US, UK and Top EU Allies Begin Cutting Russia Out Of International Financial System SWIFT (huffpost.com) 337
The Huffington Post reports on "the most drastic financial sanction yet on Russian President Vladimir Putin:
The United States and key allies will cut Russian banks out of the global financial messaging system SWIFT and begin to target Russia's central bank, according to a White House statement on Saturday...
The statement said the U.S., top European economies, Britain, and Canada would disconnect selected Russian banks from SWIFT, which will severely hurt their ability to operate internationally, and prevent Russia's central bank from using its foreign currency reserves to evade Western sanctions. The pro-Ukraine countries will also make it harder for wealthy Russians to obtain Western citizenship and launch a task force to freeze the assets of Russian elites — a bid to pressure Putin by hurting his friends....
It represents a significant escalation by America's European partners, many of whom worry about the economic toll their own countries will experience if they cut off ties with Russia.
The statement said the U.S., top European economies, Britain, and Canada would disconnect selected Russian banks from SWIFT, which will severely hurt their ability to operate internationally, and prevent Russia's central bank from using its foreign currency reserves to evade Western sanctions. The pro-Ukraine countries will also make it harder for wealthy Russians to obtain Western citizenship and launch a task force to freeze the assets of Russian elites — a bid to pressure Putin by hurting his friends....
It represents a significant escalation by America's European partners, many of whom worry about the economic toll their own countries will experience if they cut off ties with Russia.
economic toll (Score:3)
Is this for real? Are these imbeciles in charge not aware of the situation?
Russia took a piece of Georgia, no one did anything - couldn't risk the economic toll.
Russia took a piece of Ukraine, no one did aything - couldn't risk the economic toll.
Russia took UKRAINE BY FORCE, "can't risk the economic toll".
Putin is walking around waving his dick out saying "I can do whatever the fuck i want to do, because if you even DARE join NATO, I'll kill every single one of you and no one still standing will do anyhting about it".
And Germany is thinking about the economic toll.
Fuck Germany. Merkel needs to be put in jail for being in bed with putin and make Germany dependent on russian gas.
Re:economic toll (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, European leadership has to deal with the situation it finds itself in now. It’s true that Germany probably shouldn’t have let itself become so dependent on Russia’s fuel exports; but knowing that isn’t going to keep their German people warm this spring once Putin shuts off the taps.
Cutting Russia off is the right thing to do - and, at this point, it’s obviously the necessary thing to do. But that’s easy for me to say, sitting in my warm living room here in the US.
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However, Germany could quickly become less dependent on Russian gas if they restarted their nuclear program.
a) Germany is not dependent on Russian gas - and never was - or will be
b) building a new nuke takes - 20 - gasp - years
That's really the right thing to do.
Can't be done. Because if one tries we have a civil war in Germany.
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I'm a bit confused here, and I'm wondering if you could help me understand.
Germany is currently the world- the entire world's largest gas importer
55% of that imported gas is Russian.
Germany uses 243 million m^3 of gas per day (averaged across the year)
That's 133 million m^3 per day from Russia.
That's 48.5 billion m^3 per year. From Russia.
In what universe is that not dependency?
Where, precisely, do you propose they come up with an extra 1.7 quadrillion BTUs of heat on the f
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Because you can go to Reactors-Are-Us and order an off the shelf 400 megawatt power reactor and have it up and running before the summer is over?
You nuclear fan boys are certifiably insane. For you the answer to any problem is MORE NUKES!!! Traffic light goes out at the mall? Install a micro reactor and no one will ever hit the control box ever again and you won't have a wait when driving to get a burger a
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Just like the Nasties in world war 2, they won't stop unless they are stopped.
Re:economic toll (Score:4, Interesting)
They need a crash program to develop new sources of energy... wind and solar. Nuclear is a dead end. It takes 10-20 years to build a nuclear plant and it's vulnerable to Putin. Distributed wind and solar is much cheaper and difficult to disable. Wind and solar can be built in a year or two.
Re: economic toll (Score:3)
The technology is electric cars which can feed back to the grid. And Ford is building them now. Why isn't VW group? They are one of the world's largest automakers after all.
