Best video to summarize the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
European Politics Thread
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It seems that Xi is asking Putin to find a diplomatic solution for it, and he will comply. Because one thing is face sanctions backed by China, another face them alone.
Oof, getting sanctions from NATO and China? That would pretty much reduce Russia's economy to nothing at all.
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Putin is going to take this as a huge political hit and probably not last long (maybe until Russia has 100% control over most of the key areas of Ukraine), but the one who takes his place will probably be more militaristic.
Next, Turkey will in the highest of likelihood block the Bosporus (encouraged by the West) at some point to place strain on Russian access to the Mediterranean/Black Sea, which will force Russia to start a war with Turkey as well.
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Germany is holding up the action on nuking russias payment systems i see.
The EU problem countries seem to be unsurprising.
Germany (very reliant on Russian gas, and desperate to never seem aggressive to a stupid fault)
Italy (also apparently reliant on gas?? and perhaps Western Europe's most corruption friendly state)
Cyprus (Russian offshore banking hub, also Russophile culturally)
Hungary (Orban is a god awful Trumpy piece of shit)–- Update From New Post Merge ---
It seems that Xi is asking Putin to find a diplomatic solution for it, and he will comply. Because one thing is face sanctions backed by China, another face them alone.
I genuinely think, even though he is a monstrous asshole, that Xi is (unlike Putin) very interested in international stability.
China (again unlike Russia) has enormous soft power and is on the rise moreover, they want to take their place at or near the top of the world, not flail around like some pathetic has been empire desperately proving they are still macho. -
Well yeah, China's expansion is more economic than military-driven. They rely more on stable markets, while Putin seems like he couldn't care less at the moment.
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@Monkey:
Cyprus (Russian offshore banking hub, also Russophile culturally).
Really? I always thought Cyprus was in the Greco-Turkian culture sphere.
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Well yeah, China's expansion is more economic than military-driven. They rely more on stable markets, while Putin seems like he couldn't care less at the moment.
Fun assignment for anyone in this thread:
Think of beneficial things about this whole debacle for China.
This is quite a challenge to come up with! -
Putin is going to take this as a huge political hit and probably not last long (maybe until Russia has 100% control over most of the key areas of Ukraine)
Are you talking about the future sanctions on Russia ? I don't really get your point though
Turkey will in the highest of likelihood block the Bosporus (encouraged by the West) at some point to place strain on Russian access to the Mediterranean/Black Sea, which will force Russia to start a war with Turkey as well.
Turkey isn't Ukraine, and is part of NATO. But I'm curious about how Erdogan's stance will evolve, as of now he just condemned the invasion.
@Monkey:
Xi is (unlike Putin) very interested in international stability.
What makes you genuinely think that ? Aren't Taiwan and HongKong somewhat threatened ? And the south Chinese sea thing.
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@Johnny:
Really? I always thought Cyprus was in the Greco-Turkian culture sphere.
Cultural sphere in the sense of like… food, music, architecture, dance etc? Of course.
In terms of other stuff? Namely religion? Cyprus/Greece have connections to Russia, via Eastern Orthodoxy. Which may seem shallow, but it is a very real kind of mindset in the two Greek countries.More notably, Cyprus has a history of having very good reasons to be weary of NATO and "the West" more generally.
Their recent predators have been (or still are) Turkey and the UK (it was a British colony, and the UK retains two proportionally large bases on the island). To them Russia has been a big power that hasn't been their enemy, and has been on opposing sides to both those countries. So there's some natural reason to kind of lean toward seeing Russia as chill and cool, and the NATO world as scary and bad (yes, even though Greece in in NATO).This even goes back to some oddball stuff, where the Greek nationalists in Cyprus around their independence... who were led by... politically we had a literal Archbisop, and militarily we had a grizzled veteran of the Greek civil war (so a violent anti-communist).... anyway they ended up more aligned with the fucking Soviet sphere lol. Because again, their enemies were NATO countries (Brits and Turks).
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which will force Russia to start a war with Turkey as well.
Setting aside that Turkey is an actual member of NATO, that seems exceedingly unlikely. Among other things, Turkey has access to nuclear weapons through a nuclear sharing agreement with the US.
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What makes you genuinely think that ? Aren't Taiwan and HongKong somewhat threatened ? And the south Chinese sea thing.
Hong Kong's politics have been dipped in acid, all their freedoms are dying. But that is entirely domestic, China has owned Hong Kong since like 1998, it's part of China. Period.
Taiwan is… well complicated. China plain old sees it as part of China, and yes in a very different way to the way Putin is trying to argue Ukraine is part of Russia.
The China/Taiwan split is purely political, there is no national/ethnic debate being had.Even given that, China has become this huge world titan (again) because of economics economics economics, a large part of that being opening to the world world economically. Very little to no part of their rise has been military in nature. This makes for a country that doesn't really have any real benefit in shaking up the international scene in major ways.
