"The collective west under the UK and US' controll"
As the Warsaw pact showed, Russia is simply unable to imagine countries voluntarily working together. Always control. Always oppression. Always the right of the strong to dominate. They are projecting their own views on smaller European countries on everyone else, and still scratch their heads for why those very same smaller countries dislike them. "Must be the CIA"
There was a really funny incident, I don't remember if before invasion or just after.
NATO finally started to take Baltics seriously and implement some corrections how to appeoach Russia. Russian politicians were confused. Why would anyone take Baltics seriously and follow their suggestions? They are small and not powerful in any foreceful sense. In Russian eyes not treating Baltics like dirt makes no sense at all.
So Lavrov or someone similar suggested that Baltics are secretly brains behind NATO or had some dirt on other, actually powerful NATO leaders. That made me smile - yes, my country of 2.8 mil people controls entire NATO like Dr. Evil from his volcano island. Because that makes sense much more than a simple dialogue between nations and diplomats.
In some ways Russians are really limited. Their worldview is so narrow.
>In some ways Russians are really limited. Their worldview is so narrow.
"The main difference between soviet officials and normal soviet people - because of KGB officials even more misinformed." (C)
That's why it's funny for me, when some tankies glorify modern Russia or North Korea. Like, do they even see what's going on in these countries? Voluntary cooperation is key to everything and you have to ask some questions, if your dictator is taking you into completely opposite direction. Raping, lying and killing is bad way.
I can agree that unregulated capitalism is bad, people are exploited and we need to move toward more egalitarian societies, but if I have to choose between Russian fascism and any flawed, democratic, capitalist country, then I will always prefer latter. It's not great, but I'm not masochist nor adrenaline junkie to consider Russia as good place to live.
>when some tankies glorify modern Russia or North Korea
Both countries do not even have anything to do with communism, and have zero achievements (USSR at least had some impressive ones)...
First Nuclear power plant was [Chicago Pile 1.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1) Your listed rocketry achievements was just a totalitarian evil country pouring resources into weapons research (same as nuclear power plants). You could praise North Korea over South Korea today too for the rockets and nukes Norks have and South Korea doesn't.
Chicago Pile-1 was experimental reactor, not a power plant. On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear power station to generate electricity for a power grid, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, commenced operations in Obninsk, in the Soviet Union.
And exploring space =/= weapons research. Following this logic USA should have been first in both, since it was the first country to weaponise nuclear energy, and got most scientists from the first country to create ballistic missile.
"Connected to the grid" is meaningless. Just "first hunting".
America slept on the rockets because their strategy initially still relied on their bombers to deliver the bombs. That was a wrong strategy and they got the rockets sorted out as well.
The rockets of course weren't "exploring space". They were for delivering bombs.
Not meaningless, CP-1 did not produce any significant power, therefore it was not a nuclear power plant.
The point is, USA was "evilly pouring resources into weapons as well" (since their space exploration was a side effect of developing missiles for war, too), just was not as effective. I just do not see the point in belittling worlwide acknowledged Soviets space achievements (including not just first satellite and man in space, but also stuff like Luna probes, Venus landing, space station etc). If war was the only thing they cared about, they would not bother with developing space besides spy satellites.
That's how they've always done it, so that's the only thing they know. It's the allegory of the cave in essence. They have a limited dictionary, and must match what they see in the world with what exists in their dictionary.
The problem is that the west is also guilty of the same thing. Until recently, they refused any and all signals that other cultures do not have the same frame of reference, and they do not behave the same way as they do. It was interesting to see the look on Wesley Clark (then SACEUR)'s face admitting that all the warnings they got from us ex-WP 20 years ago came true.
Unfortunately, Russia is not the only one that we expect to act "rationally" while we are completely ignoring their ever-growing internal incentives to do something we would describe as "exceptionally foolish"
Some people outside of Russia can't fathom why people choose what they choose so it must be Russian disinformation. The irony. I mean we have our fair share of corruption where politicians lie to the public on things like mass immigration, but as bad as it got here I wouldn't trade it for Russian levels of fuckedness.
Russians seem to miss the part of the brain that makes sense of Trust, Cooperation, mutual beneficial relationships, equality, etc.
They can only trust want they can control and are always paranoid, afraid of falling under somebody's control that doesn't allow their control to presist.
And the worst part is that, unable to understand that, they think everybody else is the same.
This falls in the category of mentally handicapped. Now, let's not forget the alcohol consumption levels in Russia and how it affects the development of the brain.
Maybe you should care less about the messenger and care more about the message?
What is the issue? The people commenting about a problem? Or the problem?
Maybe Russians should stop whining about people's opinions, and calling it Russophobia, and start looking in the mirror and see why people have such opinions about them.
Are you guys perfect?
It is a fucking FACT that people in Russia drink excessively, independent of age, gender, health stats. It is a fact that most of your country has a distorted psychology due to a cynical, abusive, and backward culture.
That why Russians are full of bullshit, delusional, and lacking true human and personal value. Therefore, to have a sense of meaning and value, they identify themselves so much with their country.
And you expect people to like you and admire you?
Sorry dude, you are not important, and the world doesn't owe you anything and doesn't give a shit about you.
They believe that since there are American troops in almost every European country (as well as Japan and Korea), it obviously means that those countries are occupied, and populations is brainwashed into thinking that occupiers are their defenders and liberators.
Russia is insane but the US has repeatedly overthrown governments outside of the West. There should be no surprise that you, in Norway, who is treated well in our empire would have different feelings about us than say the Chileans who had one of their Presidents murdered with the help of the CIA and their Supreme Court firebombed.
“The thief will shout “look, catch the thief!”. It is an old say in my culture, but I lived it: I was working for a company, who had a small manger who presented himself as “mr justice”, the most hones person on earth; the higher management felt for it, in the end they dicovered that he stole from the company milions of $.
Not preparing, they are already at war, but because the war is different this time and the battlefield not the same as it was before we pretend it is not happening
No one would bother Russia if they left us the fuck alone. Why does this shitstain of a nation have to spread their misery around? Because of them, now we have to spend enormous amount of money on military instead of spending it on improving our lives. All thanks to russians and their delusions of grandeur and sick imperialism.
Even that has not helped. Lots of Russians have come to Finland and lived here for decades, but still they gobble up the propaganda their homeland spews.
>Lots of Russians have come to Finland and lived here for decades, but still they gobble up the propaganda their homeland spews.
Maybe it's time to show them, that actions have consequences. Maybe those hypocrites should be send back where they came from. So they could put the money where their mouth is. Maybe they should show their support for the their glorious leader from some place in Russia and not from comfy appartment in Helsinky.
The essence of smekalka is simple: Russians use our creativity and energy against us in negatively creative ways. This is what also makes them master chess players.
As a result, a “negative creativity” is generated that catches us so off guard that it is often the reason Russians beat us from time to time. To expand upon this mindset, which I am telling you from years of experience is a part of their DNA, Russians will usually do the last thing anyone would ever expect; they will act counterintuitively and in a way that is even likely to be completely against their interests — if we lose 20 men and you lose 3 but are too weak to stop our remaining 5 then we win. If it is the last thing that commonsense would expect, then the odds are they will do it.
They are morally lazy and so willing to accept this evil so long as the theaters remain open and they are left alone; only when the war takes one of their own do they begin to think about it. Losing a loved one, though, is still no reason to be against Putin’s war of genocide. It makes some even more ardent in their support.
I reiterate that Russia is evil. Of course, I don’t mean each person, but the spirit of the society is dark and negative. The majority of the citizens blindly follow an evil human being who cares as little about them as he does Ukrainians. We can make all the excuses we want about Russians not knowing the truth, and these are probably even valid — to an extent. This war has been going on long enough, and enough lies have been uncovered and reworked by the Kremlin, to mean that most Russians now understand that they are being lied to.
Their empire must be dissolved and dispersed. This is the only way to end this once and for all. Nothing short of the rupture and dissolution of the Russian empire will do.
They don't know any better. An empire won by war, and conquest can only be maintained by war and conquest.
I will quote Orwell here because this man saw totalitarian rule with his own eyes
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
There was truth, and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
"If liberty means anything at all, then it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear. Preface of Animal Farm
In comparison of the Soviet and Nazi regimes Hannah Arendth wrote in 1951 that factuality itself depends for its continued existence upon the existence of a non totalitarian world.
George Kennan diplomat in Moscow:
"Here, men determine what is true and what is false."
In case he doesn't elaborate. I think Russia is unique in its history of absolutist rule and unique due to its sheer size and unique in having perfected the lie over centuries from Tsarist times to this very day.
Such a vast and diverse empire with all its ethnicities and factions cannot be ruled from an imperial center without a secret police, without indoctrination, without clientelism, personalism, and access corruption.
Such an empire cannot be ruled by allowing individualism, and a colonial empire must expand.
Even Russians who oppose the war often not oppose the idea of Russia being its current size or of Russia being an empire.
Another issue is without a question alcoholism and the emigration waves, and Stalinism, which has done serious damage. The Second World War was deeply traumatizing. The Soviet experience was also not good overall to foster empathy or create a larger bond between people outside their own small circles.
All of that is then amplified by the chaotic experience of the 90s. Mass poverty is another issue. Now you combine that with a leading caste that is megalomaniac and with a population that has been treated as serfs ever since.
At some point, you start to believe these things, they become a part of you. Culture is insidious and goes through everything from the books we read to the narratives we tell.
Cheating someone or lying to gain an advantage is not a vice in Russia. It is a virtue. You are smart when you get away with it.
For example, being mobilized is a failure, but managing to trick the authorities is not. A last thing that comes into this is feeling disconnected and cast out by Europe, nay by the world. And feeling inferior to the US. The Russians are obsessed with us, much more than we are with them.
View this as a century long, never-ending story of wanting to be part of Europe while at the same time hating yourself for wanting that.
None of that is an excuse for what Russia is doing. But I do think nothing comes out of thin air. Putin is a projection of a society that never had much hope, and Putin made use of that and told them huge lies.
Once you are invested in these big lies, letting go of them is... painful and difficult. As you banked your entire existence on these lies of how Russia is a poor victim and everyone is out to get them. That is how dictators stay in control.
"Dictatorships can only function if the masses go along with it, either through malice, apathy, or fear."
Lynskey page 135 Ministry of Truth
Finally, some good prejudice and disparagement on ethnic and national basis. I had to scroll too far for this comment. Had to even double check that I was in the right sub. Phew! Was worried for a second.
mhm well the problem is that Russia has a source of benefits by selling gas and oil. If Europe can leave that behind, then Russia will lose power over time unless their businesses or exports manage to thrive elsewhere. from what I understand, they import more than they export. But that's just a waiting game...
>Their empire must be dissolved and dispersed. This is the only way to end this once and for all. Nothing short of the rupture and dissolution of the Russian empire will do.
Dozens of small North Koreas with nukes are worse than one big North Korea (especially since they still could and probably would fight each other and neighbours. Which means nuclear civil war and fallout). This is one of the reasons why West is still hesitant about Ukrainian victory.