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Beat the dead horse harder, maybe it will pull your wagon.
Re:economic toll (Score:5, Informative)
He signed the nuclear phaseout into German law in the early 2000's.
He's been apologetic of Putin, being infamous for the "lupenreiner Demokrat" phrase.
He championed for the Nord Stream 2 project, which was controversial from the beginning.
After he left office he relatively quickly became a chairman for Rosneft.
He also became chairman of Nord Stream 2.
And we was to become chairman of Gazprom just about before this started.
A string of glaring red flags if you ask me, but a lot of my fellow German dumb-assess would rather whatabout the US instead of realizing what has been going on right in-front of their proverbial eyes for decades.
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But I think it is fair to assume that many of his social democratic party fellows actually believed that intensifying economic ties to Russia would promote peace in the long run. And honestly, Russia has kept up its contractual obligations with Germany more reliably than the US did - you may remember the time when the US presi
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I am not at all a friend of Gerhard Schröder, who by this time is probably too old and too brain-damaged from his life-time dosing of alcohol to have a clear thought on anything.
Oh, you mean this guy:
Gerhard Schroeder [youtube.com]
Rough translation:
"Bring me a bottle of beer . . . otherwise I will strike, and not write any more!"
Said while signing autographs.
. . . this clip was sampled and turned into a pop hit in Germany:
Hol mir mal 'ne Flasche Bier [youtube.com]
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A German who gets german history wrong?
Interesting.
German history that happened during his lifetime?
Inexcusable.
For starters: Schroeder got voted into office, actually not him, but his green allies, to stop the German nuclear program. ...
Secondly: He joined Gas Prom first, as a chairman. And as far as I can tell: has no relation to Northstream 2 (or 1 if that matters). Norhtstream 2 is not even operational
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Source: https://www.nord-stream.com/de... [nord-stream.com]
GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Re: economic toll (Score:2)
I really want "human turd" translated to German,so I can add it to my daily vocabulary.
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It is not reasonable to expect Germany to bear the brunt of the economic cost.
We should share the burden. America needs to produce and export more oil and gas, which will lead to higher prices in America. We should drive less and turn down the heat.
Of course, I will personally pay no price since I have an EV and solar panels. But the rest of you need to tighten your belts.
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Read an article about it just today. If Russian gas cuts off, the only way Europe will get more is probably by diverting tankers of the stuff that were already bound for Asia. In other words, a worldwide price spike. It beats letting Put
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If Russian gas cuts off,
Russia wont cut off.
Europe will.
And for the dumb ass Americans: Europe is self sufficient regarding nat gas. We bought from Russia because it is cheaper - you Americans told us so: capitalism.
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And for the dumb ass Americans: Europe is self sufficient regarding nat gas. We bought from Russia because it is cheaper - you Americans told us so: capitalism.
Can you back that up? Because it appears to be very much not the case.
It appears to me that Germany couldn't possibly hope to replace the gas they get from Russia. [wikipedia.org]
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It is not reasonable to expect Germany to bear the brunt of the economic cost.
If they gave the most loans to people that now turn out to be war criminals, then it would natural for them to have the highest losses from defaults.
I'm not sure they really need help with that. Are we sure rich German bankers need ex-post-facto profit insurance on that?
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Loan defaults are only one problem.
Another is that Germany is most dependent on Russian gas. Of course, that is also mostly their fault.
One practical step Germany could take is to bring their nukes back online. I don't know if they have the political will to do that, especially with the Greens as part of the governing coalition.
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It looks to me that Putin's dick is what this war is about, metaphorically speaking.
He sees a free Ukraine as a threat against his manhood.
Putin's plan original plan had only been to threaten, but they didn't give in, which made Putin feel emasculated.
And now Russia's poorly prepared forces are losing because he hadn't been man enough to back down.
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That's a bit of a stretch, but I am biased. Both countries are tactically difficult to attack, and provide little empirical value to Russia (especially Sweden). They want to keep the Baltic on edge, but that is about it.
