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

Harry Bosch said:
Zelensky is the rightful President of Ukraine. He is fighting for Ukraine. What is the "Kiev regime"? The capital for Ukraine is Kyiv
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Oh no. I guess the last hundred repetitions of Putin’s lies didn’t stick. Now poor Barbie is gonna have to repeat them all another hundred times.
 
Russian historian and political scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Garbuzov was fired from his post as director of the Institute on the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The reason was that he published a long article criticizing Russia's post-imperial mentality.

See this short Meduza article:

Director of Russian U.S. and Canada Studies Institute debunks anti-Western propaganda and quickly loses his job​


The original Russian article by Doctor Garbuzov can be run through Google Translate, which does a pretty good job on it. You can find the Russian article here (but scroll down for it to begin). It is really good and worth the read. A direct challenge to Vladimir Putin's ultranationalist take on Russian history.

Директор Института США и Канады Валерий Гарбузов об утраченных иллюзиях уходящей эпохи​


The beginning paragraphs from Google Translate:

The passing era takes away a lot: illusions and hopes die, myths are destroyed, a new reality appears, the living environment changes. Forgetting what lived for generations.

Often, the ruling elites of authoritarian and totalitarian political regimes deliberately formed utopian ideas and myths, purposefully spread among the masses. Such a mass manipulation of the consciousness of society immediately gives rise to a utopian picture of the perception of the world among millions of people, allowing you to unite disparate political and social groups around a national leader in the name of a specific goal. However, it is also a powerful tool for long-term retention of personal power. And Russian history is by no means an exception.

It's no secret that the charge of foreign policy expansionism has never left Russia, pursuing it throughout its historical development. It was he who became one of the engines of the formation of the Russian state.

This trend was also manifested during the years of the existence of the early feudal Old Russian state of Kievan Rus in the 9th–12th centuries, and during the specific period of feudal strife in the 12th–15th centuries, and during the time of the Moscow centralized state of the 15th–18th centuries, and after the formation of the Russian Empire in 1721, when Eurasian continental expansionism became the focus of Russia's often aggressive foreign policy activity, which turned it into the world's largest power by the beginning of the 20th century.
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This is a nice reminder that there are still people left in Russia with the courage to speak the truth. It contrasts with barbos's rants and attempts to act as a representative of Russian attitudes. The Russian Academy of Sciences has a long, prestigious history, but it has been heavily politicized under Putin's regime. Unlike barbos, Garbuzov knows his own country's history very well.
 
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Is Russia really a post imperialist state? Good on Garbuzov for the candor and courage but Putin wants a nationalist serfdom, not a modern nation. I plan on living into post Putin Russia. We'll see what gives. One thing is certain, Ukraine will emerge as a strong bulwark against Russian aggression. Hopefully enough Russians will discover they have a chance for a better life.
 
barbos said:
steve_bank said:
Are you related to Vladimir Pozner?
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No, why?
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I thought you were older.

He was a well known Russian radio and TV media apologist for Russia who had lived in the USA. A propagandist.

It is simple.

1. Are the Russian people better or worse off for the war.
2. Is Russia more or less 'powerful' in the world for the war.

Three yes or no questions.

You lived here, but my reference to seeing college football crowds was about understanding what we call the America spirit. Which is antithetical to the Russian dictatorship.

The comment about being for the Ukrainian people but against Zelensky is weak.

If a Russian citizen in Moscow set up a website criticall of Putin and the war what would happen?

Russia is doing to Ukraine what the Nazis did to Russia.
www.nbcnews.com

How Russia's invasion threatens to subvert the internet as we know it

Concerns about the emergence of a “splinternet,” or a balkanization of the web, have been gaining momentum. The war in Ukraine threatens to make them a reality.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com


Russian author and journalist Andrei Soldatov used to regard his country as the most digitally connected in Europe. These days, he can barely recognize the Russian internet.

Websites with the .ru domain have been online only intermittently since the invasion of Ukraine. U.S. tech companies such as Microsoft and Oracle have stopped selling software there. Many Russians can’t pay for the private networking apps they use to get around government censorship of sites such as Facebook, after Visa and Mastercard halted operations there.

“Russia is so dependent on online services. Now, these things are falling apart,” said Soldatov, author of the book “The Red Web,” about the Kremlin’s battles over online surveillance.

Russia is three weeks into a test that the internet has never seen before: A major economic and global power is nearly isolated online after international sanctions cut off many services from abroad and the Russian government clamped down harder on online speech and access inside its borders.

How the situation plays out is likely to shape the future of the internet, not only for everyday Russians but also for the collective understanding of what was supposed to be a global network, not one divided by a “digital iron curtain.”
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Cheerful Charlie said:
Russian media calls for Ukrainian genocide. Putin lets them do so.

.....
In October, RT’s director of broadcasting, Anton Krasovsky, suggested drowning Ukrainian children, setting Ukrainian homes on fire — with the inhabitants inside — and alleged that Ukrainian grandmothers would gladly pay to be raped by Russian soldiers. He insisted that Ukraine should end in its current form, with its only surviving sliver zoned for pig rearing. Krasovsky felt the need to clarify that when he said “pigs,” he did not mean Ukrainian women.

In October, Pavel Gubarev, a Russian political figure who proclaimed himself the “People’s Governor” of the Donetsk Region in 2014 and later as leader of the Donbas People’s Militia, explained that Ukrainians were, “Russian people, possessed by the devil,” and that Russia’s aim was to “convince them” that they are not Ukrainian. He added: “But if you don’t want us to change your minds, then we will kill you. We will kill as many of you as we have to. We will kill 1 million or 5 million, we can exterminate all of you.”
.......

cepa.org

‘Morality Shouldn’t Get in the Way’ — Russia’s Genocidal State Media

It occasionally occurs to Putin’s mouthpieces that they may one-day face charges in a war crimes tribunal for Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
cepa.org cepa.org
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I can't imagine we'd let anything close to this happen. We'd have to go in and settle Russia's hash.
 
