Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

3. Any deal between Turkey and Russia is doomed to fail as Putin and Erdogan will turn on each other and deals with central Asia will never pan out or replace Russia's need for the developed economies of the west . Putin has painted himself into a corner and these agreements are him flailing to get out.


4.The US is not trying to take over Europe and NATO is an Alliance, not a Hegemony. The US is powerful but it's not omniscient and only an America-centric arrogance would view it as such.

It was Erdogan blocking Finland and Sweden joining NATO. It was Erdogan who got what he wanted, remember? Had nothing to do with the US.
And now....its Erdogan with whom Putin/Russia is trying to make deals? How politically incompetent and without any clear-cut foreign policy does one have to be, to deal with the guy who was responsible for your biggest political defeat in recent history (and doubling the length of the border to your alleged biggest enemy)?

Thats why i mentioned Bismarck, or any other person not utterly incompetent in politics: If you have a massive nuclear arsenal, an alleged massive conventional force (second to none on the planet), massive, nearly unlimited natural resources to make an entire continent depend on you, have removed any opposition (= autocratic) in domestic politics, and you end up seeing a war of aggression as your last resort (for whatever reason to achieve whatever, politically or economically), then you have failed, completely and utterly failed.

Erdogan is an extreme right political figure who happens to rule the country with an iron fist since more than 20 years now. All that he did was to ban or limit alcohol consumption and night life in big cities, ban concert events for university students, promote his interpretation of religion by increasing the budget of the ministry of religion tenfold, promote the use of headscarves (thanks to him we now have police officers who look like the 4th concubine of Mehmet the Great and I really don’t know what I am supposed to do if I get arrested by one of them), build bridges on the bosphorus that are not even being used, build unused airports, demolish historical and very well built airports because “they have become obsolete”.
Example: our subway system in the Turkish capital (Ankara) was designed by left-wing governors in the mid 90’s. since his political party took Ankara in the late 90’s and left 2-4 years ago, this subway system was never extended. And now in 2022, in the rush hour, you simply cannot go anywhere if you don’t own a private car. The ancient governor of Ankara (who was from the same political party) reportedly built a dinosaur park with a price tag of 1 billion $ on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderland_Eurasia).
 
   So he needs to do something to distract the public and be able to tell his masses “look, Finland and Sweden are on their knees begging me to do as they say” or  “Look, Gas will now flow from Russia, in four year times we will be richer than the UAE”
   This is a Silvio Bernuscolli like leader who is trying to convince “his” electoral by any possible mean.

[Deesse23]

More on Russia's cooperation with Turkey to supply energy to the EU.

https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/17322

Of course all the content of the articicle is 100% BS. I wont waste my time explaining all the blatant falsehoods.
But now for something completely different, and totally unrelated

Wedding ceremony in Austria, 2018

Left: Bride and Author of the Article Bel linked
Right: Some unknown gentleman, maybe eastern european, who knows.

But hey, OTHER people are biased and suffer from being exposed to propaganda 

By the f.ing way: She was in the board of directors of Rosneft, and worked for RT as well. Cant be less biased towards Putin, can you?
An ex-KGB spy stated in 2022 that she would have been a very nice addition to them in the 1990s when he was with her at the École nationale d’administration in Paris

[Leonardo17]

Who thinks that the present regime is a good one? (that is, besides those in power in Russia)

The Russian people seem to like him. He has a far higher approval rating than Biden does, for example. 

Anyway, we all know that the US supports terrible regimes that ally with the US, and oppose any regimes -- good or bad -- that don't. 

Why the US has the right to determine Russia's leadership is not clear to me.

LOL! Just look at what an Oligarch is and how the term originated in Russia.
Russia's resources were state owned in the USSR times, then they were privatized - and what happens when you privatize a literal monopoly? Nothing good.
Sure, the very wealthy few that this generated would not be happy with a state-enforced breaking of all the monopolies they control.
Does this state need to be "controlled" by the US in order to provide better conditions to the Russian people? I don't think so, but ok, I can see how those powerful oligarchs would not want the present regime to change... however, attacking Ukraine (and the potential defeat) would have been a hugge gamble, if that was their fear.

Right, that's what I said. The oligarchs started when Gorbachev started to liberalize state control, and then boomed when the West imposed Shock Therapy on the economy. 

Is Jeff Bezos an oligarch? He has billions of dollars worth of government contracts. He owns a newspaper that recently ran an editorial saying that criticizing billionaires is like wearing blackface. He has enormous power. He  treats his employees badly. Is he better or worse than your average Russian billionaire at home in London? 

Think of Belarus 2022, for example.
Think of what Russia seems to want to do in Ukraine, for example.

"We can't let you do to us what we want to do to others, so we do to others before you do to us"... is that a sensible foreign policy?

The words in quotes seem like an accurate description of US foreign policy for a long time now. I'm against it. 

The US has both Russia and China surrounded by military bases. As is often pointed out, the US would never allow such a thing. Frankly I don't see why people don't understand why this is threatening to Russia and China.

Germany (and the EU) were trying to get Russia to be their own owners and negotiate with the World... hence betting quite a lot on Nordstream (remember that 50% of German energy came from Russia via that pipeline)...

