The Situation in the Ukraine. #30

We declare that we were never interested in saving the Ukraine in the first place and it was all about dragging Russia into something that will bleed them of their budget surpluses and then their resources... so we can declare victory even though there is no war and the Ukraine is in a shambles, because our focus is destroying Russia and not fixing our own problems and building up allies to make them strong and let them live the good life.

The claims that Putin has had all this time and has not won the prize of the Ukraine ignores the fact that friendship with the Ukraine was a burden on the Russian economy... Russia was forced to buy substandard Ukrainian products that have not really changed much since the cold war... anything they had to offer was because Russia was funding it... like the An-70 and all the money that went in to that programme was wasted.

Now Russia is building its own engines and its own transport planes and its future is actually looking much much better.

Russia still wants cordial relations with its neighbour, but has no reason to offer bribes and subsidies any more because they are now the EU and USs problem.

It is all pretty sad really because Europe thinks it is playing Chess, but the game being played is much more complex and the idea is not to defeat your enemy on the battlefield... it is not a zero sum game... the loser doesn't just disappear and you get all their resources and land and go on to the next player...

The west thought winning the Cold War meant they could boss Russia around and that Russia would become their colony of willing sheeple, but that only lasted for a decade and then Russia realised it could do better and be more... and now it is.

The west clearly won the cold war but the seriously lost the 30 years after the cold war.

All their current problems and they think their solution is to create and win another cold war with Russia and China.

Sounds like a stupid plan... the more so since I honestly don't think they could actually win a second cold war in their current condition and situation.

The Ukraine is not some rich prize.... like the Crimea was... or naval and military bases in Syria are... the things they did fight for and won.

The Ukraine is like Albania but their organised crime syndicates are not as well organised or profitable.

To be honest comparing the Ukraine and Albanian is not really very fair because Albania probably has a future.

lancelot wrote:
The Orange revolution failed miserably. As for the Maidan I guess it still remains to be seen what the end result will be. But getting a country of 35 million people to go down to 20 million is no mean feat. Turning an industrial powerhouse into irrelevance isn't insignificant either. Like someone else used to say, don't get in the way of your enemy while they're making a mistake.

There is more than that ...
All the "revolutions" before used to be just oligarchs wars, masqueraded as the will of a people.
Sponsored with private assets of different clans, in order to grab the better part of a cake.
But as far as they played their own game, they needed an existing country that develops, more or less.
They used to be subsidized by Russia to an unbelievable level, in the pre-2014 period getting as much as $10bln A YEAR, and Russia sustained that status quo due to the economical ties it had with Ukrainian industry.
But now, in the end, we face a totally different scenario.
We should divide two things.
The first one, being the Ukrainian push for association with the EU, while still being connected to the Russian market&subsidies.
As Janukowicz was clearly informed by the Russian side, that it is a no-go scenario, he had to pick the side. He picked the right one, from the Ukrainian perspective. But the wrong one for already boiling mob, fuelled by the other oligarchs.
That was all about the 2014 Maidan brothel and ape jumping.
But the US had a different scenario in mind.
The goal was to push Russia into a war.
I suppose they didn't expect the determination&scale of Russian acting.
Crimea was a total shock to them. All of them, including the Ukrainians themselves.
It didn't turn into a war, and the war on the east of Ukraine went terribly wrong for the junta.
The tool appeared to be broken. And a broken tool is not needed anymore.
Take a look at the scale of US goons allocations to Ukraine.
It started high, with IMF 17bln$ loan ... ending up with some pennies!
Ukropia is finished as a state. It failed at all fronts.
There is no single shop in Poland, with no Ukrainian staff. There is no hair salon, with no Ukrainian hairdresser.
The apartment rent market is flooded with Ukrainians.
When they calculate the remaining Ukr population as 30 mln or lower, they really mean that.
And if you look at a "quality" of the remaining population, it is even worse.
Everybody who had two working hands, and a head - is gone.
Those people, won't accumulate ANY financial transfer to Ukraine, because they are here with all their families.
That is a very important factor because a working power transfer from new EU members to other member states was not permanent.
People worked in UK or Germany, but the families remained in PL.
So the cash flow was from the old EU members to the new ones.
The scale and commonality of that were so obvious, that new phrases started to be used in a common language, like "euro orphans" - kids that stayed at home with grandparents, while parents were working in other member states.
That used to be a case with Ukrainian labor before the maidan, both in the EU and Russia, but not now.
It is a failed state.
Corruption and crime is spreading like cancer, and if we consider the general state of Ukraine before 2014, that is almost unbelievable.
No one want to stay there. It is not a place for living, for rising the kids, planning your retirement.

