How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Loren Pechtel]

How so? Would Germany have let 55% of their natural gas needs to be supplied by Russia, if they didn't think Russia was a trustworthy partner?

Russia IS trustworthy, The West is not.

I'm having a hard time coming up with an important treaty that Russia hasn't broken.

 

[Jayjay]

But I doubt that anybody said that the west wanted "russians dead"

Ever heard about John McCain and Lindsey Graham?

Lindsay Graham wasn't elected to congress until 1994. And McCain seems to have been a fan of Yeltsin, not sure if he had anything to do with denying aid to Russia in 1992-1993, which is what Sachs is talking about.

Sure, McCain later became a critic of Yeltsin and especially Putin. But that's irrelevant to the mistakes Sachs is referring to.

 

[Jayjay]

So no source for this poll? Sounds like bullshit.

Source was cited in Alex Christoforou youtube.

So it's confirmed to be bullshit.

Look, pal, Even fucking Obama admitted that Crimea was Russia.

No he didn't.

And Yes there are nazis in Ukraine, a lot of them, source? US Congress.

We've been through this. There are neo-nazis fighting on both sides, slightly more for Russia, but numbers are so small as to be irrelevant.

 

[Elixir]

There are neo-nazis fighting on both sides, slightly more for Russia, but numbers are so small as to be irrelevant.

Any non-zero number is sufficient to allow Russian propagandist to distort the truth and commit war crimes to Pootler’s heart’s content. In that sense, they’re relevant.

 

[Jayjay]

Well Sachs got fired in 1993. By the time of the 1996 elections most of the privatization was already done, and not according to any American plan but just due to Russian greed and corruption. And don't forget about Chubais.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Ok, sachs wasn't fired, he quit.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1097135961

SACHS: And Russia has made clear it will go forward with or without the international financial support. But we know that only with international support from the IMF and the World Bank is success likely in this remarkably arduous process. We really are at a critical juncture, where days and weeks will count.

CHILDS: But Jeff says at this critical juncture, the West did not back Russia's reforms with serious money. And Jeff says without that support, the crisis got worse. And eventually Yeltsin lost faith in the reformers. He fired his prime minister, a radical reformer who had initially recruited Jeff. Yeltsin replaced him with someone from the old guard, a longtime communist and prominent red director who had been resisting reforms. And then Russian politics got even uglier in 1993. The parliament led an armed revolt against Yeltsin. And in response, Yeltsin sent in the military to dissolve it.

ROSALSKY: Then Yeltsin held new parliamentary elections. And with the economy in the toilet, the reformers lost big.

SACHS: I saw by the fall this is not going to work. And at that moment I said, OK, I tried and then quit at the end of 1993. That's my story.

As for Chubais' role:

ROSALSKY: While Jeffrey Sachs worked with a team that focused on stabilizing Russia's economy, there was a whole other office of economists working on the largest privatization effort the world has ever seen, taking an entire economy owned by the government and selling it off to individuals, company by company. That team was led by a Russian guy named Anatoly Chubais. Journalist David Hoffman wrote a book about this privatization effort, and he interviewed Chubais extensively.

DAVID HOFFMAN: So Chubais came out of St Petersburg. He was kind of a cool character - tall guy, red hair, I would say sort of reserved, you know, not particularly exuberant, but he really had some ideas about how things could change.

CHILDS: Hoffman says that for Chubais, privatization - converting state-owned enterprises into private companies - was like a religion, and it was more important than just making the economy more efficient and productive. His goal was political because he thought if they created a new class of private owners who had a vested interest in this new system, they would fight for Russia's new capitalism.

So while Jeffrey Sachs argues that IMF didn't back Russian reforms enough, it's not like that was the only cause for the disaster.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What the fuck are you talking about?

I love this. Don't ever change, barbos. This is fucking adorable.

Yeah, some finnish dude explains russian privatization to a guy who have lived through it and was screwed.
Reminded me a guy whom I put on ignore for lecturing (among other ignorable offences) me about russian language.
1996 elections were paid by selling large state owned enterprises for cheap to a select group of future billionaire oligarchs.
That's just a fact. And it was all coordinated by US advisers,
Sachs obviously did not take part in this shit, cause he is a decent human being.
It's not controversial. US does this kind of shenanigans all the time. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, Iran-Contra. They did it in South Korea in the 50-80s.

You're blaming the US for internal messes.

Yes, you sold the state owned enterprises to the future oligarchs--mostly the people already in power. That was your own corruption, not any outside forces at work.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Personally I don't think he has delusions of overwhelming power anymore than did Al Capone. They were both clever, ruthless people, and not very smart.

