Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want to be extremely cynical and seek to strictly extend and project the USA's power as harshly and effectively as possible, the war in Ukraine was God's gift to the USA. They get to basically take out Russia (China's key geopolitical ally) without losing a single American life, for a tiny fraction of the amount they're used to spending on wars. And yet it's American nationalists themselves who want it all to…
That rhetoric, outside of being sociopathic, is also almost certainly just not true. I'm sure you've also been watching this war play out. When Russia first invaded their army was disorganized, relatively ineffective, and on extremely unstable footing. And when NATO entered the picture there was genuine fear about Western weaponry. Now Russia's military is much more effective, the visage of dominance of Western weapo…
Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
221–230 of 359 posts
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not just that. Russia is going to confiscate all Western assets in Russia as a counter measure. Valued roughly at 200B USD, mainly owned by EU countries. Yandex would lose their Russian business in any case.
With that is goodbye to any chance of wider Europe investing in Russia for the next century. I hope India takes notice because so far they seemed to have cared little about the blood on their hands.
- Russia still gets far less than they got from the European countries, because no one else is willing to take it, and Europe still gets part of the resources we need
- The money Russia gets is basically useless, cause so much Rupees are not freely convertible. They sit on a big stash of money that they cannot use to buy the things they need (cause they'd need Dollars or Euros for that)
I don't think the second part was intentional on Indias part (I believe them when they say they don't care about Europe - which is something we should remember in all future interactions. Fair trade? Yes. Favors for 'friends'? Not one), but it seems to work out well.
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite! The immediate history here plays a huge role in where we're at today. In the 2014 the US backed a [coup, revolution, insurrection - whatever you want to call it] in Ukraine that saw their democratically elected pro-Russian President overthrown. Numerous Ukrainian territories that also leaned pro-Russia refused to recognize the new government and declared their independence, the Donbas region and Crimea amo…
None if this is true. For example, the "pro-Russian President" wasn't overthrown. At Russian pressure, he ditched a very favorable trade agreement with the EU that would've opened up many new business opportunities for Ukrainians. When protesters assembled, he ordered police snipers to shoot at them, killing 108 people. He fled to Russia the next day and Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him from office, and sched…
Even the end of it all was quite odd. There was a settlement agreed upon, but far right types refused to accept anything short of the President's ouster, and the government was then subsequently directly threatened by the now in control "protesters". Following said threats riot police and others that were guarding the presidential compound "vanished." [3] And it was in this context that Yanukovych fled. Had he not, he probably would have been killed.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#Detailed...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidan_casualties#Identity_of_...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#Agreemen...
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia, so unfortunately these "Western assets" need to be written off anyway. A large part of them ($98bn) came from Cyprus which might just be round-tripping Russian money.
All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's deep animosity between Russia and much of the West. It's very easy for Americans to shrug their shoulders and say "we don't care it's a long way away", regardless of whether or not that would be a historic surrender for the global hegemon, but we Europeans cannot. It's on our doorstep. Russia has not just attacked Ukraine, but all of Europe. There will never be normalised relations with Russia whilst…
I wonder when you will arrive at the understanding that if Russia is not going to have more revolutions, then you are going to have to live alongside Russia on the tiniest of continents and it would be best for both sides to learn how. Is's not like you're going in with a military action and capturing Volgograd, after all. Adolf Hitler could be neutralized by capturing Berlin. Good luck dealing with Russia that way.
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia After 9/11, the US maintained productive relations with the Saudis. They're actively supporting Israel through the Gaza business. They have a long history of propping up dictators and thrashing countries for hard-to-articulate reasons (I still don't get exactly what the point of Afghanistan or Iraq was, even accepting the blunt "oil" that is sometime…
What exactly does seeking a "quick peace" solution look like in an aggressor without casus belli invading a sovereign nation?
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Russia unambiguously occupies territory in Ukraine, starting the Ukrainian conflict. Israel is unambiguously occupying PA territory.
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite! The immediate history here plays a huge role in where we're at today. In the 2014 the US backed a [coup, revolution, insurrection - whatever you want to call it] in Ukraine that saw their democratically elected pro-Russian President overthrown. Numerous Ukrainian territories that also leaned pro-Russia refused to recognize the new government and declared their independence, the Donbas region and Crimea amo…
So do you think all of Russia's annexations should be recognised by the international community?
Like imagine if in 2020 the January 6th rioters had somehow managed to overthrow the government and get Trump in office again. It would seem, to me, perfectly reasonable for e.g. California to then say 'No thank you.' and refuse to acknowledge his authority. That probably would have led to a civil war but if you're asking what I think - it's that people in such scenarios (which, granted, are not so easy to define) ought be allowed to decide their own fate.
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#229Just don't fuck up the image search. That's the best tool out there, but in the last few months, it got worse :(.
Google image search went from good to dead in the past ~2 years, first they've hidden the features like search on image, or jump to image, then they completely removed them.
Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia unambiguously occupies territory in Ukraine, starting the Ukrainian conflict. Israel is unambiguously occupying PA territory.
While the matter of PA might be controversial, Israel is unambigously occupying Syrian territory - that is, the Golan Heights.