Of course Russians were at fault, it was their country so they should be held responsible. But so were Germans and Japanese post WW2, those were the countries the US actually fought aganst in a war that had just ended by that time. Didn't stop Americans from doing the right thing and helping those countries. It was first and foremost a strategic political decision aimed at keeping those countries from falling back into old habits, so to speak. Russia's treatment post Soviet Union collapse was anything but. In many ways it's that treatment that paved the way for someone like Putin to come to power.
Russia's at it again
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
Of course Russians were at fault, it was their country so they should be held responsible. But so were Germans and Japanese post WW2, those were the countries the US actually fought aganst in a war that had just ended by that time. Didn't stop Americans from doing the right thing and helping those countries. It was first and foremost a strategic political decision aimed at keeping those countries from falling back into old habits, so to speak. Russia's treatment post Soviet Union collapse was anything but. In many ways it's that treatment that paved the way for someone like Putin to come to power.
That’s actually a very important point. To calm emotions, we can look at a different example that is quite relevant on its own.
China has a fairly small arsenal of nuclear weapons. That’s great for everybody, because it is not really made for using it as a nuclear first strike, but exists primarily to have the threat of a second-strike. American’s nuclear arsenal is much bigger, but they have fairly reasonable first strike policy. The US won’t strike first and China will only use their arsenal to retaliate. The effect is, that a nuclear war between the USA and China is extremely unlikely. Great.
If the USA would strengthens their missile defensive system in SEA region (e.g by deploying THAAD in SK), they disturb this balance of power, because they’d render China’s arsenal useless. Consequently China is in a tough spot: Either accept the new balance of power, that favors the USA or start to nuclear build-up.
So how is this relevant in the context of Russia? By extending NATO to Russia’s boarder and deploying troops in the region, the balance of power between NATO and Russia changes quite significantly. This balance of power is already massively in favor of NATO anyway. It is great for us to say “we are the reasonable guys; don’t worry about these soliders….!”, but that’s missing the point in two ways. The balance of power already shifted and countries outside NATO don’t necessarily see us as peaceful. You just need to listen to some of the speeches of US politicians to know, that they love to threaten other countries. These are understandable concerns for Russia who one way or another would probably try to re-balance. All that just leads to more weapons in the region, which is never good.
First, I am not American.
Second, Russia stated to the UN at the time that it didn't have any intention of putting nukes in Cuba. Your public admission that it did would have seen your family ostracised and you shipped off to a gulag forced labour camp eating boiled grass until you died or finished your re-education by naming innocent people you were friends with as co-conspirators on your confession for crimes against the state.
Third, the alternative to a US / western victory in the cold war which you, Putin and people of your ilk see as equivalent would have been no such thing.
Fourth, Russia oppressed half of Europe arresting dissenters, killing them where ever they saw fit, rolling tanks across borders to support Soviet-installed regimes if they were threatened by popular unrest. When it was finally defeated and forced to relinquish control your main concerns seems to be Russia wasn't paid enough by the west to rebuild and it should still be allowed to dictate to those countries because the USA did during the cold war.
I don't support everything the US does but I am mindful of the fact that the alternatives have been and still remain much worse.
OK, my mistake, you're not American, you're just spouting the kind of BS western MSM, mostly American is feeding to its population.
I don't know what the USSR (there was no such country as Russia at the time) told the UN and I don't care. What matters is what they were doing and what Americans were doing and the world was never closer to the actual nuclear conflict than it did in those few days back in 1962. As for Gulag references keep that garbage to yourself, I know much more about these things from my family personal history than you ever could, but it has nothing to do with the topic we're discussing here.
The USSR wasn't defeated, there was no war to lose. It fell apart for economic reasons, for the most part. And I'm not trying to justify the totalitarian system or many terrible things Soviet regime did to its citizens or some foreign countries. Funny though, that you failed to mention that the Soviets played the biggest role in defeating the Nazi Germany and lost by far the most people in WW2, that doesn't fit your narrative, or didn't you know that? Many people, including those that enjoy bitching non stop about how terrible Russia is and always has been wouldn't be around today if it wasn't for that sacrifice.
