He was put into power by ethnic Russians, and ethnic Russians by and large support his war on Ukraine, and ethnic Russians by and large support ethnically cleaning non-Russianness out of everything they deem to be in their sphere of influence.

It's not ancient history. US and the West continue to exploit the natives with institutions, but now also feign humanitarian stances and allege native sovereignty to obscure and hide reality. For example precious metal maps largely overlap native territories. Still some AIM members locked as political prisoners. Bigger picture, Spain still able to extract wealth from South America (won claim on Peruvian metal found in sunk ship in 2012).

Eh, it's wrong but we never stopped doing it...

This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Jan 11 2023 07:51pm

And when others apart from the West do it.
The West will unleash their ultimate weapon.

Greta Thunberg

That will be on international media.

They will release our friendly Snail Connoisseur on Jsp.



This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Jan 11 2023 08:02pm

Keep your pizza boxes on lockdown

No more lock down. The Chinese are now holidaying in South East Asia. I am wondering if they will bring some new variants into my Country.
But we are prepared. We have chicken rice. A good remedy for covid.



This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Jan 11 2023 08:06pm

The Russian Empire which preceded the Soviet Union was also a barbaric, imperialist force which didn't give a shit about human life. As is the Russian Federation that came after it. Chalking up all the atrocities of the Soviet era to just Stalin or just communism is myopic and ignores the bigger picture of Russian history and culture.

Also, you haven't given any substantive argument so far on why the more distant parts of the history between Ukraine and Russia should be irrelevant to the situation today. Ukraine was under Moscow's thumb during the 30s and suffered a huge toll as a result. It then spent the next 50 years being tied to the Soviet war against Nazi Germany, and to their mismanagement and economic decline. Khrushchev gifting Crimea to Ukraine, with the understanding that this would only be a symbolic gesture since both Russia and Ukraine were tied together within the Soviet Union anyway, is one of the major reasons for the present-day war.

Ukraine has suffered under Russian rule pretty much non-stop for 69 years, from 1922 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Around half of Ukraine's present-day population have personally experienced these hardships. The intense opposition to Russia's attempts at turning Ukraine back into a vassal state cannot be fully understood without looking at this long history of abuse they suffered at the hands of the Russians.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 11 2023 11:17pm

Not to mention that Ukraine had the largest Communist Party in USSR

"Sergei Surovikin has been replaced by chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov as commander of Russia's military campaign in Ukraine,
with some commentators suspecting the decision is politically motivated."

General Armageddon is replaced 3 months after taking control of the "special military operation"
An interesting dynamic between the Russian army and Wagner mercenaries is now becoming apparent.

feel free to elaborate as i know nothing of this aspect.

I am cherry picking from an article to give a brief summary of what I am alluding to; bare in mind that this is all speculative, based on events that have taken place.

"Politico reported on an internal power struggle with two main alliances within Russia's leadership.
On one side, Russian security agencies, defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov. And on the other, a "war party" led by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner Group founder Mr Prigozhin."

There is obviously the Russian military and then the Wagner group. There is some debate on what entity will claim the success of capturing more ground in Donbas, mainly Soledar if that is confirmed.

Again it is speculative commentary, but the dynamic is very interesting. I think it doesn't manifest itself the same in the west; Although private security industry is massive, particularly after the Iraq catastrophe.
It appears in Russia that the Wagner group is very prominent in the public consciousness.

In the UK we would never really think that a private security firm could supersede for example the US or UK militaries; whereas the Wagner group appears to be claiming responsibility for potential battlefield success.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Jan 12 2023 07:55am