kvs wrote:@LMFS

We have different types of anti-Russian projection.   The clowns who are just NATzO fanbois and their drivel and the other evident type
that wants Russia to fail but presents this as criticism of Russia's failings.    There is no evidence of Putin walking into any NATzO traps.
He didn't in 2014 and he is not going to now.   NATzO losers want very badly for Putin to take the bait, but wishing is not getting.  

Anyone who claims that Russia did not see the 2014 coup coming is full of it.   Russia cannot fix the broken brains of people who drank
the west is best koolaid before 1990 and were riven with Nazis based in Canada, USA and other foreign states with generous financing
to spread their tendrils inside Ukraine since 1945.   I have see this activity with my own eyes and my Ukr relatives drink the koolaid
and allow themselves to be led around by the nose.    Ukria has a whole fake academic network that has completely taken over the
intellectual space.   These fakes write revisionist history and seamlessly filled the void after the collapse of communism.   Blood libel
such as "Russians in the Donbass are criminal squatters who took over Ukr land thanks to the Holodomor" is the sort of excrement that
Ukrs live on.   Somehow the known fact that the Donbass was attached to the Ukrainian SSR during its creation after 1917 has been
forgotten.   The ethnic Russians in the Donbass can point to the generations of their ancestors in local graveyards.   I guess these must
have been hoaxed up after the 1930s.   Totally sick and demented svidomite (woke) degeneracy.

True, there is the NATO camp and their different variants and then there is this falsely "pro-Russian" criticism of Putin's government by the nostalgics of communism, in the form of "intellectual" analysis, sorrow for the lost opportunities and a transparent intention to convey that a "real" statesman of the Soviet Union would have done much better. I am already tired of reading the same fake lamentations by people which are actually rooting for the defeat of Russia, in order to be proven right. They have been predicting "Putin's regime" collapse for decades now and have failed miserably, so their bitterness has reached serious levels, incompatible with objectivity. As we discussed before, "theories of the totality" are theology by other name and normally they are outright useless when confronted with reality, but after spending the whole life learning everything Lenin did and say these people have little interest in abandoning theoretical marxism, so they keep insisting in their error. Worse for them, but that is their call

@ATLASCUB

The West has invested enormous amounts of resources in ways that have brought them no so far ahead, in fact they have produced little return and reduced their margin to manouver, damaging their allies and threatening the very foundations of their international standing, for no decisive advantage. They created non critical difficulties for Russia (which were actually used to increase the country's self reliance) and have not managed to stop their development. So the West is logically inching each time closer to war, because all other strategies have failed. And even in war, Russia has progressively more and more possibilities, the last one being the ability to strike directly back at the "decision makers" in case they go too far, without needing to use strategic weapons. Soon there will be almost nothing the West can do, be it via nuclear, conventional or other types of warfare. So it is a clear case of strategic success of Russia, which has improved their standing while the West has dilapidated a lot of resources and undermined their position for the future.

As for Detente..... it's a slippery rope of assumptions. I'm not a fan of it for a rising power like Russia that has more to earn with the U.S completely out of the picture as a collapsed empire (the sooner the better) than with the rise of China as the undisputed #1 as an oversized consequence of Russia's efforts.

This sounds a bit like the world domination plans of Life of Brian's militants... An empire does not collapse because some minor actor decides it, it is because it rots from the inside. And of course Russia cannot avoid the economic rise of China or is even interested in preventing it, since it will be in its direction that they expect to channel the resources they currently sell to Europe. Russia's pragmatic approach is based on a very sober, non ideological assessment of their possibilities and a careful planing to avoid overstretching them, this is what has allowed the continued development of the resource base of the country. They avoided confrontation as much as possible and dedicated their resources to their own growth.