Sweden Finland (Score:2)
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We already know about Sweden. The whole world is singing, "I Fought the NLAW and the NLAW won" after seeing footage from Ukraine.
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And now Russia's poorly prepared forces are losing because he hadn't been man enough to back down.
Or decent enough to be honest, and so the troops were only equipped for training.
They have a lot of corruption in their supply chain, telling them it is just training might really reduce the amount of supplies that are in each box...
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Many Germans are not quite sure if they live in East Germany, or West Germany.
They went straight to "Unity" without even really talking about it, so now it turns out some of them still aren't sure. And some of those are bankers.
However, they got a lot of blowback from the majority who were horrified, which is why they're not supporting sanctions, and even sending weapons.
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Fuck Germany. Merkel needs to be put in jail for being in bed with putin and make Germany dependent on russian gas.
Germany is not dependant on russian gas.
And your Merkel hate makes no sense.
In a free market people buy from where they get it cheap. Has nothing to do with the ruler. Dumb idiot.
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It's beginning to look like you're spreading misinformation.
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Oligarchs (Score:3)
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Re:Oligarchs v oligarchs (Score:2)
If the goal is economic punishment, then targeted sanctions in high-tech industry would be my recommendation. IE: areas with a large impact that would take massive startup resources to reproduce domestically.
It's doubtful that either tactic will have much impact on the situation in the short-term though; as the troops are essentially already committed.
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Assuming anyone bothers actually doing that. The US is only targeting a select group of Russian oligarchs, and they're not even all that important [npr.org]. Even this article glosses over an important part: Russia isn't being removed from SWIFT. Certain Russian banks are being removed from SWIFT. Not all. (Notice the quote in the summary: "selected Russian banks", that's a direct quote from the White House.)
The problem is that a lot of the Russian oligarchs own parts of the western economy. Just as we saw during Cri
I would love to see those houses siezed (Score:2)
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Maybe that's how we've been fucking up all along. Unless they feel the squeeze, they'll continue to believe that Vladdy is a Bear Riding Nazi-Exterminating Superman.
Maybe once they feel the squeeze, they'll rise up and give that fucker a Gaddafi group hug.
Will likely just escalate conflict (Score:2)
My read on Putin is that he wants to unify the Slavic peoples much like Hitler wanted to unify the German peoples. Russia is a slowly failing society economically stagnated with a declining population. Putin needs something to save it and that is growth through conquest.
Never again (Score:3)
My read on Putin is that he wants to unify the Slavic peoples much like Hitler wanted to unify the German peoples.
Probably just like that, except Ukrainians everywhere remember the Holodomor [wikipedia.org] exactly the same way Jews remember the Holocaust.
Putin is a washed up petty dictator pining for the days of Stalin's USSR, which committed a historic genocide against the Ukrainian people. I'm just not feeling the whole unification thing.
Good (Score:2)
What about Belarus? (Score:2)
Belarus is aiding the invasion and the cost to the west of sanctions against Belarus would be much less. It would also send a message to other states that might want to help Putin's expansionist ambitions.
Vladimir just did it wrong (Score:2)
If Putin had simply taken a page from the playbook of the USA, prior to the invasion he could have simply claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.
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I mean as far as flimsy pretexts for war Putin is in the same ballpark. The real difference though is to take out dictatorships with no real allies.
What the US did in Iraq was terrible but it was easy for other countries to look the other way since Saddam had already been in a war (Iraq/Iran) invaded another country, killed his own people and was a general nuisance on the world stage. Did any of that give the US just cause to invade? Fuck no but it explains why It was a war we could "get away with". Ukrai
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Only Ukraine did have such weapons, and voluntarily handed them back to russia. If they still had them, russia would not have dared invade.
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The con artist is pissed (Score:2)
How will he get all that Russian mafia money to prop up his failing businesses [forensicnews.net] or launder money [newyorker.com]?
With the largest Russian banks now cut off from doing business with the world, one can only imagine the con artist is sweating bullets. Especially since he has hundreds of millions of loan payments [forbes.com] coming due over the next few years. If people thought Lying Rudy looked bad [the-sun.com], imagine what the con artist's face will look like as it oozes off him.
