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[nenjin]

World: We kick you out of the Human Rights Council
Russia: We withdraw from the currupt and politicized institution called the Human Rights Council.


Really, they don't care about anything. Being kicked out of Swift? No problemo. Kicked out of the Council of Europe? We never liked it anyways. Cut of gas and oil? Pssst China and India wtb cheap oil?

We need to come up with things that will hit them hard where they feel it.

Dear Russia. End this war, withdraw your forces and repent, or we will be forced to DELETE ALL YOUR POKEMON ACCOUNTS.
Think of all the years of careful breeding. Lost forever, in the blink of an eye.
The clouds in the sky will echo for years, your collective wails of suka blyet.

That's the thing with nations that have experienced deprivation and suffering......they're immune to most leverage that would otherwise affect other nations.

[Imic]

I'm pretty sure this is like 99% gaslighting. Putting up a strong face, pretending that every single thing done isn't in any way affecting them. As far as I can tell, that's definitely not the case inside Russia, since, y'know, their trading capabilities are being reduced with every passing day...

[The_Explorer]

Since India increased their trade of arms to/from russia and increased buying oil from them and refuses to condemn russia at all, and china has done the same...

time to sanction all of them

It truly is west vs east as far as I see. Very surprising india joined russia/china though, thought they were more allied to the west tbh

[MaxTheFox]

My Indian friend says it's cringe and that India should have condemned Russia, and so does my Bhutanese friend who otherwise simps for India.

[heydude6]

From what I heard, India is dependant on Russian food exports. If they backed out of Russia, the people would literally starve. That’s what I’ve heard at least, so I’m surprised by your Indian friends reaction.

[MaxTheFox]

Me either, I understand completely why they did it out of realpolitik reasons, and I highly suspect that he would still do nothing if he was in power, but I didn't question him more about it.

[Strongpoint]

My friend from the armed forces said that they received an order to check captured Russian hardware for radiation before reusing it. Those morons moved thousands of pieces of equipment through Chornobyl zone.

[MaxTheFox]

Between that and the "digging trenches in the Red Forest" thing, it baffles me how they don't know about what makes Chernobyl deadly.

[Strongpoint]

This "calm before the storm" is driving me crazy. The second Russian offensive has the potential to be even bloodier than the first one.

Russian generals, sadly, are doing something sensible for a change. They are amassing all they got in one theater to punch through.

My hope is that they will do the usual Russian thing and instead of rational operation with a steady pace, they'll go for "achieve the victory before May 9th no matter the cost."

[Starver]

Bringing this here because it's personal opinion rather than properly sourced news (with or without a depth of opinion behind it). I also hadn't previously PTWed, so that's another good reason to break my duck here...

Even Silvio Berlusconi is turning his back on Putin.

Ex-Italian PM 'deeply disappointed' by Putin's behaviour

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that he was "deeply disappointed and saddened" by the behaviour of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

When he was in power, Berlusconi had a close friendship with Putin, and invited him on vacation to his villa in Sardinia.

"I've known him about 20 years ago and he always seemed to me to be a democrat and a man of peace," the 85-year-old billionaire said, addressing a convention of his conservative Forza Italia party in Rome.

[...]

He's not the only one who liked Putin 20 years ago. Almost everyone up to the level of Dubya himself (if you think that's a bonus!) pretty much supported Putin's work in that era.


After the post-Gorbachev reallignment and the 'interesting' blips further along the way, it seemed like Putin was realligning the Russia Federation into 'the real world', and in a number of regards he probably did. Which is not to say he was the answer to the problem, but he was an answer to it.

Possibly, if he had accomplished that and then moved away having passed power onwards to (hopefully) a continuation of that progress, he might have been considered a great man. But then he decided to play the hokey-cokey with the leadership of his nation, so that he could return to the top position (having really never having gone away) and then even reorganise matters so that he didn't have to fuss about with such technicalities. Whether he had the idea from the beginning, I don't know, but he seems to have ended up with the need to be an extremely great man (by his own measure).

I think I've said it before, but I'm wondering how much of the latest turn of events is down to his actually realising his own mortality (maybe an adverse diagnosis?), and he thought he saw an opportunity to buff his legacy up to the greatest level he can. But he's abandoned the "play nicely with the rest of the world" a number of years ago. How long ago, is debatable. Maybe even it was a long-game plan even back to the twenty years ago, or maybe it just inexoribly evolved from a genuine outward-facing perspective that ended up twisting backwards into the more nationalistic/self-centred attitude that we see today.

Future historians will have fun deconstructing this, especially if they ever get access to the kind of information that currently is not public knowledge, or even currently confirmable in any way at all. But I reckon that there'll be a point in time somewhere between 2000 and 2008 that will be the trigger-point.

(I mean, it's all well and good to be pro-<InsertYourOwnCountryHere>, but it seems this has landed on entirely the wrong side of the zero-sum assumption, which is already a net destructive attitude.)

[martinuzz]

Russian generals, sadly, are doing something sensible for a change. They are amassing all they got in one theater to punch through.

Sounds like time for US friends to supply a few MOAB fuel air bombs.

[brewer bob]

He's not the only one who liked Putin 20 years ago. Almost everyone up to the level of Dubya himself (if you think that's a bonus!) pretty much supported Putin's work in that era.

Yeah, the world's leaders were a bunch of nasty assholes at that time (don't mean to say they're any better now). Everyone was using the War on Terror as an excuse to pass new laws, which could easily be used against social movements (the growing so-called anti-globalization movement lost its momentum and died pretty much after the September 11th attacks).

After the post-Gorbachev reallignment and the 'interesting' blips further along the way, it seemed like Putin was realligning the Russia Federation into 'the real world', and in a number of regards he probably did. Which is not to say he was the answer to the problem, but he was an answer to it.

Possibly, if he had accomplished that and then moved away having passed power onwards to (hopefully) a continuation of that progress, he might have been considered a great man.

Dunno, Putin was a pretty awful, horrible man already when he rose to power (under a bit sketchy circumstances, but maybe that goes a bit too much into conspiracy theories). He didn't really waste any time to take control of the media and pass new laws aimed to suppress dissenting views. Human rights violations were his thing since day one.

[JoshuaFH]

ptw

[Strongpoint]

IMO, Putin is unimportant now. Russian society wants a big victory and if he will try to stop the war without it, then he will be removed from power and the war will continue.

[MaxTheFox]

Ehhhhh many people I talked to just want the war to end. X to doubt.