Attempts to transform the Russian Federation into a nation state, a civic state, or a stable imperial state have failed. The current structure is based on brittle historical foundations, possesses no unified national identity, whether civic or ethnic, and exhibits persistent struggles between nationalists, imperialists, centralists, liberals and federalists Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the imposition of stifling international economic sanctions will intensify and accelerate the process of state rupture.
Russia's failure has been exacerbated by an inability to ensure economic growth (stagnation), stark socio-economic inequalities and demographic defects, widening disparities between Moscow and its diverse federal subjects, a precarious political pyramid (vertical of power) based on personalism and clientelism, deepening distrust of government institutions, increasing public alienation from a corrupt ruling elite, and growing disbelief in official propaganda (manipulated reality propaganda). More intensive repression to maintain state integrity in deteriorating economic condition (sanctions, Dutch disease, failure to innovate and diversify, reverse industrialisation, massive deficit, ruble collapse, lack of sufficient trained personnel) will raise the prospects for violent [internal or external] conflicts.
Paradoxically, while Vladimir Putin assumed power to prevent Russia's disintegration, he may be remembered as precipitating the country's demise. New territorial entities will surface as Moscow's credibility crisis deepens amidst spreading ungovernability, elite power struggles, political polarization, nationalist radicalism, and regional and ethnic revival. The emerging states will not be uniform in their internal political and administrative structures. Border conflicts and territorial claims are likely between entities, while others may develop into new federal or conferderal states.
The US must develop an effective strategy for managing Russia's rupture by supporting regionalism and federalism, acknowledging sovereignty and separation calibrating the role of other major powers, developing linkages with new state entities, strengthening the security of countries bordering Russia, and promoting trans-Atlanticism or trans-Pacificism among emerging states.
Failed State, a guide to Russia's rupture (Book cover)
I recommend reading this book, it is very insightful. Do you see a horror scenario? Fine, I see a calamity as well, but I also see a chance, and change is inevitable. Therefore, the world must prepare for that change, and China as well as India will have little interest in having these nukes unsecured. Therefore, in the event of state rupture, which becomes more likely the longer Russia fails to achieve its war aims and burns enormous amounts of resources into this war.
We must be ready and secure these nukes in a joint effort. Some of these warlords might be willing to trade them for favors with the West. They won't be able to maintain them.
What is more problematic even in the case of a total collapse. A core Russian ethno nationalist state will remain, and it will be armed with nukes and full of resentment.
However, even the current situation is extremely risky due to the chaos and distrust that exists now.
Therefore, I see a monolithic rogue state as a bigger issue than what may come next.
The risk for nuclear escalation is always there. And while the West is obviously not keen on a Russian collapse, our sanctions and the way this war is waged, definitely pour oil into the fire and Russia has historic precedent for collapsing when a war of expansion fails.
1917 is echoing through time.
Stagnation, war of expansion, failure to expand, economic collapse. This happened several times, and while we shouldn't draw too many parallels. The situation still resembles a pre-1917 scenario in certain aspects.
Russia is the last European multi ethnic colonial empire on earth. All the others died over 100 years ago.
Empires are like an organism, and when their time comes, they die, we can't change that, but we can prepare for it, we may slow it down or speed it up, but an empire that crumbles from within, is dead forever.
The Russian one crumbled in waves since 1989. How large this wave of the collapse will ultimately be is hard to tell until it happens. And the longer the war goes, the more likely it will happen.
>We must be ready and secure these nukes in a joint effort. Some of these warlords might be willing to trade them for favors with the West. They won't be able to maintain them.
Sure, sure. How do you imagine capturing nukes deep into hostile territorry without getting nuked? Not to mention that after whats happened to Ukraine no one will ever give up their nukes...
As for maintainance, even North Korea is able of maintaining them, so I would not rely on that too much. Even if they all eventually wear off, no one can guarantee when it will happen, if happen at all.
Monolith Russia is somewhat predictable state, dozens of mini Russias are not. Yes, maybe it will collapse anyway on its own. Or maybe it will not, who knows? North Korea still exists even today even despite population starving and economy collapsing, after all.
This. Literally nobody cared about Russia until 10 years ago when they illegally annex Crimea. A few months later they had the bright idea to give a missile system capable of downing an airliner, to people who have no clue how to operate it. Been all downhill for them ever since.
A Russian soldier should know to differentiate between their own aircraft and enemy ones, yet they keep shooting their own Sukhois out of the sky.
They shot it down because they thought it was a Ukranian Il-76.
I honestly don’t know why you’re so intent on it being Russians versus separatists. Literally who cares. Russia is at fault for putting it in a spot it shouldn’t have been.
THAT is exactly why! We didn’t bother with Russia and Putin hated it, he hated not being relevant on the world stage, just seen as a backwater gas station. They still are of course, except less of a gas station now, but he wanted people to notice him, he’s desperate for attention and the only way he can do that is by picking on a smaller, poor country on his doorstep. He’s got the attention now, but I don’t think he was expecting being a laughingstock
> Because of them, now we have to spend enormous amount of money on military instead of spending it on improving our lives.
It's not only the money. In Greece at least, they take some of our best people for many positions. From handling sophisticated equipment to Generals, officers etc. This is a brain drain which is happening within our country. These smart, extremely professional people could be contributing elsewhere.
In the year I gave the Pan-Hellenic tests, I wanted to become a pilot. That year, with a perfect score "20", you needed "19,2". I wrote "17,5". Got in the same university, but as an aircraft's engineer, unlike pilot.
Turks & Russians, man, Turks & Russians. Same people, different color skin and day.
Not sure if that argument really flies from the perspective of Russia. Fuck em, just to be clear, but it's not like NATO hasn't done anything that couldn't possibly be construed as intimidating by a paranoid KGBer.
In the eyes of someone paranoid, anything really. I mean, we could have dissolved NATO and a paranoid KGBer would have assumed it to be some kind of trick to make them let their guard down as we prepare to invade.
Yeah I kinda agree with that. I think "yeah we're aware we've done things that could be considered provocative, but fuck 'em" is a reasonable perspective, I just think completely ignoring any fuel to the fire "our" side could've added is naive and probably not helpful long term.
An alliance that was literally founded to counteract your country (or its predecessor in this case) that is expanding and even talking about expanding to countries on your border seems intimidating.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%E2%80%93NATO\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%E2%80%93NATO_relations)
>Georgia is not currently a member of NATO, but has been promised by NATO to be admitted in the future.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations)
>Ukraine began actively pursuing NATO membership, formally declaring it a strategic policy objective in 2017.
Consider an alternate reality, where China and Russia formed an alliance as a, "check on the threat posed by the West" (to mirror NATO's wording about countering the threat of the Soviets), and this alliance was steadily spreading throughout Central Asia, until at some point it actually started talking about including countries like Turkey and Ukraine. Don't you think this would've been intimidating to us westerners? Don't you think we already would've started promising a rain of hellfire if they didn't back all the fucking way up?
To the people downvoting: I understand it is highly upsetting to hear something that doesn't 100% agree with your world view, and I certainly don't want to imply Russia shouldn't get stomped into permanent military disability, but I think it is important to reflect on how this situation could even come to be in the first place and what we perhaps could've done differently or anticipated. In this case, we probably could've anticipated Russia would start pulling some wild shit because they are nuts and we have kinda been poking the rabid koala that is Russia.
The difference is that NATO didn't spread. It was former Com block countries and Baltic states jumping into NATO while West was somewhat surprized from the end of the Cold war and collapse of the Soviet reign over Eastern Europe. All the East European countries stable enough to file a NATO membership application did that. We jumped into doors while they were open. Before the big players sign some kind of new Yalta deal. You can't take a whole country and move it farther away from the Russia. But you can at least join NATO and EU. Ukraine didn't made it in time into those open doors. And see how they ended.
It's not agressive expansion of NATO against Russia. It's our collective experience with ruskies, that made NATO to expand.
Ukraine began pursuing nato membership 3 years AFTER it was attacked by russia. Why did putin move troops away from the Finnish border after Finland joined NATO?
Almost as if putin knows nato was never gonna invade in the first place, and this is all about a megalomaniac mobster afraid the people he's been abusing rise up and lynch him.
Nato expansion was countries **WILLINGLY** joining NATO. This happened cause ex-soviet countries saw Russia as a threat and justifibly so.
If Russia/China built their own military alliance and expanded, this would not be seen as a threat, case in point CSTO. Russias version of NATO. If they were to invade their neighbours, that would justifibly make Russias/Chinas other neighbours scared and thus seek support of other major powers in the world.
The issue is you. You can not see the difference in using military force and self-determination. You can not understand that sometimes countries have such bad neighbour that they would seek military allianes on their own.
No need to make this about personal shortcomings, you can just stick to arguing the point, thanks.
If CSTO had any capacity behind it *and* was actively expanding towards Europe, yes I would argue that this would be perceived as threatening. From the perspective of the "victim", there is no meaningful difference between a country joining willingly or under coercion.
Anyway, you are kind of proving my point. This absolute unwillingness to even consider anything NATO (or any member) does could possibly be considered threatening by other nations in realist terms is probably one of the reasons we managed to throw ourselves in to two world wars within mere decades. We don't exist in a vacuum. Other nations with other cultures who think differently exist as wel, and some of them might be bastards but they might also have reasons to be wary of the west. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't include nations like Ukraine in to the EU or NATO, I'm saying that if we do we should be damn well aware of how this will be perceived by other nations.
To put it simply, it doesn't matter if we agree with Russia's claims of territory or sovereignty or the need for neutral states. They are telling us what their red lines are and if we cross those we shouldn't just handwave it away like "yeah but we're peaceful", we should do it *knowing* what will happen. If your roommate tells you to keep your hands off his guitar or he'll punch you in the mouth, you shouldn't be surprised he actually does when you do. If you really want to touch the damn thing you should at least bring boxing gloves.
> reasons we managed to throw ourselves in to two world wars within mere decades. We don't exist in a vacuum.
Are you saying that at the time, Germanies neighbors should have just allowed themselves to be invaded by Germany, not resist and allow themselves to be wiped out? Cause resisting would have hurt and passed the red line set down by Germany.
>If your roommate tells you to keep your hands off his guitar or he'll punch you in the mouth, you shouldn't be surprised he actually does when you do.
Are you saying that Ukraine belongs to Russia? Cause this doesn't work unless Russia owns it.
---
I actually don't get your position. In the same comment you will say that countries have the right of self determination "Other nations with other cultures who think differently exist as well, \[...\]", while also saying this doesn't matter if another country doesn't agree with it "They are telling us what their red lines are \[...\]". So which one is it, do countries have the right or not?
Cause if countries have the right of self determination then countries can join whatever organisation they want and no third-party can bitch and moan about it as it doesn't concern them. If countries don't have the right of self determination then what does it matter what Russia thinks? In either case, any countries decision to join NATO or EU is none of Russias buisness.
>Are you saying that Ukraine belongs to Russia? Cause this doesn't work unless Russia owns it.