Some perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Prof. John Mearsheimer, Chicago University, gave this talk about NATO, Russia & Ukraine 7 years ago in the aftermath of the previous military & political interventions in Ukraine. We can argue about interpretations but he lays out the facts pretty clearly (opinions & interpretations are debatable but the facts aren't). Western media's current characterisations of the conflict between Russia, Ukraine, the USA, the EU, & NATO don't reflect the facts. They're a-historical & misleading. I recommend watching this to get some perspective:
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis
John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Russia will still get money where it matters (Score:2)
This is all just for appearances. Unless there's a co-ordinated and universal approach to blocking Russia the funds will just be funnelled through a bank which isn't blocking them.
And this is by design. Europe remains highly dependent on Russia for energy. They aren't going to suddenly not pay the bill, they don't really have a lot of power in this regard (pun definitely intended)
Duel (Score:2)
Gold bars and Bearer Bonds (Score:2)
Re:History in the making (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:History in the making (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah it's a really sad situation for Russia and shows the world in fact how ineffective a leader Putin has been for all his strongman posturing. He has been in charge for 20 years of a country with not only vast natural resources but a gigantic amount of educated human capital and may end up with not much to show for it. As much as it's easy (and right in a lot of ways) to dislike neoliberal capitalism it is the status quo in the world and Russia could and should be a major player in it instead of being on the outside looking in.
Re:History in the making (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah it's a really sad situation for Russia and shows the world in fact how ineffective a leader Putin has been for all his strongman posturing. He has been in charge for 20 years of a country with not only vast natural resources but a gigantic amount of educated human capital and may end up with not much to show for it. As much as it's easy (and right in a lot of ways) to dislike neoliberal capitalism it is the status quo in the world and Russia could and should be a major player in it instead of being on the outside looking in.
He failed in achieving your goal, but do not think his goals are the same as yours. He wants an empire, and is perfectly happy if those territorial conquests are paid for by his subjects eating dirt. And most russkies feel the same.
Re: History in the making (Score:2)
Probably, I guess it's true that I've read him described as a 19th century man.
Even by those standards though he certainly doesn't have an empire by even those standards, or he's barely grown it but certainly not by 21st century standards. The US has it's Navy and it's bases. China is doing Belt and Road. Putin got rich.
Re:History in the making (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah it's a really sad situation for Russia and shows the world in fact how ineffective a leader Putin has been for all his strongman posturing. He has been in charge for 20 years of a country with not only vast natural resources but a gigantic amount of educated human capital and may end up with not much to show for it. As much as it's easy (and right in a lot of ways) to dislike neoliberal capitalism it is the status quo in the world and Russia could and should be a major player in it instead of being on the outside looking in.
He failed in achieving your goal, but do not think his goals are the same as yours. He wants an empire, and is perfectly happy if those territorial conquests are paid for by his subjects eating dirt. And most russkies feel the same.
Well if his goal his an empire then he still sucks at it.
Remember the Orange Revolution [wikipedia.org]? The corrupt pro-Russian Yanukovych rigged the election so protesters forced a second fair vote to be help and the pro-West Yushchenko won.
Jump to 2014 and the Euromaidan protests ousted... Yanukovych, who had run for President again in 2010 and this time had won (fairly).
Ukraine was legitimately split between the EU and Russia, with a bit of Diplomacy Putin could have had a pro-Russian and pro-Putin Democratically elected leader in Ukraine.
Instead, Putin panicked, he annexed Crimea and created two separatist states. Problem is, he not only took the most pro-Russian Ukrainians out of the Ukraine, but he severely alienated the remaining country.
This invasion isn't the culmination of Putin's grand plan, it's the utter failure of it. He's invading because he's lost Ukraine and an invasion is the only way he can think to regain it. But it's not a plan with any hope of success. If he tries a long term occupation it's going to be endless guerrilla attacks against Russian forces. If he tries to reinstall a pro-Russian leader they'll be deposed the moment his forces leave.
The invasion is terrible for Ukraine, but that doesn't mean it's good for Putin either.
