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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   34225 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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It is especially not in their interest to attempt to kill them on foreign soil using neurotoxins that trace back to Russia and few other places, using known FSB members in the vicinity.

You realize that Soviet intelligence has previously killed people on foreign soil with weird poisons, right? It's basically a known MO at this point.

This harms their relationship with Europe when their geopolitical interest is to cozy up with Germany.

Russia's geopolitical interest is to bring all their European neighbors into the fold, but the best they can do is invade Ukraine and alienate said neighbors. We're not dealing with a hypercompetent foreign ministry here.

And? Everyone has people killed.

Pretty sure Americans have killed people with weird poisons too. Why do you think CIA had a 'heart attack' gun showed off during the Church Committee hearings?

I'm not disputing that Russia kills people in weird ways that include poison - I'm disputing that it makes sense in this concrete sense. Because it doesn't.

The other notorious case of Litvinenko - the guy was seen as a traitor, but one who run away and wasn't swapped. And who instead of being quiet in his exile or at least low profile published very incendiary and probably nonsensical information of the type "Putin is a pedophile" / Russia trained Al-Qaeda etc.

We're not dealing with a hypercompetent foreign ministry here.

They presented Putin with a choice:

  1. watch Ukraine smash the separatists, greatly angering Russian opposition thus making Russian internal politics worse and humiliating Russia by painting it as inactive and weak. Ukraine

  2. go to war and force Ukraine to see sense.

Why do you think CIA had a 'heart attack' gun showed off during the Church Committee hearings?

The heart attack gun was probably bullshit. It's unlikely that a small projectile like that would be ballistically stable while remaining frozen and being able to penetrate clothing.

The other notorious case of Litvinenko - the guy was seen as a traitor, but one who run away and wasn't swapped.

Well, there's a few reasons the British didn't swap him.

  1. He's a British citizen

  2. He's not imprisoned

  3. He's been dead 18 years

go to war and force Ukraine to see sense.

So far Ukraine has not seen sense. I am sure it will be great when they, best case scenario, annex the smouldering ruin that will be Ukraine after the war.

In case you missed it, I'll repeat that there is in fact a third option, which is to be a more compelling geopolitical partner than the US. However, as I said, this is beyond the ken of the Russian foreign ministry.

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