My point still stands and you did nothing to disprove it. Every country is concerned with its national security and Russia has every right to protect their own. If the West don't like it, they can go feck themselves.
Not the biggest news of the day. The amount of young people and even school students that joined the protest gives me hope (not much though as I'm usually pessimistic about this).
More than 700 people detained in Moscow, more than 150 in Makhachkala, more than 100 in Krasnodar etc.
edit - feckers:
Not the biggest news of the day. The amount of young people and even school students that joined the protest gives me hope (not much though as I'm usually pessimistic about this).
More than 700 people detained in Moscow, more than 150 in Makhachkala, more than 100 in Krasnodar etc.
edit - feckers:
What brought this on ? I heard Navalny exposed some sort of corruption related to Medvedev ?
Seems encouraging given that this is the biggest spike in protests since 2012, especially with elections around the corner.
Yeah, Navalny published a big investigation on Medvedev's hidden possessions. And yes, @Cheesy, it all began with his sneakers that he ordered for himself online, including one women's pair
A brief explanation:
https://fbk.info/english/english/post/304/
The video itself, it's on Russian but it has English subtitles:
Don't think that this will help massively in the elections but maybe, hopefully, this will go on even after them... or after another vote-rigging scandal that will surely be at the elections. I don't believe in it but I sure hope so.
Who are the credible and reasonable (=> not ultra nationalists or communists) opposition figures and how are their parties doing?
I didn't think Navalny was long for this world after those videos.
I admire his balls for going out and protesting with others but surely he must've known he'd be arrested straight away?
I suspect he'll disappear very, very quickly now.
I admire his balls for going out and protesting with others but surely he must've known he'd be arrested straight away?
I suspect he'll disappear very, very quickly now.
That's the main problem, I guess, the lack of such figures. Navalny is the most popular figure in the opposition, but, for all his great work at exposing government's corruption (and it's really impressive), he has (or maybe had?) some questionable views on migration politics, Caucasian region and a history with nationalism. He had distanced himself from them lately, at least he isn't associating himself with the right wing, but it's still a big question over him candidature.
Apart from him, probably no one.
The latter, sadly
Is "A Just Russia" any good or are they just cheerleaders for the government?
Is "A Just Russia" any good or are they just cheerleaders for the government?
From the admittedly little I know and have heard on Russian politics, I think the opposition parties are mostly just there to make the country appear like a credible democracy.
You'd think...but then there's the flipside that him disappearing would be very, very obvious and could perhaps prompt further outrage. For all his activism he's not going to threaten Putin's regime and him being unharmed would in a way undermine the argument that people can't dissent. But then...it's not as if Putin gives much of a feck what people think.
@harms Can you recommend any good (left-wing) news outlets where one can follow russian domestic politics? RT is obviously crap and Western media mostly covers russian foreign policy and barely anything insightful.
I think Putin would've made him disappear a long time ago if it was that easy. He surely knows full well that any attempts to eliminate him will backfire and make him a martyr and only intensify the demonstrations.
Not sure how much of their content they're translating to English, but this is a pretty good website. They have their issues, of course, but it's probably the best out there. It's part of the team of a very famous news outlet (lenta.ru) that was reorganized a few years ago; they started a new agency which is based in Latvia for obvious reasons, but it is still focused on Russia and Russian politics.
https://meduza.io/en
Maybe it's readable with google-translate, I don't know
https://meduza.io/
The KGB agent has spoken
Yeah, Navalny published a big investigation on Medvedev's hidden possessions. And yes, @Cheesy, it all began with his sneakers that he ordered for himself online, including one women's pair
A brief explanation:
https://fbk.info/english/english/post/304/
The video itself, it's on Russian but it has English subtitles:
Don't think that this will help massively in the elections but maybe, hopefully, this will go on even after them... or after another vote-rigging scandal that will surely be at the elections. I don't believe in it but I sure hope so.