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He has been in charge for 20 years of a country with not only vast natural resources but a gigantic amount of educated human capital and may end up with not much to show for it.
On the contrary he has ended up with much to show \w hide from it: most of it in his bank accounts and those of his cronies.
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Cleanser needs cleansing, gonna be safer thereafter.
Re:History in the making (Score:5, Insightful)
Behold the sprouting of the seeds of World War III.
Sure, we should have appeased Putin by abandoning the Ukraine to his tender mercies in order to save our own skins because that worked so well to avert the last world war.
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by abandoning the Ukraine
Correction. It is simply Ukraine. Not, the Ukraine [time.com].
Re:History in the making (Score:4, Informative)
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It's perfectly legitimate to say Ukraine or the Ukraine.
No, it's not. The Ukraine signifies it is part of something larger. It would be like saying the State of Texas. Saying Ukraine signifies it is its own country.
It's up to dictionaries, grammars, & textbooks to keep up, not the other way around.
No, it's not.
“The Ukraine is the way the Russians referred to that part of the country during Soviet times Now that it is a country, a nation, and a recognized state, it is just Ukraine. And it is incorrect to refer to the Ukraine, even though a lot of people do it.”
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>The Ukraine signifies it is part of something larger.
What is "The United States" part of that is larger, if your premise is correct?
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If the proper noun works with a definite article, then you add it. If it doesn't, you do not. It's that simple.
Ukraine is a state. It's not The Ukraine. It's Ukraine.
Saying "The Ukraine" is precisely identical to saying "The America". Note that "The Americas" is correct. Plurality is the key, here. Ukraine is a singular state.
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In most languages, e.g. German, Ukraine has an article.
It is not really necessary or helpful to correct such simple (english language) mistakes.
It is arsine behaviour, in computer science it is called an anti pattern: Intellectual violence.
Re:History in the making (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really give a shit.
Oh, I believe that. You're just full of stupid opinions, with zero fucks to give on tacking them down to Earth with facts.
I grew up when the Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, it was called 'the Ukraine' in Germany and many other countries
Upon independence, the Government of Ukraine weighed in on this, formally:
"The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically and politically, says Oksana Kyzyma of the Embassy of Ukraine in London.
"Ukraine is both the conventional short and long name of the country," she says. "This name is stated in the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and Constitution."
When you call Ukraine, "the Ukraine", you are disrespecting the country. You are reducing it to nothing but a borderland.
"After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians probably decided that the article denigrated their country [by identifying it as a part of Russia] and abolished 'the' while speaking English, so now it is simply Ukraine.
"That's why the Ukraine suddenly lost its article in the last 20 years, it's a sort of linguistic independence in Europe, it's hugely symbolic."
The Germans still use it but the English-speaking world has largely stopped using it.
The fact that Germans won't fix their error doesn't somehow justify the continued doing so of someone who knows better.
It isn't a mudslinging contest. They're asking you to stop insulting the country you're pounding sand so hard over.
The Ukraine was a chunk of land used by the Russian Empire and Soviets to shield its heartland from hostile parties.
Ukraine is the independent country that no longer wishes to be referred to as such.
Stop being a dick.
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Behold the sprouting of the seeds of World War III.
Sure, we should have appeased Putin by abandoning the Ukraine to his tender mercies in order to save our own skins because that worked so well to avert the last world war.
But you did exactly that. I don't see any NATO troops fighting shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians? Why do you think Putin was obviously telegraphing his intention to invade for the last two months? To give the west a chance to decide what the consequences were going to be. Then Bidet said he can have some of Ukraine, as long as it's not too much, and even if it's too much the response is going to be sanctions, and shutting down Nord Stream, at mention of Nord Stream Germany looked away and whistled. So, a
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It's great. Each day Clown World recedes a bit more. Germany is providing weapons to Ukraine; they've had to climb down off their virtue horse and kick in. Sweden has finally discovered a reason to forego their 'humanitarian superpower' title: the horrifying prospect of Caucasian refugees. The Biden admin tried to pull punches by not sanctioning Putin personally or threatening SWIFT; that idiocy lasted less than 72 hours.
