29 ms·

Vladimir Putin is pushing Russia into past: Maybe a generation, maybe a century

64 points by CapitalistCartr 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago
To when Kiew was the capital of Russia?
- flavius29663 5y ago
  that would be the absolute 5d chess: capture Kiev, move the capital there and change the name of the country to Kievan Rus
peakaboo 5y ago
- mc32 5y ago
  It's really hard to imagine any benefit to anyone from this disaster. It is / was folly. Russia, other than hard firepower, does not have influence or economic heft to drive anything. All this has done has been to antagonize others and consolidate rivals --I mean, even Maduro, maybe Cuba, are going against him, traditional "allies". His only "allies" now are other pariah nations/tyrants. One day I'd like to find out what the calculus was. At least with the Gulf War I, II and Afghanistan we kind of had parallel objectives, one economic and one for hegemony but lots of countries benefited and not just the US --and even then arguably the US lost (credibility among other things). So this is just odd.
  - yks 5y ago
    I think the calculus is to capture Ukrainian territory whatever the cost now, if millions are starved/bombed, all the better, areas would be repopulated with some Russians and would forever join the "Russian world". Same thing was done by Stalin so the blueprint is there. Then the West, which is weak in Putin's worldview, would drop some of the more disastrous sanctions cause Western politicians need to get re-elected and recessions are bad for their prospects. Putin would continue buying up Western elites, fostering divisions, and in 1-2 election cycles everyone would forget about Russia or Ukraine, stretch goal is the disintegration of NATO by American withdrawal. So in a decade there would be no sanctions and Ukrainian territory would belong to Putin. Speed of Western abandonment of Ukraine would decide how soon Putin attacks other countries. Obviously Russian people would suffer in between but 1) Putin doesn't care about them 2) They would be cheering anyway.
    - jethro_tell 5y ago
      I think we are in a situation where this is a clear mistake for everyone but Putin and certain close yes men. They are just doubling down on this because they left themselves no out for failure.
  - bdamm 5y ago
    China is not a pariah state. Russia maybe was making a grab for the natural gas fields in Ukraine. Maybe they already saw Europe's gas business as a lost cause, and with the new pipeline to China, saw aggression towards Europe as worth the risk of losing the business.
    - mc32 5y ago
      China ofyen violates the sovereignty of: Vietnam The Philippines Japan Taiwan Malaysia India In addition they ignore UN sanctions and have issues with Tibet (Annexation), among other things.
    - jethro_tell 5y ago
      Yes, because this move gives Russia all the bargaining power with China.
  - regnull 5y ago
    The original plan was to do Crimea 2.0, just walk in and put a soldier on every corner. No one would resist. That didn't go down as planned. The current plan is Grozny 2.0. Demolish cities with artillery and then capture the ruins.
  - dwater 5y ago
    Russia's economy, and the nation's well being as a whole, is dependent on selling gas to Europe. Europe doesn't want to support the regime and would prefer to buy elsewhere. Ukraine found lots of oil and gas reserves in the past decade or two but it takes a long time to turn reserves into deliverable product and they haven't yet. So for Russia, seizing those reserves, which are in the East and South, where they are attacking the hardest, would be a big win. But if they can't hold those areas, destroying infrastructure and government so they can't produce and market that oil and gas to Europe for another couple of decades is also a big win.
    - jethro_tell 5y ago
      I think because of this you'll continue to see outsized investment in not buying oil from Russia. I think they may have had the opposite effect in almost every realm they wanted to play in. They have shown they are not a military power other than nukes, they have pushed nations into fast tracking NATO and EU memberships, They have weakened the interest in turning the blind eye and buying their oil. There will certainly be countries that will buy out of necessity but I expect that to become increasingly unpopular as this goes on. Even if they take Ukraine for oil, I do not expect them to make back even close to what it cost them, both politically and financially.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    How is this folly? Joe Biden said, in 1997, that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states. That was several years before Putin became president. https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500782351831662592 https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500782351831662592 He also said "good luck" to Russia when told that they may have to look to China as an alternative if NATO keeps expanding. In 1997. https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500784522023034882 https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500784522023034882 We knew how Russia would react, with or without Putin. But it is now folly? Russia knows the hyperpower is China now and is acting accordingly. China encourages Russia to oppose NATO in Europe, preventing the US from focusing fully on Asia, forcing the EU to become more independent and weakening the US' influence on the world stage. And Europe pretends to want to become independent from Russia but that requires an full transition to non-carbon energy – and this won't happen anytime soon (since Europe is still following a neoliberal playbook that make such transition a "folly" in the leaders' eye). Russia knows the West's weak points and understand that now is the right time to exploit them. The West continues to believe it's Putin's folly but they're the one losing a critical ally to China. I'm sorry to war victims, but this is far more important than negotiating Ukraine's neutrality. Too bad we had to let Putin go to war as NATO and the EU could have a agreed to this and avoid a war (that weakens both Europe and Russia in the short term, and the West in the long term).