Just watched a good chunk of the video. Pretty damning stuff. I'm not remotely surprised it elicited the type of demonstrations it did. The key thing now is whether the sentiment will subside during Nalvany's 15 days in jail or whether it will continue to spread.
Edward, we hardly knew ye
You know what is absolutely surreal? The fact that I was almost bored watching this video - because, despite not knowing the details, me (and most of the Russia's population) were literally 100% sure that he is a corrupt billionaire (like all of them).
I was pretty sure that it won't create a buzz enough to create a disturbance because of that, but apparently a lot of teenagers went on the streets (for the first time in their lives), because of this video, the arrest of that guy who played Pokemon Go in a church etc. Which is great. Maybe they'll change something.
The sacrifice of the Russian people and their armed forces during WW2 was breathtaking in scope and seminal in defeating Hitler. It is also true that until Germany invaded Russia Stalin was an ally of Hitler. Taking part in the invasion of Poland, occupying half of it and supplying Germany with the raw materials it needed to continue prosecuting the war and post-war its suppression of Eastern Europe isn't debatable.
If you want to use US actions from 1962 then I think its fair to look at Soviet actions from that time frame in comparison. Putin believes the fall of the Soviet Union was a disaster for the world. Of the two potential winners of the cold war, I think it's hard to argue the world would be better if the Soviets had won.
Russia has a right to defend itself but not to oppress its neighbours its done enough of that already.
Once again you talk about stuff that has nothing to do with the point I'm making. It doesn't matter if Soviet Union was the source of all evil and the USA is the world savior. Every country has legitimate concerns regarding its national security. Russia has the world's largest territory and the world's largest natural resourses. It also has an imperial past and one of the world's biggest nuclar arsenals. Those things alone should dictate that you tread very carefully when you deal with such country. The problem is, once the Cold Was was over Americans decided they don't have to bother what anybody else thinks anymore. They were mistaken, and they're paying the price now. Or better yet, the world is paying for their stupidity.
Well hopefully Russia will be democratic soon so we don't have to worry about any of this conflict.
Also, the ww2 history isn't that simple. For example, Poland annexed part of Slovakia a year before they were invaded by Germany and USSR. That Slovakian territory was re-annexed back in October 1939 (officially confirmed on 24 November 1939) when Slovakia supported Nazi Germany attack on Poland following year.
Western leaders didn't exactly covered themselves in glory dealing with Nazis either in the buildup to the WW2, by the way.
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We're already democratic, just concentrate on bringing democracy to other parts of the world, we thank you for your concern.
What was impressive was the sheer geographical vastness of the demonstrations. Seems like they happened from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.
You're more like Zimbabwe than Germany. Lose Putin and have credible and fair elections and you'll have a chance.
Next you'll tell us you're wealthy, too?
I'm obviously not denying the horrific nature of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but it's not like Munich agreement was any better - which singled out USSR as the world's worst enemy at the time, leading to 1939. Don't know why I'm getting into this argument though, as I obviously don't support Stalin's politics, neither foreign nor domestic
You don't know your head from your asshole when it comes to Russia. Stick with what you know.
Its actually a paraphrase from Navalny, who no offense, is probably a bit more dialed into the situation than you.
12:20 onwards...
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I'm glad you know there are people called Putin and Navalny. That doesn't make you an expert on Russia.
you don't need to be an expert to know that Russia isn't very democratic
So? Neither are most other countries in the world and quite a few are much worse in that respect than Russia. Yet it's Russia that gets demonized far more than any other.
As far as dealing with protests, Russian cops are no different to their US colleagues.
https://www.stpete4peace.org/occupyarrests
Note the usual "Whataboutism" in his response.