• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Putin & Russia

milo said:
Let's be honest, he didn't fork out on Trump and Brexit not to take advantage whilst we were distracted by them
Click to expand...
Putin is playing 3d chess while the rest of us are playing draughts (also called checkers if you are heathen). The story has always been Putin, Russia and Europe. Trump is the patsy, the lightning rod, the means to disrupt the European safety net which the US has been to a degree. Brexit was an absolute bonus.

To be honest I couldn't give a fig what happens in America domestically. Trump is who they voted for so they have to live with his self serving decisions. US foreign policy and environmental policy affect me and I'm pretty worried about both of those.
 
Last edited:
Rorschach said:
Putin is playing 3d chess while the rest of us are playing draughts (also called checkers if you are heathen). The story has always been Putin, Russia and Europe. Trump is the patsy, the lightning rod, the means to disrupt the European safety net which the US has been to a degree. Brexit was an absolute bonus.

To be honest I couldn't give a fig what happens in America domestically. Trump is who they voted for so they have to live with his self serving decisions. US foreign policy and environmental policy affect me and I'm pretty worried about both of those.
Click to expand...

[tin foil hat]One Putin theory I heard the other week was that his backing of Assad was with the aim of driving refugees to Europe to undermine European governments [/tin foil hat]

I think that this ignores there being strong Russian support for Syria for decades.
 
milo said:
[tin foil hat]One Putin theory I heard the other week was that his backing of Assad was with the aim of driving refugees to Europe to undermine European governments [/tin foil hat]

I think that this ignores there being strong Russian support for Syria for decades.
Click to expand...
There's a chap I follow on twitter called Seth Abramson who has an interesting recent piece in the Guardian about the complexities of these stories. They are too big for conventional journalism to properly report on. There are just too many strands to it and he is right. Individual stories don't join the dots, nor can they really as there is not enough time to make these connections. And this mostly because of that orange fool squatting over his fan every day. The news cycle is covered in his faeces.

Edit : here it is https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-to-report-we-must-turn-curatorial-journalism
 
Last edited:
There is a nice saying, takes two to tango.. Ukraine is far from being the blameless innocents that the media seems to love to portray.
If they did do something stupid i.e. ignoring stop requests, not beyond the realms of possibility, then for me Russia is entitled to take some action.

Same would happen here with our coastguard if something like that happened, though we may have more restraint.

Blocking the bridge is twofold though, while it could be taken that it's a blockade it could just as well be seen as protection of an asset.
 
If we had Putin as our prime minister he would be lauded as churchills successor.

Alot of propaganda about Russia and him but i actually think he brilliant for his nation
 
Gazza said:
If we had Putin as our prime minister he would be lauded as churchills successor.

Alot of propaganda about Russia and him but i actually think he brilliant for his nation
Click to expand...
Of course he would be lauded because if you criticise him you will be murdered. He kills his opponents, dissidents and journalists. Lovely chap.
 
Last edited:
Rorschach said:
There's a chap I follow on twitter called Seth Abramson who has an interesting recent piece in the Guardian about the complexities of these stories. They are too big for conventional journalism to properly report on. There are just too many strands to it and he is right. Individual stories don't join the dots, nor can they really as there is not enough time to make these connections. And this mostly because of that orange fool squatting over his fan every day. The news cycle is covered in his faeces.

Edit : here it is https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-to-report-we-must-turn-curatorial-journalism
Click to expand...

That is very true.

Pre Syrian war most Western intelligence services believed Asad was the best option to back. Western educated, and providing some stability in a region that has been completely undermined by western intervention. But then so many richer nations waded in, backing the regiem they wanted in/out and it became a total mess. But pre-conflict, the UK actually thought backing Asad was the pragmatic option that would result in the least destabilisation. When Russia did it was villified. Russia does get a biased press here. They aren't golden - they are an imperialist power - but Russia is not always as bad as is often projected.

The bigger piece (history) that no one talks about, is how Nato tried to pull the former Soviet states away from Russia's control. Georgia, Ukraine...about 10 years ago...were wooed by the west. I think this was a turning point. As Georgia becuase a US ally and the EU lifted its skirt to Ukraine, Russia made plans to fight back. All of the things that have happened since, subverting democracy etc, can be traced to this imo. That is my take on it.
 