    - ch4s3 5y ago
      The NATO expansion angle seems like a distraction. The rambling speech Putin gave at the outset of the invasion outlined his pet theory that Ukraine is part of broader Russia and that he doesn't see them as a separate people. He's long said that the dissolution of the USSR was the greatest catastrophe in Russian history. It's pretty clear that his aim is a revanchist restoration of historical Russian territory. It is also worth noting that NATO does not expand by invasion or recruitment. Member nations all have to apply to join and be democracies, meaning that at least notionally their people have to want to be in NATO. And why would former Soviet Republic want to be in NATO? Most of them say it's because they're afraid of Russian invasion. It's worth noting that Russia has recently invaded Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. Those fears don't spring from a place of pure paranoia. It also seems unrealistic that there will be long term alignment between Russia and China, they're natural rivals. Russia still holds contested territory that used to be part of China. Even under the Soviet system they tolerated each other at best, and entered into armed conflict in 1969. China officially calls that conflict an act of Russian aggression, even after hammering out a deal with Lavrov in 2008.
  - CoastalCoder 5y ago
    I struggle to understand Putin's reasoning as well. My best guess is that he wants to leave a legacy of expanding Russia's geographic influence. I.e., it was a gamble based on a successful invasion of Ukraine. My Hollywood-style conspiracy theory (which I very much doubt) is that Russia and China are secretly collaborating. The plan would be for Russia to draw NATO / U.S. forces into eastern Europe, leaving Taiwan under-defended. And then China would invade Taiwan.
- lm28469 5y ago
  Can we stop comparing Putin to Hitler (and calling this war a genocide while we're at it). Words have meaning, you can be a piece of shit blood thirsty autocrat without being Hitler or nazi, you can kill civilians without it being a genocide
  - debo_ 5y ago
    Nothing in the comment you replied to does this.
    - ortusdux 5y ago
      > Putler
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    For me the comparison is more towards how Hitler captured territories around him and the policy of appeasement of his neighboring powers (& also how those same powers could have neutered his domestic political support very early through intervention and forcing a loss of the war rather than appeasement). From that perspective it seems apt. Also, unless OP edited their post, you're the only one to bring up genocide or the comparison to Hitler.
    - frumper 5y ago
      OP called him Putler as a melding of Hitler and Putin
    - lm28469 5y ago
      > you're the only one to bring up genocide or the comparison to Hitler. I put it in parenthesis because of that, but I've seen both the Hitler comparison and genocide accusation popping up hundreds of times in the last few days, usually by the same people. We get it, Putin is bad, and Hitler is the baddest of the bad guys, but still, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. We can call him Putinéon or Putin Khan while we're at it
- dandanua 5y ago
  Obviously, he wants a direct engagement with NATO. So that he can spread the nuclear terror on the whole world and at the same time cement his totalitarian power in Russia.
m0llusk 5y ago
Just as sanctions hit with historic speed and scope it is possible that damages could be reversed as quickly. This could become an opportunity to make long needed capital improvements. Either way it needs to be acknowledged that the past is a poor guide to this current situation.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Destruction versus creation are asymmetric. It is faster to destroy than to build.
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    Our continued ripple effects in the supply chain are a pretty good reminder. You get minor bottle necks and the working system breaks. To start or rebuild the system you start will all the bottle necks and have to add the pieces one at a time until you have something working.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      Maybe this time around people will build a bit more slack in their logistics. Maximizing profit and efficiency is what got us into this mess. Younger me was appalled when I learned most everyone seems to operate in a just-in-time fashion. Remember when you could go to the supermarket and ask if they have any extra in the back room? Stores don't even have that any more, everything shipped to the store goes straight to the shelf. Then COVID comes along and fucks that up.
      - Robotbeat 5y ago
        All of life is logistics. There’s no getting around the need to try to maximize efficiency. You can choose to improve resilience as well, of course. Supermarkets don’t usually have much extra stuff because they carry a lot of perishable stuff. This is no different than outdoor markets for millennia. If anything, we’re a bit better off due to refrigeration and better preservation techniques, but if you have too much slop, that just means greater food wastage. There is still a backroom for places I go. You can see it behind the milk cartons.
paulcarroty 5y ago
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/09/mariupol-maternity-hospital-bombed-ukraine-russia-at-this-hour-mclean-vpx.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/09/mariupol-materni... After watching this bombarded hospital I wish them to burn in hell. They deserve much stronger sanctions than North Korea.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > After watching this bombarded hospital I wish them to burn in hell. They deserve much stronger sanctions than North Korea. It should be noted that sanctions have done nothing to change the behavior of North Korea's leadership to be more palatable to the West. I bet it'll be the same with Russia.
