Category talk:Wars involving Russia

Russian irredentism
With regard to this. Is not it the case that practically all these wars were related to expansion of Russian territories, and usually were started for that reason? One could say that a probable exception was WWII. However, even in that case : (a) this war resulted in a huge expansion of the "Soviet Empire", including taking over a few new territories as a part of the USSR; and (b) the war started in 1939 from the coordinated attack by Nazi Germany and USSR on Poland, as they agreed in advance in the M-R pact; it was only later that Hitler had attacked the USSR. Of course some of them (e.g. Category:Kościuszko Uprising) were wars of liberation from Russian occupation, but this is still related to Russian irredentism. My very best wishes (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2023 (UTC)


 * You seem not to understand that 'irredentism' is about reclaiming areas that allegedly "belong(ed)" to the "nation" but were allegedly "lost" and not yet "given back". The term comes from Italia irredenta = "the Italy that has not yet been given back". If, say, the Russian Empire conquers territories in Central Asia that it had never "owned" and that were never really populated by "Russians", that's just expansionism/imperialism, not "irredentism". Wars are fought for diverse and complex reasons, often multiple simultaneously; irredentism is just one possible reason out of many (e.g. religion, resources, succession etc.). We shouldn't be reductionist. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)