SpurMeUp said:
That is very true.

Pre Syrian war most Western intelligence services believed Asad was the best option to back. Western educated, and providing some stability in a region that has been completely undermined by western intervention. But then so many richer nations waded in, backing the regiem they wanted in/out and it became a total mess. But pre-conflict, the UK actually thought backing Asad was the pragmatic option that would result in the least destabilisation. When Russia did it was villified. Russia does get a biased press here. They aren't golden - they are an imperialist power - but Russia is not always as bad as is often projected.

The bigger piece (history) that no one talks about, is how Nato tried to pull the former Soviet states away from Russia's control. Georgia, Ukraine...about 10 years ago...were wooed by the west. I think this was a turning point. As Georgia becuase a US ally and the EU lifted its skirt to Ukraine, Russia made plans to fight back. All of the things that have happened since, subverting democracy etc, can be traced to this imo. That is my take on it.
Click to expand...

Excellent post.
 
SpurMeUp said:
That is very true.

Pre Syrian war most Western intelligence services believed Asad was the best option to back. Western educated, and providing some stability in a region that has been completely undermined by western intervention. But then so many richer nations waded in, backing the regiem they wanted in/out and it became a total mess. But pre-conflict, the UK actually thought backing Asad was the pragmatic option that would result in the least destabilisation. When Russia did it was villified. Russia does get a biased press here. They aren't golden - they are an imperialist power - but Russia is not always as bad as is often projected.

The bigger piece (history) that no one talks about, is how Nato tried to pull the former Soviet states away from Russia's control. Georgia, Ukraine...about 10 years ago...were wooed by the west. I think this was a turning point. As Georgia becuase a US ally and the EU lifted its skirt to Ukraine, Russia made plans to fight back. All of the things that have happened since, subverting democracy etc, can be traced to this imo. That is my take on it.
Click to expand...

Georgians hate Russians. They looked to join NATO and the West to gain protection (and a new market) from Russia. Wasn't so much the West trying to woo them as them looking for allies against their biggest fear. Russia didn't like that which is hardly the same as a 'fight back'.

The West have played this badly (especially in Syria) but Russia aren't some poor, slandered party with no bad intentions.
 
Lost Mango said:
Georgians hate Russians. They looked to join NATO and the West to gain protection (and a new market) from Russia. Wasn't so much the West trying to woo them as them looking for allies against their biggest fear. Russia didn't like that which is hardly the same as a 'fight back'.

The West have played this badly (especially in Syria) but Russia aren't some poor, slandered party with no bad intentions.
Click to expand...

Quite. Russia, like the US , is imperialist. Half of Ukraine hate Russia too. Yet 10 years ago they had open boarders, families were/are split over the two countries, they were close partners albeit with Russia in control. Ukrain gets its oil from Russia still. But the love is lost. No one wins in the 'Big Game'. When rich countries try to play geopolitics in places like Syria and Ukraine it always seems to end badly, with the nation in the middle the worst hit.

Is it better that a stable imiperfect regiem remains, with the possibility of evolution, rather than creating deep instability and conflict?
 
Last edited:
There is open data published by the US on how much they spent (billions of $s) in Ukraine. The right wing in the US still believed in the cold war. @LostMango I'm not sure its accurate to say it was one-way traffic. If Russia started funding Mexico cartels or the IRA would we put up with it?

This is from 2014 but is a 'tad more ballanced' ;): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger Okay its a leftist stance, but most of what Pilger writes stacks up. The US have a history of changing nation's leaders that they don't like. Was Ukraine any different?
 
Last edited:
If you're interested, the Maidan massacre in Kiev which kick started the war in Ukraine, was definitely a planned act. People on both sides were shot - not by protestors or police - but by some kind of motivated agent. Whether this intervention was Russian or US funded we don't know. However, the same bullets were found to have shot people on both sides - in other words Snipers were trying to instigate revolution and spark civil war. As Russia had its man in power (Yanukovych who was demoncratically elected) it would seem unlikely they would seed the revolution. It would also be consistent with US funded Latin American cold war 'interventions'.

When the revolution started the EU and the US backed the overthrow of the democratically elected President. If we the West were truely impartial I'm not sure we would back the overthrow of elected officials.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31359021

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/ukraine-bugged-call-catherine-ashton-urmas-paet
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back