPA is LYING to the people of East Palestine.

THIS WATER IS INSANELY CONTAMINATED

9.9M views

4:09 PM · Feb 16, 2023

from East Palestine, OH·

https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1626327835668320256?s=20

>>18364187

Absolutely disgusting

17 Feb, 2023 15:25

Ukraine ‘peace petition’ backed by nearly half a million Germans

The document co-authored by prominent left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht suggests weapons deliveries should stop

Almost 500,000 Germans have supported a petition urging Chancellor Olaf Scholz to spearhead efforts for peace negotiations in Ukraine. The appeal is authored by journalist Alice Schwarzer and Sahra Wagenknecht, a prominent member of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), and implores officials in Berlin not to provide Kiev with more weapons.

The document, which was published last Friday and has since gathered an increasing number of supporters, claims that the conflict in Ukraine has alreadycost the lives of more than 200,000 military personnel and 50,000 civilians.

“If the fighting goes on like this, Ukraine will soon be a depopulated, destroyed country,” the authors warn. Wagenknecht and Schwarzer also argue that “a lot of people in Europe fear an expansion of the war.”

The petition asserts that Ukrainians need solidarity from Germany, but questions whether Berlin’s current policies truly reflect the support they require.

“What is now, one year on, the actual goal of this war?” the authors ask, citing German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s recent comment about Europe being at war with Russia.

The petition expresses skepticism over whether Scholz’s government will keep its word and not provide Ukraine with fighter jets. According to Wagenknecht and Schwarzer, the German chancellor has already crossed multiple “red lines” in recent months.

The pair also warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin could unleash a “maximum counterstrike,” should Ukraine retake Crimea – which is among the goals set by senior officials in Kiev.

“Are we theninexorably sliding down a chute leading to a world war and nuclear war?” the petition asks, adding that numerous major conflicts have begun this way, and that another could end up being the last for mankind.

The petition stresses that “to negotiate doesn’t mean to capitulate,” but rather to “make compromises on both sides.” The authors claim that half of the German population wants immediate peace talks, and suggest that the government should heed their calls.

“We demand that the federal chancellor stop the escalation of weapons deliveries,” the document states, urging officials in Berlin to focus on peace efforts and form an international alliance to this end.

The petition had received 496,008 signatures at the time of writing.

Moscow has repeatedly signaled it is open to talks with Kiev, provided that Ukrainian leaders accept Russia’s conditions and recognize what the Kremlin calls the “reality on the ground.”

In early October 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky ruled out negotiations with his Russian counterpart. Kiev is insisting on a military victory over Russia, and refuses to make any territorial concessions to its neighbor.

https://www.rt.com/news/571648-half-million-germans-peace-ukraine-petition/

17 Feb, 2023 15:30

Police told to keep record of ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘communists’

Law enforcement in Australia’s Queensland must report interactions with ‘extremists’ to counter-terror teams

The Queensland police are required to report interactions with people who “allegedly hold a range of ideological beliefs” including “conspiracy theorists” according to an email sent to all members of the Queensland Police Service on Thursday and seen by ABC News.

Police must record interactions with such individuals in the state’s QPrime database “at the first available opportunity,” the email states, explaining that in addition to “conspiracy theorists,” “religious, social or political extremists and sovereign citizens, as well as people with ideologies relating to capitalism, communism, socialism or Marxism” also fit the bill.

Officers were also told to report “all matters that indicate concerning or escalating behavior due to ideological beliefs, including religious and single-issue ideologies” and advised of the “risks” inherent in dealing with these groups.

The guidance comes after a deadly shooting in Wieambilla in December left two officers and a civilian dead, in addition to the three shooters. Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train reportedly gunned down constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold and injured two other officers on their property, also killing neighbor Alan Dare when he was drawn to the scene by the noise. The Trains were then killed by specialist police following an hours-long standoff.

Authorities are calling the incident a “religious terror attack,” citing the Trains’ Christian fundamentalist beliefs, a strain known as premillenarianism whose adherents prepare for and anticipate the End of Days. A police investigation concluded the family had “acted as an autonomous cell” to carry out the attack, Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Tracy Linford told reporters on Thursday.

“Christian extremist ideology has been linked to other attacks around the world but this is the first time we’ve seen it in Australia,” the deputy commissioner said, acknowledging that there was no evidence the family had identified themselves as “sovereign citizens.” Stacey Train’s diary reportedly described police as “monsters and demons.”

Police were potentially “lured” to the Trains’ farm in search of Nathaniel, a high school principal who had been reported missing by his estranged wife in New South Wales and was wanted on firearms charges.