  - blackhaz 5y ago
    I don't think anyone in public has enough information to state this. We don't know what NK we'd have to deal with had those sanctions not been in place.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > I don't think anyone in public has enough information to state this. We don't know what NK we'd have to deal with had those sanctions not been in place. But we do know that it is currently an extremely totalitarian country that developed nuclear weapons and ICBMs while under sanctions, and it continues to have a gun pointed at the head of South Korea (e.g. enough dug in artillery to level Seoul a couple times over).
  - theturtletalks 5y ago
    Sanctions affect dictatorships and oligarchies differently.
  - avgDev 5y ago
    NK is not Russia. Russia knows what western brands and luxuries are. There have been lines in Russia to McDonalds, Victoria's Secret and other stores. The sanctions are working. Russians are going back in time and soon will be standing in line for bread. Chelsea a large premier league team owned by an oligarch has been frozen and he can't sell like he wanted to. Nikkita Mazepin has been removed from F1 and sanctioned along with his oligarch father and no longer can travel in EU. Aeroflot(russian airline) grounded its planes because they will get seized and cannot enter EU/US air space. Other oligarchs are moving their expensive yachts because those are getting seized. Their other assets such as properties and bank accounts are being frozen all over the world and they a lot real estate in the UK. This definitely hurts. The list goes on and on.
dragonmost 5y ago
paywall free https://archive.ph/mWWhJ https://archive.ph/mWWhJ
- marstall 5y ago
  wow, straight up running their own obtrusive ads on it no less.
  - dragonmost 5y ago
    Didn't know they had this kind of ads since I'm using adblock. I agree this is pretty bad.
71a54xd 5y ago
Brain drain is Russia's largest existential problem. I've worked with a number of intelligent folks who attended the state funded technical universities in Russia - most of them are sharp, however anecdotally most of the most pervasive cheaters were also Russian international students while I was in college. The issue is that now due to currency devaluing and most modern companies / orgs refusing to cooperate with Russian companies, not factoring in banking / capital flows, there are very few reasons for people with skills to remain in Russia or grow their skills in Russia. Without smart young people helping to push Russia forward, not just tech wise but in most technically hard industries, the outlook for Russians are not good. Why work somewhere where your compensation for time could be worth nothing or denied by the rest of the western world? That said, I think the west fails to understand how similar young Russians still are to their parents from the Soviet era. For instance, unlike the US most Russians even in the current generation attend a state university, party and drink like crazy until they attend college and shortly after college get married and immediately have children. This is also consistent across a huge swath of fields. For instance, I have friends who are artists / florists who have two kids at 24. This kind of culture is not necessarily aligned with fleeing the country to the west. One of the most fascinating traits of my young Russian friends (most of whom are artists) is their denial or confusion of being "proudly russian", even prior to Ukraine many seemed embarrassed to be proud of their country.
- ct0 5y ago
  It makes sense but unfortunately it will be difficult for any NATO company to hire a Russian born citizen for fear of hiring a spy. Same issue exists for anyone born in a dictatorship.
  - 71a54xd 5y ago
    Ironically, China hasn't seemed to have this issue for the past decade. Especially at government funded universities.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    All tech companies I’ve worked at happily hire anyone regardless of their national origin, as long as there aren’t specific sanctions banning them from being hired.
sturza 5y ago
But, what is his gain? I cannot figure it out.
- qaq 5y ago
  staying in power in light of this huge miscalculation
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  Pride on his deathbed. He is old and wants to go with glory, at the expense of young Russians' future of course.
  - mint2 5y ago
    The pictures that are coming out of this are shocking, if Russians were allowed to view them they’d turn on Putin instantly. If the pictures of Ukrainian suffering didn’t do that then the ones of fallen russians would. Beyond senseless and horrific all because Putin bought his own lies.
    - Schiendelman 5y ago
      Many Russians have seen them and still support the invasion. There are TV interviews showing this regularly now. It’s not a lot different from Republicans in the US ignoring other realities.
      - rich_sasha 5y ago
        I think, in fairness, most people only watch easily accessible TV, which tells them a very different story. Also TV interviews, in state-controlled media, are kind of meaningless. I can well imagine it's true, just not that you can tell by looking at TV interviews.
        Schiendelman 5y ago
        These are US TV interviews of Russian citizens, but fair point that we don't really know. This was before the restrictions on what you're allowed to say, though.
klelatti 5y ago
This is an interesting take on Putin's miscalculation in Ukraine. He's a spy, not a soldier. He relies on subterfuge and fabrication. And he's being undone as his fabricated and delusional view of Ukraine, Russia and the world bangs up against reality. https://samf.substack.com/p/giving-peace-a-chance https://samf.substack.com/p/giving-peace-a-chance
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