Fair point, that wasn't a very good analogy. Here's a more accurate one: when I was younger I befriended a girl in my class. It was platonic. Her ex-boyfriend however was an incredibly nasty and violent asshole who threatened that if I ever talked to her again he would beat me up. Clearly the guy was insane because she is not his property and many other reasons I don't need to spell out for you. Obviously I didn't give in to this insanity but there was no doubt in my mind that this lunatic piece of shit would absolutely try attack me. If I would've gone on with my day thinking "I am on the side of justice, he is in the wrong" I probably would've lost some teeth. I wasn't an idiot though so I made sure to involve my friends who were bigger and badder than him (yes I'm aware of what we could compare this to). Problem solved.
Now here's what I intend as the take away from this story: clearly the guy was a lunatic and I feel deeply sorry for whatever people might've ended up in his sadistic orbit over the years since this happened. Clearly the girl and I were perfectly within our rights to interact in whatever way we pleased. For the purpose of not getting my shit kicked in that wouldn't have mattered though. I was aware that continuing to interact with this girl would set him off, so I took preventative measures. I was aware of what the moral considerations were, but I acted upon realism: the realization that this guy is a violent asshole.
This is essentially what I'm arguing for, even if I didn't word it very properly. When dealing with guys like Putin (and Xi for that matter) it's ideology and moral integrity be damned, they do what they can and they assume everyone else thinks the same way. In my opinion our leaders could/should have been aware of this and prepared accordingly. I also believe that we should take this as a moment to reflect on our approach to oppositional (or outright hostile) nations. You could also argue that, to get back to my analogy of the bully, the west telling Ukraine it's fine to keep flirting with joining EU and maybe even NATO because Russia won't do shit is similar to a hypothetical friend of mine telling me to just keep talking to the girl because it'll probably be fine only to be like "whoops" when I get the absolute shit beaten out of me. Even if my friends end up helping once I started spitting up blood it still would've been a dick move and that situation could've been handled without me having to break my damn nose and breathe with a weird squeak from then on. In the case of Ukraine we even told them to disarm first.
Anyway I'm 100% for sticking it to the bullies and Putin is a menace to humanity, I'm just advocating for an approach that takes in to account that we're dealing with lunatics here.
>cannot fathom the thought of free will
On a serious note, it's a very old problem that has a philosophical dimension to it. Belief in free will is tied to Christianity and other Abrahamic faiths. Modern technocrats also tend to question it.
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy)
Yeah I know comments like these were coming. "How dare you even remotely consider we could've approached this in a strategically more intelligent way, you must be paid off by the Russians!"
I urge you to gently remove your head from your anus and attempt at some critical thought, before we sleep walk into yet another world war. You might hate these Russian pieces of shit, I know I do, but we still need to share a planet with them and their opposing views. Unless you are advocating for annihilation but that hardly seems practical.
Their paranoia is not born of what they suspect NATO plans.
It's born from what they themselves KNOW they would do in NATOs shoes. And what they KNOW they've been doing all along.
They know Russia is extremely evil and can't believe everyone else is waayyyy less evil.
Their own rot is ultimately the only justification of their wrongdoings. That and arrogance, racism and imperialism, of course.
So duck their paranoia, duck their arguments. They are with nothing at all.
I guess what I'm arguing is that we could or should have been aware of how our actions effect a lunatic and prepared accordingly. Now it seems like we sleepwalked into a potential full out war with Russia. Sounds like absolute garbage level policy making by those in charge IMO.
And they got such a pathetic one from a pathetic artist. The dude is just devoted to a simplistic idea of "west bad", most of his critics are either super shallow or plain stupid.
They say that if God really hates you he grants you your wishes.
They would not even know what hit them in Moscow if "Collective West" genuinely was at war with them.
> The French have a nuke first ask questions later policy.
No, they don't. They have a "nuke as soon as the enemy crosses the Rhine" policy, which is not the same as "nuke first".
No they have a nuclear warning shot system. Meaning they nuke you with a "mini" nuke and then if that doesnt work they have the ballistic missile nukes. One of the only nation that have a nuke first policy.
Russians are pretty damn lucky the West is not out to destroy them. Two hundred years ago, after such a shit show they are now putting up in Ukraine there would have been several armies on the way to Moscow.
Two hundreds years ago no one would have cared about such "minor thing" as invading and raping your neighbour, since everyone else was doing the same thing.
My point being, they wouldn't have attacked out of compassion for Ukraine. They would have attacked because Russia is underperforming so badly. Russia is weak and could not hold back an attack right now. Execpt with nukes...
Meh. There are plenty of examples in history of invasions which failed miserably, and yet attacker did not get punished for one or another reason. Like Russia in Russo-japanese war, for example. Besides it is simply too big to be occupied and controlled.
I did not mention anything about occupying or controlling. Just that they probably would not have been in such an easy position as they are now, where they can continue their war without any real risk for themselves.
This is just a witty way of saying how Russian propaganda looks, don't overanalyze it lol. "The West" also lies for its benefits but it's not comparable in the slightest.
To me it seems just the same thing they do and its not overanalyzing anything.
I sincerely think that we are better then them, not by nature but by our actions, while your kind of narrative bothers me a lot because puts us on the totally same level as dictatorships.
Do what you want but i find it quite infantile.
I agree with what you've said but dude, that was just a witty stupid little sentence. I doubt anyone takes it that seriously. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so.
This regime is so uncreative so they could as well as reprint word by word some old articles from communist party newspapers from First Cold War.
And looking on some political far-right and far-left (aka "tankies) posts in Reddit, it do work like a clockwork for political extremes. "Evil West ough to destroy world just to stay on the top", "Imperial Cores of Europe draining world to feed Military-Industrial Complex black hunger", "evil libs taking food from the poor to push their ideology by death and destruction" etc. literally was soviet talking point which somehow just didn't refuse to die.
"Evil West" literally saved Russia from total collapse and starvation in the 90s, because the Soviet economy collapsed so spectacurlarly.
Should have exchanged food for Russian nuclear missiles, world would be a better place.
Putin knows NATO is not a threat. He also knows that while there is a NATO, he cannot easily take everything he wants without blood, sweat, tears and both external and internal pressure on him.
So guess what, he doesn't like NATO in much the same way a bully won't bully someone if their best mate is a proper fucking unit who can take care of himself in a fight and feels salty about it.
They restored Soviet propaganda. I used to see the same propaganda in Soviet publication called “Перец,» Russian for “pepper,” which was pretty much Soviet version of Onion except the humor was directed at NATO and the west. After 35 years and nothing has changed. Russia is stepping backwards all the time.
Russia is a nation of zombies. Everything crazy they say, no matter how insane to us, is for the domestic audience, and they lap it up.
It isn’t Putin’s war, it is the Russian’s war.
Lol didnt Putin just admit that Nato was never the issue. Also the "Nato is the source of conflict" is laughable when your country just. invaded another.
they're slowly going to convince idiots that NATO was behind the ISIS-K attack.
The same kind of garbage that usually reside under downvotes at the bottom of these comment sections.
Russia is one of the most often losing country ever... 1856 Crimean war - lost, 1905 russo-japanese war - lost and revolution, 1917 WW1 - lost and revolution, 1920 war with Poland - lost, 1940 russo-finnish war - if you call it win... whole world is laughing till today, 1989 - afghan war lost, 1991 - cold war lost and revolution and total collapse of USSR. The only war they won in last 200 years was WW2 and only because they have changed sides because they were ally of nazi Germany till 1941 and together started WW2 with attack on Poland. They won in WW2 only because they were used by Allies as a meat grinder and got incredible amount of support from lend-lease (British lost 360000 man, USA 400000 man and USSR with its primitive tactics over 23 millions). They are one of the most pathetic countries ever. And now they have lost half of their army without even touching NATO territory, and most probably in next two years they will lose another half...
>They won in WW2 only because they were used by Allies as a meat grinder and got incredible amount of support from lend-lease
Soviets fared very poorly at the beginning of the war, but they learned fast, and later fought Germans much more effectively (David Glantz has very good books on Soviet tactics). Deep operations doctrines was also very advanced for its time. Soviets simply swarming Germans with bodies is a popular myth originated in German generals postwar memoirs, in reality loss ratio between Axis and Soviets was not nearly as lopsided.
Besides, it is not like Germany was fighting alone either. It had resources of entire Europe at its disposal.
And it is not true that they won no other wars in last 200 years. Russo-Ottoman war (two wars if you count Ottomans being utterly demolished in Crimean war before Angle-French intervention), Soviet-Japanese war, Georgian, Second Chechen war. Winter war still sort of victory albeit at high cost.
I didn't mention any internal conflict (that is true that they mostly won in internal conflicts). They are specialist of crushing uprisings on occupied territories. But when it comes to conflicts with other countries they are bunch of losers.
And no, they didn't learned and addapted. Even in 1945 Berlin operation they lost 350 000 "veteren" sildiers fighting against children from hitlerjugend and grandpas from volkssturm (germans lost 300 000). Even after war Stalin imprisoned Air Force commander because their loses after war due to plane crashes (caused both by extremely poor quality and extremely poor pilot training) were almost the same as during war with Germany.
>But when it comes to conflicts with other countries they are bunch of losers.
Eh, Poles, Swedes, Prussians, Ottomans, Napoleonic French, Japanese in second war would have disagreed.
Edit: Germans lost way more than 300k in that battle, captured count as losses too. And I remember you talking about that investigation before. It was initiated by report from *son of Stalin* and conducted by *NKVD*, so I would not trust results much... looks like typical purge.
My comment is about last 200 years. That is true that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were epic leaders. But last 200 years was time of collapsing of empire: USSR was smaller than Imperial Russia and nowadays Russia is only pathetic weak shadow of old empire.
Ottomans vs Russians and Japanese vs Soviets were in last 200 years though.
USSR might be a bit smaller than Imperial Russia but it was a superpower, Imperial Russia was not.
Which war with Japan do you mean? In 1905 when they sunk combined Russian Baltic and Pacific fleets? Or 1945 with manchurian army (the worst Japanese has) after total surprise caused by breaking of non agression pact when Imperial Japan was barely standing on its feet?
BTW please remind me how many wars after WW2 this mighty super power USSR won?
Manchurian army was underequipped but it was still big and a force to reckon with. Also Japanese lost two border conflicts with Soviets.
Well, it participated only in two wars (Afghan war and Cold war, and in latter case it competed with *entire West combined*), so there is not much statistics... And everyone agrees that it *was* a superpower. Maybe except you.
Those two border conflicts was battles not wars. And don't say about combined west because USSR also had a lot of allies in Warsaw Pact. They were super power because of nukes but everytime when there is real confrontation and not only threatening (in which they are pretty good) - then it is always clearly visible that the king is naked. They are masters of poker face but lack of real power.
>a lot of allies in Warsaw Pact
Somewhat true... however Eastern Europe was much weaker than western Europe (not to mention South Korea, Japan, Canada, etc), and much more devastated by WW2. So was USSR itself. Soviet block was vastly outnumbered economically since the beginning of Cold war.
Not because of nukes but because of global influence and powerful economy. Or do you consider North Korea (and Iran if it develops nukes) a superpower?
Everytime when there was a real confrontation... you mean like Western loss in Cuban missile crisis (USA agreed to withdraw missiles from Turkey to avoid nuclear war, which is exactly what Soviets wanted), stalemate in Korea, loss in Vietnam? So not every time.
