All Things Russia & Ukraine

[old salt]

Second, what I mean is that Putin will need to come to the conclusion that he's made all the moves he can, expended all the resources he can, that would bring Ukraine into submission and be habitable and ruled by Russia and/or its proxy. That's not possible if he goes nuclear, but it is at least conceivably possible if he turns many of the cities to rubble. Obviously the latter is awful, but it's what the Ukrainians appear to be prepared to withstand.

Low yield tac nucs would not render all of Ukraine uninhabitable. He could hit targets in W Ukraine which he knows he can't hold & create an uninhabitable buffer zone, leaving the roads, rail lines & pipelines intact. Control the entire Black Sea coastline & the territory E of the bufer zone.

[Essexfenwick]

Our Russian troll, he of Trump/Putin lovefest, has simply repeated what his RT/Internet Research Agency feed tells him to argue.

Never a thought of his own.

I even fell for “Russian Collusion” because I thought Russia was that powerful .

[Essexfenwick]

Ending the dollar as reserve currency is the endgame started by Biden’s financial nuclear strike on Russia. Other countries are watching in horror that it could happen to them as well and are going to put an end to the reserve status. The Fed chairman laughably inferred that loss of reserve status wouldn’t effect the USA very much. How bout not being able to paper over 30 trillion in debt? And the loss of the financial hammer?

That’s the BEST realistic outcome.

I'd wager any amount of money you'd like that this won't happen. Pick a number. The entire world is screwing Russia right now. And yet you think this is the moment that the entire world is going to move to what....the Ruble? The Rupee?


And the word you're looking for is "implied", not "inferred", Pete.

The Yuan.

[SCLaxAttack]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

[seacoaster]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

[old salt]

Dunno if this has been brought up but here's a guy (originally from God's Country, no less) who really knows his stuff:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUok5xT ... chRichmond


Russophobes are not likely to enjoy any of it. Rather than criticize, try to present evidence to refute what Professor John Mearsheimer says.

J. H. C., not this Chicago guy again.

Mearsheimer is one of those morons from the misnamed “realist” school. I’m sure there’s much more to that school than I understand, but it’s basically a dehumanizing school of thought that tends to emphasize the “state” over the individual.

I don’t know the professor, and he may be a nice guy, but I really doubt it (consider that my realist take on him).

Oh, and it is worth saying again … Le Corbusier was a jerk and his architectural style really sucks.

End of rant. Thank you, thank you very much.

DocBarrister has left the building.

Great rant !
Two things can be true at the same time :
(1) Putin is evil incarnate, vengeful after his loss of the Cold War, obsessed with restoring Russia's historic borders,...& a war criminal.
(2) our insistence on boxing in Russia, by expanding NATO all the way to include Ukraine, precipitated this.

Yes, two things could be true.
Doesn't mean they are.

Putin has been very clear that NATO expansion was not the issue, it's that Ukraine should not have ever been an independent country, in his narrative, it was part of the Czarist Russian empire, thus isn't really a country in the first place.

His issue is with that independence, not any actual concern about NATO.

Everything else he says has been proven to be a lie. It's when he goes on his emotional rants that you see what he actually angrily, resentfully, maniacally "thinks" and wants.

There are underlying root causes & there are precipitating events. They are different.
The precipitating event finally pushed Putin to act on the root cause.

Prof M was right -- Putin could never accept the Black Sea Fleet homeport of Sevastopol being part of a NATO country.
The 2014 Maidan revolt/regime change & vow to seek NATO membership was the precipitating event.

Good distinction between root cause and precipitating event.

But that's a theory, a hypothesis but not a fact.
It may simply have been an excuse...yes, the precipitating excuse.

What we do know is that Putin had long before 2014 made clear what his ambitions were for a return to the full reach of the Russian and Soviet eras. If we actually believed that ambition was real and that he would act upon it in due course, that would mean that there was never any real hope for a continued status quo.

In that understanding, it wasn't the expansion of NATO that was a threat to Russia's sovereignty, rather it was a block to his ambitions to reconquer former territories and peoples. Which he was determined to do.

We just weren't listening to him seriously enough.

With the exception of Georgia, Ukraine & the Baltics, he was satisfied with his dominate relationship with the other former SSR's.
They were in his sphere of influence -- to him, his modern Russian Empire.
He did not start causing problems until NATO expanded to the Baltic states & invited Georgia & Ukraine as future members.