randito 5y ago
Here's a great Twitter thread that digs into how poor tires are an indicator of poor maintenance: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944 https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Which doesn't reveal much. Underfunded military undermined by graft performing incompetently after period of peace is textbook Russia military adventurism. This has been happening for 100s of years. Important thing is RU military tends to get it's shit together under pressure and typically win, even if at stupendous costs. Most of RU equipment loss so far has been due to breakdowns, which is not surprising because shocking amount RU kit fall apart even during their military exercises. They have so many USSR era chassis in storage that doctrine is just to abandon. USSR / RU hardware in general are not engineered for longevity due to tech gap / low costs with assumption that they won't have long lifespan on the battlefield.
mwattsun 5y ago
without paywall: https://archive.ph/mWWhJ https://archive.ph/mWWhJ In today's news: "I assure you, we will overcome adversity, and we will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of our life that are of decisive importance for our people". - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
- klelatti 5y ago
  In other news Lavrov's stepdaughter has a £4 million flat in the most upmarket area of London - well she has it at the moment, for how much longer who knows.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Putin has deep pockets and can provide Lavrov's family (or any other sanctioned person) with far more expensive stuff wherever China has more influence that the West. That sphere of influence will expand over time. I wouldn't doubt that Kong Kong, or some other rich Asian cities, will welcome oligarch. This war is a huge transfer of power to the East.
    - klelatti 5y ago
      Sure, Putin will buy Abramovich a football team to replace Chelsea in an equally prestigious league. Or maybe not. In any event making Russia 100% dependent on China's indulgence doesn't seem like a seriously smart move for Lavrov and co.
IYasha 5y ago
Putin is pushing, Putin started, Putin invaded... Trump announced, Biden sanctioned... Guys, really, it's not 1900s anymore, we do understand that they don't make decisions, right? Terrible thing is that russians think America is behind the curtains (I asked), EU and US think Putin is crazy (also asked), and only handful of people understands that this terrible conflict is played out by globalists who were year by year buying out Ukraine's soil. Kind of alike to what Turkey and Britain are doing to the North Cyprus. No one cares about population there - only territory! It's just terrible!
- sidibe 5y ago
  Did you just read War and Peace or something? This was Putin's choice.
chernevik 5y ago
As urgent as the Ukraine invasion is, we should find attention for Taiwan. Mainland China's claims on Taiwan are if anything more belligerent than Russia's claims on Ukraine have been. China has been building up the ability to cross the Taiwan Strait for decades. And its indifference for human rights and international law is clear. The world must give thought, now, to how it deters China from invading Taiwan.
- google234123 5y ago
  Arm them with nuclear weapons and have them increase their defense spending and investment in themselves.. Become Israel basically, and fast! Get gun ownership up to 25% like Switzerland.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    >Arm them with nuclear weapons The reality is problematic for Taiwan, they are so dependant on the Chinese economy that any major pivot that results in an economic war could halve or quarter their economic output in very little time. They do not have enough leverage to take the stance you are putting forth.
bradgessler 5y ago
Could somebody describe what upward mobility looks like in Russia? I have a really hard time understanding it when I hear terminology like “kleptocrats” or “oligarchs”. At best I can generalize that upward mobility sucks in Russia, but I’d really like to hear a few narratives of what this looks like from people who actually grew up in Russia.
- sershe 5y ago
  Interestingly upward mobility in Russia (I moved out in 2008 but visited almost every year since, I guess not anymore) may be easier in a certain way, because education is free if you can pass exams, or otherwise cheap. Now on one hand, that means that most people don't value it, so most of my CS-major fellow students had no notion of CS, coding, or really much of anything IT-related by the end of their education... and many people I know have degrees in some random X that they got "because everyone does it" but they don't do X and never intend to (X can be marketing, or it can be biology, or whatever). On the other hand almost anyone who actually wants it can get decent education for ~free. Then you get a job (in IT, often while still in college) and here's upward mobility :) There are obviously less jobs on every level of "upwards" compared to the USA, but there are still plenty. Many people also (used to?) freelance for Western customers. Until recently, if you don't engage in politics life was pretty good. One aspect of being upper middle class in Russia is that you are surrounded by cheap labor, so everything - healthcare, home improvement, nannies, etc. - is dirt cheap. E.g. you could have a reliable full-time live-in caretaker for an elderly person for like $500-600/month (before the recent ruble collapse) in Moscow; even cheaper in other cities I suspect. Another peculiar aspect with Russia is that it's very centralized, so it really helps to move (imagine Silicon Valley -> Seattle/Austin/... -> the rest - type centralization, but with an even steeper salary gradient and for nearly ALL jobs, not just IT). Ideally you want to be in Moscow; some other major cities (Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk) are also not so bad but people still move to Moscow if they can.

