Can anyone tell me what being gay or straight has to do with Russia and Ukraine? Or with leading any country? I must have missed something.
Lois
Whatever kind of dastardly creep Putin is, he has to have the support of a large bulk of the Russian people. So far, it appears he does. A tongue in cheek, but actual interview of some individual citizens on the Daily Show (during the Olympics) suggests that their ideologies would fit in nicely with those of some of our radical Tea Partiers.Much of it is largely out of fear, which is somewhat of a tradition in Russia going back to the Tsars. Ivan the Terrible as he was known in the west was known as Ivan the Awesome or Fearsome in Russia. Putin understands the use of violence and intimidation to control large populations, which was one of the key roles of the Soviet secret police throughout the length of the USSR. Putin came up through that system and obviously mastered its darker aspects. People understand what happens to those who question power in Putin's Russia such as Anna Polikovskaya.
The assassination of Anna Politkovskaya (born 1958), the Russian journalist, writer and human rights activist, took place on 7 October 2006. She was well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.[1][2] She authored several books about the Chechen wars, as well as Putin's Russia, and received numerous prestigious international awards for her work. Her murder, which occurred on Vladimir Putin's birthday, was widely perceived as a contract killing, sparking a strong international reaction.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politkovskaya Something else that Litvenenko stated was that under Putin the FSB was engaged in training terrorists one of which was involved in the 9/11 attacks. During the Cold War the USSR was a strong backer of groups attacking western nations, once again part of a culture that Putin comes from. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/6163502.stm
Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks.This was coming from a former FSB lieutenant-colonel who was most likely murdered with Po-210 by a Russian agent who is now being protected from prosecution by the Putin government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko So how dangerous is Putin, I think he's about as dangerous as you can get.
These words of Anna Politkovskaya seem prophetic.
Politkovskaya's book, Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy, strongly criticized Putin's federal presidency, including his pursuit of the Second Chechen War. She accused Putin and the Russian secret service FSB of stifling all civil liberties in order to establish a Soviet-style dictatorship, but admitted that "it is we who are responsible for Putin's policies": "Society has shown limitless apathy.... As the Chekists have become entrenched in power, we have let them see our fear, and thereby have only intensified their urge to treat us like cattle. The KGB respects only the strong. The weak it devours. We of all people ought to know that." She also wrote: "We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit."[3] "People often tell me that I am a pessimist, that I don't believe in the strength of the Russian people, that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that," she opens an essay titled Am I Afraid?, finishing it—and the book—with the words: "If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the 'optimistic' forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is the death sentence for our grandchildren.
Can anyone tell me what being gay or straight has to do with Russia and Ukraine? Or with leading any country? I must have missed something. LoisAs Occam posted, it started with post #11.
Ukraine in turmoil. Zelensky to fire top general Zaluzhny
Meanwhile china send troops to russia and openly supports its efforts in ukraine
Turmoil in ukraine. The Ukrainian President Zelenski has fired the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces General Zaluzny.
Zaluzny was replaced by General Syrski
Naked capitalism: Ukraine Collapse Starting. What Happens Next?
Ukraine with all that money and weapons supplied by the west is coming to its final inevitable conclusion .
Ukraine now resembles a patient with a terminal disease who is staring to exhibit multi-organ failure. His longevity is still uncertain but is measured in months, not years. It’s not obvious which system will go first and whether that one by itself will be fatal or will kick off the terminal cascade. But the odds of pulling out of the current trajectory are poor.
We’d like to step back and consider what Russia’s choices might be as Ukraine starts coming unglued.1 Many commentators are focusing on the question of territorial acquisition because it seems to be hard to get out of the habit of thinking that way. Recall that the object of war, per Clausewitz:
War therefore is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.
Russia may have a fundamental problem. It has arguably been Putin’s top objective, certainly with respect to the US and Europe, to come up with a new security architecture. That was the theme of his much-hated speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007: No one is safe until all of us are safe.
Russia is very far along with one of its key aims, demilitarizing Ukraine, by virtue of not only depleting weapons stocks across the West and producing armaments at a rate the West cannot match, but sadly also by killing or maiming many of Ukraine’s service-age men, and now even women. Ukraine is considering and likely to pass what amounts to a mass mobilization bill. The US is now also committed to arming Israel; it’s not clear, given rising criticism across Europe of Israel’s genocide, if and when its allies will cut back on weapons supplies given their supposed disapproval. While it was noteworthy that the hyper aggressive German defense minister, Annelina Baerbock, whose country is defending Israel at the ICJ, criticized Israel’s conduct in unvarnished terms. But the tweet below points out, Germany has not yet cut back on weapons supplies:
From bad to worse. Ukraine has defaulted
Merkel and Ukraine
Merkel indicates that Putin’s fear Kyiv could join Nato after she left office helped pave the way for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Anaylsis of the far right presence in eastern ukraine 2014 and the burning on the Odessa union burning burning alive 39 people.