And yet, it seems to me that Russia decided to show themselves to be unable to stay in their lane and carry out their foreign businesses peacefully.
If the US comes to control anything in Russia, it will be entirely the present Russian regime's fault.

What you say is true if you accept the received wisdom that the war in Ukraine was a totally unprovoked attack. As I've said, I don't accept that. I agree with Kissinger and all of those other foreign policy professionals who said that expanding NATO to Ukraine was guaranteed to knock Russia out of its lane. We did it, and it came true. 

I suppose you can say that's entirely Russia's fault if you think that every country except the US should accept every provocation made against it without responding at all.

Russia today has
- Depleted military
- Fleeing youth - brain drain
- A populace (at least in the big cities) that is tired of the state propaganda

All signs of diminished capabilities to withstand anything the rest of the world throws at them. Be it the US or China... 
Russia should have consolidated its position as a world supplier of raw energy. Instead, it's having to sell it on the cheap.

Congratulations on playing the stupid part, Mr Putin!
And that is something that I find difficult to believe someone in power over 100 million people would do.

If you find it difficult to believe that someone with so much power would do something so stupid, then maybe you have misunderstood what he's done and why he's done it. Have you heard any of his speeches? He is not stupid. Compared to either the TV game show host the US had before, or the doddering antique we have now, he sounds like a genius. 

As for the depleted military, we don't know exactly how strong it is. The armchair generals love to talk about how all its power has been wiped out and all its recruits are idiots, but somehow billions and billions of dollars worth of weapons hasn't driven it out of Ukraine yet. 

The US has a different kind of brain drain, in that formerly the best students and researchers from all over the world wanted to come to study and work in the US, and that is less and less true. China is doing better than the US in many fields. Foreign researchers and scientists are being made to feel less welcome in the US. For example, Biden's recent attempt to prevent China from getting advanced microprocessors seems set to backfire spectacularly, as Chinese experts working in the US go home and take their expertise with them. It reduces America's market significantly and motivates China to develop its own technology.

If Russians in the big cities are tired of government propaganda, they are smarter than the Americans, who still eat up their propaganda like good little children. 

And it's no secret that US life expectancy is decreasing, infrastructure is crumbling, health care is a mess, shootings are constant (one in St. Louis just today) and in many other ways society is crumbling. But we sure have money to give away for weapons. 

Are you implying that the Europe is a de facto colony of the US?
Judging by the world health, happiness and satefy indexes, I'd say that the NATO countries are just fine as they are, when compared to the BRICs.

In some ways, yes. Europe is obedient to Washington. Not quite "colony." More like "expected to follow orders." 

As for why England has better happiness numbers than India, for example, I recommend William Dalrymple's series of books on how England systematically impoverished India for a century. The BRICS organization is an effort to get out from under US hegemony.

America allows close allies to prosper if they are useful. For example, since Obama's "Pivot to Asia" which makes the containment of China the main objective of a new Cold War, Japan has taken on the Orwellian role of "Airstrip One." But as Hatoyama discovered, any move to make Japan independent of America's defense demands will result in swift political downfall by the command of the US. As Kissinger said, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." As soon as a place isn't useful, it can be squashed. Remember that Saddam Hussein was an ally as long as America was helping him build chemical weapon plants to use against Iran. But then he stopped being useful. There is a long list of bad guys who followed the same course.

“The Russian people seem to like him. He has a far higher approval rating than Biden does, for example. 

Anyway, we all know that the US supports terrible regimes that ally with the US, and oppose any regimes -- good or bad -- that don't. 

Why the US has the right to determine Russia's leadership is not clear to me.”
 
Of course they do. Everyone who doesn’t is either in jail or they have left the country.
 
“Right, that's what I said. The oligarchs started when Gorbachev started to liberalize state control, and then boomed when the West imposed Shock Therapy on the economy. 

Is Jeff Bezos an oligarch? He has billions of dollars worth of government contracts. He owns a newspaper that recently ran an editorial saying that criticizing billionaires is like wearing blackface. He has enormous power. He treats his employees badly. Is he better or worse than your average Russian billionaire at home in London? “
 
- Jeff besos is sending me books when I can’t find them in a physical book store. What did any of your oligarchs ever do for the rest of humanity?
 
“The words in quotes seem like an accurate description of US foreign policy for a long time now. I'm against it. 

The US has both Russia and China surrounded by military bases. As is often pointed out, the US would never allow such a thing. Frankly I don't see why people don't understand why this is threatening to Russia and China.”
 
- Yes but I am not afraid of America to the point of wanting it to be surrounded by foreign military bases. (or of France, or of Australia for instance). Undemocratic countries are very prone to starting wars. Why doesn’t any one think of surrounding, say, Egypt with military bases? – That’s because they didn’t do anything since their war with Israel in the 60’s.
   Sweden and Finland asked to be inside NATO, because they don’t trust Russia. Nobody trusts China either. Try to think like a Taiwanese. They have families and daily lives like any of us. Why doesn’t Mexico or Canada fear an American Invasion like the Taiwanese fear a Chinese invasion?
This is basic logic I am talking about.

