4 ms·

It was absolutely domestically grown -- had the foreign intelligence and NGO's been as strong as you suggest, things would have never gotten to that point, as t

by xixi77 10y ago

It was absolutely domestically grown -- had the foreign intelligence and NGO's been as strong as you suggest, things would have never gotten to that point, as the money and effort spent on influence by Russia absolutely dwarfed everything else: Ukraine has never been high on anyone else's radar. The reason Russians have not been particularly successful is mostly due to certain widespread delusions in Russian society, that result in people at all ranks seeing the entire Russia/Ukraine split as unnatural. What I mean is, when you are coming from a prior that there were no underlying differences in 1991, and Ukraine before then was simply a province of a Russian state operating under a different name, of course any disagreement could only be seen as a result of external meddling since that time. Of course, when this view conflicts with reality, the failures are attributed to foreign meddling being stronger than unticipated...

dogma1138 10y ago
You would be surprised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy#Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democra... And this is just one NGO. The "West" forced Ukraine to choose between it and Russia, including the looming free trade deal with the EU being contingent on that. There is/was also a plan to bypass the Russian controlled oil and more importantly natural gas pipelines that are keeping the lights in Europe both the conflict in the Ukraine and the previous one in Georgia are directly connected to the proposed caspian pipelines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_Gas_Pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_Gas_Pipeline While you can make Russia look antagonistic it is just as easy to make the west look that and even worse, the west effectively violated the non-formal agreement that maintained peace after the fall of the soviet union and that is that the former states would effectively be a buffer zone. The EU and NATO have (and it is very important to note that Russia does not distinguish between the two, and effectively nor should they) been expanding into these buffer states and worse they are expanding into the caspian region and beyond leaving Russia effectively surrounded. Russia is a landlocked country, it always was, it always was missing a single important thing and that is a warm water port in an open sea, this is why Russia invaded Manchuria/Korea multiple times since the 19th century and this is why Russia would not tolerate any loss of it's ports in the black sea or syria. The black sea is enclosed by the bosphorus which controlled by NATO, Kaliningrad is a tiny enclave surrounded by NATO and any ship sailing out of it would have to go through the fjords and the northern sea another NATO controlled territory, on the other side of the globe Vladivostok is not a warm water port (although global warming might help Russia with that problem soon enough), effectively Russia has to rely on the "kindness" of NATO to allow it's ships to get out into the ocean, this puts them at a huge disadvantage. Another key aspect of Russian geopolitics is their "monopoly" on gas pipelines into Europe both from their own reserves and those coming from the caspian region and beyond, this is what keeps Russia relevant and what gives them some power over what is going on around them. With NATO effectively being able to shut down all Russian sea travel and make Russia's only "diplomatic tool" other than it's strategic nuclear arsenal irrelevant we are not heading into a pleasant direction.
- eternalban 10y ago
  > With NATO effectively being able to shut down all Russian sea travel and make Russia's only "diplomatic tool" other than it's strategic nuclear arsenal irrelevant we are not heading into a pleasant direction. Why is Russia entitled to imperial pretenses when they are no longer an empire? I get what you are saying and it does make sense up to NATO is making territorial hay while the unipolar sunshine lasts, but where it stops making sense is why is Russia entitled to buffer zones etc. Why isn't Poland entitled to the same, for example. Or should people across the water from St. Petersburg complain about Russian naval activity so close to them? We would laugh at all this since (reality check) they are not "powers". Russia demands to be treated like a "power", its propaganda sites are entirely silent as to why every nation that was liberated from USSR's empire is more than grateful for having their nomnal independence back, etc. The second thing to note here is that it is Russia, Russian propaganda sites, and a minority western critical voices that have raised the stakes from literally some minor local action to threats of "Nuclear War" and "WWIII". Regardless of how one feels about the clearly aggressive actions of the West in the past 2 decades, to mistake Russia for some kind of peacenik nation, or the Russian Yoke as a gentle alternative to bankster international is a gross error, in my opinion.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    I'm not saying they are entitled to anything; it's just the other side of the picture. You are also using an incorrect analogy Poland is already entitled its part of NATO, Russia isn't. Real world politics are about interest and power, there are no absolute and objective right and wrongs at these levels, no one claims Russia is a peacenik nation, most nations aren't. As for what and what does not make sense to you; I cannot help you in this regard mostly because you seem to treat a statement of a condition as a position. This is reality we treat entitlement today on different aspects one of which is ones ability to enforce their claims to what they are entitled too. Russia due to their limitations tend to do it asymmetrically, hence Russian nuclear development in response to ABM deployments. This hack is actually fairly unique because in the manner to which Russia chose to respond; the US tampers with their local geopolitical situation Russia tampers with US elections. Likely it's due to the fact that there aren't any proxies of note that Russia can currently influence but it's an interesting departure from common discourse nonetheless.

