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Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

theguardian.com

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Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#51

Post by NicoJuicy »

roelschroeven wrote: post #46
NicoJuicy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's utter bullshit and i'll tell you why: Russia has been severly weakened by democratic Europe. They have lost an insane amount of area since the fall of USSR and Europe has never been "closer" to Moscow, their capital. They are now getting punished for actions of last resort. Eg. Invading Ukraine, because otherwise their entire naval fleed would be rendered useless, since it couln't even go out. Russia is weak,…

Are they really getting punished for Ukraine though? My impression is that Europe by and large does almost nothing, partly out of fear of getting cut of from Russian gas. There are some economical sanctions, yes, but do they hurt Russia? More than they hurt Europe's farmers? If there's any punishment, it certainly is not effective. Russia still occupies large parts of Ukraine (even some areas outside of the Crimea).

They aren't getting punished enough, that's a fact.

And currently Europe is subsidizing green energy a lot, so it's a slow process. If i'm not mistaking, Ukrain is becoming more and more anti-Russia.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#52

Post by netsharc »

simonh wrote: post #49
toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

I see your point with respect to the US, there's a very corporatist oligarchic tendency on the right, but I really don't see that in Europe at all. Europe has gone to great lengths to stand up to corporations, and that includes many European conservatives of which I count myself one. There's a much broader acceptance among moderate European conservatives that regulation is essential to well functioning market economi…

I commented to a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23676128

Well, Merkel is "pro-business". Even she said auto dealers could reopen after a few weeks of lockdown, because of the German car lobby (it's sort of defensible if one considers automotive jobs are a big chunk of voters too). Meanwhile LuxLeaks is about tax breaks/evasion to the biggest corporations.

Sadly, with this sort of elite, populists have it easy...

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#53

Post by dreen »

roenxi wrote: post #11
maharajatever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit that you miss is that the people who had the misfortune to live in the Russian "sphere of influence" did not want, and will never want to be in it. The former Russian "spheres of influence" are very happy to be out of it, and terrified by the prospect of finding themselves drawn into it.

I am the first person to criticise the Russian sphere of influence. They did a terrible job from the rise of the proletariat through to today. Even I could do a better job if left to administer the country. However to call them aggressors is a total perversion of the word aggression. Their posture is backs-to-the-wall defensive in relation to Western powers.

They are absolutely aggressors, and the defensive posturing is something they (Russian leaders) have used for centuries to excuse aggression. Their armies never conquer, they "liberate". This is not a tactic unique to them, but one they excel in.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#54

Post by willvarfar »

eukgoekoko wrote: post #36

> by a coterie of former KGB officers, or "siloviki" "Siloviki" are not exactly KGB officers, "silovik" is a name for every security, military or intelligence serviceman which is accurately described in the linked article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/20/west-p... It's fun to see how Guardian keeps playing Chinese whispers.

The article gets the gist across. If articles were written with caveats and exactness galore, it wouldn't be readable.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#55

Post by lnsru »

toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

Well, Putin is a trained spy. As I read Viktor Suvorov books, I see, that Soviet Union provided decent training and these people know how to reach their goals.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#56

Post by konart »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #45
gear54rus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might be the most powerful in current soviet union that is CIS. However I fail to see how he can be the most powerful in the world given that USA surpasses russia in both military and economic might (which are pretty much the same thing if you think about it). Russia has no answer to sanctions and those counter-sanctions are just a delusion. USA can make many other countries respect the sanctions due to dollar bei…

Russia's economy is the sum of 3 countries in Europe ( I think France, Belgium and Netherlands would do) and they redirect an insane amount of their GDP % to military. But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_militar...

>But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union.

>Post link to aircrafts stats only

While it is true that Russia is behind the other major players on modernisation - russian military does get new toys quite often these days on a stable basis.

Same goes for upgrading old T-72 tanks for example. What's the point of building armada of Armata if modernised T-72 has basically the same capabilities as T-90 which is more than enough in most scenarios? T-72 Where used in Ukraine and Russia was able to get enough data from operations to do some improvements to the machines and even to upgrade the majority of them even before the 'hot' part of the conflict was over for them.

Also how did you count the size of the economy exactly?

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#57

Post by NicoJuicy »

konart wrote: post #56
NicoJuicy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's economy is the sum of 3 countries in Europe ( I think France, Belgium and Netherlands would do) and they redirect an insane amount of their GDP % to military. But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_militar...

>But even then their army is ancient and mostly predates the fall of Soviet Union. >Post link to aircrafts stats only While it is true that Russia is behind the other major players on modernisation - russian military does get new toys quite often these days on a stable basis. Same goes for upgrading old T-72 tanks for example. What's the point of building armada of Armata if modernised T-72 has basically the same cap…

You can use wolfram alpha to get their GDP and re-calculate my statement.

And considering Russia is marketing their Jets heavily to everyone, i think the aircraft stats are enough to make it obvious how ancient their army actually is ( majority is ~ 50 years old).

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#58

Post by pritovido »

toyg wrote: post #39

Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…

Putin is hated outside of Russia but is loved in Russia, because he cares about Russian interest first.

Russia is the biggest country in the world. Has so many natural resources so has always been coveted by Empires: The French one and the German, now the US and financial elites Empire.

It also counterweights US military power, something the US does not tolerate, they need to to destroy it like Roman Empire had to destroy Carthage in order to secure its hegemony.

The president of Russia that would make US media happy is the kind of president that would make Russian people unhappy. A puppet from foreign powers.

They want to break Russia in 10 or 20 pieces so they become much weaker and they can benefit bidding against each other.

Your arguments are deeply flawed and based in dogmatism, not data. Western interest does not welcome Putin's money, Russia has very little money compared with Europe, the US and even China, it is a poor country.

They care about energy and resources because in Germany people can not survive in Winter without energy. Is that simple. The industry also could not survive.

Oh, and by the way the Russian also have nuclear weapons that could destroy Western countries in seconds. That also gives them influence.

Nothing to do with capitalism. Several European countries spend more money in the public sector than in the private one, so you can call them socialist instead.

With either socialism or capitalism, in Germany or Sweden you get -30 C in Winter. I was raised in a country with -(1-5)C and it is a completely different league.

I am not Russian myself but completely understand their position.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#59

Post by Synaesthesia »

dgellow wrote: post #35
roenxi wrote: post #4

> The revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine of 2004-5 fed Putin’s “dark paranoia” that the Kremlin was threatened by a western plot to topple his regime. The Kremlin has subsequently revelled in escalating conflicts with the western powers as a marker of Russia’s newly regained stature on the world stage. The US has spent a generation pushing first the Soviets, then Russia, back into a very tightly confined sphere of in…

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. I don’t know what else you want them to do to be considered aggressors.

What about the western backed coup in Ukraine and the fact that in eastern Ukraine the people asked Russia to intervene.

Re: Putin's People – a groundbreaking study that follows the money

#60

Post by chaoz_ »

Russia is losing points in the tech innovation category, but is definitely leading in the autocracy innovation.

As Sergei Guriev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Guriev) pointed out, the regime will perish when government will have to pay too much for the information war and the population simple won't be able to satisfy their basic needs (empty fridge).

This is quite scary.

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