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Oh hey Putin is threatening "consequences" if Sweden/Finland join NATO.
He sure seems determined to get us into that club
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Oh hey Putin is threatening "consequences" if Sweden/Finland join NATO.
He sure seems determined to get us into that club
Yup. Fuck him. He can try to boss us around, not gonna happen. What a stupid, old asshole.
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@Monkey:
Fun assignment for anyone in this thread:
Think of beneficial things about this whole debacle for China.
This is quite a challenge to come up with!Well, they just allowed imports of contaminated Russian wheat.
Yay?
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Setting aside that Turkey is an actual member of NATO, that seems exceedingly unlikely. Among other things, Turkey has access to nuclear weapons through a nuclear sharing agreement with the US.
I'm sometimes reminded that Ukraine could have likely avoided Russia's bullying if it hadn't disarmed itself of its nuclear arsenal back in the 90's.
They had quite a bit stocked up, if I'm not mistaken.
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Yup. Fuck him. He can try to boss us around, not gonna happen. What a stupid, old asshole.
The more he keeps pushing that bullshit, the more I want us to join.
Whats the other option? Sit on our butts hoping Putin will be merciful and let us be? Yeah right.
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@Zar:
The more he keeps pushing that bullshit, the more I want us to join.
Whats the other option? Sit on our butts hoping Putin will be merciful and let us be? Yeah right.
Same here. I'm not the most patriotic person you can find but some goddamn senile kgb agent won't tell us what to do.
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I'm sometimes reminded that Ukraine could have likely avoided Russia's bullying if it hadn't disarmed itself of its nuclear arsenal back in the 90's.
They had quite a bit stocked up, if I'm not mistaken.
It has been explained to me that Ukraine would've had to fund an independent nuclear program costing approximately a fuck ton to maintain intercontinental missiles that probably wouldn't be all that useful for them. But i'm just burping up second hand info from this guy i know so don't quote me on this
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China to Putin: Can't you stop screwing up… FOR FIVE MINUTES!?
--- Update From New Post Merge ---
Oh hey Putin is threatening "consequences" if Sweden/Finland join NATO.
He sure seems determined to get us into that club
The developed countries of the world are living in modern times, China included.
But Vladimir is still living in the Middle Age, his time has ended.
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Looks like the Ruble has hit a record low value and is expected to keep falling
I imagine the average Mikhail isn't going to be too happy with this war when he can't even buy groceries at this rate.
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Well, they just allowed imports of contaminated Russian wheat.
Yay?
Apparently that deal was concluded a few weeks ago and just announced.
I'm sometimes reminded that Ukraine could have likely avoided Russia's bullying if it hadn't disarmed itself of its nuclear arsenal back in the 90's.
They had quite a bit stocked up, if I'm not mistaken.
Nuclear arsenals are pretty expensive and difficult to maintain properly; about the only way that Ukraine would have been able to do that was to either join NATO or for the US to directly help them do so.
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@Johnny:
Looks like the Ruble has hit a record low value and is expected to keep falling
I imagine the average Mikhail isn't going to be too happy with this war when he can't even buy groceries at this rate.
Let’s Go Bogdan.
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It's been reported that the Dutch government is blocking the Russian expulsion from SWIFT.
Time heals all wounds, which I guess includes killing 200 Dutch people on a pasenger plane, and I guess it's easier to forget when you're a corrupt grifter government.
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It's good to remember that Putin aside, the Russian and Ukrainian people get along. Like Hetalia said:
Same here. I'm not the most patriotic person you can find but some goddamn senile kgb agent won't tell us what to do.
Nothing helps patriotism like finding a common enemy.
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I will laugh forever if Putin manages to Napoleon/Hitler himself on Ukraine.
"Naw man it will be super easy, just gotta kick in the door and it will fall apart. Just gotta take the capital and all done. Putting them under existential threat won't empower massive morale or anything."
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@Monkey:
I will laugh forever if Putin manages to Napoleon/Hitler himself on Ukraine.
"Naw man it will be super easy, just gotta kick in the door and it will fall apart. Just gotta take the capital and all done. Putting them under existential threat won't empower massive morale or anything."
Guess that's why he was pushing the Nazi thing so much; Russia's track record for invasions isn't the best when you take Nazis out of the equation.
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@Monkey:
I will laugh forever if Putin manages to Napoleon/Hitler himself on Ukraine.
"Naw man it will be super easy, just gotta kick in the door and it will fall apart. Just gotta take the capital and all done. Putting them under existential threat won't empower massive morale or anything."
If this was indeed complete suicide, I wonder if Putin weren't completely delusional. Maybe he believed his own propaganda, lol. Maybe he thought a great part of the ukrainian people would welcome him for this unification due to his own romantic views of the issue (and of himself).
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Guess that's why he was pushing the Nazi thing so much; Russia's track record for invasions isn't the best when you take Nazis out of the equation.