raxxorrax 5y ago

To when Kiew was the capital of Russia?

flavius29663 5y ago
that would be the absolute 5d chess: capture Kiev, move the capital there and change the name of the country to Kievan Rus

peakaboo 5y ago

mc32 5y ago
It's really hard to imagine any benefit to anyone from this disaster. It is / was folly. Russia, other than hard firepower, does not have influence or economic heft to drive anything. All this has done has been to antagonize others and consolidate rivals --I mean, even Maduro, maybe Cuba, are going against him, traditional "allies". His only "allies" now are other pariah nations/tyrants. One day I'd like to find out what the calculus was. At least with the Gulf War I, II and Afghanistan we kind of had parallel objectives, one economic and one for hegemony but lots of countries benefited and not just the US --and even then arguably the US lost (credibility among other things). So this is just odd.
- yks 5y ago
  I think the calculus is to capture Ukrainian territory whatever the cost now, if millions are starved/bombed, all the better, areas would be repopulated with some Russians and would forever join the "Russian world". Same thing was done by Stalin so the blueprint is there. Then the West, which is weak in Putin's worldview, would drop some of the more disastrous sanctions cause Western politicians need to get re-elected and recessions are bad for their prospects. Putin would continue buying up Western elites, fostering divisions, and in 1-2 election cycles everyone would forget about Russia or Ukraine, stretch goal is the disintegration of NATO by American withdrawal. So in a decade there would be no sanctions and Ukrainian territory would belong to Putin. Speed of Western abandonment of Ukraine would decide how soon Putin attacks other countries. Obviously Russian people would suffer in between but 1) Putin doesn't care about them 2) They would be cheering anyway.
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    I think we are in a situation where this is a clear mistake for everyone but Putin and certain close yes men. They are just doubling down on this because they left themselves no out for failure.
- bdamm 5y ago
  China is not a pariah state. Russia maybe was making a grab for the natural gas fields in Ukraine. Maybe they already saw Europe's gas business as a lost cause, and with the new pipeline to China, saw aggression towards Europe as worth the risk of losing the business.
  - mc32 5y ago
    China ofyen violates the sovereignty of: Vietnam The Philippines Japan Taiwan Malaysia India In addition they ignore UN sanctions and have issues with Tibet (Annexation), among other things.
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    Yes, because this move gives Russia all the bargaining power with China.
- regnull 5y ago
  The original plan was to do Crimea 2.0, just walk in and put a soldier on every corner. No one would resist. That didn't go down as planned. The current plan is Grozny 2.0. Demolish cities with artillery and then capture the ruins.
- dwater 5y ago
  Russia's economy, and the nation's well being as a whole, is dependent on selling gas to Europe. Europe doesn't want to support the regime and would prefer to buy elsewhere. Ukraine found lots of oil and gas reserves in the past decade or two but it takes a long time to turn reserves into deliverable product and they haven't yet. So for Russia, seizing those reserves, which are in the East and South, where they are attacking the hardest, would be a big win. But if they can't hold those areas, destroying infrastructure and government so they can't produce and market that oil and gas to Europe for another couple of decades is also a big win.
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    I think because of this you'll continue to see outsized investment in not buying oil from Russia. I think they may have had the opposite effect in almost every realm they wanted to play in. They have shown they are not a military power other than nukes, they have pushed nations into fast tracking NATO and EU memberships, They have weakened the interest in turning the blind eye and buying their oil. There will certainly be countries that will buy out of necessity but I expect that to become increasingly unpopular as this goes on. Even if they take Ukraine for oil, I do not expect them to make back even close to what it cost them, both politically and financially.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  How is this folly? Joe Biden said, in 1997, that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states. That was several years before Putin became president. https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500782351831662592 https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500782351831662592 He also said "good luck" to Russia when told that they may have to look to China as an alternative if NATO keeps expanding. In 1997. https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500784522023034882 https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1500784522023034882 We knew how Russia would react, with or without Putin. But it is now folly? Russia knows the hyperpower is China now and is acting accordingly. China encourages Russia to oppose NATO in Europe, preventing the US from focusing fully on Asia, forcing the EU to become more independent and weakening the US' influence on the world stage. And Europe pretends to want to become independent from Russia but that requires an full transition to non-carbon energy – and this won't happen anytime soon (since Europe is still following a neoliberal playbook that make such transition a "folly" in the leaders' eye). Russia knows the West's weak points and understand that now is the right time to exploit them. The West continues to believe it's Putin's folly but they're the one losing a critical ally to China. I'm sorry to war victims, but this is far more important than negotiating Ukraine's neutrality. Too bad we had to let Putin go to war as NATO and the EU could have a agreed to this and avoid a war (that weakens both Europe and Russia in the short term, and the West in the long term).
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    The NATO expansion angle seems like a distraction. The rambling speech Putin gave at the outset of the invasion outlined his pet theory that Ukraine is part of broader Russia and that he doesn't see them as a separate people. He's long said that the dissolution of the USSR was the greatest catastrophe in Russian history. It's pretty clear that his aim is a revanchist restoration of historical Russian territory. It is also worth noting that NATO does not expand by invasion or recruitment. Member nations all have to apply to join and be democracies, meaning that at least notionally their people have to want to be in NATO. And why would former Soviet Republic want to be in NATO? Most of them say it's because they're afraid of Russian invasion. It's worth noting that Russia has recently invaded Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. Those fears don't spring from a place of pure paranoia. It also seems unrealistic that there will be long term alignment between Russia and China, they're natural rivals. Russia still holds contested territory that used to be part of China. Even under the Soviet system they tolerated each other at best, and entered into armed conflict in 1969. China officially calls that conflict an act of Russian aggression, even after hammering out a deal with Lavrov in 2008.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I struggle to understand Putin's reasoning as well. My best guess is that he wants to leave a legacy of expanding Russia's geographic influence. I.e., it was a gamble based on a successful invasion of Ukraine. My Hollywood-style conspiracy theory (which I very much doubt) is that Russia and China are secretly collaborating. The plan would be for Russia to draw NATO / U.S. forces into eastern Europe, leaving Taiwan under-defended. And then China would invade Taiwan.
lm28469 5y ago
Can we stop comparing Putin to Hitler (and calling this war a genocide while we're at it). Words have meaning, you can be a piece of shit blood thirsty autocrat without being Hitler or nazi, you can kill civilians without it being a genocide
- debo_ 5y ago
  Nothing in the comment you replied to does this.
  - ortusdux 5y ago
    > Putler
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- vlovich123 5y ago
  For me the comparison is more towards how Hitler captured territories around him and the policy of appeasement of his neighboring powers (& also how those same powers could have neutered his domestic political support very early through intervention and forcing a loss of the war rather than appeasement). From that perspective it seems apt. Also, unless OP edited their post, you're the only one to bring up genocide or the comparison to Hitler.
  - frumper 5y ago
    OP called him Putler as a melding of Hitler and Putin
  - lm28469 5y ago
    > you're the only one to bring up genocide or the comparison to Hitler. I put it in parenthesis because of that, but I've seen both the Hitler comparison and genocide accusation popping up hundreds of times in the last few days, usually by the same people. We get it, Putin is bad, and Hitler is the baddest of the bad guys, but still, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. We can call him Putinéon or Putin Khan while we're at it
dandanua 5y ago
Obviously, he wants a direct engagement with NATO. So that he can spread the nuclear terror on the whole world and at the same time cement his totalitarian power in Russia.