A new NATO exercise called Northern Coasts is in the offing for the Baltic Sea, 30 ships and 3,000 western service personnel. New NATO friends, new exercise to practice keeping those sea lanes open. Germany will be taking the lead on this one. We would be negligent if we did not consider and prepare for future Russian belligerence. They should have named this exercise after Putin.
 
Barbos

You nay have lived here but oiu do not understand our culture.

Blacks were brought over as slaves. After the civil war they were denied ther righys as citizens. It was encoded into llaws we refer to as Jim Crow.
Blacks were beten, hung, and shot with impunity.

Eventually a black civil rights movement evolved coming to a head in the 50s and 60s. They demonstrated and protested standing up to violence, jail, and abuse in their cause for rights. It resulted in the 60s in the fort national civil rights legislation. It did not end there.
In the 50s a black Obama as president was unthinkable, yet it happened, things changed.
That is an American story. If your rights are oppressed stand up and fight for it. Today we all benefit from the black civil rights struggle. We are all freer and more secure in 0ur freedoms for it.
That is what I call Amerindian spirit.

The union struggle to fight for worker's rights. Are there unions in Russia?

The American Revolution led to a government based on the idea that government exists to preserve individual rights. The Russian Revolution led into a forced conformity with no individual rights. Putin is a continuation of the Soviet philosophy.
I can relate to the Ukrainians. They are willing to fight and die against a dictator for their rights.

Nothing recent, there have been reports of small scale Russian protest of Putin and the war. The Russian people seem like sheep, follower Putin.

I can relate to the Ukrainians, but not to Russians who accept oppressive government.

Russia can not thrive withut being aprt of the global order. The war led Europe to get off of Russian energy. Something Putin may not have considered. A major revenue source for Putin.

There are some Russian natural resources that are in demand. Other than that Russia produces little of anything that is in demand outside of Russia. Cars, commercial jets, electronics.
The MacDonald's burger you just had originated in a bossiness created by an American entrepreneur. I have not seen nay international Russian chains or business.

On the other hand China took western investment and created global business enterprises.

The future does not look good for Russia. At least compared to the industrialized western democracies.
 
It would be interesting to know if anyone other than Barbos in Russia is seeing all ur collecve commentary.

I imagine Russians may be fearfulr of posting even if it appears anonymous.
 
Past reporting says support for Putin and the war is high. He was preparing the Russian people for it with anti west fear mongering from the start of his presidency.

Be thankful for the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press and speech, ad how it has stood up.
 
Harry Bosch said:
This is an odd post. Zelensky is the rightful President of Ukraine.
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So was Yanukovich.
Harry Bosch said:
He is fighting for Ukraine.
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No he does not, he is "fighting" for his masters.
Harry Bosch said:
What is the "Kiev regime"
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Kiev regime is a nazi regime in Kiev which is currently holding power.

Harry Bosch said:
The capital for Ukraine is Kyiv.
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I use accepted RUSSIAN spelling and pronunciation which is "Kiev".
Otherwise the capital of Rossiya is Moskva.
 
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Cheerful Charlie said:
In October, RT’s director of broadcasting, Anton Krasovsky, suggested drowning Ukrainian children,
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Yes, he did...... in response to anecdote (easy to believe) about russian children (in Ukraine) chanting "Moskalyaku na gilyaku"
He suggested it half jokingly. That was stupid thing to do, but people say things in the heat of the moment without meaning to do it.
Ukrainian regime(s) has been brainwashing their population for 25 years. Result is russian children in Ukraine chanting "Moskalyaku na gilyaku" The fact is, ukrainian nazis DO mean what they say, and they DID actually follow through with their proclamation when they burned alive pro-russian "hippies" in Odessa and in a number of lesser publicised cases.

In any case, he just said what politicians and officials should not. But regular nobodies would say that all the time.
 
barbos said:
Cheerful Charlie said:
Russian propaganda has been full of genocidal and violent rhetoric.
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Really?
Do you know how 2014 Maidan proceeded long before the war YOU started?
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Do you know that Ukranians hate Russia all by themselves without anyone telling them to? Do you know that Ukranian people understand that Russia is a violent and untrustworthy neighbor even without anyone telling them to? Because it is written in history. A history that Ukranians are all to aware of. They had just seen it happen in Georgia. And all those Ukranians who believed and understood these truths in EuroMaidan were proven correct over the past 8 years and especially over the past 2 years. Russia can not be trusted because her people are only happy when an evil cunt is in charge.

In Euro-Maidan, Yanukovych chose to use military violence to displace the protesters. He escalated the events of Maidan that lead to the protesters fighting back. Nobody bribed the protesters to be there. Nobody bribed them to fight back. But you know that when your government tries to murder you for voicing your opposition to their policies that is bound to trigger a lot of people. And that is what happened. So the protesters fought back and captured the government buildings, and the Russian puppets all fled. And where did those little russian pupets like Yanukovych flee to? They fled to Russia of course.

The stupidest thing about you insisting the US was really responsible for "invading" (lol) Ukraine in 2014 and taking control of its government is that in order for you to make this claim you must tacitly admit that Russia had already "invaded" (lol) Ukraine and captured her government in the form of Yanukovych.
 
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