by xixi77 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago

You would be surprised https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy#Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democra... And this is just one NGO. The "West" forced Ukraine to choose between it and Russia, including the looming free trade deal with the EU being contingent on that. There is/was also a plan to bypass the Russian controlled oil and more importantly natural gas pipelines that are keeping the lights in Europe both the conflict in the Ukraine and the previous one in Georgia are directly connected to the proposed caspian pipelines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_Gas_Pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_Gas_Pipeline While you can make Russia look antagonistic it is just as easy to make the west look that and even worse, the west effectively violated the non-formal agreement that maintained peace after the fall of the soviet union and that is that the former states would effectively be a buffer zone. The EU and NATO have (and it is very important to note that Russia does not distinguish between the two, and effectively nor should they) been expanding into these buffer states and worse they are expanding into the caspian region and beyond leaving Russia effectively surrounded. Russia is a landlocked country, it always was, it always was missing a single important thing and that is a warm water port in an open sea, this is why Russia invaded Manchuria/Korea multiple times since the 19th century and this is why Russia would not tolerate any loss of it's ports in the black sea or syria. The black sea is enclosed by the bosphorus which controlled by NATO, Kaliningrad is a tiny enclave surrounded by NATO and any ship sailing out of it would have to go through the fjords and the northern sea another NATO controlled territory, on the other side of the globe Vladivostok is not a warm water port (although global warming might help Russia with that problem soon enough), effectively Russia has to rely on the "kindness" of NATO to allow it's ships to get out into the ocean, this puts them at a huge disadvantage. Another key aspect of Russian geopolitics is their "monopoly" on gas pipelines into Europe both from their own reserves and those coming from the caspian region and beyond, this is what keeps Russia relevant and what gives them some power over what is going on around them. With NATO effectively being able to shut down all Russian sea travel and make Russia's only "diplomatic tool" other than it's strategic nuclear arsenal irrelevant we are not heading into a pleasant direction.

eternalban 10y ago
> With NATO effectively being able to shut down all Russian sea travel and make Russia's only "diplomatic tool" other than it's strategic nuclear arsenal irrelevant we are not heading into a pleasant direction. Why is Russia entitled to imperial pretenses when they are no longer an empire? I get what you are saying and it does make sense up to NATO is making territorial hay while the unipolar sunshine lasts, but where it stops making sense is why is Russia entitled to buffer zones etc. Why isn't Poland entitled to the same, for example. Or should people across the water from St. Petersburg complain about Russian naval activity so close to them? We would laugh at all this since (reality check) they are not "powers". Russia demands to be treated like a "power", its propaganda sites are entirely silent as to why every nation that was liberated from USSR's empire is more than grateful for having their nomnal independence back, etc. The second thing to note here is that it is Russia, Russian propaganda sites, and a minority western critical voices that have raised the stakes from literally some minor local action to threats of "Nuclear War" and "WWIII". Regardless of how one feels about the clearly aggressive actions of the West in the past 2 decades, to mistake Russia for some kind of peacenik nation, or the Russian Yoke as a gentle alternative to bankster international is a gross error, in my opinion.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I'm not saying they are entitled to anything; it's just the other side of the picture. You are also using an incorrect analogy Poland is already entitled its part of NATO, Russia isn't. Real world politics are about interest and power, there are no absolute and objective right and wrongs at these levels, no one claims Russia is a peacenik nation, most nations aren't. As for what and what does not make sense to you; I cannot help you in this regard mostly because you seem to treat a statement of a condition as a position. This is reality we treat entitlement today on different aspects one of which is ones ability to enforce their claims to what they are entitled too. Russia due to their limitations tend to do it asymmetrically, hence Russian nuclear development in response to ABM deployments. This hack is actually fairly unique because in the manner to which Russia chose to respond; the US tampers with their local geopolitical situation Russia tampers with US elections. Likely it's due to the fact that there aren't any proxies of note that Russia can currently influence but it's an interesting departure from common discourse nonetheless.