I mean they gave historical trauma to wolfwood's country, took party of the three partitions of the Commonwealth and is one the greater resposibles for the continous decline of the Ottomans from the XIX to XX century. Is not fantastic like french war record, but is better than most, I would guess.
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To be fair like 65-70% of the events that led to the loss of Finland were self-inflicted. The time from the hats and the caps up to Gustav IV Adolf was just one long conga line of incompetence, corruption, delusions of grandeur and poor decisions.
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China abstained from a Security Council motion to condemn Russia for the attack. Heckuva job, Pootie.
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If this was indeed complete suicide, I wonder if Putin weren't completely delusional. Maybe he believed his own propaganda, lol. Maybe he thought a great part of the ukrainian people would welcome him for this unification due to his own romantic views of the issue (and of himself).
I've seen lots of people speculate this.
All the easier to do when you're a dictator who doesn't get told "no" or even "maybe" by your subordinates.–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I mean they gave historical trauma to wolfwood's country, took party of the three partitions of the Commonwealth and is one the greater resposibles for the continous decline of the Ottomans from the XIX to XX century. Is not fantastic like french war record, but is better than most, I would guess.
Gobbling up Ottoman territory in those centuries isn't really all that notable given they were in terrible shape to begin with.
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@Monkey:
I will laugh forever if Putin manages to Napoleon/Hitler himself on Ukraine.
"Naw man it will be super easy, just gotta kick in the door and it will fall apart. Just gotta take the capital and all done. Putting them under existential threat won't empower massive morale or anything."
There's a long history of Russian leaders being removed from power from war failures.
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Also, when did it go from Kiev to Kyiv?
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There are reports that Russian units are already running into supply problems because they didn't expect things to last this long; end result being Russian troops breaking into houses to look for food and more clothing.
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There are reports that Russian units are already running into supply problems because they didn't expect things to last this long; end result being Russian troops breaking into houses to look for food and more clothing.
Goddamn millennials think they can just up and conquer a country resisting within the span of two days and two weeks of setup.
What do they think this is the early game of Advance Wars?
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Something good to know for evacuating Ukrainians:
[hide][/hide]
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They held on for one more day. Even accounting for propaganda it seems that Russia has lost a lot of men and equipment so far.
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Kazahkstan not only turned down Putin's request for supporting troops but also declined to recognize the breakaway "republics" of Luhansk and Donetsk. Kazahkstan.
By this point, Lukashenko is probably wishing he could go back in time to a few weeks ago.
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Some group called "Friends of Putin" or something allegedly wrote a letter to Putin asking him to help Hungary get back the Zakarpattia Oblast territory.
Also saying the "Russia saved Europe from World War 3".
I'm speechless.
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@Monkey:
Gobbling up Ottoman territory in those centuries isn't really all that notable given they were in terrible shape to begin with.
Fair enough, but when they could've gone for the mercy kill the british and french stopped it. Think of a middle east without the Sykes-Picot deal.
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It's been very funny to see conservative and centrist blue checkmarks on twitter question, without a hint of self-reflection, why a country would invade another nation and permanently anger its population in the process.
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Word is that all EU nations have agreed to ban Russia from swift.
Now make it happen.
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I don't understand any of this banking stuff. Days ago I watched a "specialist" saying that banning Russia from SWIFT would harm the West just as much as Russia (I mean, breaking down the world financial system), so that's why the sanctions were targetting russians institutions and people more specifically in order to restrict the damage as much as possible to Russia only instead of a kamikaze.
So I guess that was not quite true and cutting Russia from SWIFT is actually viable?
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Word is that all EU nations have agreed to ban Russia from swift.
Now make it happen.
I hope this is true, we need to use every non-violent measure against Russia we have in our disposal. Ukraine is suffering under Putin's monstrously vile attack, its a very attack of our values of democracy and liberty itself. Europe cant allow Putin to dictate how independent countries operate, all dictators and oppressors over the world must see this criminal invasion to fail in utmost with permanent effects on Russia.
Should Putin retaliate with cutting off european gas and oil then we should suffer through it and cut ourselves from depentancy of criminal nation, should we as europeans have to suffer little discomfort then what is that compared what ukrainan people are suffering right now? We cannot allow to Putin have ANY kind of success in these events or entire future of peaceful democracy might be in jeopardy.
Every day, every hour and minute Ukraine holds Russia back is a victory for free world and humiliation and defeat to Putin and his criminal regime.Russian citizens in Finland I know are truly outraged by Putin's actions and even if some were proud of Russia and even Putin few years ago are now furious how mad and insane Putin is, even many brave russians have voiced their opposition against this insane war and they might face prison and even death when Putin's regime is this unhinged, I believe that only russians themself can save their country and bring Putin down for good.
I hope very best for ukrainan people in these horrible times. -
Word is that Turkey has closed off access to the black sea for all Russian warships.
If true that is huge
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Word is that Turkey has closed off access to the black sea for all Russian warships.
If true that is huge
It's not.