Alexei Navalny has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#141

Post by KingOfCoders » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:51 PM UTC

vaylian wrote: post #126

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia really is not to be feared. The Ukraine war is a tragedy and I hope it ends soon. But they have no economical & military power to really do any harm the Europe & the US. Putin makes a lot of noise but really can't even win a few km's in Ukraine. But the real threat is further east. China is slowly building it's empire, and it's a scary one. Taking over parts of Africa. Migrating it's people. Integrating it's t…

> But they have no economical & military power to really do any harm the Europe & the US. Putin makes a lot of noise but really can't even win a few km's in Ukraine. Let's see how the situation in Avdiivka develops in the next few weeks. Ukraine is reinforcing the area, but it doesn't look good. We've seen plenty of blunders by the russian army. But you should not underestimate your enemy.

Avdiivka will fall next week.

Putin (and the Russian (leaderhsip) culture in general, see Stalin) is this:

What are a 100M (of our) people dead if we own Ukraine/Baltics/East Poland/Georgia/... for the next hundreds of years?

Stalin had the same blunders, thats priced in, the Red Army had meat wave attacks in WW2 and lost millions, but achived all it's war goals (Poland, Baltics, Eastern Europe including half of Germany - only the US achieved all it's war goals too, everyone else lost, sadly Poland had the biggest loss).

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#142

Post by kranke155 » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #119

cedws wrote: post #104

Incredibly sad. Navalny had balls of steel to stand up to a murderous dictator like he did. It feels like it was all for nought. Putin kills another opposition figure and nobody bats an eye.

> nobody bats an eye That's not the problem. Here we are all batting our eyes, but that doesn't help. Thousands of Russians went out to the streets to protest the war and got arrested without making a difference. I'm very unclear on what kind of sacrifice would be required at this stage to change the situation in Russia.

A full general strike of some kind. But Putin is popular and so is the war. Russia is a top 10 world economy, rivalling Germany in GDP PPP.

This article "The Majority Never Had It So Good", was enlightening for me about the situation in interior Russia: https://russiapost.info/regions/majority

Effectively a lot of stuff we talk about (no more travel, hard to get money outside of Russia) is meaningless to many Russians, many of which are getting good money to go fight in the war.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#143

Post by rsynnott » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

profunctor wrote: post #6

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #4

Unbelievable. The world just watches.

What do you want to world to do? Russia is already under increasingly crippling sanctions and many countries are funding + arming its opponent in a war.

The sanctions on Russia can be ratcheted up a lot more, though there are risks to this.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#144

Post by cglace » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

The (small) upside of all this missery, death and pain is Europe will lose some territory but gain it's own military security after decades of living from the US strategy alignment. Countries like Poland will no longer buy US weapons but increase European defense spending - they fear just like Ukraine that US congress just turns around and will stop delivering parts for F-35s in a conflict [0]. The US lost all it's t…

The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault. The one bill that was blocked by Congress would be more support than Europe as a whole has provided to Ukraine to date.

While I agree that European countries should start to take their defense seriously I don't see how you fault US support of Ukraine.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#145

Post by kranke155 » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

belter wrote: post #34

A little reminder of what Putin has been up to in the last few years. - Annexation of Crimea (2014) - MH17 Downing (2014) - Intervention in Syria - 2016 U.S. Election Interference - Skripal Poisoning (2018) - Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws - Navalny Poisoning (2020) - Wagner Group Activities - Invasion of Ukraine (2022) - Killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin (2023) - Killing of Alexei Navalny (2024) What is necessary for US and European L…

We were always at war with Russia.

And I mean this in sad, sombre way. Russian imperialism has never really stopped, it just had an interregnum in the form of a drunkard President, who was promptly replaced.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#146

Post by pearjuice » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #110

pearjuice wrote: post #63

[flagged]

Yes, all the same, UK prison cells and Russian Gulag with people tortured and worked to death. There is no difference between a $10 fine for parking in the wrong spot and the death sentence. The later is just a little bit more "harsh".

I'm not sure why or what you are cherry picking here. I could easily quote pieces on how prisoners are treated in Guantanamo Bay, what happened in Abu Ghraib under American supervision or how we happily send billions of dollars to a country of which Save the Children said of the detained children "86% were beaten, 69% were strip searched, 60% spent time in solitary confinement, 68% were denied any healthcare, and 58% were denied visits or communication with family".

I'm not pro-Russia, pro-Putin or pro-anyone-who-detains-opposition-for-life. I'm also not pro people saying "Russia bad" when these things happen everywhere and somehow think they are morally superior.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#147

Post by kemotep » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

lordfrito wrote: post #105

If you believe the western media, the west no longer believes in or upholds its values, and watches while Russia pushes westward while China builds up a military and eyes Taiwan, both more than happy to destabilize the middle east in pursuit of their goals. The west needs to wake up, we're slowly sliding towards a world conflict. This is going to get worse before it gets better. Edit: Russia is pushing westward not e…

How do you propose the west avoids conflict with Russia and China?

Is there any examples in history of appeasement leading to less bloodshed?

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#148

Post by matthewaveryusa » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

The (small) upside of all this missery, death and pain is Europe will lose some territory but gain it's own military security after decades of living from the US strategy alignment. Countries like Poland will no longer buy US weapons but increase European defense spending - they fear just like Ukraine that US congress just turns around and will stop delivering parts for F-35s in a conflict [0]. The US lost all it's t…

[flagged]

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#149

Post by matsemann » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #93

The (small) upside of all this missery, death and pain is Europe will lose some territory but gain it's own military security after decades of living from the US strategy alignment. Countries like Poland will no longer buy US weapons but increase European defense spending - they fear just like Ukraine that US congress just turns around and will stop delivering parts for F-35s in a conflict [0]. The US lost all it's t…

> The US lost all it's trust that was left in Europe

Trump winning, with his comments about encouraging Russia to attack NATO countries, would not do much to help.

Re: Alexei Navalny has died

#150

Post by hackerlight » Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #86

jacquesm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other ways short of military intervention that can be quite effective.

Like what? Boycots are in place, what remains? CIA mingling? Taking Putin out? Any of those things are hard to predict and allow you to confidently steer the country in a right direction. There arguably a lot of places, for instance South America & Iran, where those action were taken and only made things worse.

Like accepting Russian refugees, lots of them. Putin can't fight a war if he has no people. Ban them from defense sensitive industries for 1 generation and spread them around Europe, US and elsewhere.

It's also the humane thing to do. Accept any LGBT and any Russian who lives outside of Moscow or St Petersburg who are being forcibly conscripted for the meat grinder at 10x higher rates (effectively murdered).