Vladimir Putin and Russia

[Alex 34766]

He’s got a point. The UK leaving doesn’t seem to have diminished the EU much

[Rayvin 5164]

I do feel that this is exactly the sort of crisis that the EU would have looked to the UK to lead on, in the past. Germany has clearly been reluctant stepping into that role.

 

Why we've chosen oblivion over a leading role in an emerging super power, I don't know.

[ohhh_yeah 2939]

 

 

[Asprilla 96]

32 minutes ago, Alex said:

He’s got a point. The UK leaving doesn’t seem to have diminished the EU much

formerly the second biggest military in the EU and a nuclear power? Right ho, no difference.

[Asprilla 96]

18 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I do feel that this is exactly the sort of crisis that the EU would have looked to the UK to lead on, in the past. Germany has clearly been reluctant stepping into that role.

 

Why we've chosen oblivion over a leading role in an emerging super power, I don't know.

This is what amuses me about the “still European” bleating from Remainers.

 

Yes, we’ll always be European cause that’s where we are on the map.

 

Brexit doesn’t change our geographical or military reality.

[Isegrim 9707]

 

[Rayvin 5164]

Just now, Asprilla said:

This is what amuses me about the “still European” bleating from Remainers.

 

Yes, we’ll always be European cause that’s where we are on the map.

 

Brexit doesn’t change our geographical or military reality.

 

Just look at how we've been sidelined man, you can see it even in the few days that have gone past here. We were begging and pleading with Germany for several days to take command of the situation rather than being able to do it ourselves.

 

This whole situation is a wake up call for ever closer unity for Western democracies. Ukraine will likely join the EU after this due to collective security and prosperity that it offers. Frankly, I now think even we're probably more likely to rejoin than we were a few days ago, given what we've witnessed. Why wouldn't we want to stand shoulder to shoulder in the firmest possible terms with people who think and live like we do?

[PaddockLad 17054]

1 hour ago, Dr Gloom said:

there’s lots of this type of analyses doing tne rounds at the moment

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-27/putin-s-nuclear-threat-is-ominous-even-if-he-s-bluffing

 

Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants to build a legacy. If he were to strike first then his country would be obliterated. Some legacy. we just have to hope he’s bluffing and hasn’t completely lost the plot 

 

I mentioned MAD last week but I'm now wavering a bit tbh. If he gets his arse handed to him on a plate by a combination of the utterly heroic Ukrainian armed forces/citizens, hos own military being mostly fuckin useless, operational  over reach and him not banking on the level of worldwide opposition and the resulting sanctions against him then I think we're in new territory.  If the cash points stop working in Moscow this week  he'll also have the Russian people en masse to contend with.  Think this week is crucial.  He  thinks a world without a powerful Russia isn't  worth having...he might give the order before someone turns a glock on him..but if its got to that stage someone will.perhaps intervene at the missile site anyway...

Edited February 28, 2022 by PaddockLad

[Rayvin 5164]

5 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

 

I mentioned MAD last week but I'm now wavering a bit tbh. If he gets his arse handed to him on a plate by a combination of the utterly heroic Ukrainian armed forces/citizens, hos own military being mostly fuckin useless, operational  over reach and him not banking on the level of worldwide opposition and the resulting sanctions against him then I think we're in new territory.  If the cash points stop working in Moscow this week  he'll also have the Russian people en masse to contend with.  Think this week is crucial.  He  thinks a world without a powerful Russia isn't  worth having...

 

Aye but we could have a world with a powerful Russia (I appreciate that Putin won't care for it though). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if they lost Putin and came to the table with a vision of becoming a Western styled democracy, we'd never see another major conflict again. Bring them into NATO, the EU, but just get rid of fucking Putin and make them grow up a bit in how they carry on.

[Asprilla 96]

17 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

Just look at how we've been sidelined man, you can see it even in the few days that have gone past here. We were begging and pleading with Germany for several days to take command of the situation rather than being able to do it ourselves.

 

This whole situation is a wake up call for ever closer unity for Western democracies. Ukraine will likely join the EU after this due to collective security and prosperity that it offers. Frankly, I now think even we're probably more likely to rejoin than we were a few days ago, given what we've witnessed. Why wouldn't we want to stand shoulder to shoulder in the firmest possible terms with people who think and live like we do?

If this whole shit show has shown us anything it’s that time and life are not a god given right. I’m not getting into a big debate over this but cordially as one of the people I enjoy chatting to here I’m happy to disagree.

[Rayvin 5164]

Just now, Asprilla said:

If this whole shit show has shown us anything it’s that time and life are not a god given right. I’m not getting into a big debate over this but cordially as one of the people I enjoy chatting to here I’m happy to disagree.

 

Likewise, no issue for me in agreeing to disagree.

[Rayvin 5164]

22 minutes ago, Isegrim said:

 

 

Another really interesting thread that I had no awareness of. I think this bit is also quite telling, not that we didn't already know it:

 

"Foundations of Geopolitics sets out very specific aims for establishing the 'Greater Russia'. For example, advocates cutting off the UK, politically, from the rest of Europe. This has been achieved. 15/22"

 

[ewerk 30217]

12 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

Aye but we could have a world with a powerful Russia (I appreciate that Putin won't care for it though). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if they lost Putin and came to the table with a vision of becoming a Western styled democracy, we'd never see another major conflict again. Bring them into NATO, the EU, but just get rid of fucking Putin and make them grow up a bit in how they carry on.

 

I think corruption is of such a scale within Russian life that this won't happen in our life time. There are too many with embedded interests in the higher levels of Russian life to allow it.

