The rationalization that because there is a significant ethnic population in a neighboring sovereign country can be used as a pretext for invasion or annexation by an autocratic regime is pure Nazi philosophy. See Germany’s annexation of Austria (The Anschluss), Czechlosavakia (The Sudetenland) , Poland (Danzig). Remarkable that seemingly intelligent, informed folks would buy into the Russian view of the situation. But then again, Germany in the 1920s had one of the most advanced, literate and cultured populations in Europe , yet enough of them supported a thug movement led by a deranged psychopath, only resulting in the destruction of the European continent and about 60 million deaths.
