Slavic Political Turns of Phrase.

I was playing go with a Russian fellow, and we began describing the board in terms of cold-war geography. This part well on my side was France, this island that I temporarily controlled but was unable to protect was Cuba, this part kind of between us but likely to fall to my opponent was Poland. And he taught me a Russian saying: "курица не птица -- Польша за граница" -- "A hen is a not a bird like Poland is outside Russian borders". (You'll be happy to hear that in go, as with the real Soviet Union, the West was victorious.)

And I was listening to a talk by the former Ukranian finance minister and ambassador to the EU, and he said of Ukraine's relationship with America (I paraphrase): "America is more concerned with Russia than with the Ukraine itself. It is like hunter trying to wake bear with stick: he does not care much what happens to the stick."