And at the end of this Russia will be humiliated as its 1970's Potemkin military
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Ivan, you're losing against Ukraine. Get a grip. You're not taking over the Baltic, you'd have to defeat the entire western world.
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Why would they? For the most part both western and russian soldiers were fighting the same enemy in syria, not each other.
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Germany and the rest of the EU can stop sucking Putin cock long enough to get Ukraine into NATO.
Comments like this are not really helpful.
They only show you are an idiot.
What actually is wrong with sucking cocks? You do not like your cock being sucked?
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They're going to need to buy their gas from elsewhere, and it's not at all clear that anywhere else has the volumes of gas. Europe has allowed itself to become an en energy vassal to Russia
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Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!
It turns out the Biden is President of the United States, and it was Germany that was holding up the SWIFT sanctions
Hu? The liar is just you. Why would Germany hold up SWIFT sanctions?
Re: History in the making (Score:3)
Because they use it to pay for Russian gas they are still importing, and they have long had a strategy of being the 'Russia whisperer' and only now starting to admit that has utterly failed
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They've been well indoctrinated by the Marxist founders of BLM, by the Marxist founder of Critical theory Michel Foucault, and the deep Marxist underpinnings of the gender warriors. And Russia is what's left of socialism, not fascism, when it collapsed with the Soviet economy.
Ah - it's Saturday night, and the punkass shows up just when I'm needing to conduct my weekly curbstomping. And here you are! Thank you so much - I thought no one would show up. Group hug!
Well there sparky - You need to understand exactly who is supporting Your comrades in Russia. The man you believe is God's gift to America, sides with Poutine - calling him a Genius and Savvy. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-c... [yahoo.com]
And your god and his minions are following him - https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/23... [cnn.com]
So sorr
Re:Doubling down (Score:5, Insightful)
It is long but worth the time to understand the issues from the Russian side.
It is hard to understand the Russian view that threatening, bullying, and invading their neighbors is the way to stop them from seeking collective security.
Re: Doubling down (Score:2)
Russian collective security starts with ending the slow decline towards failure that their society has been going through for the past 25-ish years.
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If you love something, set it free.
If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it.
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The word "Ukraine" has referred to borderlands since it was first used. Russia has a long history of repelling foreign invasions by a combination of scorched earth and making them march across those borderlands.
The US pursued a similar policy during the 60s and 70s, fucking up in every way possible any of their neighbours that sniffed in the general direction of communism. Actual invasion when necessary, but also funding rebels, covert assassination and general destabilization.
Both are obsolete in the moder
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It is long but worth the time to understand the issues from the Russian side.
It is hard to understand the Russian view that threatening, bullying, and invading their neighbors is the way to stop them from seeking collective security.
Well, maybe you should fcking try ha. You can't fight an enemy you don't understand, and we're this shit precisely because european and US hipsters drinking their soya lattes assumed russkies think like them. Well, newsflash, maybe for you the biggest problem in life is where your next serving of hummus comes from, they are perfectly happy eating dirt instead, as long as Mother Russia remains an empire.
And here we are, with soya latte heads thinking they can stop them with fcking *sanctions*.
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And here we are, with soya latte heads thinking they can stop them with fcking *sanctions*.
Nobody believes that sanctions are going to convince Putin to roll back the invasion.
But they may cause Russia and other countries to consider the consequences of launching wars.
If the sanctions are painful enough, they may incentivize the Russian people to get rid of Putin. The average Russian gains nothing from this war, and the top kleptocrats will also feel pain.
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I have watched this some years before and and Mearsheimer does bring up some good points but some of this is outdated as of today, especially lots of his statement of "Putin is very strategic" and "too smart" for things like a full invasion of Ukraine....
He also in my opinion looks at things through and ironically totally US-centric lens, everything is either the US fault or should revolve around US interests or how Russia interacts with the US/EU, not to say much about those countries around Russia and wha
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if it were not for the US, the USSR *would* have taken over the world. ...
You are just silly.
How would they have managed that with their "master plan" system in a dictatorship?
Lol