[Fake Messiah]

I want to know how much Putin is paying Bel.

Putin is probably paying Bel with children

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted, deported, and forcibly adopted to the Russian Federation. The United Nations has declared that allegations are "credible", and that Russian forces have sent Ukrainian children to Russia for adoption as part of a large scale program. An Associated Press investigation confirmed that Russian forces forcibly resettled Ukrainian children without their consent, lied to them that their parents rejected them, used them for propaganda, established summer camps for Ukrainian orphans and "patriotic education", and Russified them by giving them a Russian citizenship and parents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abdu...of_Ukraine

[The Grand Nudger]

Bel is of a generally anti-american persuasion and believes in the moral decay of the west. Russian propaganda and threats target these people in the hopes that they will cause their governments to abandon ukraine, whom they are incapable of defeating on the field. As it turns out, russia engages in this hybrid war model not because Vlad is a genius...but because their military is a raging dumpster fire. To be fair, it sometimes works..insomuch as the citizens of other countries can be raging dumpster fires themselves.

Case in point. Russia threatens to freeze europe unless they abandon ukraine (and....lets be honest, before ukraine, about any and every thing that climbed up their asses) - and yet, european fuel reserves are near topped out ahead of schedule, the price of russian fuels is in the shitter, demand is down, and global warming is making winters mild - but still...moral decay style, the hope is that the west doesn't have the resolve to tough it out if things were different. Meanwhile, Vlads "allies" are buying up his oil at half price and then reselling it for market price as their own. This can be seen in trade partners doubling or tripling their production all of a sudden despite building no new rigs or refineries and, ofc, in the many (many many many many) shots of offshore ship to ship transfers.

We can assume the us is the great satan, and that the lizard people are profiteering from the war...but neither of these things alters the reality above.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Russians did mobilize convicts right from the prisons and sent them to Ukraine after all

Organized rape, civilians shot in the back after their ears were cut off, and swastikas burned into the skin with a soldering iron. A network of Russian torture chambers in Ukraine has been exposed with the de-occupation of the Kharkiv Oblast. Anybody who expressed pro-Ukrainian sentiment was at threat of execution.

Testimonies collected by the investigators show that during the “interrogations” of detainees, Russians, particularly from Russia’s Security Service (FSB), often use electric shocks. Representatives of Russian proxy formations from the so-called “DNR” and “LNR” (“Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”) participate in the illegal detaining of people. This again reminds us that the territory occupied by Russia immediately becomes a training ground for new criminals.

There have been frequent cases of murder, robbery, abduction, rape, and intimidation of citizens.

Since many people disappeared without a trace, it is now difficult to establish accurately how many of them were killed and how many were taken to Russia. Currently, most of the bodies found in Kharkiv Oblast are victims of the indiscriminate use of missiles, shells, and bombs by the Russian army on residential premises.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/25/t...iv-oblast/

Remember, these are the people whose actions @Belacqua tries so desperately to justify, at length.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Why wouldn’t he play nice with the Germans, keep making money and than use that money to develop and modernize his country?
So Putin is not only an aggressor. He is a man whose intelligence is also not so bright.

He did play nice with the Germans. He was happy to keep selling them gas and the Germans were happy to buy it.

Why do you say he didn't play nice?

I think your misunderstanding of his point is obvious. In the English language, the construct "why wouldn't he [...]" generally means "but of course that would be the natural thing for him to do."

In other words, he didn't say what you're imputing. For all this reading you've allegedly done, your grasp of basic English is surprisingly poor. If English isn't your native tongue, that's of course understandable, but aren't you American by birth?

[Belacqua]

This is basic logic I am talking about.

Are you aware that Kennedy solved the Cuban Missile Crisis by cutting a deal? He agreed to take American nukes out of Turkey if the Soviets didn't put theirs in Cuba. 

Why can't the US use similar basic logic to solve Ukraine? We back off if you back off.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

This is basic logic I am talking about.

Are you aware that Kennedy solved the Cuban Missile Crisis by cutting a deal? He agreed to take American nukes out of Turkey if the Soviets didn't put theirs in Cuba. 

Why can't the US use similar basic logic to solve Ukraine? We back off if you back off.

Because it isn’t the US’s job to ‘solve Ukraine’. As much as you’d like to believe otherwise, this isn’t an American war. The US has no say in any potential peace process and isn’t responsible for devising an exit strategy.

And just to back up a bit: 

The Russian people seem to like him. He has a far higher approval rating than Biden does, for example. 

You really, REALLY believe that? A man who can order phony referenda in four Ukrainian provinces is certainly a man who can concoct phony approval ratings.

That said, I’m impressed at the way you reject US propaganda but are perfectly willing to accept Russian propaganda. I don’t often run across doublethink of that calibre.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

This is basic logic I am talking about.

Are you aware that Kennedy solved the Cuban Missile Crisis by cutting a deal? He agreed to take American nukes out of Turkey if the Soviets didn't put theirs in Cuba. 

Why can't the US use similar basic logic to solve Ukraine? We back off if you back off.

You mean tell the ukranians to back off, in their own country? Back off to where? Where do you think they could go that russia won't murder them...exactly?