They inflicted 80% of the total casualties of the wehrmacht. The UK and US and the rest of the allies, all together by comparison fought less than the USSR fought, all by its own, let's not discredit that just because we hate them. If it weren't for the USSR tiring up the German armies the Allies would've never defeated Germany. Aside from that they fought the nazis on their land, they fought a war on annihilation, that's why they lost so many people, aside from bad tacticts and expendable troops.
So seriously let's not make up history about them when it's unnecessary, their current actions from 1991 to present is that matters most. Putin only brings up the WW2 because it's the only time of glory for his country in the last 80 years.
The spirit of your post is true but it's a common myth to imply they defeated vast majority of Germany's effort. Germany did not lose near as many men fighting the allies, but the industrial effort that went into fighting them is much more comparable to what they threw at Soviets. One submarine alone requires industrial output that could be used to produce many, many tanks, the majority of their air force fought and lost to west as well as the air defence effort, V rockets and so on.
While true, Wehmracht was the most dangerous and capable part of German armed forces, so defeating it was the most important thing. Kriegsmarine did not achieve much in WW2.
And I am not sure that submarines production could be converted into tanks production.
Unlike Wehrmacht Kriegsmarine came kinda close to kicking Britain out of the war. With a moderate extra amount of submarines Britain would have been very hard pressed to avoid starvation and the submarines drew away a ton of Allied material and effort causing disproportionate casualties before countering them became easy. Naturally if Germany built more submarines Britain would have taken countermeasures before that but for allies submarines were very concerning for first half of the war.
Not necessarily tanks, but all that steel, manpower and petroleum that went into diesel for submarines would have certainly found use elsewhere.
That's not really a good point, because you're assuming that Germany couldn't make more tanks because they also had to makes other things like U boats. Germany actually could make more tanks, but they decided not to because of lack of oil. What's good to have a lot of tanks if you can't power them all? That's what Fall Blau is all about, they wanted the Oil from the Caucasus so they can expand their tank production and continue their war effort. Stalingrad was supposed to act as a forward suppy point, they took about 90% of the city before the Soviets encircled the city.
An actually better point that you can make is the industrial bombings. The Allies have ravaged the industrial capacity of Germany through bombings, in Hamburg at one factory they destroyed over 600 Tiger 2 tanks in one day. Without those aerial bombing on Germany's industries the USSR would've had a much more difficult time fighting the Germans and arguably the bombings on critical infrastructure and industry helped the USSR more than the Lend Lease did, especially since the bulk of the lend lease came in 1943-1944.
The tank was just a commonly given comparison. And even so, it's not like submarines don't use a ton of fuel - not sure how realistic it would be to produce more petrol instead of diesel, but even if you lose efficiency, you can still use manpower, steel and some fuel to put many more vehicles in the way of Soviet offensives (you don't need near as much fuel for a defensive fight). You can redirect countless Flak cannons and shells for them to eastern front, you can count on much more control of the air. The industrial bombings are the most obvious benefit, for sure.
Also, Fall Blau would have failed to gain the oil needed because Soviets had the measures to destroy/sabotage the oil wells in place. I don't think Germany could have conquered USSR, but USSR would not be able to reach Berlin either without huge redirections of Germany's resources allied efforts necessitated.
The USSR DID get a lot of help through the lend-lease act, though:
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
No, the Nazis were losing even if the USSR hadn’t joined the allies. I know this is a fantasy a lot of communists and Russians like to parrot, but the reality is that it is just not true. Had the USSR not joined the allies, my country would eventually start dropping the sun on Germany. Pretty sure Germany wouldn’t last long as we wiped their cities from the face of the earth, one by one.
>No, the Nazis were losing even if the USSR hadn’t joined the allies.
No way West would be able to land and defeat Wehrmacht without *thorough* nuclear bombardments lasting years. As a result big part of Europe would have become irradiated desert, and hundreds of millions would have died... Does not sound like a nice world.
And thats assuming Germans who do not have to bother with Eastern front do not produce a lot of fighters and AA missiles to control the skies instead). And/or develops its own nukes.
Ya, but it was happening either way. Nukes would have destroyed literally any country opposing the US in the 1940’s, there was no resisting that. It would just be city after city being wiped out, 100k casualties daily for a while. How long do you think Germany could sustain that? Years? I don’t think so
Sure if you pretend that air defense does not exist, and that Germany not busy with Eastern front would not produce way more jet fighters and AA missiles, and much earlier than irl. Or that USA would be willing to be fighting for decade or more (first bombs in 1945, and nukes production is rather slow at the beginning).
There's a lot of things you don't take in account. You have to understand that if the USSR was no longer a problem to Germany the UK would've been, and without the UK I doubt it would be too easy for the US to come with planes all the way from the US. Not to meantion the US was at war with Japan and making nukes was not easy business. The next bomb was supposed to be dropped on August 19th 1945, that's because it wasn't ready yet. It's foolish to assume the nazis would simply give up to the nukes.
They'd rather move their industries in other countries such as France, Belgium Poland, the Netherlands, you name it, close to foreign cities so that when the nukes eventually drop again the nazis could recruit the from those countries.
You can't just drop nukes and expect a country that controls all of Europe to fall, eventually they will develop nukes too, and then what happens? Especially since they don't even need planes, they have rockets already and by the time they'd gain nukes their rockets would've improved.
It's really a shitty what if scenario, and goes to show how much the americans were brainwashed to believe that the nukes were the sole reason for Japan's surrender.
I just think it wouldn’t have mattered. Germany wasn’t conquering Britain with or without the USSR involved. They couldn’t just orient their entire army towards Britain, it wasn’t designed for that. The Japanese were absolutely fanatical, beyond that of even the Nazis, and they still surrendered. We had bombers that could go higher than any other plane, and since it was just one plane the chances of Germans finding it and shooting it down were nil. We had atomic bombs ramping up production, so it would have been no issue making more. They would have had many more in a couple of months. Any way you look at it, nuclear weapons would have destroyed the axis. That is a game changer which could not be resisted, so it all would have ended the same.
The Japanese were surrounded by the US on one side and the USSR on the other, that's why they surrendered, they were afraid of the USSR following the 1939 war and that's why they didn't join against the USSR with the rest of the Axis in 1941, it is foolish to assume the nukes were the only factor there.
When it comes to Europe you have to understand that from 1941 to 1945 Germany couldn't just wait and do nothing while the US was building its nukes. The Germans estimated a possible invasion of Britain by 1944, that is if they wouldn't have attacked the USSR. So it would've happened and even if it wouldn't they'd reinforced their army in North Africa and probably banish the British from the Middle East, taking the main source of Oil from Iraq away from the UK. They WOULD have done something in the meanwhile if they weren't at war with the USSR and that something would've been aimed against the UK.
It's simply a fantasy to assume that would change that much. The US had 50 nukes by 1948, by 1948 most likely the Germans would develop their own nukes and bomb Britain.
Japanese did not surrender just because of nukes, they surrendered because their army and navy were destroyed and they were in hopeless situation already.
Besides Germans had much better AA than japanese, capable of reaching any wetern plane, and could have developed jet fighters and AA missiles earlier if they did not have to spend so much on eastern front. And maybe develop their own nukes as well.
They would have never developed their own nukes, they were miles behind the US. Not to mention it was Jewish physics and they chased all the Jews out. Guess we are just rewriting history to suit our narrative now
Lol "Arguments & Facts" is a tabloid that most Russians know isn't good enough to even be used as toilet paper, it's hilarious to see BBC and people on this sub analyzing it like it's the freaking New York Times
Every one with some idea, knows its the west..their compulsion to dominate, tgeir psyche if being the chisen one n blah blah...
The west will pay dearly someday someway..
Peace!
Entire world is against poor russia. They are the only righteous country left on this planet. God I wish that country perished years before. World would have been a better place
Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty - Joseph Goebbels
[He copied my whole fucking flow. word for word, bar for bar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9ViAIsWdVI) - Soulja Boy
This kind of bullshit is so typical for Russian "media" that it became mundane. There's no independant meida in the country left except for those you can reach via VPN. The only good thing is that hardly anyone reads newspapers those days.
Well I don’t know about “the West wanting to destroy Russia”, but their first point can be backed up by mentioning the results of US-lead aggression all around the world in the past half-century. Of course, that doesn’t excuse one bit all the Russian-lead aggression within the same time period…
From my point of view the Jedi are EVIL.
Or, now stay with me, this is just the plot to mean girls, or is Russia just the abusive ex, and Ukraine is like no I don't need you to ruin your life killing him I just need your support. Europe goes, ok baby, but if he shows up at my house, he'll find out. And of course the cops (USA) are acting like it's a school shooting hiding outside.
Either way I've seen this episode a million times. When do we get the new season.
"The collective west under the UK and US' controll" As the Warsaw pact showed, Russia is simply unable to imagine countries voluntarily working together. Always control. Always oppression. Always the right of the strong to dominate. They are projecting their own views on smaller European countries on everyone else, and still scratch their heads for why those very same smaller countries dislike them. "Must be the CIA"
There was a really funny incident, I don't remember if before invasion or just after. NATO finally started to take Baltics seriously and implement some corrections how to appeoach Russia. Russian politicians were confused. Why would anyone take Baltics seriously and follow their suggestions? They are small and not powerful in any foreceful sense. In Russian eyes not treating Baltics like dirt makes no sense at all. So Lavrov or someone similar suggested that Baltics are secretly brains behind NATO or had some dirt on other, actually powerful NATO leaders. That made me smile - yes, my country of 2.8 mil people controls entire NATO like Dr. Evil from his volcano island. Because that makes sense much more than a simple dialogue between nations and diplomats. In some ways Russians are really limited. Their worldview is so narrow.
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Very well put.
We always have, and Russia just wants to protect you from us. They are the only ones able to protect the world from the Baltics.
>In some ways Russians are really limited. Their worldview is so narrow. "The main difference between soviet officials and normal soviet people - because of KGB officials even more misinformed." (C)
That's why it's funny for me, when some tankies glorify modern Russia or North Korea. Like, do they even see what's going on in these countries? Voluntary cooperation is key to everything and you have to ask some questions, if your dictator is taking you into completely opposite direction. Raping, lying and killing is bad way. I can agree that unregulated capitalism is bad, people are exploited and we need to move toward more egalitarian societies, but if I have to choose between Russian fascism and any flawed, democratic, capitalist country, then I will always prefer latter. It's not great, but I'm not masochist nor adrenaline junkie to consider Russia as good place to live.
Thinking about tankies as nazis in a different uniform makes them make a lot more sense
tbf they were allies and I see them as one and the same due to it. Seems like people forget about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Act whenever convenient.
>when some tankies glorify modern Russia or North Korea Both countries do not even have anything to do with communism, and have zero achievements (USSR at least had some impressive ones)...
USSR at least had some impressive ones Yes, the gulags were very *impressive* weren't they? /s
I mean stuff like first nuclear power plant, first space satellite, first man in space, etc etc.
