Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> Russians see freedoms of speech and political participation as optional goodies that only very rich countries really afford.
This is one of the saddest things I read this year.
Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
481–490 of 502 posts
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can obviously travel there and see all the Imperial palaces and gardens, swim the sea, visit the museums and have a really good time. In awesome weather, which is of short supply in what's left of mainland Russia. On the other hand, the usefulness of cordial relations with EU/USA is debatable. You could make a point that if Russia had good relations with Ukraine, Russians could travel there on their own by just c…
I mean, you could have travelled there even before the 2014 hostilities began. So it's not like you gained anything in that regard, right? Now if Russia loses it, the travel there might be more difficult for some time.
Yes, one may be thinking of it as "not losing something". But it's much easier to not lose something when it's in your possession than when you depend on goodwill of some third party.
Actual Russian Federation experience with all post-Soviet states ranges from bad to mediocre. It's as far cry as possible to e.g. the EU affair where one might say "I'm completely OK with %region% being a part of other country since I am always free to move there if I want, the local population is protected by laws and conventions as good as they are in my country, and even discussing political borders creates unnecessary strife". Perhaps it was the original idea behind CIS but it became very bad very fast.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, you could have travelled there even before the 2014 hostilities began. So it's not like you gained anything in that regard, right? Now if Russia loses it, the travel there might be more difficult for some time.
Yes, one may be thinking of it as "not losing something". But it's much easier to not lose something when it's in your possession than when you depend on goodwill of some third party. Actual Russian Federation experience with all post-Soviet states ranges from bad to mediocre. It's as far cry as possible to e.g. the EU affair where one might say "I'm completely OK with %region% being a part of other country since I a…
Well, from my point of view, the war just makes all of this only worse. I imagine going to the Crimea for a family vacation isn't a great prospect with the risk of bombardment or even a takeover.
But that's probably something where we differ. I view this Russian attitude as "we can't live as well as we'd like to so we'll at least make other suffer too". This is completely self-inflicted.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, one may be thinking of it as "not losing something". But it's much easier to not lose something when it's in your possession than when you depend on goodwill of some third party. Actual Russian Federation experience with all post-Soviet states ranges from bad to mediocre. It's as far cry as possible to e.g. the EU affair where one might say "I'm completely OK with %region% being a part of other country since I a…
Well, from my point of view, the war just makes all of this only worse. I imagine going to the Crimea for a family vacation isn't a great prospect with the risk of bombardment or even a takeover. But that's probably something where we differ. I view this Russian attitude as "we can't live as well as we'd like to so we'll at least make other suffer too". This is completely self-inflicted.
There was no war in Crimea from 2014 to 2022 and even today it's mostly spared. Some other parts of Ukraine has went through a meat grinder, which reinforces the opinion that overrunning and firewalling it was a good idea.
The Russian attitude is that if a third party makes some offer to any post-Soviet country, they should match it with an offer to Russia itself that is same or better, and are eventually ready to go to war over that.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re saying.
I’m not up to date on Russian business culture I admit. Outside of hearing about how you can pay off the police to avoid other protection schemes. Can you give me an example of a prominent Russia based businessperson who is regularly at odds with the Kremlin? The US has a few examples of billionaires who decide to take on the White House, sometimes even capturing it for themselves.
There are plenty, it's a matter of reporting and visibility I suppose.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, because the EU has certain requirements. You should not kill your own journalists and so on. I believe in the early 2000s some people had some optimism about a common future but since Putin took over it looked more and more grim. I believe the tipping point was the war in Georgia where the EU more or less understood that as long as he is alive, it would be difficult to have a civilized relationship. But this is…
The problem is that EU needed to find a way to integrate existing Russian Federation as a neigbour, and not some "true Scotsman" Russia that only lives in your imagination. EU didn't want to integrate with existing RF for a long list of reasons. "As much as we could" turned out tiny. And there was no political will on the EU side to expand it despite whatever Putin was doing prior 2014 or even 2011. So in the absense…
Oh man I love the logic... The EU didn't want to change its standards related to not killing one's own journalists and so on so Putin had no choice but to start a war.
