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And yet all of Russias neighbours are now courting China, Kazakhstan especially. And also Russia is content with becoming a vassal gas station for China as long

And yet all of Russias neighbours are now courting China, Kazakhstan especially. And also Russia is content with becoming a vassal gas station for China as long as it gets to play as a faux empire and slaughter both its citizens and its brother nation's citizens in an industrial meat grinder. 5D chess as the youngsters say these days

thriftwy 3y ago
China is not so dangerous in this regard because it is not appealing. It has great amount of economic power, but culturally it is very insular, plus the story of Chinese Uighurs, making people (in Central Asia especially) wary of fully embracing the Chinese Way. Not so with Europe, which is culturally dominant, and many countries around Russia would love to fully embrace the EU, if EU is willing to take effort. But this is shitty deal for Russia since it was never invited to any such schemes and will lose cultural and economic influence. It's also not all rosy for target countries' population, but it's acceptable and Europe can make it look great. For Russians it will always look that they cut family bonds for sugar daddy, though. That has sufficient stigma that would explain why Russian population still does not mind the war. Russia has the Snow White's Evil Queen role assigned here, who is uninvited to the party but crashes it. And boy does Russia embraces this role, unfortunately. "5D checkers" is the term.
- fellin 3y ago
  Tell me. Had russia treated its neighbors well, not genocided them for centuries on end, enslaved and taken liberties from them. Would they then maybe feel different about russia? Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Baltics, all the Stans. Everyone has been been attacked by russia over the centuries. Centuries before putin was born. The biggest problem of course is that russia is STILL doing that. Attacked Georgia, attacked Ukraine, is threatening to attack Baltics again. There is no sign that russia can be trusted to treat it's neighbors well or be a responsible member of a world where human rights are being valued. This is completely on russia itself, trying to play the victim is not going to work as everyone has tried to accomodate russia. Germans thought that wandel-durch-handel tried to make russia to understand that trade is more profitable than war, but this was proven to be hopelessly naive.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - fellin 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - thriftwy 3y ago
        The West should not pretend they wanted Russia in their camp then. Not talking about faults. "Your fault is that I want to eat", as Krylov's wolf said to a lamb. Russia just wasted at least 15 years on that bullshit that it could productively spend, as you have framed it, genociding and enslaving people. Now have stuff to catch up.
        fellin 3y ago
        [flagged]
        thriftwy 3y ago
        From Russian perspective, everybody is trespassing on our lands. We tried voluntary giving independence to these regions, which belonged to Russia by right, on assumption they respond with gratitude and uphold the rights of Russians and living there and Russian culture. Here they are now, telling tales about how they were genocided and enslaved. Now the prevailing idea is that we should take that independence back whether possible. One teeny tiny examples, Russian Empire has secured the lands which are now contested Southern Ukraine, from Donetsk to Odessa. These were nomad-raided steppes with barely any population. Russian Empire secured them and let Ukrainians settle these new lands alongside other ethnicities (Greeks, Jews and of course Russians), and just two centuries later, Ukrainians refuse to acknowledge that and seek to forcibly assimilate all other ethnicities there. Now it is obvious that Ukrainian autonomy during the USSR was a costly mistake. They were gifted these lands for settlement and now they tell fairy tales about centuries of genocide. They were permitted to settle there among others and now they have driven everybody else away. But the situation with Baltic states is in fact even worse. What happened to Baltic Jews? Baltic Germans? Baltic Russians? :))

thriftwy 3y ago

China is not so dangerous in this regard because it is not appealing. It has great amount of economic power, but culturally it is very insular, plus the story of Chinese Uighurs, making people (in Central Asia especially) wary of fully embracing the Chinese Way. Not so with Europe, which is culturally dominant, and many countries around Russia would love to fully embrace the EU, if EU is willing to take effort. But this is shitty deal for Russia since it was never invited to any such schemes and will lose cultural and economic influence. It's also not all rosy for target countries' population, but it's acceptable and Europe can make it look great. For Russians it will always look that they cut family bonds for sugar daddy, though. That has sufficient stigma that would explain why Russian population still does not mind the war. Russia has the Snow White's Evil Queen role assigned here, who is uninvited to the party but crashes it. And boy does Russia embraces this role, unfortunately. "5D checkers" is the term.

fellin 3y ago
Tell me. Had russia treated its neighbors well, not genocided them for centuries on end, enslaved and taken liberties from them. Would they then maybe feel different about russia? Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Baltics, all the Stans. Everyone has been been attacked by russia over the centuries. Centuries before putin was born. The biggest problem of course is that russia is STILL doing that. Attacked Georgia, attacked Ukraine, is threatening to attack Baltics again. There is no sign that russia can be trusted to treat it's neighbors well or be a responsible member of a world where human rights are being valued. This is completely on russia itself, trying to play the victim is not going to work as everyone has tried to accomodate russia. Germans thought that wandel-durch-handel tried to make russia to understand that trade is more profitable than war, but this was proven to be hopelessly naive.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - fellin 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      The West should not pretend they wanted Russia in their camp then. Not talking about faults. "Your fault is that I want to eat", as Krylov's wolf said to a lamb. Russia just wasted at least 15 years on that bullshit that it could productively spend, as you have framed it, genociding and enslaving people. Now have stuff to catch up.
      - fellin 3y ago
        [flagged]
        thriftwy 3y ago
        From Russian perspective, everybody is trespassing on our lands. We tried voluntary giving independence to these regions, which belonged to Russia by right, on assumption they respond with gratitude and uphold the rights of Russians and living there and Russian culture. Here they are now, telling tales about how they were genocided and enslaved. Now the prevailing idea is that we should take that independence back whether possible. One teeny tiny examples, Russian Empire has secured the lands which are now contested Southern Ukraine, from Donetsk to Odessa. These were nomad-raided steppes with barely any population. Russian Empire secured them and let Ukrainians settle these new lands alongside other ethnicities (Greeks, Jews and of course Russians), and just two centuries later, Ukrainians refuse to acknowledge that and seek to forcibly assimilate all other ethnicities there. Now it is obvious that Ukrainian autonomy during the USSR was a costly mistake. They were gifted these lands for settlement and now they tell fairy tales about centuries of genocide. They were permitted to settle there among others and now they have driven everybody else away. But the situation with Baltic states is in fact even worse. What happened to Baltic Jews? Baltic Germans? Baltic Russians? :))