Supposing it is true, the conclusion of the paper summary : " This paper implies that the far right has significant but not dominant role in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan.” But far right organizations and their armed units had a key role in major cases of political violence during and after the “Euromaidan,” and they attained ability to overthrow by force the government of the one of the largest European countries."
And i don’t understand why it is a provocation against Russia ?
About the Maidan revolution, from memory, Putin had bullied a government elected to conclude an agreement with west to conclude an agreement with Russia. the people revolted. I am not happy when an elected government which is not a dictatorship is overthrown by a revolt. But, effectively, when someone says no to a bully, it is a provocation to him. A bully cannot admit than a victim rebels.
Putin calling Ukraine fascist is the pot calling the kettle black. Putin is a fascist dictator:
The fourteen signs of fascism by Umberto Eco
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The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
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The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
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The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
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Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
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Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
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Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
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The obsession with a plot. “Thus, at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
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The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
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Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
10.Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
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Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
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Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality;
13; “Selective populism.” There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
- Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
No need to check the fourteen cases to be a fascist, and Putin checks quite a few of them.
Offering a better deal is bullying ? Thats you coping
.” But far right organizations and their armed units had a key role in major cases of political violence during and after the “Euromaidan,” and they attained ability to overthrow by force the government of the one of the largest European countries.
I honestly cannot follow what you’re trying to say. Your comments are mostly put downs of other comments. What exactly are you trying to say? Describe how Putin is a good leader and acting reasonably
The devil hides himself in details.
The matter was political. Ukrainian people wanted a deal with West.
And there were threats and other actions.
Conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation broke out following a political crisis in late November 2013. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to suspend the process which would have led to the signing of an Association Agreement with the European Union caused a popular movement called the “Revolution of Dignity” (Euromaidan).
In Crimea, masked Russian soldiers without insignia took control of all the strategic points in the region on 27 February 2014. On 16 March 2014, a “referendum” for independence and attachment to the Russian Federation was held. The international community did not recognize this annexation.
At the same time, a destabilization operation was launched in eastern Ukraine. In March 2014, armed groups without insignia under Russian control supported demonstrators calling for the independence of these regions. On 11 May, the de facto entities of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and of the “Luhansk People’s Republic” declared their independence following a “referendum”. This vote, held outside of the framework established by Ukrainian legislation and marred by a number of irregularities, was considered illegal by Ukraine and was not recognized by the international community (including the Russian Federation).
[A court view ](file:///C:/Users/Utilisateur/Downloads/Judgment%20Vyacheslavova%20and%20Others%20v.%20Ukraine%20-%20State%20negligence%20in%20clashes%20between%20Maidan%20supporters%20and%20opponents%20in%20Odesa%20in%20May%202014.pdf)
Before you try to pivot to post coup events , can you talk to your claim here?
Prove Yanukovich was bullied by Russia in his decision to sign up for Russia assistance rather than a decision based on economics when comparing what was offered by EU and what was offered by Russia
It was not the only factor is an answer to what question?
Where is the comparison of what the EU and Russia were offering to justify your bullying claim?
Ta
seems your post was addressed, except for specifics on your theory that it was an economic choice. I’ve never heard that one before so I think the burden of proof is on you. I didn’t go past the paywalls, and this isn’t my fight, but generally, I’ve heard lots about bullying and not much about a favorable economic offer by Russia. I’d be interested to hear the data to back that up of you have some.
Since you wont defend your bullying claim, why refer a list from someone on fascism that is ahistorical, apolitical and antiscience?
I have put links explaining that the deal proposed by Putin was not so sweet, that there was bullying and how, and that there were other factors explaining the Ukrainian president switch.
I thought you would read and comment them. You choose to ask me to give elements as if you had not read them. I don’t see any reason to give you again elements you would not take in account.
Commenting a link you gave, i added that:
Umberto Eco does no define fascism, he gives tips to recognize it. I constat that you don’t contest that Putin checks many cases.
Does it makes him a fascist, i am open to debate.
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