Ukraine Forever

[Corvinus85]

11 hours ago, Werthead said:

What

But they were all of them deceived. For in the fires of the Kremlin, Putin reforged Robert Kraft's SuperBowl ring into the Master Ring, to control all others.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Russia has been run since the time of the Mongol invasions. Everyone puts the squeeze on the person below them.  

Without the Mongols, Russia would be like Scandinavia.

You need to check into works such as The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires In the Medieval Near East by Nicholas Morton.  There has been a real boom in the history of the Mongolian invasions and the consequences in the last couple of decades -- particularly due to the opening of and access to previously controlled soviet archives to all kinds of historians, as well as from archaeology, due to the same reasons.  Putin's world has put an end to this, yet again.

Mongols didn't hold with corruption in their governments; they were all about mercantilism and trade-- until, of course, like all of them, they got to that point of infighting and corruption to control the spoils. And like everywhere else, the Black Death screwed the pooch for them as much anyone else from the middle of the 14th C.

Moreover it was Poland-Hungary that dominated Russia after the Mongolian Empire had long faded, despite descendants out of the Mongolian eras settled long in regions such as Ukraine, who were paid and employed by the czars as their shock/elite troops for centuries -- first lines of defense.

If you are going to blame, blame the Romanovs, who held the region longer than anyone from the days of Catherine, and which was, no matter how much breaking was going on, built upon by the Stalinists.  However the sheer klepto incompetence corruption breakdown of the present-day sitch was built right out of so-called 'corporate capitalism' and the hosting, enabling and cooperation of vast swathes in the financial sectors of London and other international financial capitals, money launders and off shore tax havens.

 

[Werthead]

Apparently there will be changes to Russian law to make it easier for Russian men called to serve to freeze their sperm. Y'know, just in case they don't came back.

Which is a startling thing for the Russian government to do. Almost admitting their chances of coming back are not great.

ETA: Some reports suggesting a possible third attack on the Engels airbase, or maybe more damage revealed from the second, with unconfirmed reports that the air traffic control tower is gone and five strategic bombers destroyed. All other aircraft at the base have been withdrawn.

Confirmation needed, but if true, a remarkable Ukrainian victory.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

There are some rumblings on Twitter about the liberation of Kreminna, but the Ukrainian General Staff are urging people to wait for official confirmation. I do suspect that people on Twitter are jumping the gun, so to speak. 

[Wilbur]

12 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

I mean yeah, the 90s in Russia sucked.

Things are better today, but the fundamental problems are still there.

OK, this thread has been covered in road apples for the last couple of days, but this is the most obvious factual error made to date.

Fact: Russia in the 90s was, in fact, a better place than Russia today.  Cited reference: personal professional experience.

90s Russia had a lot of problems to overcome, and those problems were knotty and complex.  But they also had a functioning infrastructure that covered a significant portion of European Russia and the Far Eastern Coast that included roads, electrical grid, water and sewer service, air service, train service, schools, a legal system, and civil police.  90s Russia had a normal distribution of technically excellent professionals, and widespread education.  90s Russia had some capacity to produce most of the material inputs for their own economy, despite years of central planning and corruption.

Putin's rule has fulfilled every aspect of John McCain's view that Russia is "...a gas station run by a mafia that is masquerading as a country" that uses its wealth to invade other countries (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, etc.

Outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg and narrowly Vladivostok and Magadan, all of the apparatus of a functional society has rotted away, leaving the citizens of the country worse off than they were, in terms of quality of life and opportunities, than they were in 1997 or whatever.

Schools?  Unfunded and deteriorating.

Electrical gride?  See schools.

Roads?  See schools.

Water and sewer?  See schools.

Transportation?  Sold off to private operators, no longer servicing outstations.

Legal system and police?  Sold to the highest bidder.

Capable of domestic production?  I would suggest that Russia needs to import more critical components of their economy today that they did in the 90s.

The elderly in 90s Russia were frightened of the future, because they only had a vague hope that a post-communist system would provide for them.  The elderly in Russia today are certain that their government has no concern for their provision.

And today, the top performers in technical fields are no longer available in Russia.  There are still a lot of smart, capable, talented, accomplished Russians, but many of them live and work outside Russia.  The distribution curve of talent within Russia is atrophied on the high side, and that is a foreboding fact for the future of Russian citizens of tomorrow.

Russia today is a worse place than 90s Russia for the citizens of Russia.

 

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

There are some rumblings on Twitter about the liberation of Kreminna, but the Ukrainian General Staff are urging people to wait for official confirmation. I do suspect that people on Twitter are jumping the gun, so to speak. 

Kreminna has been on the edge of falling for Ukraine almost as long as Bakhut has been falling for Russia, so yes, caution is best invoked. However, it does appear that Ukraine has made a renewed effort in the last few days, so who knows.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Schools?  Unfunded and deteriorating.

Electrical gride?  See schools.

Roads?  See schools.

Water and sewer?  See schools.

Transportation?  Sold off to private operators, no longer servicing outstations.

Legal system and police?  Sold to the highest bidder.

Not to engage into a whataboutism, everybody sucks kinda thing.

However, you could apply that to the US, too.

Public schools, check.

Electrical grid. check (we saw evidence of that with Senator Cancun last year and Texas as the most poignant example)

Roads? Have to rely on hearsay on that, but potholes seem to be able to take out cars in the US.

Water and sewer? Flint, Michigan comes to mind.

Transportation may or may not be functional in the US. 

Legal system and police sold off to the highest bidder? Private prison sector. And turning local police forces into some kinda secondary army to fill the coffers of arms manufacturers. 