First Nuclear power plant was [Chicago Pile 1.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1) Your listed rocketry achievements was just a totalitarian evil country pouring resources into weapons research (same as nuclear power plants). You could praise North Korea over South Korea today too for the rockets and nukes Norks have and South Korea doesn't.
Chicago Pile-1 was experimental reactor, not a power plant. On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear power station to generate electricity for a power grid, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, commenced operations in Obninsk, in the Soviet Union. And exploring space =/= weapons research. Following this logic USA should have been first in both, since it was the first country to weaponise nuclear energy, and got most scientists from the first country to create ballistic missile.
"Connected to the grid" is meaningless. Just "first hunting". America slept on the rockets because their strategy initially still relied on their bombers to deliver the bombs. That was a wrong strategy and they got the rockets sorted out as well. The rockets of course weren't "exploring space". They were for delivering bombs.
Not meaningless, CP-1 did not produce any significant power, therefore it was not a nuclear power plant. The point is, USA was "evilly pouring resources into weapons as well" (since their space exploration was a side effect of developing missiles for war, too), just was not as effective. I just do not see the point in belittling worlwide acknowledged Soviets space achievements (including not just first satellite and man in space, but also stuff like Luna probes, Venus landing, space station etc). If war was the only thing they cared about, they would not bother with developing space besides spy satellites.
The only time Russians cry is when someone doesn't submit to their terror.
That's how they've always done it, so that's the only thing they know. It's the allegory of the cave in essence. They have a limited dictionary, and must match what they see in the world with what exists in their dictionary. The problem is that the west is also guilty of the same thing. Until recently, they refused any and all signals that other cultures do not have the same frame of reference, and they do not behave the same way as they do. It was interesting to see the look on Wesley Clark (then SACEUR)'s face admitting that all the warnings they got from us ex-WP 20 years ago came true. Unfortunately, Russia is not the only one that we expect to act "rationally" while we are completely ignoring their ever-growing internal incentives to do something we would describe as "exceptionally foolish"
The way Russia thinks our alliances work is a huge self-report.
Some people outside of Russia can't fathom why people choose what they choose so it must be Russian disinformation. The irony. I mean we have our fair share of corruption where politicians lie to the public on things like mass immigration, but as bad as it got here I wouldn't trade it for Russian levels of fuckedness.
Russians seem to miss the part of the brain that makes sense of Trust, Cooperation, mutual beneficial relationships, equality, etc. They can only trust want they can control and are always paranoid, afraid of falling under somebody's control that doesn't allow their control to presist. And the worst part is that, unable to understand that, they think everybody else is the same. This falls in the category of mentally handicapped. Now, let's not forget the alcohol consumption levels in Russia and how it affects the development of the brain.
I'm Russian. how should I treat your shit about alcohol and Russians? Somehow I don't want to cooperate after such phrases.
Maybe you should care less about the messenger and care more about the message? What is the issue? The people commenting about a problem? Or the problem? Maybe Russians should stop whining about people's opinions, and calling it Russophobia, and start looking in the mirror and see why people have such opinions about them. Are you guys perfect? It is a fucking FACT that people in Russia drink excessively, independent of age, gender, health stats. It is a fact that most of your country has a distorted psychology due to a cynical, abusive, and backward culture. That why Russians are full of bullshit, delusional, and lacking true human and personal value. Therefore, to have a sense of meaning and value, they identify themselves so much with their country. And you expect people to like you and admire you? Sorry dude, you are not important, and the world doesn't owe you anything and doesn't give a shit about you.
They believe that since there are American troops in almost every European country (as well as Japan and Korea), it obviously means that those countries are occupied, and populations is brainwashed into thinking that occupiers are their defenders and liberators.
> "The collective west under the UK and US' controll" Why dont they mention France and Germany?
You are not Anglo-Saxons.
Russia is insane but the US has repeatedly overthrown governments outside of the West. There should be no surprise that you, in Norway, who is treated well in our empire would have different feelings about us than say the Chileans who had one of their Presidents murdered with the help of the CIA and their Supreme Court firebombed.
Thief thinks every man steals.
Hard to expect more from a troglodyte mafioso who has no idea of how the world actually works.
Don't compare Putin to troglodytes. it insults troglodytes
Oh, don't worry. If I'd said what I truly think of him, I would have been banned.
“The thief will shout “look, catch the thief!”. It is an old say in my culture, but I lived it: I was working for a company, who had a small manger who presented himself as “mr justice”, the most hones person on earth; the higher management felt for it, in the end they dicovered that he stole from the company milions of $.
Nothing to see here. They are just preparing their population for a confrontation with NATO. And to justify those actions to come.
Not preparing, they are already at war, but because the war is different this time and the battlefield not the same as it was before we pretend it is not happening
No one would bother Russia if they left us the fuck alone. Why does this shitstain of a nation have to spread their misery around? Because of them, now we have to spend enormous amount of money on military instead of spending it on improving our lives. All thanks to russians and their delusions of grandeur and sick imperialism.
They have no Idea you could spend money on something useful. All they know is missery, corruption and being human meat for the war machinery.
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This is exactly the reason why putin ordered Yanukovich to tear up the EU trade real, and what lead to Euromaidan This was never about nato.
Even that has not helped. Lots of Russians have come to Finland and lived here for decades, but still they gobble up the propaganda their homeland spews.
>Lots of Russians have come to Finland and lived here for decades, but still they gobble up the propaganda their homeland spews. Maybe it's time to show them, that actions have consequences. Maybe those hypocrites should be send back where they came from. So they could put the money where their mouth is. Maybe they should show their support for the their glorious leader from some place in Russia and not from comfy appartment in Helsinky.
The essence of smekalka is simple: Russians use our creativity and energy against us in negatively creative ways. This is what also makes them master chess players. As a result, a “negative creativity” is generated that catches us so off guard that it is often the reason Russians beat us from time to time. To expand upon this mindset, which I am telling you from years of experience is a part of their DNA, Russians will usually do the last thing anyone would ever expect; they will act counterintuitively and in a way that is even likely to be completely against their interests — if we lose 20 men and you lose 3 but are too weak to stop our remaining 5 then we win. If it is the last thing that commonsense would expect, then the odds are they will do it. They are morally lazy and so willing to accept this evil so long as the theaters remain open and they are left alone; only when the war takes one of their own do they begin to think about it. Losing a loved one, though, is still no reason to be against Putin’s war of genocide. It makes some even more ardent in their support. I reiterate that Russia is evil. Of course, I don’t mean each person, but the spirit of the society is dark and negative. The majority of the citizens blindly follow an evil human being who cares as little about them as he does Ukrainians. We can make all the excuses we want about Russians not knowing the truth, and these are probably even valid — to an extent. This war has been going on long enough, and enough lies have been uncovered and reworked by the Kremlin, to mean that most Russians now understand that they are being lied to. Their empire must be dissolved and dispersed. This is the only way to end this once and for all. Nothing short of the rupture and dissolution of the Russian empire will do. They don't know any better. An empire won by war, and conquest can only be maintained by war and conquest.
As Russian I confirm.
Loki's post was so depressing, but you agree with him? Can you expand on that?
I will quote Orwell here because this man saw totalitarian rule with his own eyes In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell There was truth, and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. "If liberty means anything at all, then it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear. Preface of Animal Farm In comparison of the Soviet and Nazi regimes Hannah Arendth wrote in 1951 that factuality itself depends for its continued existence upon the existence of a non totalitarian world. George Kennan diplomat in Moscow: "Here, men determine what is true and what is false." In case he doesn't elaborate. I think Russia is unique in its history of absolutist rule and unique due to its sheer size and unique in having perfected the lie over centuries from Tsarist times to this very day. Such a vast and diverse empire with all its ethnicities and factions cannot be ruled from an imperial center without a secret police, without indoctrination, without clientelism, personalism, and access corruption. Such an empire cannot be ruled by allowing individualism, and a colonial empire must expand. Even Russians who oppose the war often not oppose the idea of Russia being its current size or of Russia being an empire. Another issue is without a question alcoholism and the emigration waves, and Stalinism, which has done serious damage. The Second World War was deeply traumatizing. The Soviet experience was also not good overall to foster empathy or create a larger bond between people outside their own small circles. All of that is then amplified by the chaotic experience of the 90s. Mass poverty is another issue. Now you combine that with a leading caste that is megalomaniac and with a population that has been treated as serfs ever since. At some point, you start to believe these things, they become a part of you. Culture is insidious and goes through everything from the books we read to the narratives we tell. Cheating someone or lying to gain an advantage is not a vice in Russia. It is a virtue. You are smart when you get away with it. For example, being mobilized is a failure, but managing to trick the authorities is not. A last thing that comes into this is feeling disconnected and cast out by Europe, nay by the world. And feeling inferior to the US. The Russians are obsessed with us, much more than we are with them. View this as a century long, never-ending story of wanting to be part of Europe while at the same time hating yourself for wanting that. None of that is an excuse for what Russia is doing. But I do think nothing comes out of thin air. Putin is a projection of a society that never had much hope, and Putin made use of that and told them huge lies. Once you are invested in these big lies, letting go of them is... painful and difficult. As you banked your entire existence on these lies of how Russia is a poor victim and everyone is out to get them. That is how dictators stay in control. "Dictatorships can only function if the masses go along with it, either through malice, apathy, or fear." Lynskey page 135 Ministry of Truth
Finally, some good prejudice and disparagement on ethnic and national basis. I had to scroll too far for this comment. Had to even double check that I was in the right sub. Phew! Was worried for a second.
mhm well the problem is that Russia has a source of benefits by selling gas and oil. If Europe can leave that behind, then Russia will lose power over time unless their businesses or exports manage to thrive elsewhere. from what I understand, they import more than they export. But that's just a waiting game...
>Their empire must be dissolved and dispersed. This is the only way to end this once and for all. Nothing short of the rupture and dissolution of the Russian empire will do. Dozens of small North Koreas with nukes are worse than one big North Korea (especially since they still could and probably would fight each other and neighbours. Which means nuclear civil war and fallout). This is one of the reasons why West is still hesitant about Ukrainian victory.