m0llusk 5y ago

Just as sanctions hit with historic speed and scope it is possible that damages could be reversed as quickly. This could become an opportunity to make long needed capital improvements. Either way it needs to be acknowledged that the past is a poor guide to this current situation.

Robotbeat 5y ago
Destruction versus creation are asymmetric. It is faster to destroy than to build.
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  Our continued ripple effects in the supply chain are a pretty good reminder. You get minor bottle necks and the working system breaks. To start or rebuild the system you start will all the bottle necks and have to add the pieces one at a time until you have something working.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    Maybe this time around people will build a bit more slack in their logistics. Maximizing profit and efficiency is what got us into this mess. Younger me was appalled when I learned most everyone seems to operate in a just-in-time fashion. Remember when you could go to the supermarket and ask if they have any extra in the back room? Stores don't even have that any more, everything shipped to the store goes straight to the shelf. Then COVID comes along and fucks that up.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      All of life is logistics. There’s no getting around the need to try to maximize efficiency. You can choose to improve resilience as well, of course. Supermarkets don’t usually have much extra stuff because they carry a lot of perishable stuff. This is no different than outdoor markets for millennia. If anything, we’re a bit better off due to refrigeration and better preservation techniques, but if you have too much slop, that just means greater food wastage. There is still a backroom for places I go. You can see it behind the milk cartons.

paulcarroty 5y ago

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/09/mariupol-maternity-hospital-bombed-ukraine-russia-at-this-hour-mclean-vpx.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/03/09/mariupol-materni... After watching this bombarded hospital I wish them to burn in hell. They deserve much stronger sanctions than North Korea.