Much has been made of Gareth Train’s postings on online forums, where he described Covid-19 as a “neurological bio-weapon” and the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, which led to sharply restricted gun ownership for civilians, as an operation to “disarm the Australian population.”

https://www.rt.com/news/571651-queensland-police-report-conspiracy-theorists/

17 Feb, 2023 15:48

Top Russian academic explains rapprochement with Africa

The conflict in Ukraine has revealed Moscow’s true friends and foes, head of the Institute for African Studies says

Many African countries have resisted pressure to condemn Moscow over the Ukraine conflict because they see that the West is now using the same methods of “colonial oppression” against Russia that their own continent had suffered from, Irina Abramova, director of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has told RT.

The conflict in Ukraine has “given a new impetus to Russia’s return to Africa. It tore away the disguises, revealing our true friends and foes,” Abramova said in an interview on Friday.

The African nations “weren’t afraid to speak up against the economic sanctions [on Moscow] and stood firm in the face of enormous pressure from the West. Despite certain inconsistencies during the voting on some of the UN’s anti-Russian resolutions, their behavior was exemplary,” she recalled.

Last March, 26 African countries out of 54 refused to support a UN resolution condemning Russia, mostly abstaining or not submitting their votes. The number of nations from the continent who didn’t back a similar document in October, had increased to 28.

One of the reasons for that was that Africa sees “that the same methods of colonial oppression once utilized against Africa are being used today against Russia,” the academic explained.

The Africans are also “grateful [to Moscow] because they remember how the Soviet Union helped them achieve both political and economic sovereignty,” Abramova said.

“The USSR built over 300 major industrial enterprises, more than 1,000 infrastructure facilities, and trained over 500,000 staff in Africa,” she said.

Russia reducing its activities on the continent in the 1990s “was a big mistake and now we’re starting to realize it,” the academic pointed out.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has made two African tours in less than a year, visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of the Congo in summer, and traveling to South Africa, Angola, Eswatini and Eritrea in January.

Moscow has a lot to gain from restoring relations with Africa because the continent is “a global leader in financial technology and decentralized finance, or a third of resources that the world’s green economies and defense industries require are located in Africa, or that 60% of the continent’s people are younger than 25 years of age, meaning that they are the future of the world,” Abramova pointed out.

Africa, for its part, is interested in boosting trade with Russia while dealing without middlemen, as well as getting access to Russian technologies that are essential to speed up its modernization, she said.

https://www.rt.com/africa/571645-africa-ukraine-un-abramova/

17 Feb, 2023 14:25

Spain considers drastic move to rein in food prices

A government official calls for price intervention on essentials, saying “families can’t wait”

The Spanish social affairs minister, Ione Belarra, has called on the government to bring down prices of basic products by introducing discounts, as food costs continue to rise in the country amid double-digit inflation.

A reduction in value added tax (VAT, known in Spain as IVA) has proven insufficient as prices for essentials are still “the highest,” Belarra posted on Twitter on Thursday. She urged the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) to subsidize the basic consumer basket by 14%.

The minister also proposed bringing prices down to levels seen prior to the conflict in Ukraine, adding that Spanish “families can't wait any longer.” She argued that the proposed subsidy would help mitigate the impact on consumers of soaring inflation, and even suggested a price intervention.

Food inflation in Spain has remainedover 15% despite an IVA cut on some basic products. In January, inflation eased from 15.7% recorded in December, but was still raging at a rate of 15.4% for food and non-alcoholic drinks, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) reported on Wednesday.

Cash-strapped households in Spain have taken a hit from surging costs of most meats, fish, yogurt, butter, cereals, coffee, tea and baby food, as these items were not classified as basics and did not receive a tax cut.

The overall January inflation reading was higher than INE expected, and stood at 5.9% with a 0.6% rise from December.

https://www.rt.com/business/571597-spain-food-prices-surge/

Spain gives the very least of all countries in EU, why are prices going up higher than others? Corruption!

The Revival at Asbury University has been going on for six days and not stopping

A nonstop revival breaks out at Kentucky college. Now, it's viral on TikTok Haadiza Ogwude

Cincinnati Enquirer

A Feb. 8 religious revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky has generated over 32.8 million views on TikTok as of Thursday, Feb. 16.

A religious service at a Christian college in Kentucky has captured the attention of social media users across the globe.

During a scheduled chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, Feb. 8, a religious revival broke out. Over a week later, the service is still going strong,with folks traveling from as far as Singapore to join

Videos of students participating in the nonstop prayer and worship service have made their way to social media, sparking international attention. As of Feb. 16, posts with the #AsburyRevival hashtag have generated 34.5 million views on TikTok.

