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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31609 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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is there actually any post-1991 evidence that Russia is, in fact, our "long-term adversary", or is it just something that certain people keep repeating to try and meme it into truth?

  1. Not rejected its imperial aspirations and have not even pretended that it will give up "sphere of influence" that includes my country (unlike Germany)

  2. Bombing country next to mine and murdering civilians there and trying to destroy its economy

  3. Doing its best to disrupt global food supply by invading Ukraine and blocking grain shipments (they were strongarmed into suspending this)

  4. Have not clearly rejected USSR as awful and evil failure (unlike Germany with Third Reich)

  5. Repeated use of its position of cheap energy supplier for blackmail

  6. Invading other countries in Europe (they have not got memo that European countries decided that this is not acceptable after WW II mess)

  7. Being so corrupt that they are not usable as ally for example ally against China

  8. Being utterly useless as an ally (as Armenia discovered)

  9. Assassinating people in Europe without even enough decorum to keep it hidden

  10. Repeated extreme war crimes (for example: using hospital list in Syria as target list, Bucha)

Overall Russia is overambitious corrupt, useless as an ally, extremely aggressive lead by idiot that dragged it into a tragic war. That demonstrates it clearly enough even for Germans, but it was obvious already earlier.

And no, Russia is not entitled to empire in the central Europe - nor powerful enough to build one again, at least for now.

Well stated! I'm quite deeply shocked that someone wouldn't consider Putin's Russia quite antithetical to the West. The fundamental one is "invading another country in Europe". All the rest was kind of generic and shitty dictatorship stuff, but that one crosses a rather literal line.

today - Georgia, tomorrow - Ukraine, the day after tomorrow – the Baltic States, then, perhaps, it will be my own country, Poland'

President of Poland in 2008, in Georgia, Tbilisi

(if anyone is confused why support to Ukraine is over 1% of GDP of Estonia and Poland gave Ukraine 230+ tanks and other equipment)

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