in 1787, Catherine, Empress of Russia, made a triumphal voyage down the Dnieper River . I’m not sure whether she started in Kiev, but she visited that city, her city, proceeding on down to Kherson at the delta where the river meets the Black Sea. Kherson is the citybthe Russians just captured.
in 1787, George Washington, having been enticed out of his bucolic retreat at Mt. Vernon, was attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
Seven years later, Catherine founded the great port city Odessa, fulfilling every Tsar’s dream of a warm-water port.
And also seven years later (1794) Washington DC was founded.
The two rulers are almost exact contemporaries.
I’m not sure whether either of them ever commented on the other. Catherine’s most famous pronouncement on our revolution was scornfully directed at King George: ”I would have shot myself rather than give up such a rich colony” she is reputed to have scoffed.
England made war on us again during the war of 1812, and burned Washington DC to the ground.
What if they had taken and held it?
might not our president, two centuries later, be considered something i& a hero if he tried to take it back?
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Machiavelli gets a bad rap, and rightly so, but he was actually a great admirer of freedom. I don’t know if “supporter” of freedom would be the right word, but he admired free societies. He stated, basically, that people who are accustomed to being ruled by a dictator or king do not necessarily care which dictator or king they are ruled by. Such societies, according to Machiavelli, are easier to take over and rule, but people who have known freedom don’t give it up, according to Machiavelli. He felt strongly that free societies were by far the most difficult ones to conquer, and if I remember correctly, he advised against trying to conquer them.
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Side bar: If I were a US Congressmen right now, I’d be that old dude beating the foxtrot out of stupid Progz on the Senate floor with my cane and/ or bare knuckles.
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Maybe taking a switch to the “squad” over your knee would work, too, ST? It’s all so *infantile*.
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Hypatia, your final question is to orient the gentle reader to possibly rationalize Putin’s perspective – oui?
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Just a little historical perspective….
Can’t believe everybody is suddenly so hot about Ukraine’s 20 year old “sovereignty”. Israel has over 70 years now, more than Kuwait had when the world went to war over it—
I mean no, no,it’s horrible and shouldn’t have been begun,of course.
But isn’t it fascinating to think about the fact that George Washington and Catherine the Great were alive for nearly the same span?
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