NBC reports thatstudents and faculty from 22 schoolsin Hawaii, Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota, Tennessee, Indiana and other states have made the trek to Asbury to join in on the religious experience. Travelers from Singapore and Canada are also expected to arrive soon.

The service experienced its largest crowd yet Feb. 14, with over 3,000 attendees, two-thirds of which were from out of state, NBC reports. The crowd was so large the revival had to expand to four additional facilities in the college town.Other schools have even started their own revivals and religious services, inspired by the events happening in Wilmore. Lee University in Tennessee, Anderson University in Indiana and Ohio Christian University near Columbus are among the schools to have joined the movement.

When did Asbury revival 2023 start?

It started Feb. 8 during a scheduled chapel service.

Where is Asbury revival happening?

It's happening at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky.What religion is Asbury University?

Asbury University is a Christian liberal arts university. There isn't an official denominational emphasis, but "the institution maintains its commitment to an evangelical Wesleyan-Arminian perspective," according to the university's website.

What is a revival?

In Christianity, a revival has historically been a movement to reawaken the spiritual passion of a group, church or community. Attracting or converting new members to the religious group is also one of the main goals.

Although revivals have evolved over the years, the roots of the spiritual gathering can be traced to Anabaptism, Puritanism, Pietism and Methodism from the 16th-18th centuries.

Skeptics often view revivals as "manifestations of superstition, hysteria and social contagion," per the Lexington Herald Leader. Others view them as reactions to major social events. But for believers, revivals are renewals of a person's faith.…

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2023/02/17/asbury-university-revival-in-kentucky-goes-viral-tiktok/69913997007/

I would love to go there and worship

17 Feb, 2023 15:51

Kosovo, Donbass and Catalonia are famous examples, but do you realize how many countries have problems with separatism?

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More than 100 governments recognized Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence 15 years ago, but most of them have their own issues of this kind

In February of 2008, Kosovo’s parliament – dominated by Albanian separatists – declared the province’s independence from Serbia. Belgrade objected to the move, but it the new "state" was recognized the very next day by the United States, Britain, France, Türkiye, and Albania. More than 50 countries followed by the end of that year.

As of now, almost 100 UN member states have recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty. However, this figure is in constant flux, as some countries have withdrawn their support due to Belgrade’s diplomatic efforts. Nevertheless, Pristina continues to claim that 117 countries support its "independence."

In fact, more than half of the countries belonging to the UN do not recognize Kosovo’s independence. Among these are China, India, most of the post-Soviet countries, as well as several EU members, namely Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Romania, and Slovakia.

Russia is one of the main opponents of Kosovo’s declaration of independence and has been consistent about the consequences for the world order. Upon closer examination, it turns out that the vast majority of global states are dealing with some form of separatist issues, ranging from significant to very minor.

A Balkan Patchwork Quilt

The disputed status of Kosovo is only the latest instance of separatism resulting in the emergence of a new state-like entity in the Balkans. The disintegration of the region has been dubbed ‘Balkanization’, and deservedly so.

At the end of the last century, most of the Balkans were incorporated into a united country called Yugoslavia. Today, there are seven independent countries in its place, but this is by no means where it might end.

Serbia was the first to face the problem of Albanian separatism, but there are Albanian communities in other nations throughout the region – including Montenegro, Greece, and Northern Macedonia. In the latter, the threat is especially acute, since Albanians, who account for 25% of the country’s total population, live in the country’s western regions adjacent to Kosovo.

In addition to the Kosovo problem, Serbia has potential issues with Vojvodina – an autonomous region inhabited not only by Serbs, but also Hungarians, who have a very strong regional identity.

Kosovo also has its own internal challenges. In the northern part of the province, there is an enclave populated mainly by Serbs, who do not like the prospect of being isolated from their larger homeland. Likewise, problems with separatism have inevitably arisen in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Republika Srpska, which is part of it, looks towards independence or reunification with Serbia and has increasingly expressed views on the future that contradict those of the central government.

The same problem, though less acute, can be found in Croatian enclaves of Bosnia, as well as Croatia itself, where there are enclaves of Serbs….

https://www.rt.com/news/571605-only-prescription-for-separatism-is-empire/

>>18364546

2 of 4

Iberian Peninsula: Two Countries Aren’t Enough

If there wasn’t a king sitting in Madrid who still unites most of the peninsula, ‘Balkanization’ might well have been called ‘Iberization’ – there are more separatist movements in Spain than any other Western European country.

