781–790 of 971 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russification does not give _any_ right over land. Russification was a crime of the Soviet Union and should be treated as such.
Yeah, like the Trail Of Tears in the USA, etc. But what do you do now? You can't just get the Tatars back, even if Crimea were made independent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your link [1]. He [Putin] became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming. This is also Putin and it is not singular. If you listen to hi…
> he became increasingly frustrated over the years that this was not done. This may be true, but I think it's more likely that he doesn't care about it at all. He is an opportunist, and back then the best opportunity was to criticize the U.S. and Europe by insisting on international law. Today, he is saying Europe is a fascist Nazi oppressor.
And a manipulator. He's the person who gossips in the background. He tells someone that guy over there just called you a name, and then says the same to the first guy. He's the type of person we all hate.
Great news. Utterly terrible man. Ruined Russia.
good riddance. he was an uneducated idiot, who is indirectly responsible for the millions that were killed in Afghanistan, in 1992. In 1989, when he pulled the red army out of Afghanistan--he also cut all aid to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. the then-president of DRA went to Moscow to persuade Garbageoff to not to do so, predicting that the terrorist zealots would overrun his government leading to chaos in…
Not to dimish your experience in any way, there are only a few things tgat are worse than that. Blaming all of it on Gorbatshev is too easy so. We cannot forget the US meddling in Afghan affairs, nor the fact the long term intervention of the West led to similar results. Nor wad the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan very kind on the Afghan people in general.
Well, since today we hear about Garbageoff, so I discussed my opinion from THIS side of things. For sure, many other "players" are also to blame for a lot of the mess my people have found themselves in.
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it is easy for you to speak for me, not having experienced war and famine directly. Also, on that Russian score you are wrong: after what he did, the ex-USSR population suffered devastating poverty. And you have the cheek to defend him. Are you a troll?
Westerners benefited directly from the downfall of the USSR. Gorbachev prolonged the American liberal world order at the expense of his people, to the West that makes him a great hero
"Arsenals of Folly" By Richard Rhodes is one of the best records of the Gorbachev era with respect to negotiations over arms reductions with Reagan (which resulted in a highly fractured US administration, with opponents (Cheney etc.) fighting advocates (Shultz etc.) over what policy Reagan should support), the immense effect of the Chernobyl disaster on the Soviet Union (something many nuclear energy proponents still…
I won't attempt to defend NATO interventions in other countries, but disbanding it like the Warsaw Pact was never a real option so long as Russia continued to maintain a significant military capability including nuclear weapons. The Warsaw Pact was never a real thing to begin with. It was a total fiction, not a voluntary alliance of (somewhat) equal sovereign states like NATO. All of the other Warsaw Pact members wer…
that’s not completely accurate. e.g. Romania even publicly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia. They didn’t support Russian foreign policy that much in the 70’s and 80’s either with no direct consequences.
While obviously it was Moscow keeping the communists in charge, the local dictators supported the suppression of the reforms in Cezhoslovakia largely out of self-interest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From your link [1]. He [Putin] became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming. This is also Putin and it is not singular. If you listen to hi…
So when putin claims casus belli over another nation's land due to previous ownership a whole bunch of times, you just disregard it because of something he _didn't_ say years ago? The tactic of "rules for thee but not for me" is as old as time. The implication that putin wants russia to actually be held to the same standards as he is trying to get other nations held to - all the while fomenting war on his borders and…
I know that he supposedly said things more in line with your point on other occasions but I never came across something that convincingly provided support for this point of view. Can you provide sources?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/full-tran...
RIP Gorbachev, one of the few genuinely good people in politics. After he retired from politics, he was featured in several advertisements: - In 1994 for Apple Computer: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/10/07/The-first-advertisem... - In 1998 for Pizza Hut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbachev_Pizza_Hut_commercial - In 2000 for the ÖBB, the Austrian railways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLscz8kEg6c - In 2007…
Not sure where you were back in the 80s, but he is one of the etalons of a horrible, corrupt politician.