I see this rhetoric very often. "He had to", "obviously he had no other choice". These are all false premises. He could not kill his own journalists but he chose to, for his own advantage. He could choose cooperation instead of war, but he wanted to be remembered in history books as the guy who brought not only Belarus but also Ukraine to his empire. Well, he will be remembered, but not exactly the way he hoped to.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that EU needed to find a way to integrate existing Russian Federation as a neigbour, and not some "true Scotsman" Russia that only lives in your imagination. EU didn't want to integrate with existing RF for a long list of reasons. "As much as we could" turned out tiny. And there was no political will on the EU side to expand it despite whatever Putin was doing prior 2014 or even 2011. So in the absense…
Oh man I love the logic... The EU didn't want to change its standards related to not killing one's own journalists and so on so Putin had no choice but to start a war. I see this rhetoric very often. "He had to", "obviously he had no other choice". These are all false premises. He could not kill his own journalists but he chose to, for his own advantage. He could choose cooperation instead of war, but he wanted to be…
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Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a conflict between (a) wanting to exit a country using the passport you entered it on*, and (b) wanting to enter a flight using the passport you will exit on? * don't want to be recorded as an overstayer
That's a definite maybe! Some countries make the airline need to know in advance whether to let you even board. Say the US with the electronic visaless authorization. You gotta give the airline your ESTA. Canada wants to know as well. So you need to have your PR card or Canadian passport on file or the electronic authorization. But that doesn't stop you from entering Europe on a European passport. You can have your s…
As both a US and EU citizen who lives in the EU, I actually run into issues with this. I book my flight with my US with my US passport, and it's a round trip, so it ends up with the same passport registered. I go through the EU line upon entering the EU, but they consistently also ask me for my US passport. This hasn't happened on the automated kiosks for whatever reason.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh man I love the logic... The EU didn't want to change its standards related to not killing one's own journalists and so on so Putin had no choice but to start a war. I see this rhetoric very often. "He had to", "obviously he had no other choice". These are all false premises. He could not kill his own journalists but he chose to, for his own advantage. He could choose cooperation instead of war, but he wanted to be…
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> it's about random unrealistic expectations placed on Russia that are not applied to other countries, in order to reject Russia.
Not at all. Russia never adopted EU integration as an official government policy and never started meaningfully working towards it like everyone else in Europe. Just search Russian news channels for progress on fulfillment of Maastricht criteria or implementation of TFEU and look how little you'll find. EU membership was always something that they demanded to be handed to them, along with dominance over Eastern Europe, because Russia never let go of its imperialism and expectation of a special status.
Even Russian liberals have hard time imaging Russia as an equal partner in the EU, with things like having merely 1 vote out of 28. Instead, Russia in the EU is imagined as an equal counterpart to the entire EU, which is a delusional expectation that will never be met.
The window of opportunity for turning the country around in the early 1990s was brief, and instead of choosing the path to becoming a normal European country, you let the old nomenklatura recover and return to power and turn the country into a hermit kingdom, which is now in the third year of winning a three-day war, losing 1000 people a day and delivering two Afghanistans a month with no end in sight, as the rich sip wine on superyachts while you live in squalor. Putin does not deserve you, but you sure do deserve Putin if you choose to internalize his propaganda and adopt adversial view of Europe, which only serves the purpose of keeping the country firmly in the hands of Putin and his buddies from the security apparatus, at the expense of everyone else's quality of life. There is no objective reason why Russians couldn't be enjoying the same quality of life as Norwegians, and yet here you are, slaves to a mediocre KGB apparatchik out of spite that Europeans don't revere you as much as you think you deserve.
Re: Husband and wife outed as GRU spies aiding bombings and poisonings across Europe
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> it's about random unrealistic expectations placed on Russia that are not applied to other countries, in order to reject Russia. Not at all. Russia never adopted EU integration as an official government policy and never started meaningfully working towards it like everyone else in Europe. Just search Russian news channels for progress on fulfillment of Maastricht criteria or implementation of TFEU and look how littl…
Obviously I do not see any way for Russia to enter EU as a member state. Like Norway, as you said, it could only be integrated while being outside of the bloc. But, it would be a two-way road and there has to be EU goodwill to do so.
But the truth is, I've not seen any concrete steps from the EU to enable that. I'm pretty sure that Putin's government was quite positive towards EU/USA up and until 2008 with its Munich speech.
Russians saw nothing good from the EU and instead admitting that fact they are fed with offensive bullshit about dead journalists they have no business with.
When Russians wanted to get rid of Putin in 2011-2012, EU and USA basically brought popcorn and did nothing. So, nothing happened and Putin remained in power, and had to double down on potential coups. Then he saw Maidan coup as an existential danger and had to make sure it doesn't end well.