The whole world is well aware of the problem of Catalonia. Just five years ago, in October 2017, the local authorities there held a referendum on independence, which ended in failure, despite the fact that more than 90% of those who voted supported the separation of the region from Spain. Madrid refused to recognize this expression of the people’s will. In the aftermath, some of the leaders of the Catalan separatist movement were arrested, while others managed to flee the country. However, this has hardly quashed the desire of local residents.

In addition to the Catalan issue, there is also Basque separatism, which, unlike the Catalonian variety, often takes on more radical forms. Radical nationalists from ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna – Basque Country and Freedom) fought for independence from Spain and the Spanish crown for more than 40 years, killing 800 people. In 2018, the group announced its self-dissolution, but this doesn’t mean that the problem has gone away. One of the largest parties in the region, the Basque Nationalist Party, still supports the idea of independence from Madrid.

Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities, or regions. While not reaching the level of separatism, the idea of regional autonomy flourishes in each of them to one degree or another. In local elections, candidates who call for more independence and autonomy regularly garner a large percentage of the vote in Aragon, Andalusia, Castile, Asturias, Cantabria, and Galicia, as well as other autonomous communities.

And not all is sweetness and light in the Iberian peninsula’s other country, Portugal, either… though it’s true that the regions seeking to free themselves from the power of Lisbon are separated from that metropolis by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean: we’re talking the archipelago of Madeira and the Azores.

Britain: A disunited Kingdom

Scottish separatism has been haunting London for the past few years. After independence supporters won the last regional elections, they announced their intention to hold a second referendum on seceding from the United Kingdom. The first was held in 2014, when 55% opposed the divorce, and 45% supported it. Confident in the results of the vote, London didn’t interfere with the will of the Scots at that time.

However, two years later, the UK voted to leave the European Union, and Edinburgh demanded a new referendum, as Scots clearly wanted to stay in the EU, having voted against by a landslide 62%. The Scottish authorities had wanted to hold a new referendum in October 2023, but, last November, Great Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that plebiscites on independence cannot be held without London’s consent. This time the Tory-controlled parliament does not intend to grant it. Edinburgh has no intention of giving up, with the former head of the Scottish government, Nicola Sturgeon promising “Scottish democracy will not be denied.”

Last week, Sturgeon announced her resignation as Scotland’s first minister, but still, speaking of her successor, she expressed confidence that the person “will lead Scotland to independence.”

Relations with Northern Ireland are no less problematic for London. In local elections in the spring of 2022, the Sinn Fein party, which advocates for reuniting with the Republic of Ireland and seceding from the Uk, won regional elections for the first time. The Northern Ireland Protocol, signed between London and the EU during Brexit, probably contributed to the separatists’ growing popularity. The document calls for preserving a single customs space between Dublin and Belfast, while actually introducing customs between Britain and Northern Ireland.

London's issues don’t stop there with varying degrees of separatist activity in Cornwall, Mercia (the West Midlands and East Midlands regions), Northumberland, Yorkshire, Jersey, and Wales, and even talk of England itself exiting the UK. However, these appear to be trite compared to the Scottish and Irish questions…

https://www.rt.com/news/571605-only-prescription-for-separatism-is-empire/

>>18364590

3 of 4

Western Europe: Countries Within Countries

For the most part, the countries of Western Europe seem to be exemplary unitary states, and generally that is what they are. However, there are also strong regional identities, as well as desires for more autonomy and separatist leanings.

In France, for example, there is the problem of the Occitans, who occupy a huge area in the south of the country – as many as seven regions. Even an aggressive Francization policy wasn’t sufficient to solve this problem definitively: all signs in the region are regularly duplicated in Occitanian.

Brittany, in the northwest of the country, also has a strong regional identity. Its inhabitants have their own Celtic language and prefer to call themselves Bretons, rather than French. In the last half of the 20th century, the Breton Liberation Front, which is the armed wing of the Breton Revolutionary Army, carried out terrorist attacks, while barking out slogans advocating independence for their homeland. In Corsica, radical groups haven’t shied away from employing violent means to achieve independence, even in this century.

Each of these separatist communities boasts a political wing – the Occitan Party, the Breton Party, and the Free Corsica Party – whose programs range from demanding greater autonomy to calling for full independence. The last instance of violence occurred in the summer of last year, when the Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) claimed responsibility for 16 arson attacks and took credit for bombing summer residences owned by non-Corsicans, as well as construction companies and police cars.

The EU’s economic locomotive, Germany, has a problem in Bavaria – a rich region that occupies about 20% of the total area of the country bordering the Czech Republic and Austria. Bavarians are significantly different from other Germans. Their dialect is actually considered to be a separate language, if not officially recognized as such. Although regional identity is extremely strong, Bavarians rarely speak about separatism, at least publicly. But even in the absence of conflict, Berlin keeps its eye on Munich.

