I can't believe any American would carried Putin's water after the treatment of Alexei Navalny.
When he has pee tapes about you in his vault or you owe hundreds of millions (or billions) to banks he controls, it's easy to believe.
Alexei Navalny has died
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Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure about the US providing more funding (especially not by a large margin): This chart shows EU outspending the US. https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-huma... .
We’re talking about the military portion on that page.
And the EU is spending more on military aid then the US.
As World = EU + X and X>0 => The world is spending more on military aid then the US.
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#283I wonder how the Kremlin apologists will spin this one. I find it unbelievable that someone like Putin seems to inspire people that are nominally far outside of his sphere of influence in spite of decades of mass murder leading an empire run by criminals.
Something like "it's the West's fault, if it left Eastern Europe to Russia, Putin would not get this bad"
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin This is not true for some time now. First google result (but there are more charts, numbers and sources): https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s... Yet whoever provided more aid is irrelevant, since it's not enough anyway. We, as a world, are observing (and doing nothing, for the most part) fourth reich comin…
"we" are doing nothing because "we" are not under attack; Ukraine did not have defense pacts with other countries, and the military aid took a while to get started because of the risk of Russia seeing it as hostility towards them, further escalating the conflict.
If it escalates, it will escalate bigly. If Russia attacks a NATO country, article 5 will / should kick in and the combined military force of 31 countries (with or without the US) will combine their strengths.
But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes. Nothing will matter anymore if Russia decides to use them. It doesn't matter if they lose hundreds of thousands of people, material, and are completely humiliated, as long as they have nukes, "we" cannot strike back.
At this point, wishful thinking that the Ukraine conflict seizes up again, keeps the Russian army occupied, and things cool off slowly. Or that the Russian leadership is replaced, but there's no guarantees it would be replaced by someone who would stop the war.
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fan fiction, but: Civil wars might do it, the Russians need to overthrow Putin, Xi in China, and we need to elect peace hawks in places that have democracy. People would have to really really really really not want a word war. On the history part, I have no clue, but I do know that today the citizenry is more connected and able to strategize for ourselfs than at any point in history before.
Putin's old, but he isn't that old. Plus I assume there are similar people waiting in the wings to takeover. Idk how to fix the situation but it would make me nervous for them to have a civil war in a nuclear power. Xi might go, but that party isn't going anywhere.
> Xi might go, but that party isn't going anywhere.
Geographically probably not, but politically the Chinese Communist party already covers a very broad spectrum with Xi and others currently at the top being the most insular, paranoid, and economically impractical of all the various factions. A "fix" to the situation is unlikely, but changes that yield improvements are all but inevitable at this point.
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#286Really sad news. But if you really think that he was killed - why now? He was "under control" in a prison for multiple years, so why kill him now? It worsens Russia's public image even more
My assumptions: 1) He was killed, but why now? 2) He died because Russians' prison has a really bad conditions of detention - so his health was declining over time
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#287The (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.
> The one bill that was blocked by Congress would be more support than Europe as a whole has provided to Ukraine to date.
Didn't EU just now agreed on future aid of the same amount the USA is still struggling to get through?
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Listen to internal speeches by Putin or Xi, they are often available on YouTube. We are not slowly sliding towards a world conflict, it has already begun and we are hopeless to stop it. It is arrogant to ignore or dismiss the happenings. Things were set in motion years ago and they are slowly unraveling. When the West rejected Russia's deeper integration into its structures after the Cold War ended and expanded NATO…
What deeper integration would that have been? Geniunely curious, I don't see what could have worked once the oligarchs were minted. They only care about selling simple low-effort stuff, easily corrupted, like oil.
> What deeper integration would that have been?
Boris Yeltsyn was proposing to Bill Clinton to admit Russia into NATO. This way Russian ambitions would be tamed and channeled into something more constructive.
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
As soon as the Ukraine war comes to a standstill, Russia will start riots in the Baltics to create a land connection to Kaliningrad.
How exactly will Russia start "riots" in NATO countries?
The same way as in Transnistra, Georgia and Ukraine. Soviet Russia colonized these areas with Russians to control access to the baltic sea/coal production/... and today these Russians lead a "Back to Mother Russia" campaigns.
Re: Alexei Navalny has died
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That is a lie. EU and European countries has given more than double that of the US.
>That is a lie. EU and European countries has given more than double that of the US.
Based on what number? You tell other people not to make things up, then throw out outlandish claims without citation.
And as for the "by GDP number" - you all seem to be failing to take into account overall military spending by GDP. Most of Europe spends almost nothing because they rely on the US to present a threat to their potential enemies. It's a lot easier to spend 5% of your GDP on military spending for a year or two when the rest of the last 40 years it's been less than 1% because the US has been spending 4-8% YoY for the duration on top of the direct aid.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64656301
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine...