I think the main problem with this reasoning, is that while true that China is now immensely important when it comes to Russian economy, if Putin and his cabal are happy lightning up the world, then economy is not something they care about, thus Xi/China cannot do much about it.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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Cheers! Stay safe!
I was struggling to work out how they would have otherwise reached there unless Russia managed to get a plane in closer, ditto with Ivano-Frankivsk on the first day. Surely Moldova have to be readying their small own army to attack should Transnistria enter the war. US SOS Blinken is currently in the country at the US Embassy.
Lviv airport, completely redeveloped for Euro 2012, will likely be in their sights soon. That will be emotional.
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Not sure it did come out of Transnistria though.
So proud of Belgrade, full support for peace and Ukraine! Great to see.
I wonder if China will not doing anything, until the Olympics had fully finished.
Then it could be a different story perhaps.
"we didn't think Russia would be so stupid as to try it, they did"
He didn't really admit a mistake, it would be a mistake if they were looking at the same informations. The important quote is that the US only shared their informations the night before the attack.
I'm starting to think that these Russian soldiers can't be trusted.
Persuasive use of language obviously helps, but I'd imagine that most "kingships"/"chiefdoms" etc began when a one man saw that if he could band together under his direction a group of even a few other men, preferably big and physically strong men, then they could use physical force (or the threat of this) to take power over everyone else in the tribe/clan and declare themselves king/chief.
Putin (and all dictators) is this approach writ large: use the military, police, security apparatus to threaten/beat/imprison/kill all opponents.
The UK has a special brand of idiocy. Our extremists, of both left and right, are pathetic in comparison to those elsewhere.
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That makes perfect sense coming from him. Dreher is a far right "intellectual" who got himself a several month trip to Budapest where he talked about how great Orban is and the white, Christian utopia that is Hungary. He spent no time investigating what Orban has actually done re: trying to rig elections, state management of the economy, etc. so he's the perfect useful idiot for Putin's propaganda.
I don't believe that
For what its worth, Putin is a madman, if he's losing badly he might get nuclear.
Does it really matter what's the stipulation, or technicalities, or "We're not helping, just sending bats to hit you with", bottom line is that the NATO / US are sending in waves of guns shipments, and Sanction that actually hurts Putin. For him it's all the same in his eyes.
Like Tsun Tsu said, never forced an enemy into a no way out situation, always give them some little corridor to escape, then they'll only think about escaping and not fighting to the death.
Does it really matter what's the stipulation, or technicalities, or "We're not helping, just sending bats to hit you with", bottom line is that the NATO / US are sending in waves of guns shipments, and Sanction that actually hurts Putin. For him it's all the same in his eyes.
Like Tsun Tsu said, never forced an enemy into a no way out situation, always give them some little corridor to escape, then they'll only think about escaping and not fighting to the death.
Between this and Macron you get the impression France would be better off not speaking about this invasion from now on.
Right, if it really happens, nukes will be directed towards them too, wouldn't be surprised if both sides did it also.
He will not go nuclear. The thought that he will just destroy the entire planet and civilization including Russia itself because he screwed up is just unrealistic when he can put whatever spin he likes in front of his own country. That is much more likely. They’ve even stopped mentioning nukes for the last week because everyone knows that threat isn’t real at all.
You're obviously right, but you changed your tune quite a bit during this invasion
You're obviously right, but you changed your tune quite a bit during this invasion
Yeah my anxiety has eased and I got time to listen to people who actually know their stuff and virtually none of them think there’s any real threat of full scale nuclear war (single attacks within Ukraine being possible nonetheless which is still tragic if it happens). I tend to not be rational when I am scared but I guess that is quite natural reaction.
There's a courageous woman, a WW2 survivor, that comes to every protest now — they've arrested her twice now, I believe.
If these networks are accepted in the West, it seems to be mostly through alliances with Visa, Mastercard, or Discover.
I genuinely don't know how you look at a tiny old lady protesting and think, "yeah, I'm doing the right thing" when you arrest her. I guess at least they haven't beaten her so far like they do with younger people?
And in Kherson, they've started firing on the Ukrainian population for protesting.
You’re right, Harms, I don’t have a deep understanding of Russian politics, as is the case with most in the West.
My overall point is that I don’t think he’s going anywhere due a coup etc.
If they continue with that, they'll be inviting attacks on Russians troop from within the civilian population - I imagine a fair few of them have guns and explosives.
I'm aware of that, it's sad to see it, some of the organisors of those pro-Russian protests are leaders of far right organisations but think many people that came geniunely believe they're there to support Russian people against Western propaganda that demonizes Russia (in their eyes).
Anyways, what's important for me is to see todays support for Ukraine from Belgrade + and Serbia as a country voting 'yes' to that UN resolution few days ago.
This isn't the official Ukrainian Rally,
That got moved yesterday, because of this Anti War protest which is different and probably why Ukrainans were confused about the messages coming from who ever is running this thing.
Why on earth turn up in some massive truck ffs.
What a bunch of spineless cowards, yet it doesn't surprise me. I've seen those types all too much growing up.
I do wonder though, how far these policemen are willing to go? Are they all Putin yes men? At what point do they start asking questions? When it's their home that's in danger?
Or are they just an assembly of dumb and talentless people who, apart from toeing the Putin line, won't get anywhere in life.
He'll never step down himself — nor will he accept a change. There was a time when he obviously considered it but it was almost a decade ago. A coup is possible if general population reaches a certain level of disappointment which, seeing as our economy is in an unprecedented crisis, can happen at some point (a few months/years), threatening their entire existence. Not now though, sadly.
Smelly? Are we in primary school still?
Not sure about the viability of a coup at this time, but if he loses control of the population after sanctions begin to bite, things could go south very quickly imo.
The total absence of support still baffles me. I can't understand the rational behind it.
Police in Russia tortures & sets up innocent people because they need to reach a certain number of solved cases to get their monthly bonus. So yeah, a lot of them are simply guys with no conscious who are used to solving any of their problems with violence — and the system is built in a way to encourage them in that behaviour.
I've been thinking about how important flunkies are to tyrants. You can't surround yourself with capable people with ambition, they'll decide they don't need you.
However there are some capable people in the Russian Mafia, like Semion Mogilevich. One wonders how much influence he wields, and other top gangsters who are not well known like the Oligarchs are.
Mogilevich killed a guy who knew him just for speaking his name to a reporter, even though he didn't tell him anything but that he knew him, but couldn't say more because it was too dangerous.
His lawyer in the US was a former FBI Director. Totally normal phenomenon.
"William Sessions, former FBI Director from 1987 to 1993 during the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush (41), was Mogilevich's attorney in the United States until Sessions' death on June 12, 2020.[18][19]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semion_Mogilevich
It just makes my blood boil reading this and knowing there's so many decent people in Russia living with this bullshit.
Living without hope is one of those things that really can crush a person, so all the best to you and other brave people who stand up despite all of this.