Originally Posted by
dead_pan
Daft comment - that's a recipe for Balkanisation and never-ending conflict if ever I read one.
On the basis of your comments I take it you're in favour of Moldova pivoting west to Europe, given the majority of their population are reportedly supportive?
I'd just note that the Kiev government said explicitly that they wanted to get rid of their Russian speaking minority and passed laws prohibiting Russian language teaching in the majority Russian speaking areas.
Seceding from a government that wants to get rid of you does not seem illegitimate to me.
More generally, it is dubious I think to make a big 'international law' argument, the Soviet Union shifted internal boundaries quite arbitrarily, so they are not necessarily sensible.
We've seen from the Yugoslavia experience how desperately ugly rationalizing the mess can become, even in a small patch. The Ukraine is big, a much larger mess looms.