tablespoon 5y ago
> After watching this bombarded hospital I wish them to burn in hell. They deserve much stronger sanctions than North Korea. It should be noted that sanctions have done nothing to change the behavior of North Korea's leadership to be more palatable to the West. I bet it'll be the same with Russia.
- blackhaz 5y ago
  I don't think anyone in public has enough information to state this. We don't know what NK we'd have to deal with had those sanctions not been in place.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > I don't think anyone in public has enough information to state this. We don't know what NK we'd have to deal with had those sanctions not been in place. But we do know that it is currently an extremely totalitarian country that developed nuclear weapons and ICBMs while under sanctions, and it continues to have a gun pointed at the head of South Korea (e.g. enough dug in artillery to level Seoul a couple times over).
- theturtletalks 5y ago
  Sanctions affect dictatorships and oligarchies differently.
- avgDev 5y ago
  NK is not Russia. Russia knows what western brands and luxuries are. There have been lines in Russia to McDonalds, Victoria's Secret and other stores. The sanctions are working. Russians are going back in time and soon will be standing in line for bread. Chelsea a large premier league team owned by an oligarch has been frozen and he can't sell like he wanted to. Nikkita Mazepin has been removed from F1 and sanctioned along with his oligarch father and no longer can travel in EU. Aeroflot(russian airline) grounded its planes because they will get seized and cannot enter EU/US air space. Other oligarchs are moving their expensive yachts because those are getting seized. Their other assets such as properties and bank accounts are being frozen all over the world and they a lot real estate in the UK. This definitely hurts. The list goes on and on.

dragonmost 5y ago

paywall free https://archive.ph/mWWhJ https://archive.ph/mWWhJ

marstall 5y ago
wow, straight up running their own obtrusive ads on it no less.
- dragonmost 5y ago
  Didn't know they had this kind of ads since I'm using adblock. I agree this is pretty bad.

71a54xd 5y ago

Brain drain is Russia's largest existential problem. I've worked with a number of intelligent folks who attended the state funded technical universities in Russia - most of them are sharp, however anecdotally most of the most pervasive cheaters were also Russian international students while I was in college. The issue is that now due to currency devaluing and most modern companies / orgs refusing to cooperate with Russian companies, not factoring in banking / capital flows, there are very few reasons for people with skills to remain in Russia or grow their skills in Russia. Without smart young people helping to push Russia forward, not just tech wise but in most technically hard industries, the outlook for Russians are not good. Why work somewhere where your compensation for time could be worth nothing or denied by the rest of the western world? That said, I think the west fails to understand how similar young Russians still are to their parents from the Soviet era. For instance, unlike the US most Russians even in the current generation attend a state university, party and drink like crazy until they attend college and shortly after college get married and immediately have children. This is also consistent across a huge swath of fields. For instance, I have friends who are artists / florists who have two kids at 24. This kind of culture is not necessarily aligned with fleeing the country to the west. One of the most fascinating traits of my young Russian friends (most of whom are artists) is their denial or confusion of being "proudly russian", even prior to Ukraine many seemed embarrassed to be proud of their country.

ct0 5y ago
It makes sense but unfortunately it will be difficult for any NATO company to hire a Russian born citizen for fear of hiring a spy. Same issue exists for anyone born in a dictatorship.
- 71a54xd 5y ago
  Ironically, China hasn't seemed to have this issue for the past decade. Especially at government funded universities.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  All tech companies I’ve worked at happily hire anyone regardless of their national origin, as long as there aren’t specific sanctions banning them from being hired.

sturza 5y ago

But, what is his gain? I cannot figure it out.

qaq 5y ago
staying in power in light of this huge miscalculation
nine_zeros 5y ago
Pride on his deathbed. He is old and wants to go with glory, at the expense of young Russians' future of course.
- mint2 5y ago
  The pictures that are coming out of this are shocking, if Russians were allowed to view them they’d turn on Putin instantly. If the pictures of Ukrainian suffering didn’t do that then the ones of fallen russians would. Beyond senseless and horrific all because Putin bought his own lies.
  - Schiendelman 5y ago
    Many Russians have seen them and still support the invasion. There are TV interviews showing this regularly now. It’s not a lot different from Republicans in the US ignoring other realities.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      I think, in fairness, most people only watch easily accessible TV, which tells them a very different story. Also TV interviews, in state-controlled media, are kind of meaningless. I can well imagine it's true, just not that you can tell by looking at TV interviews.
      - Schiendelman 5y ago
        These are US TV interviews of Russian citizens, but fair point that we don't really know. This was before the restrictions on what you're allowed to say, though.

klelatti 5y ago

This is an interesting take on Putin's miscalculation in Ukraine. He's a spy, not a soldier. He relies on subterfuge and fabrication. And he's being undone as his fabricated and delusional view of Ukraine, Russia and the world bangs up against reality. https://samf.substack.com/p/giving-peace-a-chance https://samf.substack.com/p/giving-peace-a-chance

