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[10ebbor10]

Well, there's still the Paralympics.

[kaian-a-coel]

News from the french media:
Apparently EU is basically split in two parts: countries from ex-URSS, and contries not from ex-URSS. The later being more lenient than the former, understandably. And then there's Germany, belonging to both groups, and seen as the prominent negociator.
So everybody's relying on Merkel, apparently.
Side note, Merkel grew in Eastern Germany, and Putin was in the german KGB and speak german fluently, so there's that.

Another thing: the same media said that Merkel has a dog phobia, and that Putin, knowing that very well, had his dog come and sit at Merkel's feet during a meeting. Can't remember when the meeting was though. If that's true Putin is one step closer to being a Bond villain than I thought.

All of this is from french TV.

[olemars]

Russian Stock market index got -9.5% today and falling.   I wonder why?

Olympics are over. Meaning fewer tourists and therefore less commerce.

The plunge is mainly Gazprom and other big export companies. There's a lot of mention that Russia has leverage through it's natural gas exports to Ukraine and the rest of Europe, but it's often forgotten that the Russian economy depends a lot on actually selling the stuff.

[Darvi]

Russian Stock market index got -9.5% today and falling.   I wonder why?

Olympics are over. Meaning fewer tourists and therefore less commerce.

The plunge is mainly Gazprom and other big export companies. There's a lot of mention that Russia has leverage through it's natural gas exports to Ukraine and the rest of Europe, but it's often forgotten that the Russian economy depends a lot on actually selling the stuff.

Please don't go ruining my jokes with your research D:

[10ebbor10]

Another thing: the same media said that Merkel has a dog phobia, and that Putin, knowing that very well, had his dog come and sit at Merkel's feet during a meeting. Can't remember when the meeting was though. If that's true Putin is one step closer to being a Bond villain than I thought.

Yeah that happened. It was in 2007 though.

popular anecdote is of when the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel met Vladimir Putin, Putin brought Koni to their meetings. On 21 January 2007, the two leaders met at Bocharov Ruchei, the President's summer residence in Sochi and at the beginning of their meeting Koni wandered into the room, leading Putin to ask Merkel, who was afraid of dogs, "The dog does not bother you, does she? She's a friendly dog and I'm sure she will behave herself." Merkel responded in Russian, a language in which she is fluent, "She doesn't eat journalists, after all."[24] Koni then proceeded to sniff the German Chancellor, and sat at her feet. Merkel was reported to have shown "apparent discomfort".[25]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Max White]

To be fair, any decent Bond villain would have fed her to a dog, or better yet a half man half dog biological experiment... Still, early days for Putin, I'm sure he is still getting around to the space death beams and giant vats of acid.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Very disturbing videos of pro russian protest in Kharkiv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHjD8MnuYxI

Well, yeah, like some of us have been saying, this is to Russify Crimea, not free it. They will be killing, deporting, and suppressing anyone that will not adhere to the Putin plan for democracy^tm.

I wonder why are you so intent on believing the worst things our opponents say about us without any kind of justification. Have you had any experience with "Russian imperialism" before, in your life? "My ancestors were shot by commies" does not count: so were mine.

This is what I am talking about - nobody ever considers the possibility that Russia is right, instead trying to drown us in a torrent of pretty words about sovereignty and democracy - words nobody speaks when it comes to us.
I also have no idea where you have gathered the experience that Crimea requires this kind of "Russification". And you had no problem with its Ukrainization in the previous twenty years - maybe because you have never heard of it.

I care about the rights of the people of Crimea - not People with a capital "P", but people I personally know. I know what they think - they have told me. You gentlemen can go back to citing sources, and UR can go back to spewing unrealistic propaganda at people who have no real interest in this conflict, because the lives and rights of their relatives and friends are not on the line - he seems to be managing fine, given that it's his principal pastime here on B12.

I am off, because this discussion is making me angry and bad. I'll go back to waiting for news and being a happy, friendly FG&RP person. Those esteemed Western gentlemen can resume consumption of popcorn and indignant discussions of Nazi, ethnic-cleansing Russia (people live here, you know), and my Slavic brethren (do you find this funny?) may resume trying to tear each other's throats out, as always. Whoever wants to know my opinion can read my first post in this thread.

Putin, siccing dogs on the German chancellor. Are you people insane? There's a war nearly on, and you are discussing whether Putin's a Bond villain. Goes to show the amount of thought you put into this.

Good day.

[10ebbor10]

Are you people insane?

Probably.

[Darvi]

General consensus is, that while most of us are clinically sane, many are pretty unhinged. Nice ad hominem though.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Avis-Mergulus, You see... Russia got some reputation. And Russia worked hard to get that reputation. You dislike that some people here view your nation as some kind of Empire of Evil?  I would dislike it too. But if you dislike some kind of reputation: Act to change it. Your words in this topic serve directly exactly opposite goal.

As for humor and stuff:
Let's not forget that for majority of posters that war is as important as war in Syria important for us.

Maintaining good sense of humor is essential in stressful situations. Ukrainian Internet is full of jokes. I am fully supporting jokes in the thread

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Well, the jokes've been one-sided so far. But eh, thanks for being courteous Avis.

[DJ]

I think the likes of Hungarians or Poles have plenty of justification to assume the worst about Russia.

Anyway. speaking as a Bosnian, I think that partitioning countries along the ethnic lines can only result in disaster.

[smurfingtonthethird]

Best case scenario: Putin pulls out of his botched plan to take Sevastopol and its ports for military power, cause the G7 pressures him.

Worst case scenario: A chain of allies type-thing leads to a third world war. Not fucking good, especially if someone whips out the nuclear weapons. Bad.

I agree with you Avis, but Putin could have handled this far, far better. Literally invading a country's sovereign territory with a PMC and sparking the ol' european tinderbox right after a civil war is not going to help anyone, pro-russian or anti-russian.

[Sheb]

My dad was bombed by Russian jets in Tbilisi in 2008, does that count?

Russia IS wrong. There is no ground for sending troops into Ukraine now. Crimeans may not like the Kiev government, but it's not like they're at immediate risk of genocide or something. As we said, nearly all of us support the right for Crimeans to determinate their future. (despite the fact that international law doesn't, but hey lawful doesn't mean right). This means that their future should be determined by Crimeans, with a referendum, not by Russian troops.

DJ: wouldn't one of Bosnia's problem be that the partition wasn't complete, leaving you with that clusterfuck of Bosnian-Croat federation and Republica Sprska? (By the way, are Serbs allergic to vowels or something?)

GrizzlyAdamz: We had joke about the protesters too, with the stuff like "Age of Maidan". But right now, Putin's probably the best joke target around.

[DJ]

There was no way to draw clean borders in Bosnia, you'd always have lots of villages stuck in a part that's been assigned to a different ethnicity. The only way to make it clean was to allow ethnic cleansing to be finished. Crimea is looking pretty similar to me in this regard.

And Serbs use names like that because they're *evil*.