Senate Russia: its impact on the world, its invasion of Ukraine, and its future

I've always loved Moore's twist on "War of the Worlds" in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where British Intelligence has Dr. Moreau create a 'hybrid' of the worst infectious diseases to hit the Martians with via mortar shells in occupied London - and incidentally killing any humans left there as well, with the flippant response that "any people that died were killed by the Martians" and "officially, the Martians were killed by the common cold"

 

Sounds like Russia organized a counter offensive in Kursk. There will probably be heavy fighting there over the next few days if Ukraine really wants to hold on.

 

Putin is a desperate man, and that makes him dangerous. While I don't know if Kamala would be better than Biden on Palestine-Israel or not, I'm sure that she will respect and support NATO in its attempt to protect the Baltic states, Poland, and especially Ukraine.

I read a lot of Russian history over the years...and not by choice. But now that I now more about the history of Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine even more than I did a few years ago, I'm even more supportive of NATO's efforts to help out the misnamed "Eastern countries." I mostly knew Soviet history before, but now that I know that the Russian Empire bullied and abused many countries to its east for years just as much as the Soviets, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Putin needs to be contained. NATO's a mixed bag, but it's the best chance against aggressive Putin with nukes.



Within Temptation released a great album last year about the anxiety of war, the desire for humanity and compassion, and the restless hope that war will end. Putin may not have killed as many people as, say, Stalin, but it's pretty fair to state after further reading that he's killed as many people as the czars. The Ukrainians did not ask for this. They deserve better.

 

I don't believe it was inevitable that Russia would relapse back into imperialism and authoritarianism. I don't think Putin wanted to do all this back when he first took power either. He just grew addicted to power over the years, refused to relinquish power, to the point where he couldn't tolerate critics or democracy anywhere.

 

I think you're right, Alpha-Red. I think that, as bad as Putin is, that the power he attained made him worse. But as it is, he's a desperate man. He wants to be known as the person who won this war and he wants to keep power.

He's also made another nuclear threat over Ukraine.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-says-russia-reserves-nuclear-165958383.html

 

He’s trying to reestablish the psychological “red line“ of not allowing the West to give permission for long range strikes inside Russia. NATO has called his bluff on this before; I do think he has a line, but it’s more likely to be if he senses he’s about to be deposed. Under those circumstances, I could see him wanting to use nukes.

 

I don't think he was ever a good guy, one of his first acts in office was bombing the hell out of Chechnya.

 

The use of tactical nuclear weapons may not give him a benefit in any case, and may simply hasten his downfall and remove any options for escape.

The West would likely double down with support to Ukraine, so it won’t enable him to remain in power. He can’t escalate it into actual war with NATO, because that’d involve the rest of the Russian leadership agreeing to kill their families for Putin. He’s likely lose any chance of asylum from China or India, since they will be trying to have him removed as well, and it’ll put whatever tin pot dictatorship offers asylum under immense pressure.

I think Putin is stuck and is probably hoping for the West to eventually abandon Ukraine. He’d sooner be removed by his peers before he actually uses a tactical weapon, and if he manages to do so, it’ll just be the harbinger of his end.

 

Putin's plan was solid, but he got greedy - he was salivating at Trump's promise to withdraw from NATO in his second term, and wanted to wait until the Baltics were unprotected (if you've noticed, he's pulled the same **** he has in Ukraine and Moldova - that the Russians living in the Baltics are being 'oppressed' by the government which would require a 'special military operation')
Instead, he had to settle on just Ukraine and Moldova (which, if you also recall, when he thought that Kyiv was about to fall, he publicly broadcast his plans to invade Moldova next). By all rights, Kyiv should have fallen to the Russian invasion, but I suppose that the amount of corruption within the Russian military was much larger than anyone realized.
Of course, if Trump does win, Putin will succeed by default - Trump already declared Ukraine 'dead' at a rally yesterday, if it wasn't already abundantly clear he'd cut Ukraine loose in a heartbeat.

 

I hope you're right. It seems like every time there's an opportunity to depose him, he crushes it. Let's hope he slips up.

What concerns me is that he keeps re-establishing red lines, as you put it. He comes off like a desperate maniac who might nuke part of Ukraine or another nearby country.

 

I agree with this. I don't think Alpha was saying that Putin was a good guy. But, yes. I honestly didn't understand what in the heck Putin was doing in his early years since, ya know, I was in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. I thought he was creepy and untrustworthy, sure, but I didn't understand how and why he was charming Bush. What helped me to understand Putin was simple. It went down in 2002. When he gassed the theater. He not only killed the terrorists but also the innocent people in the theater. That was enough to help me understand this vile person.

 

It is weird that the US conservatives and Trump can't wait to stop giving resources to Ukraine but they want to constantly give more to Israel. It's because they like Putin and not Palestinians right

 

Putin’s a “tough guy”, so they love him. He’s also not brown or Muslim.

 

A lot of white nationalist ideas originate or are propagated from there - including the 'classic' Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

 

Some of Putin's rivals are worse than him.

Also - he didn't crush the last uprising, which really took him by surprise. It just kind of fell apart on its own out of cowardice.

 

Oh, okay. Thank you. Yes. That's right. I recall. I was a bit tired when I wrote that. Thank you for the correction. Yes, it was more or less an interesting collapse. It would not be a stable replacement. He's a man on quicksand.

 

Putin’s a racist, homophobic, white Christian nationalist authoritarian. Of course the Trumpers love him.

 

Putin believes in absolutely nothing at all. He's just latched onto the right wing crowd as a means to an end.

 

I don’t think that’s true. He’s a Russia chauvinist, and probably holds his nationalist ideas honestly and sincerely.

 

I don't even think he is a Russian nationalist. Or at least, not anymore. He only started talking like a rabid nationalist after the Arab Spring and after oil prices started dropping. He's in this for the antidemocratic counterrevolution. If he really wanted to preserve the glory of Mother Russia, he certainly would not have tarnished his country's reputation the way he has.

There's a quote about how "Stalin's post-war goals were security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology, in precisely that order" and I think it applies to Putin as well, except he has no ideology.

 

You’re just not correct on this. He’s not only a Russian nationalist, he’s also a Russian revanchist and expansionist, with a strong belief in a Greater Russia. So he’s essentially a Russian hyper-nationalist. Even more of what you say he isn’t at all.

 

Nah, Putin is a nationalist, and he believes in it passionately. You’re correct in that Putin associates himself with the Russian state, as a lot of autocrats tend to do, so what’s in the interests of Russia is intertwined in his mind with what is in his personal interests, but he’s acted consistently as a Russian nationalist throughout his time in office. Everything he has done, in his mind, even when he has toyed with different ideas of how to move forward, has been done through the lens of what will benefit Russia and preserve its power, culture and identity.

 

Yep, and despite him being a former KGB officer, he has embraced the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church has embraced him.

 

A marriage of convenience if there ever was one.

 

More natural than Trump and the evangelical Christian conservatives.