So the counter against Detente: The more tangled the U.S is everywhere in the word, defending its interest and client regimes the more exhausted it will become as its resources are split in all different directions to stop the incoming tide against it.... the faster it will deteriorate and collapse which means the faster Russia will be free of an oversized U.S.A hostile to its interest everywhere in the world. Detente is merely the deceit of a feigning truce.

Russia has moved to defend its interests in an increasingly vigorous way, as its possibilities have increased (see Syria, Georgia, Crimea, dealings with South American and African nations etc.). But while US has a global resource base and vassal states that they can mobilize against Russia, the later has only her own, scarce resources. So it cannot escalate hostilities, since it will deplete itself way faster than its enemy, and needs to exert restrain and only act where the victory is certain and strategic benefits will be obtained. They are not equals to the US and they don't try to act as if they were

The obvious problem is China, who likes to keep their hands clean and let others get their hands dirty while furthering their interest indirectly. So Russia must balance this dance, instead of working for free for the CCP in Beijing.

As said China's rise is beyond Russia's control. But they are managing to leverage their military potential to become the third cornerstone of the multipolar world, despite having a way smaller economy.

In general, all these topics are very basic and known to perfection by the Russian leadership. You can always say they could have done better, but there is simply no evidence they are not playing by the book and being perfectly aware of what they do. On the contrary, they are wining with a weak hand while the West is increasingly desperate, so I don't really see a clear reason for criticism.

A lot of security forces in #Kyiv this morning before scheduled address of Zelensky to the Ukrainian Parliament. Last week Zelensky claimed #Russia is planning a coup Dec 1st/2nd.

Why the USSR failed against the west was due to its own measure. In the end, USSR proved weak internally and it showed.

Russia is a different entity. Doesn't rely on a massive population even if they are the largest in Europe (population and land mass wise). Russia is significantly stronger internally than USSR was. Its more Russian centric while USSR ideology was communism which had its merits but overall failed.

Russia can do what USSR couldn't due to that lack of an ideology. It is able to adjust itself to any situation at hand. This is why it works so well going against the US and West. While the collective west is internally weak now and not on same page for nearly anything, with growing power vacuums in both EU and US.

Ukraine for most part has been a black hole for Russia. Contrary to belief, only a few states to the USSR was actually beneficial and a net contributor to overall USSR economy and development. While Ukraine was a good industrial base and scientific base for it, it was overall due to Russian resources constantly poured into Ukraine that allowed the soviet state to amount to anything basic. This shows as how much the country itself is destroying....itself. it's barely a shadow of its former self and is an artificial state ready to be taken apart.

Russia is stronger without it. Without a lot of baggage. I guess Russian true weakness is its inability to work with foreign entities around it to spark a pro Russian population and youth. Instead it does the cheap and easy way - looking through to just basic oligarchs and politicians. When instead, it needs to look at the people as a whole. So it loses allies quickly due to these colored revolutions.

But, on the flip side to all of that, it becomes clearly obvious who Russia can rely on during tough times. And it's really nobody but countries like China, India and Mongolia. None Russian states. Maybe Kazakhstan too but I wouldn't be quick to say they are good partners or allies. China's growth is a partial problem for Russia. But it's a problem easily managed. China has enemies all around it and Russia can counter balance China with India. Japan is no Russian friend but they keep saying they need Russia to counter China.

China is an economic power. But that's about it. It's military is fancy looking and big, but that's about it. Lack of experience and overall quality doesn't put it in the to be feared category. But it isn't a weakling either. Russia kept most of its western forces in same positions after the soviet-China conflict of 69in place. Only now they are starting to get modernizations. But soviets figured that is all they need for forces in the area to counter China. It's just now, they need new equipment.

