I mean, if corruption among a country's ruling class were grounds for an invasion, Bhutan would need to invade and colonize literally every other country in the world.

to your original point i think there's a zero reason to assume Russia's oligarchy is better than Ukraine's, but ample evidence they're worse. Ukraine isn't afaik peddling weapons to dictators, Ukraine doesn't have as documented of a pattern of killing dissidents, and Ukraine doesn't have perfectly fair elections but they're likely more democratic. If they weren't we wouldn't have seen the organic rise of pro-western politicians in Ukraine pre-revolution. They had rival factions of pro-western and pro-russian politicians since they became a nation, where are the pro-western politicians in Russia? you can't even be a pro-western anti-Oligarchy chess player in Russia without getting tossed into a prison (best case) or leaping off a balcony.

True, but I think this stuff goes back to the FSB influence in Russia. The day to day operations in both Ukraine and Russia were run by corrupt oligarchs, but the respective political rulers and the intelligence community have more power over the oligarchs in Russia than in Ukraine. By sending Chodorkowsky to the gulag, Putin showed his oligarchs who's the boss and brought them in line.

Likewise, the crackdown on dissidents in Russia seems to come more from Putin and his circle of siloviki than from the OG oligarchs (who seem to just want to mind their business while being left alone). Of course many members of Putin's inner circle have become oligarchs of their own over time, so the categories are fuzzy.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 27 2023 11:40am

^

Authoritarian regimes do what authoritarian regimes do best and that's using force to crack down on anything that poses a threat to them. No surprises here

Exactly. Now, do you think that an increasingly free, democratic and pro-Western country on Russia's doorstep would have posed a political/ideological threat to Putinism?

When they are going to be part of a military alliance (NATO) that is Russia's historic adversary you mean? So that NATO can get control over the Black Sea and Russia's naval base (important year-round ice free port)?

Or do you not feel like including that part

It's a fuzzy situation because in Russia the state and regime are as one. Yes, obviously a democratic Ukraine is an enormous threat to Putin's legitimacy, but Russia also has interests independent of Western interests, and Western control of 35 million Ukrainian Slavs puts Russia in a hopeless position. To be a great power, Russia must reassert control over Ukraine and Belarus.

It's Ruscism now, validated by schoolars

Unkrainians speak barely russian and have/had alot of connections with motherfland, it's a direct threat to the russian ruling class "cause" ... I would say middle term 10 years, which is too short to be acceptable even at individual level.

It is not a military threat.



I think Putin removed alot of force everywhere to concentrate in Belarus or Doumbass, proving it was not very essential to have forces on Borders.
With Finland Putin has now a whole Front at few hundreds kilometers of moscow
With the existence of new hyper sonic missiles, Satan 2, the notion of distance is seriously reduced (we are no longer in 1963 cuba)

So Black sae is not vital, just super important
/e economically...

This post was edited by Meanwhile on Apr 27 2023 12:44pm

GTFO of with your trash posts "Ruscism" do you really think you have a point here? NO

When Russia determines that the Black Sea is vital for them, then it is for them.

Why do you think you have a point saying it's not, what's that going to change??

BTW regarding your lies recently that Azov was dismantled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/26/azov-brigade-ukraine-war-recruits/



All you do is trash post, you contribute nothing