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1. Buy mine in Serbia 2. Invest hundreds of millions in mine 3. Have mine taken off you by Putin one day when he's pissed off at the US State Department and w
by PaulRobinson 10y ago
1. Buy mine in Serbia
2. Invest hundreds of millions in mine
3. Have mine taken off you by Putin one day when he's pissed off at the US State Department and wants to strut to the Russian electorate
4. Cry
Seriously, you would be utterly insane to invest in Russia at the moment with money from US, UK or EU. The reason Rio Tinto are so reluctant to invest might well be because they know it could be taken off them tomorrow.
- r0muald 10y ago0. Look a map and observe that Serbia is a separate country from Russia, a few thousand kilometers away.
- lisivka 10y agoUkraine is separate country, and Moldova is separate country, and Belarus is separate country, and Afghanistan is separate country, and Caucasus is separate country, and so on...
- r0muald 10y agoNot sure what point you're trying to make. Plus, Caucasus is not a country. Yes, Russia has a lot of international influence outside their borders, but that doesn't mean the ill-informed observation by the GP was meaningful in any way.
- lisivka 10y agoSorry, Georgia and Azerbaijan. So they have influence, including direct military operations, but their influence is not strong enough to make something to single mine? Let me remember that whole military operation in Ukraine is done by Russia to stop Shell from mining of natural gas in Eastern Ukraine.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- qaq 10y agoIf it start drifting away from Russia politically emergence of pro-russian rebels (surprisingly well armed) will be arranged by Putin.
- pilsetnieks 10y agoIt has never been politically close to Russia, even in the Soviet era, when it was a part of Yugoslavia. (Especially when it was Yugoslavia - Stalin tried to have Tito killed several times. They were both communist countries but that's the only thing common between them.) Had they not been so warhungry in the 90s, they could be a part of EU and NATO now, like Croatia.
- p0ppe 10y agoSerbia is an independent country currently negotiating an EU-memebership. In order to get to Serbia, Russia would have to go through at least one EU-contry or Turkey.
- us0r 10y ago>Serbia is an independent country Could say the same about Ukraine
- PinguTS 10y agoGeht a geography class.
- pilsetnieks 10y agoSerbia doesn't even border Russia. You could say the same about Germany, Czech Republic, or Portugal.
- lisivka 10y agoEastern Moldova is counter-example.
- icebraining 10y agoTransnistria has been in a stalemate since before stopped calling itself a Soviet Socialist Republic; it wasn't (re)invaded later.
- lisivka 10y agoHistorically, Transnistria in USSR was used as military foothold, to capture Moldova, pretending that this is just a conflict or a civil war. Russian Empire/USSR/Russia used that trick many many times. For example, Ukraine was captured by USSR using "Kharkiv People Republic" controlled by Moscow. Today, Russia tries to capture Ukraine again using "Lugansk People Republic" and "Donetsk People Republic". Transistria is at border of Ukraine and Moldova, owned by both, with roughly equal populations, but both Moldovans and large part of Ukrainians were at same side. For example, leader of separatists was captured by Moldovan police in Ukraine capital city. Why "conflict" happen if both native nations were at same side?
- smcl 10y agoNot sure if you're trolling, but Serbia is not Russia. Serbia was part of Yugoslavia before the breakup, and it was vaguely heading in the direction of EU membership until recently. However I think that effort has stalled in recent past and relations with Russia got a tiny bit cosier, so you might not actually be so wrong after all :)
- x0x0 10y agoI assume (hope?) he misread Siberia.
- smcl 10y agoYep
- Reason077 10y agoThis reminds me of the time I went hiking in Austria. A lovely country, but it wasn't what I was expecting. All beaches and desert!
- smcl 10y ago:D I actually had no idea anyone had trouble with those countries until I visited Vienna and the tourist shops had a bunch of ironic t-shirts with Kangaroos and boomerangs on them and stuff.
- moron4hire 10y agoHoly shit. Now that you say that, I saw the same thing in Salzburg and just didn't make the connection. Maybe it was because I was in "speaking German" mode, so Austria is "Österriech" vs Australia is "Australien".
- gaius 10y agoCrimea is not Russia either. Oh wait yes it is now. All bets are off in that part of the world right now. And prospective EU membership just makes things worse; it was Ukraine snuggling up to the EU that provoked Russia into intervening...
- cbenneh 10y agoMaybe check the map first? It's a long way from Russia to Serbia...
- lisivka 10y agoRussia already captured Crimea and eastern Moldova. They need to capture south Ukraine and part of Romania/Bulgaria. As I see, Russians already making steps in that direction. For example, they creating fake national groups for smaller ethnic groups, e.g. for my ethnic group (I am Lemko, small Ukrainian subethnic group at west of Ukraine, east of Poland and Slovakia). To control us, they are inventing new language, new alphabet, created "World Congress of Lemko people", and so on, trying to separate us from Ukrainians.
- icebraining 10y agoRussia captured eastern Moldova? When did they lose it in the first place? I thought the region was locked between Moldova and Russia since the former declared independence.
- lisivka 10y agoRussia has military bases and pro-russian forces in eastern Moldova. Russia has plans to attack south of Ukraine (Odessa) from these bases. Please tell me difference between that and "captured".
- PeterisP 10y agoWell, the difference is that the current situation is like "had it, didn't let go, and still control it" but "captured" means "didn't have it, and took it".
- labster 10y agoThe good thing about living behind Lithium Curtain is that you not feel need for cry.
- StavrosK 10y agoMan, I read this comment and thought "wow, I didn't realize Serbia had such close ties to Russia still, that Putin could just do something like this". Glad to see I wasn't that wrong.
- discardorama 10y agoSerbia and Siberia are 2 different places. Quite different, in fact.
- dang 10y agoPlease don't take threads on generic political tangents, and please don't start political flamewars on Hacker News. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11882467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11882467 and marked it off-topic.