Ukraine on other hand, needs a lot of people and equipment on the western side. Because, unlike China, the west isn't nearly that smart. And they may try to concentrate forces in the west to "counter" Russia. Russia proved though, to everyone, they can move massive amount of troops in a very short time period.

The West has been living all the time by Brzezinski's theory that Russia without Ukraine will not rebuild its power. It turned out to be nonsense: Russia once again became a power without Ukraine. Russia rebuilt the industry that was in Ukraine on its territory.No longer needs their declining industry. Some people from Ukraine work in Russia and will probably stay there. So, demographically, Russia will also benefit from it.

Arrow wrote:The West has been living all the time by Brzezinski's theory that Russia without Ukraine will not rebuild its power.  It turned out to be nonsense: Russia once again became a power without Ukraine.  Russia rebuilt the industry that was in Ukraine on its territory.No longer needs their declining industry. Some people from Ukraine work in Russia and will probably stay there.  So, demographically, Russia will also benefit from it.

Defending Zibi's opinion, he was talking about a sized 45+ million Ukrainian SSSR, a hub of marine, space, and defense industry, and agrarian hub of the whole SU. Representing one of the highest living standards and infrastructure of the whole SU, again.
Not a 25-30mln shadow, drained off the human resources, decapitalized, with dying or dead electrical grid, power stations, road system, railroad ...

Will still be cheaper to incorporate some of the regions into Russia then to clean up all the nuclear waste from exploding NPP´s and all the chemical waste from rotting factories endangering russian rivers and lakes.

kvs wrote:Most of that pollution will be local as it is in Chernobyl.   Managing bitter, resentful and "occupied" people is ingesting real poison.  No thanks.

People bemoan why Russia cannot win hearts and minds.   That is unrealistic, the game is indeed zero sum in this regard and the NATzO west
has dominance in the brains of the idiot masses.   It sells them snake oil and fake dreams.    Russia trying to do the same thing is not going
to flip them around.   We have seen 1000 years of anti-Russian paranoia in the west and it has become endemic.   Russia needs to have the
war capacity to snuff the west out if its demented deciders try another final solution to the Russian problem.   Really, the best thing for Russia
is to be able to act and to develop its economy.   Idiot heard management should not be a priority, especially when the west is sinking in its
own woke excrement.  

I fully support Shoigu's push to make decent cities out east. If Russia shows the rest of the world you can have a good living standard and quality of life not just in western Russia but all of it, most will learn to love it even more. Already the anti Russian propaganda was failing in the west as so many saw an opportunity to go see the country during Olympics and fifa.

Ukraine's clown president demanded in his speech today that Russia have direct talks with him lol. Russia will never do that for an internal Ukrainian conflict

Edit: removed outdated info.

Arrow wrote:The West has been living all the time by Brzezinski's theory that Russia without Ukraine will not rebuild its power.  It turned out to be nonsense: Russia once again became a power without Ukraine.  Russia rebuilt the industry that was in Ukraine on its territory.No longer needs their declining industry. Some people from Ukraine work in Russia and will probably stay there.  So, demographically, Russia will also benefit from it.

And yet the Soviet Union managed to defeat the Nazis after losing all of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. It makes one wonder about how smart this great theorist was.

ALAMO wrote:

Defending Zibi's opinion, he was talking about a sized 45+ million Ukrainian SSSR, a hub of marine, space, and defense industry, and agrarian hub of the whole SU. Representing one of the highest living standards and infrastructure of the whole SU, again.
Not a 25-30mln shadow, drained off the human resources, decapitalized, with dying or dead electrical grid, power stations, road system, railroad ...

I agree, but it only made sense until a few years after the collapse of the USSR, before the industry in Ukraine began to collapse. Even though today Ukraine is in total disarray, this theory still lives its life sometimes. The West also did not believe that Russia would rebuild the industry it lost in Ukraine. Of course, this took some time

If you go by the commentary here...

Meanwhile in reality....

Putin calls on NATO to do a deal

https://www.rt.com/russia/541858-putin-demands-nato-deal/

Speaking to a group of newly-arrived ambassadors in the Kremlin on Wednesday, Putin said that his country will “insist on guarantees being set out to exclude the possibility of NATO moving any further to the east, and deploying threatening weapons close to Russian territory.”

