Russia is located in the northern part of Eurasia, spanning two continents, with a land area of 17.0982 million square kilometers. In terms of area, russia has three-quarters of its territory in Asia, and it is a European country under international law and custom. Its capital, Moscow, is in Europe, and the majority is classified as white as in Western Europe, but Russia's relations with European countries are very bad. What has Russia done to Europe in history, and why is it that the West will never let it go?
The entanglement between the two begins with the Roman Empire more than a thousand years ago, when In 286, Diocletian divided the regime into two and established a four-emperor co-governance system. Rome began to have two parts, east and west, and after the death of Theodosius I in 395, the Roman Emperor was divided into two sons to inherit separately, and the Roman Empire was officially divided into the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. Later, Western Europe inherited the culture of Western Rome, and when the Eastern Rome fell, the nobles fled in all directions, just as Sophia Paleolog, niece of Constantine XI, fled to Moscow.
Ivan III, seeing the descendants of Eastern Rome, immediately married the princess and inherited the culture of Eastern Rome. These include the two-headed eagle emblem of the Eastern Romans, so Russia has called itself the Third Rome, and it just so happens that the two branches have regarded each other as heretics for thousands of years. Prejudice has a long history, and the Muscovite Principality claims that Roman orthodoxy is one thing, and european countries do not recognize this. The Holy Roman Empire, in particular, has been calling itself Roman Orthodoxy since they destroyed Western Rome.
Now that the Muscovite principality claimed to be orthodox, how could the Holy Roman Empire agree, and the two sides clashed fiercely. It's like saying that a certain prince has inherited a throne with difficulty, and suddenly a prince who does not know where he comes from says that he also wants to participate in the inheritance. Coupled with religious conflicts, Russia and eastern Rome mainly believed in Orthodox Christianity, while western European countries converted to Catholicism. With the passage of time, the cultural differences between the two have become more and more large, and they have directly fallen into a situation of intolerable water and fire.
Russia was keen to integrate into European countries, encouraging its youth to marry the inhabitants of the Baltic coast, and its royal family actively intermarried with the royal families of European countries. For example, Nicholas II and King George V of england are cousins, and in addition, Tsarist Russia has actively intervened in European affairs in all aspects in recent times. In the mid-to-late 18th century, the Russian Empire reached its peak under Catherine II, whose grandson Alexander I seized power four years after her death.
During the reign of Alexander I, he participated in the anti-French alliance against Napoleon throughout Europe, and after that, only anti-feudal revolutions in European countries were suppressed by Tsarist Russia. But active participation, except for the nickname of "European gendarme", nothing was obtained. Western Europeans still regarded it as an Asian barbarian and regarded it as a foreign land. Under such circumstances, it is even more difficult for Russia to integrate into Europe.
When Western countries refused Russia's accession to the WTO and NATO expanded to Russia's doorstep, the contradictions and commands became deeper and deeper. Of course, the main reason why Western Europeans are reluctant to accept it is that the problem of strength is that the complete acceptance of Russia is about the same as the degree of Russia, and the formation of the Soviet Union in modern times is even more frightening to Westerners. Although the Soviet Union was gone, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, The largest member state, Russia, inherited most of the Soviet Union's military power.
It is still a powerful country with greater influence, a strong military industry, and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Even if the threat is lowered, the economic situation is not as good as that of Western countries, but where is its foundation and history. So acceptance is impossible, and the Western world still believes that the Russians are a dangerous race, and that at the first opportunity they will invade and become an insoluble scourge. Unless Russia's power continues to decline, which is obviously impossible, the Chechen war was fought twice to leave Chechnya behind.
But the westward spiral failed, and Russia moved eastward, where common geopolitical interests could be held together to keep warm, even though it was not a friendly neighbor. Generally speaking, the contradictions between Russia and the Western countries have a long history and have accumulated over time. It is not that something has been done to lead to this state of intolerable water and fire, and this complex contradiction will probably not be resolved even with the passage of time.
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