...
handing out subscriptions for free unlimited Russian gas
LOL behold geopolitical expert again trying to make it sound as if Kremlin never tried to bribe western politicians or even entire countries with petrodollars and cheap gas... still not able to connect the dots on why this brilliant strategy didn't work though.
You need to work on your reading comprehension skills. Thought it was obvious, no? West/US has exponentially more resources and a global reserve currency, that's why they engaged in financial expansionism. Russia is not even in the same weight category on the financial field. That kept going until "west" got to Ukraine which Russia drew a red line at, and demanded a
written reply to their security demands from US, think we all can guess what US wrote in that response (can't wait until it's declassified), so Russia switched to military engagement. Then in the beginning Russia again tried to negotiate peace but then Boris Johnson said that
WE MUST CONTINUE THE WAR, and here we are. But just because Russia cannot compete globally on the financial field, doesn't mean they can't do it selectively, which i think they're doing rather successfully in Hungary now. Instead of challenging the whole block which would be a financial suicide, Russia just needs to send cookies to the weakest link from the block with a veto power. Now west is forced to apply yet another double standard, pay for Ukrainian army, politicians, civil servants, retirement fund, support Ukrainian currency but at the same time try to justify why Russia and China cannot do even half of that because...reasons.
You are opening another topic, but let's play along. May I understand why in the world Ruzzia feels they are entitled to have any guarantees from anyone, particularly of the US? Was that "request" something like: "either you give me the guarantee I am seeking or I will start a war an spoil the welfare of half of the world". do you understand that it is quite difficult to threaten an economy ten times your size and an army 10 times yours?
Of course that is not going to be accepted. And if Ruzzia chooses the warpath, there shall be war.
Re all other whattabouts on China and Bulgaria are irrelevant to it. Bulgaria is going to lag behind since they will not be getting funds. If the government is elected again, it is well in the realm of possibility they will be invited to join Ruzzia and leave UE (good luck to all).
Agreements for spheres of influence are as old as time and happen all the time. The reason is simple and the same as why US demanded Soviet union not to open bases in Cuba and bring missiles there or US would put Cuba under a blockade. [...]
Unfortunately, no one really cares whether you feel that's acceptable to you or not.As far as Bulgaria leaving EU, Russia is not strong enough on its own yet, so if that would to happen Bulgaria would be leaving EU for BRICS with funding from China. With the technological gap shrinking the global trend is turning back to resources, and it just happens that unlike in US there just aren't that many resources in EU. Seeing EU starting to break apart would not be a positive for the west.
[... pages of whatabout removed]Ruzzia is not the Soviet Union, is a much weaker leader of a federation. Obviously Ruzzia and other bits of the world have a disagreement on the "sphere of influence" that Ruzzia actually has.
If that lack of influence was doubtful, It has been confirmed to be very weak. Waging war Ruzzia can cause a lot of trouble to all including themselves, but that's it.
Mark Twain said "It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”, so I would say "it is better to have the world doubting your power than start a war like this and confirm your irrelevance".
Have you seen the fireworks in Crimea? does that look to you like influence?
https://t.me/Crimeanwind/49640It wasn't whataboutism in a sense that i wasn't justifying the action, just simply stating that this is just how the world works (whether right or wrong). No competition can exists with double standards.
Yes unfortunately we humans are still living in the your tribe vs my tribe mindset. World powers need to constantly expand thus the disagreements, we haven't figured out how to adjust influences as power shifts from one side to another. We got a bit better when we transitioned from military expansionism to mostly financial expansionism, where we try to buy out other countries instead of just clubbing them with sticks, but when outcome is not clear and expansion is contested we fall back to military confrontation and killing each other as a way to decide who's stronger. Russian sphere has been contrasting since the 80s, and now its sphere of influence is down to bare bone Russian speaking countries from the old Soviet block with majority sharing direct border with Russia. It was an insane move for US to challenge the status quo and go after them, especially after Russia was getting stronger in the 2000s.
Financially, west has thrown more sanctions at Russia than any other country in the world, yet
Russia's economy is on course to recover this year from a 2.1% drop in GDP in 2022, as the West imposed sweeping sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In the first quarter of this year, GDP decreased 1.8% and grew 4.9% in the second. And militarily, despite billions in military equipment, all of NATO resources, intelligence, spy networks, satellites, and "foreign volunteers" Russia is still advancing almost 2 years into the conflict. So I'm not sure what's your definition of a "very weak" country is.
As per above, waging the war is just a way to contest the financial expansion. Outcomes are, either Ukraine stays under Russian sphere (Russia wins), Ukraine transitions to the west sphere (Russia looses), some compromise where Ukraine is split between two spheres. There's also a chance of Ukraine becoming a truly neutral buffer state, but i don't think it's probable seeing how even Switzerland is forced to give up its neutrality. Of course in all scenarios Ukraine always looses, and the west never really looses as long as it doesn't get involved directly.
Good quote from Mark Twain but doesn't apply to current situation. You can only cry paper tiger for so long, after fighting it for almost 2 years and still loosing some land, still yelling paper tiger starting to just sound silly.
As you're aware, I don't pay much attention to daily military events from the front. They're just used to confuse and manipulate the masses, gives a false sense of understanding the dynamics of the conflict, only to set up for a big dissapointment. What I'm watching now is
Senate Republicans Block Ukraine Aid Bill. I still expect them to fund Ukraine until spring as dropping Ukraine now in the winter would be catastrophic and send the worst possible message. But now seeing even republicans in the Senate (not just the house of representatives) blocking it, and Zelenskiy canceling his speech to the Senate last minute, makes the probability of a hard drop in winter non negligible and its growing with every day. Regardless, the writing is on the wall, with US presidential elections starting in the spring, this would be the last aid packag to Ukraine.
Meanwhile today in Moscow who one of the most nasty Z-person, traitor of Ukriane Ilya Kiva was eliminated:
https://www.ft.com/content/834e90a5-6ae0-4839-b184-2c7c5e22ced0Previously he was member of Ukraine's Rada, but after start of invasion he run away to Russia where he actively supported war in Ukraine and become frequent guest on propaganda shows.
Interesting moment that in 2014 he was active participant of Maidan, become member of nationalist Right Sector, but later he changed views to pro- Russian. What a chameleon. Quite ironical that Kiva in his last post on Telegram today posted that best option for Zelensky now is suicide, well, that didn't aged well:
https://t.me/The_Kyva/6381This SBU operation shows that traitors can't feel safe even far away in Moscow.
Sometimes I forget how brutal war is...
I just checked the article and took a deep dive into the history of Ukraine intelligence on the assassination of specific targets in the occupied territories and within Russia itself. It kinds of reminds me when Wagner used to do the same thing against defectors in Ukraine.
It would have been more intelligent for him just to move out Ukraine to shut up, instead talking and catching the attention as he obviously liked to.
The straw which broke the Camel's back was officially endorsing the Kremlin and actively collaborating to present his own homeland as a Nazi ridden hell hole.
Rest in pepperoni.
Guess he still needed to get paid somehow and was promised an easy job. Regardless of how anyone feels about this person, surely everyone must see the dissonance here. On one hand they try to convince everyone that Russians are committing genocide against Ukrainian people, but on the other there's indirect coverage of how this Ukrainian was safely living in Moscow without any issues and enjoying his life until this and it's SBU that's now trying to make sure that Ukrainians (dissidents) don't feel safe in Russia anymore
anyone knows of any openly Jewish dissidents living happily in Berlin under Nazis?
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Genocide, the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.
*doesn't include Finland
