You asked me for a source. I gave it. — frank
Putin's vision for Russia is as an independent regional power. He wants Russia to be a peer of America and China, under the umbrella of the UN. That's what he's steering his country toward.
He arrived at that vision after being rejected by both NATO and the EU. Under his rule, Russia has prospered by privatizing industry. A white collar middle class has emerged. But they're now heading into stagnation because they haven't been investing in future growth. — frank
Most likely a covert op by the US initially. Then an alliance of US troops with troops from European nations (not through NATO, but each nation's regular army) to seize the nuclear weapons and keep civil war from escalating. — Christoffer
Nobody is treating the US as a savior. — frank
And yet... — Isaac
If Putin really makes a reality of using tactical nukes against the west, then a lot of people in this thread will go silent with their naive ideas. — Christoffer
The nuclear rhetoric is just a way to counterbalance this imo. — Baden
No one in their right mind would use nuclear weapons today... Putin is not in his right mind. — Christoffer
Putin wants to rebuild the Russian empire (as opposed to just fight back against Western expansion) because — Isaac
What is you're seeing or reading that's got you convinced? — Isaac
He will either act upon it, or he will be hunted as a war criminal after this — Christoffer
I don't expect either of these scenarios. — Baden
That's sounds pretty difficult. Remember that Putin was a KGB member so he knows all the cheats and tricks inside a State. He is surrounded by closer oligarchy friends who would help him anyways, because they got all the wealth thanks to him. — javi2541997
But others likely wouldn't have gone to do it with war and military force. That is the point here. — ssu
Putin’s favorite philosopher is Ivan Ilyin – a monarchist, Russian nationalist, anti-Semite, and ideologist of the White movement, who was expelled by Lenin from Soviet Russia in 1922 and ended his life in exile.
[ ... ]
In his articles, Ilyin hoped that, after the fall of Bolshevism, Russia would have its own great führer, who would bring the country up from its knees. Indeed, “Russia rising from its knees” is the preferred slogan of Putin and of his Putinists. It was also taking his cue from Ilyin that he spoke contemptuously of a Ukrainian state “created by Lenin”. In fact, the independent Ukraine was not created by Lenin, but by the Central Rada in January 1918, immediately after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly by Lenin.
[ ... ]
Putin’s inner monster wasn’t just brought up by our Pyramid of Power and the corrupt Russian elite, to whom Putin, like the tsar to the satraps, throws fat, juicy bits of corruption from his table.
It was also cultivated by the approval of irresponsible western politicians, cynical businessmen, and corrupt journalists and political scientists.
[ ... ]
This war was unleashed by a man corrupted by absolute power, who, in his madness, has decided to redraw the map of our world.
[ ... ]
Who’s to blame? Us. Russians. And we’ll now have to bear this guilt until Putin’s regime collapses. For it surely will collapse and the attack on a free Ukraine is the beginning of the end.
— Guardian article
What happened in 2013-2014 was confusing and messy, but calling it a "coup" is tendentious and misleading. — SophistiCat
The protests led to the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, known in the West as the Revolution of Dignity, that overthrew the former government. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover
In the end, right after signing an accord with opposition representatives, for reasons that to this day are not entirely clear — SophistiCat
the West had little to do with how mass protests started, spread and escalated. I know this, because I was following those events — SophistiCat
they followed the events, they fretted over who would take power after Yanukovych, they jockeyed for influence - because of course they would. — SophistiCat
I think we’ve got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure the Russians will be working behind the scenes. ….Let me work on Klitchko
“Our American friends promise to pay a visit in the coming days, we may even see Nuland or someone from the Congress.” — email to Klitschko from Lithuanian minister prior to the uprising
Most of the people are surrounded towards him because of fear. It is not as easy as we are debating both you and here in The Philosophy Forum. Probably, Putin was always clever enough to build up a fear atmosphere where nobody has the courage to go against him — javi2541997
There is plenty of reasons the bases still exist … the US forces in Europe needed a staging area. US forces also acted as Peace Keepers in Somalia … Moving equipment from Germany to Saudi Arabia is a hell of a lot easier and faster than moving it from Chicago … — Count Timothy von Icarus
Supranational integration of the North Atlantic area had emerged as a focus of thinking among intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic already in the late 19th century … Following World War I, New York lawyer Paul D. Cravath was a noted leader in establishing Atlanticism in the United States. Cravath had become devoted to international affairs during the war, and was later a co-founder and director of the Council on Foreign Relations … Atlanticism manifested itself most strongly during the Second World War and in its aftermath, the Cold War, through the establishment of various Euro-Atlantic institutions, most importantly NATO and the Marshall Plan.
yes, it is fair to say NATO doesn't need the US to stop Russia.
Russia doesn't really need diplomatic ties with the West anymore, ex-president and top security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday
How would you deal with Putin holding his hand over the button of nuclear attacks? What's your solution? — Christoffer
The US backed democracy adcocate groups and McCain stood beside somebody. That's your basis for saying the US put a nazi in power in Ukraine? — frank
You can't think of any similar situations in which governments have colluded to install regimes sympathetic to their interests. — Isaac
You said this:
"For any that don't know, that's Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the anti-Semitic Svoboda party, later installed into power by the US."
— Isaac
It's not true and the articles you posted confirm that it's not true. What is the problem with admitting that you misspoke? — frank
Great, nice to hear that someone agrees that free elections and democracy can work even in Ukraine!It’s good that politics has largely kept the far-right movements out of power, — NOS4A2
I think that Ukrainian officials have tried to contain them. And especially not make them to gang up with Putin's neo-nazis. Likely they wouldn't naturally be pro-Putin, but just be against the Ukrainian government. FSB supports any group that is advantageous to them. Yes, it's confusing. But Russia has been a fervent supporter of far-right movements, which becomes hilarious when you think of nazism and Russia.These groups are given near impunity from the law. — NOS4A2
Do all of those volunteers helping the border guard share similar thoughts? Unlikely, but likely the reporter has looked at some individuals who genuinely are QAnon people.VOP and AZ Desert Guardians have embraced QAnon and far-right conspiracy theories about “child sex camps,” “rape trees” and “jihadists” supposedly being found in the Arizona desert. The two leaders frequently credit these conspiracies with inspiring them to engage in border operations that initially began with searches for cartel camps and slowly evolved into detaining migrants.
Brave citizens fighting for their lives. — Amity
Yes. Brave, brave neo-nazis... — Isaac
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