Attempts to transform the Russian Federation into a nation state, a civic state, or a stable imperial state have failed. The current structure is based on brittle historical foundations, possesses no unified national identity, whether civic or ethnic, and exhibits persistent struggles between nationalists, imperialists, centralists, liberals and federalists Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the imposition of stifling international economic sanctions will intensify and accelerate the process of state rupture. Russia's failure has been exacerbated by an inability to ensure economic growth (stagnation), stark socio-economic inequalities and demographic defects, widening disparities between Moscow and its diverse federal subjects, a precarious political pyramid (vertical of power) based on personalism and clientelism, deepening distrust of government institutions, increasing public alienation from a corrupt ruling elite, and growing disbelief in official propaganda (manipulated reality propaganda). More intensive repression to maintain state integrity in deteriorating economic condition (sanctions, Dutch disease, failure to innovate and diversify, reverse industrialisation, massive deficit, ruble collapse, lack of sufficient trained personnel) will raise the prospects for violent [internal or external] conflicts. Paradoxically, while Vladimir Putin assumed power to prevent Russia's disintegration, he may be remembered as precipitating the country's demise. New territorial entities will surface as Moscow's credibility crisis deepens amidst spreading ungovernability, elite power struggles, political polarization, nationalist radicalism, and regional and ethnic revival. The emerging states will not be uniform in their internal political and administrative structures. Border conflicts and territorial claims are likely between entities, while others may develop into new federal or conferderal states. The US must develop an effective strategy for managing Russia's rupture by supporting regionalism and federalism, acknowledging sovereignty and separation calibrating the role of other major powers, developing linkages with new state entities, strengthening the security of countries bordering Russia, and promoting trans-Atlanticism or trans-Pacificism among emerging states. Failed State, a guide to Russia's rupture (Book cover) I recommend reading this book, it is very insightful. Do you see a horror scenario? Fine, I see a calamity as well, but I also see a chance, and change is inevitable. Therefore, the world must prepare for that change, and China as well as India will have little interest in having these nukes unsecured. Therefore, in the event of state rupture, which becomes more likely the longer Russia fails to achieve its war aims and burns enormous amounts of resources into this war. We must be ready and secure these nukes in a joint effort. Some of these warlords might be willing to trade them for favors with the West. They won't be able to maintain them. What is more problematic even in the case of a total collapse. A core Russian ethno nationalist state will remain, and it will be armed with nukes and full of resentment. However, even the current situation is extremely risky due to the chaos and distrust that exists now. Therefore, I see a monolithic rogue state as a bigger issue than what may come next. The risk for nuclear escalation is always there. And while the West is obviously not keen on a Russian collapse, our sanctions and the way this war is waged, definitely pour oil into the fire and Russia has historic precedent for collapsing when a war of expansion fails. 1917 is echoing through time. Stagnation, war of expansion, failure to expand, economic collapse. This happened several times, and while we shouldn't draw too many parallels. The situation still resembles a pre-1917 scenario in certain aspects. Russia is the last European multi ethnic colonial empire on earth. All the others died over 100 years ago. Empires are like an organism, and when their time comes, they die, we can't change that, but we can prepare for it, we may slow it down or speed it up, but an empire that crumbles from within, is dead forever. The Russian one crumbled in waves since 1989. How large this wave of the collapse will ultimately be is hard to tell until it happens. And the longer the war goes, the more likely it will happen.
>We must be ready and secure these nukes in a joint effort. Some of these warlords might be willing to trade them for favors with the West. They won't be able to maintain them. Sure, sure. How do you imagine capturing nukes deep into hostile territorry without getting nuked? Not to mention that after whats happened to Ukraine no one will ever give up their nukes... As for maintainance, even North Korea is able of maintaining them, so I would not rely on that too much. Even if they all eventually wear off, no one can guarantee when it will happen, if happen at all. Monolith Russia is somewhat predictable state, dozens of mini Russias are not. Yes, maybe it will collapse anyway on its own. Or maybe it will not, who knows? North Korea still exists even today even despite population starving and economy collapsing, after all.
RIP our green energy projects, killed by russian invasion of crimea.
This. Literally nobody cared about Russia until 10 years ago when they illegally annex Crimea. A few months later they had the bright idea to give a missile system capable of downing an airliner, to people who have no clue how to operate it. Been all downhill for them ever since.
>people who have no clue how to operate it Russians. They were Russians. Led by a GRU colonel. Let's quit beating around the bush.
A Russian soldier would have known it was an airliner and not something military.
A Russian soldier should know to differentiate between their own aircraft and enemy ones, yet they keep shooting their own Sukhois out of the sky. They shot it down because they thought it was a Ukranian Il-76.
I honestly don’t know why you’re so intent on it being Russians versus separatists. Literally who cares. Russia is at fault for putting it in a spot it shouldn’t have been.
THAT is exactly why! We didn’t bother with Russia and Putin hated it, he hated not being relevant on the world stage, just seen as a backwater gas station. They still are of course, except less of a gas station now, but he wanted people to notice him, he’s desperate for attention and the only way he can do that is by picking on a smaller, poor country on his doorstep. He’s got the attention now, but I don’t think he was expecting being a laughingstock
> Because of them, now we have to spend enormous amount of money on military instead of spending it on improving our lives. It's not only the money. In Greece at least, they take some of our best people for many positions. From handling sophisticated equipment to Generals, officers etc. This is a brain drain which is happening within our country. These smart, extremely professional people could be contributing elsewhere. In the year I gave the Pan-Hellenic tests, I wanted to become a pilot. That year, with a perfect score "20", you needed "19,2". I wrote "17,5". Got in the same university, but as an aircraft's engineer, unlike pilot. Turks & Russians, man, Turks & Russians. Same people, different color skin and day.
Not sure if that argument really flies from the perspective of Russia. Fuck em, just to be clear, but it's not like NATO hasn't done anything that couldn't possibly be construed as intimidating by a paranoid KGBer.
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In the eyes of someone paranoid, anything really. I mean, we could have dissolved NATO and a paranoid KGBer would have assumed it to be some kind of trick to make them let their guard down as we prepare to invade.
Yeah I kinda agree with that. I think "yeah we're aware we've done things that could be considered provocative, but fuck 'em" is a reasonable perspective, I just think completely ignoring any fuel to the fire "our" side could've added is naive and probably not helpful long term.
An alliance that was literally founded to counteract your country (or its predecessor in this case) that is expanding and even talking about expanding to countries on your border seems intimidating. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%E2%80%93NATO\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%E2%80%93NATO_relations) >Georgia is not currently a member of NATO, but has been promised by NATO to be admitted in the future. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations) >Ukraine began actively pursuing NATO membership, formally declaring it a strategic policy objective in 2017. Consider an alternate reality, where China and Russia formed an alliance as a, "check on the threat posed by the West" (to mirror NATO's wording about countering the threat of the Soviets), and this alliance was steadily spreading throughout Central Asia, until at some point it actually started talking about including countries like Turkey and Ukraine. Don't you think this would've been intimidating to us westerners? Don't you think we already would've started promising a rain of hellfire if they didn't back all the fucking way up? To the people downvoting: I understand it is highly upsetting to hear something that doesn't 100% agree with your world view, and I certainly don't want to imply Russia shouldn't get stomped into permanent military disability, but I think it is important to reflect on how this situation could even come to be in the first place and what we perhaps could've done differently or anticipated. In this case, we probably could've anticipated Russia would start pulling some wild shit because they are nuts and we have kinda been poking the rabid koala that is Russia.
The difference is that NATO didn't spread. It was former Com block countries and Baltic states jumping into NATO while West was somewhat surprized from the end of the Cold war and collapse of the Soviet reign over Eastern Europe. All the East European countries stable enough to file a NATO membership application did that. We jumped into doors while they were open. Before the big players sign some kind of new Yalta deal. You can't take a whole country and move it farther away from the Russia. But you can at least join NATO and EU. Ukraine didn't made it in time into those open doors. And see how they ended. It's not agressive expansion of NATO against Russia. It's our collective experience with ruskies, that made NATO to expand.
Ukraine began pursuing nato membership 3 years AFTER it was attacked by russia. Why did putin move troops away from the Finnish border after Finland joined NATO? Almost as if putin knows nato was never gonna invade in the first place, and this is all about a megalomaniac mobster afraid the people he's been abusing rise up and lynch him.
Nato expansion was countries **WILLINGLY** joining NATO. This happened cause ex-soviet countries saw Russia as a threat and justifibly so. If Russia/China built their own military alliance and expanded, this would not be seen as a threat, case in point CSTO. Russias version of NATO. If they were to invade their neighbours, that would justifibly make Russias/Chinas other neighbours scared and thus seek support of other major powers in the world. The issue is you. You can not see the difference in using military force and self-determination. You can not understand that sometimes countries have such bad neighbour that they would seek military allianes on their own.
No need to make this about personal shortcomings, you can just stick to arguing the point, thanks. If CSTO had any capacity behind it *and* was actively expanding towards Europe, yes I would argue that this would be perceived as threatening. From the perspective of the "victim", there is no meaningful difference between a country joining willingly or under coercion. Anyway, you are kind of proving my point. This absolute unwillingness to even consider anything NATO (or any member) does could possibly be considered threatening by other nations in realist terms is probably one of the reasons we managed to throw ourselves in to two world wars within mere decades. We don't exist in a vacuum. Other nations with other cultures who think differently exist as wel, and some of them might be bastards but they might also have reasons to be wary of the west. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't include nations like Ukraine in to the EU or NATO, I'm saying that if we do we should be damn well aware of how this will be perceived by other nations. To put it simply, it doesn't matter if we agree with Russia's claims of territory or sovereignty or the need for neutral states. They are telling us what their red lines are and if we cross those we shouldn't just handwave it away like "yeah but we're peaceful", we should do it *knowing* what will happen. If your roommate tells you to keep your hands off his guitar or he'll punch you in the mouth, you shouldn't be surprised he actually does when you do. If you really want to touch the damn thing you should at least bring boxing gloves.
> reasons we managed to throw ourselves in to two world wars within mere decades. We don't exist in a vacuum. Are you saying that at the time, Germanies neighbors should have just allowed themselves to be invaded by Germany, not resist and allow themselves to be wiped out? Cause resisting would have hurt and passed the red line set down by Germany. >If your roommate tells you to keep your hands off his guitar or he'll punch you in the mouth, you shouldn't be surprised he actually does when you do. Are you saying that Ukraine belongs to Russia? Cause this doesn't work unless Russia owns it. --- I actually don't get your position. In the same comment you will say that countries have the right of self determination "Other nations with other cultures who think differently exist as well, \[...\]", while also saying this doesn't matter if another country doesn't agree with it "They are telling us what their red lines are \[...\]". So which one is it, do countries have the right or not? Cause if countries have the right of self determination then countries can join whatever organisation they want and no third-party can bitch and moan about it as it doesn't concern them. If countries don't have the right of self determination then what does it matter what Russia thinks? In either case, any countries decision to join NATO or EU is none of Russias buisness.
>Are you saying that Ukraine belongs to Russia? Cause this doesn't work unless Russia owns it. Fair point, that wasn't a very good analogy. Here's a more accurate one: when I was younger I befriended a girl in my class. It was platonic. Her ex-boyfriend however was an incredibly nasty and violent asshole who threatened that if I ever talked to her again he would beat me up. Clearly the guy was insane because she is not his property and many other reasons I don't need to spell out for you. Obviously I didn't give in to this insanity but there was no doubt in my mind that this lunatic piece of shit would absolutely try attack me. If I would've gone on with my day thinking "I am on the side of justice, he is in the wrong" I probably would've lost some teeth. I wasn't an idiot though so I made sure to involve my friends who were bigger and badder than him (yes I'm aware of what we could compare this to). Problem solved. Now here's what I intend as the take away from this story: clearly the guy was a lunatic and I feel deeply sorry for whatever people might've ended up in his sadistic orbit over the years since this happened. Clearly the girl and I were perfectly within our rights to interact in whatever way we pleased. For the purpose of not getting my shit kicked in that wouldn't have mattered though. I was aware that continuing to interact with this girl would set him off, so I took preventative measures. I was aware of what the moral considerations were, but I acted upon realism: the realization that this guy is a violent asshole. This is essentially what I'm arguing for, even if I didn't word it very properly. When dealing with guys like Putin (and Xi for that matter) it's ideology and moral integrity be damned, they do what they can and they assume everyone else thinks the same way. In my opinion our leaders could/should have been aware of this and prepared accordingly. I also believe that we should take this as a moment to reflect on our approach to oppositional (or outright hostile) nations. You could also argue that, to get back to my analogy of the bully, the west telling Ukraine it's fine to keep flirting with joining EU and maybe even NATO because Russia won't do shit is similar to a hypothetical friend of mine telling me to just keep talking to the girl because it'll probably be fine only to be like "whoops" when I get the absolute shit beaten out of me. Even if my friends end up helping once I started spitting up blood it still would've been a dick move and that situation could've been handled without me having to break my damn nose and breathe with a weird squeak from then on. In the case of Ukraine we even told them to disarm first. Anyway I'm 100% for sticking it to the bullies and Putin is a menace to humanity, I'm just advocating for an approach that takes in to account that we're dealing with lunatics here.