So it's all the West's fault and Putin bears NO responsibility for the current situation?
A gross oversimplification of a complex issue IMHO.

No it's Putin's fault. It's a timeline of critical events that prompted Putin's reactions.
If you seek complexity, study the chronology & the events between the timeline markers.
It is the result of our post-Cold War overreach. Experts like Kennan, Kissinger & Brzezinski warned against it for just this reason.

[tech37]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

[seacoaster]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

[tech37]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

[Essexfenwick]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And certainly it isn't.

Sure it is.

Trump had the world peaceful and under control being bookended by mismanagement experts Bush, Obama and Biden.

[seacoaster]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

Well, there are some parallels....

[tech37]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

Well, there are some parallels....

Ha... Oh I'd be surprised if you didn't find some.

[SCLaxAttack]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

The context is, regardless of the reason/s the crowd was there, Russian media plays the video with the intent by Putin to influence the population's opinion. The Trump playbook. Autocrats and wannabes learn from each other.

[tech37]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

The context is, regardless of the reason/s the crowd was there, Russian media plays the video with the intent by Putin to influence the population's opinion. The Trump playbook. Autocrats and wannabes learn from each other.

blah blah blah... the partisan playbook.

[Kismet]

Make Russia Great Again. Straight out of Trump's playbook - nothing's more important than the size of your rallies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-holds- ... 58609.html

https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/statu ... CtoeIpAAAA

Thanks for posting context/truth seacoaster.

Sure. I was just trying to supplement what SCLaxAttack had provided. It appears to be, at least in part, an enforced rally -- reminiscent of the long hours sitting and standing listening to Castro harangue his "faithful."

That's fine but frankly, that guy is once again making it all about Trump. And, it most certainly isn't.

The context is, regardless of the reason/s the crowd was there, Russian media plays the video with the intent by Putin to influence the population's opinion. The Trump playbook. Autocrats and wannabes learn from each other.

blah blah blah... the partisan playbook.

tech - You are way smarter and better than this.
Putin quoting biblical passages at this rally to justify his immoral activities in Ukraine and his own country.
We've seen this all before - Hitler, Mussolini, Franco all did the same things in their time.

Barnum was right....there is a sucker born every minute, sad to say.

I suggest you read Sinclair Lewis - It Can't Happen Here published in 1935. Very prescient.

[a fan]

No it's Putin's fault. It's a timeline of critical events that prompted Putin's reactions.
If you seek complexity, study the chronology & the events between the timeline markers.
It is the result of our post-Cold War overreach. Experts like Kennan, Kissinger & Brzezinski warned against it for just this reason.

Yes, but the Professor and everyone else leave out the salient fact: the Soviet Union is gone. This is now just piddly Russia. So things like the Monroe Doctrine and other analogies that the Professor tried to use leave out this elephant in the room. Yes, it makes sense that the Soviets wouldn't want NATO near them. But this is simply just Russia. Sorry, it's not the same. Not even close. Looking to the past, yet leaving out this fact, is illogical.

And if Putin has a "reason" for this behavior, why isn't he simply telling his people and the world this reason.....instead of nonsense about a Nazi Country with a Jewish President.

It's obviously because even Putin knows this is all utter nonsense. We're dealing with a failed empire. Russia doesn't have the standing it had.

[Essexfenwick]

Bernie Sanders hasn’t denounced Communism (which is historically more deadly than the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

The enemy is among us.

[old salt]

... why isn't he simply telling his people and the world this reason.....
We're dealing with a failed empire. Russia doesn't have the standing it had.

He has been. Even with most of it's European territory dismembered, it remains the largest nation on the planet, spanning 11 time zones.
Continue to underestimate it at our peril.

[old salt]

Helpful multi-media tactical presentation.

https://ig.ft.com/russias-war-in-ukraine-mapped/

[a fan]

... why isn't he simply telling his people and the world this reason.....

He has been.

He's been telling his people that he's invading because Ukraine won't remain neutral?

Come on...he's been spinning stories about Nazis and genocide.

Did Putin mention that Ukraine wouldn't need NATO if he had left them with their Nukes? That Russia took their nukes, and reneged on that deal?

Why does this professor and others who seek to blame the US and NATO for this State of affairs ALWAYS leave out these absurdly important details?

Putin reneged on the nuclear disarmament of Ukraine.