So a more cynical take is, that the Russians imported the US model.

 

Oh and as required by law, I am not even talking about Florida...

[Corvinus85]

Meanwhile, Medvedev has been playing to much Victoria 3, reimaging the conflicts of the late 19th century to what will happen next year.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/star-rising-kremlin-russias-medvedev-predicts-war-west-2022-12-27/

Quote

predicted war between Germany and France next year and a civil war in the United States that would lead to Elon Musk becoming president.

In his list of predictions for 2023, published on his personal Telegram and Twitter accounts, he also foresaw Britain rejoining the EU, which would in turn collapse.

Musk, the Tesla boss who now owns Twitter, responded to the suggestion he would emerge as U.S. president by tweeting back "Epic thread!!", although he also criticised some of Medvedev's predictions.

 

[polishgenius]

8 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So a more cynical take is, that the Russians imported the US model.

 

 

It's not cynical, it's just wrong. America has, looking from the outside, loads of issues, as does every nation, and some of them are leading to infrastructure problems and the like, but (1) things are nowhere near as bad in the US as they are in Russia and (2) the reasons for it are entirely different. It's a vast, vast oversimplification but very broadly, America's problem is in large part that money is coming in to politicians from outside the political system, to influence them, whereas in Russia the money's being lifted out of the political system by the politicians and their friends.

[Spockydog]

17 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not to engage into a whataboutism, everybody sucks kinda thing.

The same could easily be said of the UK. It's almost as if there's a global pattern.... 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Hum, yeah. But the starting points were/are somewhat different for Yeltsin and his buddies/successor.

All the goodies in Russia were state owned in the 1990s. So the political caste were sitting on the loot. The Soviet era corruption and that shift from socialism to capitalism fed on each other. WIth Russia there are still some more specifics, like how the role of the former KGB. 

 

[SeanF]

23 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

The same could easily be said of the UK. It's almost as if there's a global pattern.... 

The starting points are GDP per head is twice as high in the UK as in Russia, and three times as high in the US.

Russia is not poor, per head, but the wealth is concentrated in very few hands.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not to engage into a whataboutism, everybody sucks kinda thing.

However, you could apply that to the US, too.

Public schools, check.

Electrical grid. check (we saw evidence of that with Senator Cancun last year and Texas as the most poignant example)

Roads? Have to rely on hearsay on that, but potholes seem to be able to take out cars in the US.

Water and sewer? Flint, Michigan comes to mind.

Transportation may or may not be functional in the US. 

Legal system and police sold off to the highest bidder? Private prison sector. And turning local police forces into some kinda secondary army to fill the coffers of arms manufacturers. 

So a more cynical take is, that the Russians imported the US model.

 

Oh and as required by law, I am not even talking about Florida...

Not really. Public schools here are not perfect, but they're still better than in most places. The problem there is they're just not funded like they used to be before the economy crashed. My guess is that's true in a lot of places. Likewise, the infrastructure is bad in some places and great in others, but again, not anywhere comparable to Russia. With the grid, that's a Texas specific problem because they want their own one. The other two are mostly fine. Now with water and specifically sewers, there is a huge problem. Major cities are not fixing and updating them at an acceptable pace and smaller cities and towns cannot afford to do so on their own. Transportation is fine outside of mass transit in many places. The legal system is...working as designed, which is not an excuse, but it is what it is.

I would rather live in the worst parts of Florida than the best parts of Russia. I lived in Liberty City, arguably the worst part of Miami, for a bit so I've seen how crappy it can be. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Liberty City,

Omg that’s a real place I thought gta just made it up

[Werthead]

The situation in Kreminna appears to be a Ukrainian breakthrough at Zhytlivka, which would outflank Kreminna and force a Russian withdrawal, rather than a direct assault on the town itself, which is heavily defended by mined approaches. That would sit with Ukrainian strategies of using outflanking and pressure to force Russian withdrawals from urban areas rather than direct, costly assaults.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

The starting points are GDP per head is twice as high in the UK as in Russia, and three times as high in the US.

Russia is not poor, per head, but the wealth is concentrated in very few hands.  

Er this is just flagrantly inaccurate.  As long as you mean per capita by "per head."  According to this, this, and this the US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than the UK.  Russia's down there though, sure, albeit depending on the metrics I don't think a 3 to 1 ratio with UK is really accurate.  Maybe 2 to 1.

ETA:  Sorry, read your post wrong.  I think we're saying the same thing.  My bad.

[A True Kaniggit]

Ugh.  See what happens when I am unavailable?

@butterweedstrover

Apparently you made an accusation that the majority of people on the Ukraine War threads are posting they would enjoy it if Russia collapsed and would revel in the resulting bloodshed. 

Please copy and paste some posts that brought you to this conclusion. 

The Ukrainian War threads have not been moving that fast, so it should be easy. I would like to see the posts that made you proclaim that so many of us are blood thirsty monsters. 
 

[A True Kaniggit]

On 12/27/2022 at 8:33 AM, butterweedstrover said:

Russia’s collapse will be terrible for everyone yet this thread is just: “lol, can’t wait.” 

One of the reasons I stay away from political threads, dumb people with violent tendencies  seem to win out.

The bolded is the first of the discussion. 
 

Where are the posts from dozens of people that made you type this?

[JGP]

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The bolded is the first of the discussion. 
 

Where are the posts from dozens of people that made you type this?

You are no true Kaniggit. That was days ago, sir. 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

The bolded is the first of the discussion. 
 

Where are the posts from dozens of people that made you type this?

@butterweedstrover called us all mean for asking him to have an actual discussion and walked away a couple or three days back.