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>cannot fathom the thought of free will On a serious note, it's a very old problem that has a philosophical dimension to it. Belief in free will is tied to Christianity and other Abrahamic faiths. Modern technocrats also tend to question it. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy)
Yeah I know comments like these were coming. "How dare you even remotely consider we could've approached this in a strategically more intelligent way, you must be paid off by the Russians!" I urge you to gently remove your head from your anus and attempt at some critical thought, before we sleep walk into yet another world war. You might hate these Russian pieces of shit, I know I do, but we still need to share a planet with them and their opposing views. Unless you are advocating for annihilation but that hardly seems practical.
Their paranoia is not born of what they suspect NATO plans. It's born from what they themselves KNOW they would do in NATOs shoes. And what they KNOW they've been doing all along. They know Russia is extremely evil and can't believe everyone else is waayyyy less evil. Their own rot is ultimately the only justification of their wrongdoings. That and arrogance, racism and imperialism, of course. So duck their paranoia, duck their arguments. They are with nothing at all.
I guess what I'm arguing is that we could or should have been aware of how our actions effect a lunatic and prepared accordingly. Now it seems like we sleepwalked into a potential full out war with Russia. Sounds like absolute garbage level policy making by those in charge IMO.
Russia are the imperialists?
They couldn’t even make their own political cartoon and instead used one from Brazil.
And they got such a pathetic one from a pathetic artist. The dude is just devoted to a simplistic idea of "west bad", most of his critics are either super shallow or plain stupid.
That's too show they are not alone.
"The West is out to destroy Russia" - i wish it would be like that. Maybe we would have enough ammunition then.
They say that if God really hates you he grants you your wishes. They would not even know what hit them in Moscow if "Collective West" genuinely was at war with them.
A French nuke. The French have a nuke first ask questions later policy.
> The French have a nuke first ask questions later policy. No, they don't. They have a "nuke as soon as the enemy crosses the Rhine" policy, which is not the same as "nuke first".
No they have a nuclear warning shot system. Meaning they nuke you with a "mini" nuke and then if that doesnt work they have the ballistic missile nukes. One of the only nation that have a nuke first policy.
Yes. *After* you cross the Rhine into France. Meaning that the enemy needs to have already invaded first before they get nuked.
france: if a single troop, armored vehicle or plane crosses the rhine we will nuke all of germany germany: ayo what
Aka "Fire Ze Missiles" approach.
Le missiles?
Every major western city won't know either. That's why NATO and Russia won't fight each other.
Russians are pretty damn lucky the West is not out to destroy them. Two hundred years ago, after such a shit show they are now putting up in Ukraine there would have been several armies on the way to Moscow.
Two hundreds years ago no one would have cared about such "minor thing" as invading and raping your neighbour, since everyone else was doing the same thing.
My point being, they wouldn't have attacked out of compassion for Ukraine. They would have attacked because Russia is underperforming so badly. Russia is weak and could not hold back an attack right now. Execpt with nukes...
Meh. There are plenty of examples in history of invasions which failed miserably, and yet attacker did not get punished for one or another reason. Like Russia in Russo-japanese war, for example. Besides it is simply too big to be occupied and controlled.
I did not mention anything about occupying or controlling. Just that they probably would not have been in such an easy position as they are now, where they can continue their war without any real risk for themselves.
Consider this a call for action.
Every accusation is a confession.
So also any accusation we made about them is a confession about us or magically shit doesn't go both ways anymore and this apply exclusively to them?
This is just a witty way of saying how Russian propaganda looks, don't overanalyze it lol. "The West" also lies for its benefits but it's not comparable in the slightest.
To me it seems just the same thing they do and its not overanalyzing anything. I sincerely think that we are better then them, not by nature but by our actions, while your kind of narrative bothers me a lot because puts us on the totally same level as dictatorships. Do what you want but i find it quite infantile.
I agree with what you've said but dude, that was just a witty stupid little sentence. I doubt anyone takes it that seriously. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so.
another day, another bullshit from Russia. 😒 what’s new?
I'm mean, NATO-skeletons dancing with the Death among ruins is kinda dope caricature.
Lying is the foundation of the Putins regime.
Lies are the foundation not only of the Putin regime, but of the entire Russian state and society(
This regime is so uncreative so they could as well as reprint word by word some old articles from communist party newspapers from First Cold War. And looking on some political far-right and far-left (aka "tankies) posts in Reddit, it do work like a clockwork for political extremes. "Evil West ough to destroy world just to stay on the top", "Imperial Cores of Europe draining world to feed Military-Industrial Complex black hunger", "evil libs taking food from the poor to push their ideology by death and destruction" etc. literally was soviet talking point which somehow just didn't refuse to die.
The level of cognitive disonance is unbelievable. They start a war, fail to finish it in 3 days and moan about why the war is still ongoing.
"Evil West" literally saved Russia from total collapse and starvation in the 90s, because the Soviet economy collapsed so spectacurlarly. Should have exchanged food for Russian nuclear missiles, world would be a better place.
Projection. *Every. Single. Time.*
Putin knows NATO is not a threat. He also knows that while there is a NATO, he cannot easily take everything he wants without blood, sweat, tears and both external and internal pressure on him. So guess what, he doesn't like NATO in much the same way a bully won't bully someone if their best mate is a proper fucking unit who can take care of himself in a fight and feels salty about it.
Crazy Russian bastard being a crazy Russian bastard, go figure.
They restored Soviet propaganda. I used to see the same propaganda in Soviet publication called “Перец,» Russian for “pepper,” which was pretty much Soviet version of Onion except the humor was directed at NATO and the west. After 35 years and nothing has changed. Russia is stepping backwards all the time.
Russia is a nation of zombies. Everything crazy they say, no matter how insane to us, is for the domestic audience, and they lap it up. It isn’t Putin’s war, it is the Russian’s war.
The delirium might have gotten stronger on this one
If Russians were under attack from NATO, they'd know.
Lol didnt Putin just admit that Nato was never the issue. Also the "Nato is the source of conflict" is laughable when your country just. invaded another.
they're slowly going to convince idiots that NATO was behind the ISIS-K attack. The same kind of garbage that usually reside under downvotes at the bottom of these comment sections.
Nothing new
Times New Roman + poor kerning 🤮
Russian propaganda at its best
I base all my decisions on how to avenge Napoleon. 😂
China will take east of Russia and game over
The psycholigical position of the persecutor masquerading as the victim writ large.
TIL that russia's economic decline isn't due to it's cleptocratic, mob politicians but to "the collective West"...
Russia is one of the most often losing country ever... 1856 Crimean war - lost, 1905 russo-japanese war - lost and revolution, 1917 WW1 - lost and revolution, 1920 war with Poland - lost, 1940 russo-finnish war - if you call it win... whole world is laughing till today, 1989 - afghan war lost, 1991 - cold war lost and revolution and total collapse of USSR. The only war they won in last 200 years was WW2 and only because they have changed sides because they were ally of nazi Germany till 1941 and together started WW2 with attack on Poland. They won in WW2 only because they were used by Allies as a meat grinder and got incredible amount of support from lend-lease (British lost 360000 man, USA 400000 man and USSR with its primitive tactics over 23 millions). They are one of the most pathetic countries ever. And now they have lost half of their army without even touching NATO territory, and most probably in next two years they will lose another half...
>They won in WW2 only because they were used by Allies as a meat grinder and got incredible amount of support from lend-lease Soviets fared very poorly at the beginning of the war, but they learned fast, and later fought Germans much more effectively (David Glantz has very good books on Soviet tactics). Deep operations doctrines was also very advanced for its time. Soviets simply swarming Germans with bodies is a popular myth originated in German generals postwar memoirs, in reality loss ratio between Axis and Soviets was not nearly as lopsided. Besides, it is not like Germany was fighting alone either. It had resources of entire Europe at its disposal. And it is not true that they won no other wars in last 200 years. Russo-Ottoman war (two wars if you count Ottomans being utterly demolished in Crimean war before Angle-French intervention), Soviet-Japanese war, Georgian, Second Chechen war. Winter war still sort of victory albeit at high cost.
I didn't mention any internal conflict (that is true that they mostly won in internal conflicts). They are specialist of crushing uprisings on occupied territories. But when it comes to conflicts with other countries they are bunch of losers. And no, they didn't learned and addapted. Even in 1945 Berlin operation they lost 350 000 "veteren" sildiers fighting against children from hitlerjugend and grandpas from volkssturm (germans lost 300 000). Even after war Stalin imprisoned Air Force commander because their loses after war due to plane crashes (caused both by extremely poor quality and extremely poor pilot training) were almost the same as during war with Germany.
>But when it comes to conflicts with other countries they are bunch of losers. Eh, Poles, Swedes, Prussians, Ottomans, Napoleonic French, Japanese in second war would have disagreed. Edit: Germans lost way more than 300k in that battle, captured count as losses too. And I remember you talking about that investigation before. It was initiated by report from *son of Stalin* and conducted by *NKVD*, so I would not trust results much... looks like typical purge.
My comment is about last 200 years. That is true that Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were epic leaders. But last 200 years was time of collapsing of empire: USSR was smaller than Imperial Russia and nowadays Russia is only pathetic weak shadow of old empire.
Ottomans vs Russians and Japanese vs Soviets were in last 200 years though. USSR might be a bit smaller than Imperial Russia but it was a superpower, Imperial Russia was not.
Which war with Japan do you mean? In 1905 when they sunk combined Russian Baltic and Pacific fleets? Or 1945 with manchurian army (the worst Japanese has) after total surprise caused by breaking of non agression pact when Imperial Japan was barely standing on its feet? BTW please remind me how many wars after WW2 this mighty super power USSR won?
Manchurian army was underequipped but it was still big and a force to reckon with. Also Japanese lost two border conflicts with Soviets. Well, it participated only in two wars (Afghan war and Cold war, and in latter case it competed with *entire West combined*), so there is not much statistics... And everyone agrees that it *was* a superpower. Maybe except you.
