Vladimir Putin’s Neo-Colonial Can of Worms

Lord Venal has shared his thoughts with kazaxia on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Q&A on April 17.

In this Q&A Putin called into question the status of Ukraine, referring to parts of the threatened country as ‘Novorossiya’.

Here’s what Putin had to say:

I would like to remind you that what was called Novorossiya (New Russia) back in the tsarist days – Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa – were not part of Ukraine back then. These territories were given to Ukraine in the 1920s by the Soviet government. Why? Who knows. They were won by Potyomkin and Catherine the Great in a series of well-known wars. The centre of that territory was Novorossiysk, so the region is called Novorossiya.

Let’s apply this Putinlogic to some other cases:

1. Orenburg

Orenburg, now in the Russian Federation, stradles Europe and Asia and once functioned as the capital of the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic – present-day Kazakhstan. It served as the capital from 1920-1925, after which the republic was renamed the Kazak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and Kyzylorda was made the capital, while Orenburg joined mother Russia.

So the question here is should Orenburg rejoin Kazakhstan as Putin proposes for Novorossiya?

2. Calais

Following the annexation of Calais, in northern France, by England’s King Edward III in 1347, the area was a territorial possession of England until the perfidious French captured it in 1558. In fact, the very first of the Venal line fought in the ultimately doomed defence of Calais (on the English side).

There are reports that representatives of England’s elite blue-rinse brigade have been landed in Calais as a vanguard for any operation to annex the port. My cousin saw a number of grannies in the hypermarkets of Calais stocking up on cheap booze and cigs. They were speaking English with distinctive regional accents.

[Editor’s note: When kazaxia contacted Britain’s Ministry of Defence to verify if these grannies were indeed linked to the UK government, it received no answer as the Ministry is taking a day off for Good Friday.]

Pro-England separatists stocking up on cheap booze in Calais

If England were to invoke its territorial claims, following Putinlogic, and re-take Calais – as Russia has annexed Crimea, then I would hope to be able to reclaim the ancestral Venal seat in the Pas de Calais.

Finally, I could return the impoverished Venal legacy to its former glory and not have to grub around the world looking for election observing handouts.

By the way, if anyone in Orenburg or Calais wants a referendum, I would be only too pleased to observe the legitimacy of the process.

Tags: Calais, Crimea, KazakhstanG, Orenburg, Putin, Russia, Ukraine