I think he had substantial delusions about the power he had. Nobody expected how badly the Russian military had rotted. (Finding heavy rot in the nuclear parts would not have surprised me at all--if things are bad enough that they try to use the weapons the people who stole the resources won't care about a bit of corruption.) Russia uses it's armed forces, I would have expected considerably better maintenance.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

There are a number of amusing videos of Russian missile launches failing spectularly. I shudder to imagine such a failure with missile with a nuclear warhead. On the other hand, such a failure would be worth many laughs.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There are a number of amusing videos of Russian missile launches failing spectularly. I shudder to imagine such a failure with missile with a nuclear warhead. On the other hand, such a failure would be worth many laughs.

Just another reason to not take the Russian dictator's threats seriously. Granted, any nuclear accident anywhere in the world is a global problem, but I seriously doubt there is enough confidence in the weaponry to hit the launch button.

 

[bilby]

There are a number of amusing videos of Russian missile launches failing spectularly. I shudder to imagine such a failure with missile with a nuclear warhead. On the other hand, such a failure would be worth many laughs.

Just another reason to not take the Russian dictator's threats seriously. Granted, any nuclear accident anywhere in the world is a global problem, but I seriously doubt there is enough confidence in the weaponry to hit the launch button.

Accidental nuclear explosions aren't a thing. Making a nuclear explosion is really, really difficult; Ask Oppenheimer.

And a single nuclear bomb explosion isn't a worldwide problem. We've already had 530 nuclear explosions above ground worldwide (almost half of those in the USA); And three times as many again have been exploded underground.

One more could be a seriously bad day for people nearby (say, within a hundred km or so), but it wouldn't hurt anyone who wasn't.

Even a correctly constructed nuclear warhead can only cause a nuclear explosion if it's correctly triggered by its own detonation mechanism, and if it's damaged in any way, it simply won't work.

You could get an accidental conventional explosion from the thing, but that's true of pretty much all conventional explosive ordnance.

 

[barbos]

Australians in GUM


Damn sanctions are working!
Russia in tatters I say!

 

[barbos]

You're blaming the US for internal messes.

I blaming Russia for allowing american meddling causing mess in Russia.
Everywhere US comes mess happens.

 

[barbos]

Lindsay Graham wasn't elected to congress until 1994.

And?

 

[barbos]

So it's confirmed to be bullshit.

No, it is not. It was real poll. And this is why Mr. Obama said that Crimea is Russia.
Same with nazis in Ukraine. US Congress voted on it prior to Nuland Nazi Coup there,
Level of your delusion is astounding.


Crimea is Russia. Ukro-nazi can say all the want, it does not change the fact.

 

[barbos]

How so? Would Germany have let 55% of their natural gas needs to be supplied by Russia, if they didn't think Russia was a trustworthy partner?

Russia IS trustworthy, The West is not.

I'm having a hard time coming up with an important treaty that Russia hasn't broken.

Name one.

 

[barbos]

Whether or not to invade was not Russia's decision.

What, does the Russian army take orders from foreign governments now?

Or are you just mimicking the wife-beating scumbag who says "I didn't want to hit you, but you gave me no choice"?

Did Russia order US to invade Cuba? or South America?
Why did you bomb Serbia?

 

[Copernicus]

Whether or not to invade was not Russia's decision.

What, does the Russian army take orders from foreign governments now?

Or are you just mimicking the wife-beating scumbag who says "I didn't want to hit you, but you gave me no choice"?

Did Russia order US to invade Cuba? or South America?
Why did you bomb Serbia?

That's a great point, barbos. Bilby, why did Australia bomb Serbia? The US would have been happy to help, but why is Australia bombing Serbia? Because it's next to Austria, and you hate being confused with Austria? I don't get it. Leave it to the US to bomb and invade European countries.

 

[bilby]

Whether or not to invade was not Russia's decision.

What, does the Russian army take orders from foreign governments now?

Or are you just mimicking the wife-beating scumbag who says "I didn't want to hit you, but you gave me no choice"?

Did Russia order US to invade Cuba? or South America?

No. What has that got to do with the price of fish?

Why did you bomb Serbia?

I have never even been to Serbia, and I have never bombed anything.

For that matter, my country's armed forces have never bombed Serbia either.

 

[barbos]

bilby, you need to stop beating your wife before worring about imaginary beatings of other people wives.

 

[Jayjay]

Lindsay Graham wasn't elected to congress until 1994.

And?

You wanted to talk about Jeffrey Sachs. He quit in 1993, and his criticism is about IMF not backing Russian economy enough in 1991-1992. You claimed that this was because Americans "wanted Russians to die", and has fuck all to do with McCain and Graham's current animosity towards Putin's Russia.