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

randito 5y ago

Here's a great Twitter thread that digs into how poor tires are an indicator of poor maintenance: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944 https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1499164245250002944

dirtyid 5y ago
Which doesn't reveal much. Underfunded military undermined by graft performing incompetently after period of peace is textbook Russia military adventurism. This has been happening for 100s of years. Important thing is RU military tends to get it's shit together under pressure and typically win, even if at stupendous costs. Most of RU equipment loss so far has been due to breakdowns, which is not surprising because shocking amount RU kit fall apart even during their military exercises. They have so many USSR era chassis in storage that doctrine is just to abandon. USSR / RU hardware in general are not engineered for longevity due to tech gap / low costs with assumption that they won't have long lifespan on the battlefield.

mwattsun 5y ago

without paywall: https://archive.ph/mWWhJ https://archive.ph/mWWhJ In today's news: "I assure you, we will overcome adversity, and we will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of our life that are of decisive importance for our people". - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

klelatti 5y ago
In other news Lavrov's stepdaughter has a £4 million flat in the most upmarket area of London - well she has it at the moment, for how much longer who knows.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Putin has deep pockets and can provide Lavrov's family (or any other sanctioned person) with far more expensive stuff wherever China has more influence that the West. That sphere of influence will expand over time. I wouldn't doubt that Kong Kong, or some other rich Asian cities, will welcome oligarch. This war is a huge transfer of power to the East.
  - klelatti 5y ago
    Sure, Putin will buy Abramovich a football team to replace Chelsea in an equally prestigious league. Or maybe not. In any event making Russia 100% dependent on China's indulgence doesn't seem like a seriously smart move for Lavrov and co.

IYasha 5y ago

Putin is pushing, Putin started, Putin invaded... Trump announced, Biden sanctioned... Guys, really, it's not 1900s anymore, we do understand that they don't make decisions, right? Terrible thing is that russians think America is behind the curtains (I asked), EU and US think Putin is crazy (also asked), and only handful of people understands that this terrible conflict is played out by globalists who were year by year buying out Ukraine's soil. Kind of alike to what Turkey and Britain are doing to the North Cyprus. No one cares about population there - only territory! It's just terrible!

sidibe 5y ago
Did you just read War and Peace or something? This was Putin's choice.

chernevik 5y ago

As urgent as the Ukraine invasion is, we should find attention for Taiwan. Mainland China's claims on Taiwan are if anything more belligerent than Russia's claims on Ukraine have been. China has been building up the ability to cross the Taiwan Strait for decades. And its indifference for human rights and international law is clear. The world must give thought, now, to how it deters China from invading Taiwan.

google234123 5y ago
Arm them with nuclear weapons and have them increase their defense spending and investment in themselves.. Become Israel basically, and fast! Get gun ownership up to 25% like Switzerland.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  >Arm them with nuclear weapons The reality is problematic for Taiwan, they are so dependant on the Chinese economy that any major pivot that results in an economic war could halve or quarter their economic output in very little time. They do not have enough leverage to take the stance you are putting forth.

bradgessler 5y ago

Could somebody describe what upward mobility looks like in Russia? I have a really hard time understanding it when I hear terminology like “kleptocrats” or “oligarchs”. At best I can generalize that upward mobility sucks in Russia, but I’d really like to hear a few narratives of what this looks like from people who actually grew up in Russia.

sershe 5y ago
Interestingly upward mobility in Russia (I moved out in 2008 but visited almost every year since, I guess not anymore) may be easier in a certain way, because education is free if you can pass exams, or otherwise cheap. Now on one hand, that means that most people don't value it, so most of my CS-major fellow students had no notion of CS, coding, or really much of anything IT-related by the end of their education... and many people I know have degrees in some random X that they got "because everyone does it" but they don't do X and never intend to (X can be marketing, or it can be biology, or whatever). On the other hand almost anyone who actually wants it can get decent education for ~free. Then you get a job (in IT, often while still in college) and here's upward mobility :) There are obviously less jobs on every level of "upwards" compared to the USA, but there are still plenty. Many people also (used to?) freelance for Western customers. Until recently, if you don't engage in politics life was pretty good. One aspect of being upper middle class in Russia is that you are surrounded by cheap labor, so everything - healthcare, home improvement, nannies, etc. - is dirt cheap. E.g. you could have a reliable full-time live-in caretaker for an elderly person for like $500-600/month (before the recent ruble collapse) in Moscow; even cheaper in other cities I suspect. Another peculiar aspect with Russia is that it's very centralized, so it really helps to move (imagine Silicon Valley -> Seattle/Austin/... -> the rest - type centralization, but with an even steeper salary gradient and for nearly ALL jobs, not just IT). Ideally you want to be in Moscow; some other major cities (Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk) are also not so bad but people still move to Moscow if they can.