One of Germany’s main parties, the Christian Democratic Union, whose representatives have repeatedly been selected as Germany’s Chancellor, does not contest elections in Bavaria. Instead, it works in an alliance with the purely Bavarian Christian Social Union party, which has absorbed most of the separatist and radical nationalist Bavarian parties over time.

In Italy, the issue of independence is being discussed in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto. And these discussions are rather unpleasant for Rome. For example, Venetian politicians have managed to have Venetic recognized as an official language in their region, along with Italian. In March of 2014, 89% of respondents in an online poll conducted in the region supported creating a sovereign Federal Republic of Veneto. However, it hasn’t advanced to a referendum yet. The desire to achieve greater independence in these areas mainly stems from economic factors, but in South Tyrol, the national question also plays a role. This rich German-speaking region, which became part of Italy only after the First World War, has been striving to reunify with Austria for more than a century.

The most likely candidate for disintegration in Western Europe is undoubtedly Belgium. It consists of two regions inhabited by very different peoples: Dutch-speaking Flemings, who make up about 60% of the country’s population, and French-speaking Walloons, who account for 40%. The linguistic division is aggravated by serious economic inequality between the regions – the Flemings have every reason to believe that their southern neighbors in Wallonia, whose unemployment rate is twice as high and GDP per capita a third lower, are living at their expense. Thirty years ago, Flanders’ dissatisfaction with this situation contributed to transforming a unified Belgium into a federation. Now the Flemings are fighting to extend their autonomy further, while the Walloons attempt to repulse their efforts.

And so on, and so forth…

The problem of separatism is even more acute in Eastern Europe, especially in post-Soviet space, where wars have often broken out due to the inability of central and regional authorities to reach agreements. These regions include Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and eastern Ukraine.

But separatist aspirations are not confined to Europe. They can also be found in Asia, Africa, and even Oceania. This is especially true in countries with a colonial past, where borders were often drawn under external pressure without regard to local factors and the traditional homelands of tribes and peoples.

>>18364597

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The strongest non-European powers today are not without this problem either. The world is well aware of the separatist threats facing China. The United States has recently been increasingly touting claims for independence from Taiwan, Tibet, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, and Macau. A little more than half a century ago, Beijing was also fighting separatism in Inner Mongolia, but demographic trends have rendered this problem less relevant.

That said, even the US itself, which from the outside appears to be one of the most monolithic nations in the word, could easily bedivided into 11 smaller nations. Stories about Americans pushing for the independence of individual states – California and Texas, for example – pop up in the media from time to time, while more exotic movements advocating the independence of entire regions, such as Cascadia or the Republic of New Africa, also exist.

At any rate, a complete list of all the separatist movements around the world would occupy a separate room in a library.

Is there a solution?

Timofey Bordachev, program director at the Valdai Club, in Moscow, believes that “Globally, separatism is a reaction to disassociation, the construction of new fences, and the rise of nationalism.”

“If there was real globalization, there would be no separatism. Borders would be transparent, and people wouldn’t care where they live.

Separatism is a struggle against the nationalism of the titular nation.

Why do residents of Donbass and Eastern Ukraine want to get out from under Kiev’s power? The reason is Ukrainian nationalism. Why did separatists wanting to break with Georgia appear in South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Because Tbilisi tried to impose Georgian nationalism on these regions. That’s it. The reason behind separatism always stems from the nationalism of the larger nation,” the expert told RT.

Nikolay Topornin, associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations’ Department of European Law, has a slightly different point of view. According to him, “There is no clear relation between separatist tendencies and global integration processes.”

“Each case has its own history, its own characteristics, its own roots. But yes, most often a whole complex of historical, cultural, religious, linguistic, educational, and economic reasons lies behind each example of separatism,” he pointed out.

In some sense, globalization has contributed to the growth of separatism, according to the expert. One of its consequences has been the appearance of glocalization, with regional differences strengthening, rather than disappearing as expected. “Instead of merging and unifying, trends in the opposite direction are emerging and gaining strength: separatist leanings, increased attention on local differences, heightened interest in ancient traditions, and the revival of dialects,” he said.

Under these conditions, there are only two ways to fight separatism: repression and concessions. Countries often employ both of these methods simultaneously by persecuting separatist-minded activists, while granting separatist regions more autonomy at the same time. However, according to Timofey Bordachev, there is a more universal prescription:

“Is there a theoretical solution to the problem of separatism? Yes. It’s an empire. The only prescription for separatism is an empire: large multinational, multi-confessional countries, such as Russia, China, and, to some extent, the United States.”

By Georgiy Berezovsky, Vladikavkaz-based journalist