>"Chechnya is not really "part of" Russia. It was conquered by the Empire"

If you want to go that far come back to me when you return California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming to Mexico. And this is a beef just between 2 countries. There are many more.

Besides nobody gives a fuck about your "not really". What matters is what is recognized by the other countries and they accept Chechnya being part of Russia

I do include those. They are all part of the same state-building playbook. Although really, those states were taken from the indigenous people, by Mexico. Chechnyans and their ancestors ARE the indigenous people of the area.

No, that doesn't matter. It's still an occupation. Many people in the Caucasus gave and do give a "flying fuck."

Can you please name me a country that did not conquer / occupy anything and hence according to your rules has the right to exist?

That wasn't the question. Where did i say Russia has no right to exist? Nowhere. I said Chechnya is not "Russia". None of the Caucasus were Russian before they were conquered by Russia. They then declared independence and were reconquered. That is why there was an insurgency in Chechnya, and why there was a military campaign against it by the Russian state, and why they installed a strongman afterwards who has been loyal to Putin since.

It's also why they campaigned in Georgia, and in Ukraine, and why all the ex-USSR states are convinced that they are targets.

>"That wasn't the question. Where did i say Russia has no right to exist? Nowhere. I said Chechnya is not "Russia""

Your logic seems to be completely twisted. Good luck. I've lost interest to this conversation.

No it is not. Russia would exist without Chechnya just fine. You've lost interest in the conversation because you are emotional and don't want to be wrong.

The irony is that Russia itself had a decently sized nationalist movement with "stop feeding Caucasus!" as a slogan. That is, they wanted Caucasian republics to separate so that Russia wouldn't have to "waste money" on them, and to avoid free movement of people from there into territories that are predominantly ethnically Russian.

Yup, the Caucasus are only good for two things to the Russian state. Defense (the mountains are way easier to defend than the plains of southern Russia) and oil.

>"and the US bombed them flat, would many be supportive of the US "legal right" to do so?"

I do not think the US would give a flying fuck about any country being un-supportive in this particular matter.

I was talking about general and scholarly opinion, not recognition by other states which only matters if there is enough power on their side to make the Us/whoever care. Which is not the case so the US doesnt.