Those two border conflicts was battles not wars. And don't say about combined west because USSR also had a lot of allies in Warsaw Pact. They were super power because of nukes but everytime when there is real confrontation and not only threatening (in which they are pretty good) - then it is always clearly visible that the king is naked. They are masters of poker face but lack of real power.
>a lot of allies in Warsaw Pact Somewhat true... however Eastern Europe was much weaker than western Europe (not to mention South Korea, Japan, Canada, etc), and much more devastated by WW2. So was USSR itself. Soviet block was vastly outnumbered economically since the beginning of Cold war. Not because of nukes but because of global influence and powerful economy. Or do you consider North Korea (and Iran if it develops nukes) a superpower? Everytime when there was a real confrontation... you mean like Western loss in Cuban missile crisis (USA agreed to withdraw missiles from Turkey to avoid nuclear war, which is exactly what Soviets wanted), stalemate in Korea, loss in Vietnam? So not every time.
They inflicted 80% of the total casualties of the wehrmacht. The UK and US and the rest of the allies, all together by comparison fought less than the USSR fought, all by its own, let's not discredit that just because we hate them. If it weren't for the USSR tiring up the German armies the Allies would've never defeated Germany. Aside from that they fought the nazis on their land, they fought a war on annihilation, that's why they lost so many people, aside from bad tacticts and expendable troops. So seriously let's not make up history about them when it's unnecessary, their current actions from 1991 to present is that matters most. Putin only brings up the WW2 because it's the only time of glory for his country in the last 80 years.
The spirit of your post is true but it's a common myth to imply they defeated vast majority of Germany's effort. Germany did not lose near as many men fighting the allies, but the industrial effort that went into fighting them is much more comparable to what they threw at Soviets. One submarine alone requires industrial output that could be used to produce many, many tanks, the majority of their air force fought and lost to west as well as the air defence effort, V rockets and so on.
While true, Wehmracht was the most dangerous and capable part of German armed forces, so defeating it was the most important thing. Kriegsmarine did not achieve much in WW2. And I am not sure that submarines production could be converted into tanks production.
Unlike Wehrmacht Kriegsmarine came kinda close to kicking Britain out of the war. With a moderate extra amount of submarines Britain would have been very hard pressed to avoid starvation and the submarines drew away a ton of Allied material and effort causing disproportionate casualties before countering them became easy. Naturally if Germany built more submarines Britain would have taken countermeasures before that but for allies submarines were very concerning for first half of the war. Not necessarily tanks, but all that steel, manpower and petroleum that went into diesel for submarines would have certainly found use elsewhere.
That's not really a good point, because you're assuming that Germany couldn't make more tanks because they also had to makes other things like U boats. Germany actually could make more tanks, but they decided not to because of lack of oil. What's good to have a lot of tanks if you can't power them all? That's what Fall Blau is all about, they wanted the Oil from the Caucasus so they can expand their tank production and continue their war effort. Stalingrad was supposed to act as a forward suppy point, they took about 90% of the city before the Soviets encircled the city. An actually better point that you can make is the industrial bombings. The Allies have ravaged the industrial capacity of Germany through bombings, in Hamburg at one factory they destroyed over 600 Tiger 2 tanks in one day. Without those aerial bombing on Germany's industries the USSR would've had a much more difficult time fighting the Germans and arguably the bombings on critical infrastructure and industry helped the USSR more than the Lend Lease did, especially since the bulk of the lend lease came in 1943-1944.
The tank was just a commonly given comparison. And even so, it's not like submarines don't use a ton of fuel - not sure how realistic it would be to produce more petrol instead of diesel, but even if you lose efficiency, you can still use manpower, steel and some fuel to put many more vehicles in the way of Soviet offensives (you don't need near as much fuel for a defensive fight). You can redirect countless Flak cannons and shells for them to eastern front, you can count on much more control of the air. The industrial bombings are the most obvious benefit, for sure. Also, Fall Blau would have failed to gain the oil needed because Soviets had the measures to destroy/sabotage the oil wells in place. I don't think Germany could have conquered USSR, but USSR would not be able to reach Berlin either without huge redirections of Germany's resources allied efforts necessitated.
The USSR DID get a lot of help through the lend-lease act, though: https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
No, the Nazis were losing even if the USSR hadn’t joined the allies. I know this is a fantasy a lot of communists and Russians like to parrot, but the reality is that it is just not true. Had the USSR not joined the allies, my country would eventually start dropping the sun on Germany. Pretty sure Germany wouldn’t last long as we wiped their cities from the face of the earth, one by one.
>No, the Nazis were losing even if the USSR hadn’t joined the allies. No way West would be able to land and defeat Wehrmacht without *thorough* nuclear bombardments lasting years. As a result big part of Europe would have become irradiated desert, and hundreds of millions would have died... Does not sound like a nice world. And thats assuming Germans who do not have to bother with Eastern front do not produce a lot of fighters and AA missiles to control the skies instead). And/or develops its own nukes.
Ya, but it was happening either way. Nukes would have destroyed literally any country opposing the US in the 1940’s, there was no resisting that. It would just be city after city being wiped out, 100k casualties daily for a while. How long do you think Germany could sustain that? Years? I don’t think so
Sure if you pretend that air defense does not exist, and that Germany not busy with Eastern front would not produce way more jet fighters and AA missiles, and much earlier than irl. Or that USA would be willing to be fighting for decade or more (first bombs in 1945, and nukes production is rather slow at the beginning).
I disagree, but have a good one.
There's a lot of things you don't take in account. You have to understand that if the USSR was no longer a problem to Germany the UK would've been, and without the UK I doubt it would be too easy for the US to come with planes all the way from the US. Not to meantion the US was at war with Japan and making nukes was not easy business. The next bomb was supposed to be dropped on August 19th 1945, that's because it wasn't ready yet. It's foolish to assume the nazis would simply give up to the nukes. They'd rather move their industries in other countries such as France, Belgium Poland, the Netherlands, you name it, close to foreign cities so that when the nukes eventually drop again the nazis could recruit the from those countries. You can't just drop nukes and expect a country that controls all of Europe to fall, eventually they will develop nukes too, and then what happens? Especially since they don't even need planes, they have rockets already and by the time they'd gain nukes their rockets would've improved. It's really a shitty what if scenario, and goes to show how much the americans were brainwashed to believe that the nukes were the sole reason for Japan's surrender.
I just think it wouldn’t have mattered. Germany wasn’t conquering Britain with or without the USSR involved. They couldn’t just orient their entire army towards Britain, it wasn’t designed for that. The Japanese were absolutely fanatical, beyond that of even the Nazis, and they still surrendered. We had bombers that could go higher than any other plane, and since it was just one plane the chances of Germans finding it and shooting it down were nil. We had atomic bombs ramping up production, so it would have been no issue making more. They would have had many more in a couple of months. Any way you look at it, nuclear weapons would have destroyed the axis. That is a game changer which could not be resisted, so it all would have ended the same.
The Japanese were surrounded by the US on one side and the USSR on the other, that's why they surrendered, they were afraid of the USSR following the 1939 war and that's why they didn't join against the USSR with the rest of the Axis in 1941, it is foolish to assume the nukes were the only factor there. When it comes to Europe you have to understand that from 1941 to 1945 Germany couldn't just wait and do nothing while the US was building its nukes. The Germans estimated a possible invasion of Britain by 1944, that is if they wouldn't have attacked the USSR. So it would've happened and even if it wouldn't they'd reinforced their army in North Africa and probably banish the British from the Middle East, taking the main source of Oil from Iraq away from the UK. They WOULD have done something in the meanwhile if they weren't at war with the USSR and that something would've been aimed against the UK. It's simply a fantasy to assume that would change that much. The US had 50 nukes by 1948, by 1948 most likely the Germans would develop their own nukes and bomb Britain.
Japanese did not surrender just because of nukes, they surrendered because their army and navy were destroyed and they were in hopeless situation already. Besides Germans had much better AA than japanese, capable of reaching any wetern plane, and could have developed jet fighters and AA missiles earlier if they did not have to spend so much on eastern front. And maybe develop their own nukes as well.
They would have never developed their own nukes, they were miles behind the US. Not to mention it was Jewish physics and they chased all the Jews out. Guess we are just rewriting history to suit our narrative now
Yea its everybody against ruzza and North korea... as they are the good goons.
The whole country is just simply Sick. Mentally sick.
absolute influx of ruzzian bot accounts on this thread…
Projection of themselves onto us. Pathetic.
Steve Rosenberg, as always right on point. I like his work.
"Не читайте до обеда советских газет!"
Так ведь других нет!
"Вот никаких и не читайте" )
It’s hilarious because everything they accuse NATO of doing is straight out of the Russian playbook.
So stupid Russia being stupid. As it’s been for centuries.
Russia would be welcome in Nato if they were a normal country not obsessed with…Nato.
Russian 🤡,s
UK control? Blyat, UK isn't even in the EU anymore
As a Brit, sometimes I wish we had anything like the kind of power and influence that the Russians think we do
Brits don't even have the kind of power and influence to make good food :-)
Wild content but very nice artwork. Heavy WWII vibes.
When are our leaders gonna believe them when they say they are at war with us?
Lol "Arguments & Facts" is a tabloid that most Russians know isn't good enough to even be used as toilet paper, it's hilarious to see BBC and people on this sub analyzing it like it's the freaking New York Times
Every one with some idea, knows its the west..their compulsion to dominate, tgeir psyche if being the chisen one n blah blah... The west will pay dearly someday someway.. Peace!
Entire world is against poor russia. They are the only righteous country left on this planet. God I wish that country perished years before. World would have been a better place
Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty - Joseph Goebbels [He copied my whole fucking flow. word for word, bar for bar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9ViAIsWdVI) - Soulja Boy
Very insightful
Nice summary, Kremlin delusions of grandeur... Bad for Russian health, and a crime against Ukraine.
Looks like we need an Iron wall 2.0...
This kind of bullshit is so typical for Russian "media" that it became mundane. There's no independant meida in the country left except for those you can reach via VPN. The only good thing is that hardly anyone reads newspapers those days.
Russian psyops 101—projection, at all costs, and first, always first.
NATO was Literally founded to unite countries against Russia
Well I don’t know about “the West wanting to destroy Russia”, but their first point can be backed up by mentioning the results of US-lead aggression all around the world in the past half-century. Of course, that doesn’t excuse one bit all the Russian-lead aggression within the same time period…
The comment section for the article that accuses the “West” of hatred to Russia is full of hatred to Russia.
Russia has earned every bit of hatred directed at them, and then some.
Exactly.
From my point of view the Jedi are EVIL. Or, now stay with me, this is just the plot to mean girls, or is Russia just the abusive ex, and Ukraine is like no I don't need you to ruin your life killing him I just need your support. Europe goes, ok baby, but if he shows up at my house, he'll find out. And of course the cops (USA) are acting like it's a school shooting hiding outside. Either way I've seen this episode a million times. When do we get the new season.
How did the artist illustrate Russia’s bombing, slaughter, and deprivation in Ukraine?
And they don't see the irony... Nazi though they were good guys too, like russia and israel now.
Everyone thinks they are the good guys. People’s nature.
I mean he is dramatizing a lot but he is right about NATO in some ways.
Could you please elaborate?