[PaddockLad 17054]

4 minutes ago, ewerk said:

 

I think corruption is of such a scale within Russian life that this won't happen in our life time. There are too many with embedded interests in the higher levels of Russian life to allow it.

 

That goes world wide & encompasses Trump & the GOP, Brexit and its chief protagonists in the UK and its useful idiot still in number 10....the world is riven with bad actors and kleptocratic dictators  stealing mostly public money and laundering it . If Russia is seriously weakened after all this that doesn't change...

[Asprilla 96]

15 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

 

That goes world wide & encompasses Trump & the GOP, Brexit and its chief protagonists in the UK and its useful idiot still in number 10....the world is riven with bad actors and kleptocratic dictators  stealing mostly public money and laundering it . If Russia is seriously weakened after all this that doesn't change...

The Democrats are easily as corrupt

[Tom 14011]

 

 

 

 

[Toonpack 9163]

37 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

Aye but we could have a world with a powerful Russia (I appreciate that Putin won't care for it though). In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if they lost Putin and came to the table with a vision of becoming a Western styled democracy, we'd never see another major conflict again. Bring them into NATO, the EU, but just get rid of fucking Putin and make them grow up a bit in how they carry on.

The problem is, they’ve got an entrenched centuries old government machine and everything that feeds it, secret police etc etc. If Putin’s replaced it’s likely to be a new Putin in charge, maybe less rabid. 
 

Need a massive seismic shift to become a western democracy.

[PaddockLad 17054]

2 minutes ago, Asprilla said:

The Democrats are easily as corrupt

 

I keep hearing this... I'm more than willing to listen to hard evidence so please go ahead..

[Toonpack 9163]

1 hour ago, Asprilla said:

This is what amuses me about the “still European” bleating from Remainers.

 

Yes, we’ll always be European cause that’s where we are on the map.

 

Brexit doesn’t change our geographical or military reality.

Brexit and Trumpism were both Russian strategies and financed as such. 
 

We will be much poorer for it, and as a function of that our military capability will diminish (and is diminishing already - RAF as an example, is half the size it was 10/12 years ago).

 

The organisation we left is getting more powerful whilst we shrink, but it’s all good 🙄

[Renton 21215]

1 hour ago, Asprilla said:

This is what amuses me about the “still European” bleating from Remainers.

 

Yes, we’ll always be European cause that’s where we are on the map.

 

Brexit doesn’t change our geographical or military reality.

Pathetic man can't join the dots.

[ohhh_yeah 2939]

 

A victory article was published.


A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but this is worth talking about separately a little later.

Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.

Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of anti-Russia from Ukraine and an outpost for the West to put pressure on us, is only the second most important among them.

The first would always be the complex of a divided people, the complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to come to terms with the existence of two states, not one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon their history, agreeing with the insane versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia," or to gnash one's teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we lost Ukraine." Returning Ukraine, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with every decade - recoding, de-Russification of Russians and inciting Ukrainian Little Russians against Russians would gain momentum.

Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the alliance with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus )? This will be decided after the end is put in the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.

And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting in geopolitical terms as a single whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe . And he is loudly indignant at this, although in the depths of his soul he must admit to himself that it could not be otherwise.

Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin , seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev ? That the Russians will forever be a divided people? And at the same time when Europe is uniting, when the German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe became possible only thanks to the unification of Germany, which happened according to the good Russian (albeit not very smart) will. To swipe after that also on Russian lands is not even the height of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe in particular, did not have the strength to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence, and even more so to take Ukraine for itself. In order not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools.

More precisely, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, that is, the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And already fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia is returning.

Now the West is trying to punish Russia for the fact that it returned, for not justifying its plans to profit at its expense, for not allowing the expansion of the western space to the east. Seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But this has not been the case for a long time - the world has changed, and this is well understood not only by Europeans, but also by the Anglo-Saxons who rule the West. No amount of Western pressure on Russia will lead to anything. There will be losses from the sublimation of confrontation on both sides, but Russia is ready for them morally and geopolitically. But for the West itself, an increase in the degree of confrontation incurs huge costs - and the main ones are not at all economic.

Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense while maintaining the Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World. Yes, and it cannot be successful, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe needs autonomy for another reason as well — in case the States go into self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or focus on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical center of gravity is moving.

But the confrontation with Russia, into which the Anglo-Saxons are dragging Europe, deprives the Europeans of even the chance of independence - not to mention the fact that in the same way Europe is trying to impose a break with China . If now the Atlanticists are happy that the "Russian threat" will unite the Western bloc, then in Berlin and Paris they cannot fail to understand that, having lost hope for autonomy, the European project will simply collapse in the medium term. That is why independent-minded Europeans are now completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders - realizing that it will turn into a corral for Europe. Whose century (more precisely, half a millennium) of global leadership is over in any case - but various options for its future are still possible.

Because the construction of a new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are more and more clearly visible through the spreading cover of Anglo-Saxon globalization. A multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world sees and understands perfectly well - this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world.

China and India , Latin America and Africa , the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West leads the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not only challenged the West, it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, naturally, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not according to its rules.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html

 

[Tom 14011]

That’s pretty unhinged.

[Rayvin 5164]

Published by whom? The Russian state?

[Sonatine 11298]

 

The whole thread is worth a read.

[Rayvin 5164]

I could actually get behind a lot of that, truth be told - Europe needs to be way less dependent on America, a multipolar world would be preferable to a US dominated one (if it could be done while respecting the autonomy of individuals and smaller nations, which as Russia is showing, it can't be). But the notion that Vladimir Putin and the current state of Russia is doing this all for global unity and prosperity is a complete fantasy. If this is what he thinks then he really has lost it.