“I would like to emphasize that we need these to be legal guarantees,” the Russian president said, “given that our Western colleagues have not fulfilled their respective oral obligations. Everyone knows they made promises they wouldn't expand eastwards, but then they did the opposite. Legitimate Russian security concerns have been ignored and continue to be ignored.”
Read more
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Putin insisted that “the threat at our Western borders is really growing, and we have repeatedly talked about it. It is enough to see how close NATO’s military infrastructure has advanced to the Russian borders. It's more than serious for us.”



If only it could be on paper this time... It would make all the difference, you see. The power of a piece of paper compels the empire to peace! Not one more inch East!

"We had a deal in Ukraine, and next thing you know, the next day Yanukovich is out of power" - Putin  

"It's 5D chess from Jedi Grandmaster Putin" - Pepe Escobar.
"Tearing that piece of paper exposes the hypocrisy of the U.S, it's simply non agreement capable" - The Saker.

Hopefully the Putin boys here contain the spasms, it's just a crude meme on dear leader. But who I'm kidding anyway, they'll have it either way.

The sooner fresh blood gets to the Kremlin the better. The man is out of his prime. Too much time in power.

https://www.rt.com/business/541603-china-sues-ukraine-hague-court/

China takes Ukraine to The Hague court

Kiev faces a financial penalty of as much as $4.5 billion, after a group of Chinese investors brought legal action against the country over violating the China-Ukraine bilateral investment agreement.

Beijing Skyrizon Aviation, along with several other Chinese investors, has submitted the application to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

The plaintiffs have demanded compensation for unfair treatment of Chinese investors by Ukraine, which has resulted in significant losses in both Ukraine and China, Skyrizon announced in a WeChat post.

Chinese investors claim Ukrainian authorities have continually implemented illegal measures against the company, and say they are ready to use all possible legal tools to defend their legitimate rights.

In 2016, Skyrizon offered to purchase a 56% share in Zaporizhzhia-based Motor Sich, one of the world’s leading engine producers for airplanes and helicopters. The deal was aimed to help China fill a gap in aircraft engine manufacturing and for Ukraine to restart its own production.

Beijing Skyrizon Aviation had reportedly agreed to invest $250 million in the Ukrainian plants, and to set up an assembly and servicing plant in the southwest Chinese municipality of Chongqing.

In early 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine launched a criminal probe into Motor Sich over allegations the enterprise’s equipment had been exported to China. Trading of Motor Sich shares on the Ukrainian stock exchange was halted, and the register of shareholders was seized. As a result, the previously agreed deal failed to be completed. A court in Ukraine has also frozen 41% of Motor Sich shares controlled by the Chinese firm.

In January 2021, Kiev introduced sanctions against Chinese investors. The penalties included the blocking of assets, reduction of trade operations, partial or complete termination of transit of resources, and flights and transportation through the territory of Ukraine.

In March, a court in Kiev seized the entire assets and all the shares of the aerospace company. The company was reportedly transferred to a government body responsible for managing assets obtained through corruption and other crimes. Later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed an ordinance to nationalize Motor Sich.

According to a statement issued by China’s Skyrizon in January, the enterprise was illegally deprived of legal rights as a shareholder of Motor Sich and as a result suffered a huge economic loss shortly after the sanctions were imposed.

Half of Ukraine’s army has now been deployed to Donbass – Moscow

The Russian Federation proposes to start substantive negotiations to achieve legal guarantees of NATO's non-expansion to the East, Putin said - TASS wrote:

The Russians will probably never learn. They'll be begging for deals that the US won't give a shit about.

ATLASCUB wrote:

QED

I can´t find the word "deal" spoken by Putin. Instead he spoke about the lies and broken promises of the western saints.

Hole wrote:I can´t find the word "deal" spoken by Putin. Instead he spoke about the lies and broken promises of the western saints.

Putin has learned in 2014 to not trust the west and that the west won't respect any deal they sign.

Haters gonna hate.
Who cares?