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Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

economist.com

41–50 of 267 posts

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#41
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia annexed Crimea and has been engaged in a proxy war in Donbas for 8 years. The Kremlin has now amassed 100K - 200K troops at Ukraine's border. Yet, the Russian propaganda machine continues to claim it's the West that wants war. Can you explain how the West is the aggressor here?

The NATO, which shouldn't be expanding eastwards, wants missiles in Ukraine pointing at Putin's face.

> The NATO, which shouldn't be expanding eastwards

If you neighbor wants to invade you and has done that already at least one in the past decade you might want a stronger ally than nobody. That is up to the country to decide. Though the cold war has shown that neither party wins in a climate of fear.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#42
post #10

I read this as why the economist and friends want russia to want war. but maybe im just cynical and jaded?

I don't think you're too cynical, but we can have our own takes. From what I was able to piece together, Russia isn't the one starting this conflict, in action. It's NATO aligned countries trying to get Ukraine to join NATO. Russia made it very clear, that ain't happening and they'll go to war over it. So who's still agitating for war? The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propa…

No post body was provided.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of me wonders if it’s all a ploy to drive up oil prices.

It's already driving gas prices up, which also has some effect on oil prices.

gas prices are driven by gasprom for few weeks already (jusr after a court in Germany forbid the new baltic pipeline usage).

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#44
post #25

my favorite hot take from the economist about this war was that one article that considered if Russia might lose because the roads in Ukraine during spring are just dirty and bad from one of the worst publications to get one’s opinions from this graduated into comedy edit: for some people it was a serious enough proposition to entertain that i had to check and indicate that no, the analysis shows that russia won’t lo…

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/07/... Doesn’t really line up with your comment, but perhaps you’re talking about a different article?

okay, i misremembered. for me it’s like i was wrong about an onion article

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#45
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia annexed Crimea and has been engaged in a proxy war in Donbas for 8 years. The Kremlin has now amassed 100K - 200K troops at Ukraine's border. Yet, the Russian propaganda machine continues to claim it's the West that wants war. Can you explain how the West is the aggressor here?

The NATO, which shouldn't be expanding eastwards, wants missiles in Ukraine pointing at Putin's face.

Why shouldn't it be expanding eastwards? Seems to me that if a bunch of countries want to get together to protect each other, they have every right to do so.

Especially when a near-by country has a habit of being an aggressor:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru...

And let's not forget Malaysia Airlines Flight 17:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#46
post #24

See also Anne Applebaum: > Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine again—or pretending he will invade Ukraine again—for the same reason. He wants to destabilize Ukraine, frighten Ukraine. He wants Ukrainian democracy to fail. He wants the Ukrainian economy to collapse. He wants foreign investors to flee. He wants his neighbors—in Belarus, Kazakhstan, even Poland and Hungary—to doubt whether democracy will ever be viable…

I suspect "Anne Applebaum"'s loyalty doesn't lie with America.

Without arguing over content, why the quotes? Applebaum is well documented as existing.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#47
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/07/... Doesn’t really line up with your comment, but perhaps you’re talking about a different article?

okay, i misremembered. for me it’s like i was wrong about an onion article

You misremembered to such an extent that the article actually said the exact opposite of what you thought it did?

Impressive.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#48
post #10

I read this as why the economist and friends want russia to want war. but maybe im just cynical and jaded?

I don't think you're too cynical, but we can have our own takes. From what I was able to piece together, Russia isn't the one starting this conflict, in action. It's NATO aligned countries trying to get Ukraine to join NATO. Russia made it very clear, that ain't happening and they'll go to war over it. So who's still agitating for war? The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propa…

[deleted]

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#49

John Mearsheimer has a really great video from 6 years ago about Ukraine that I found fascinating: https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4 Basically, he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO, and he thinks it should remain a buffer state between NATO and Russia

> he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO

NATO doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO (at least, not for the foreseeable future). That's why, even now, when Ukraine is more or less begging to join NATO, NATO has done diddly squat to do so.

A lot of the pressure to join NATO within Ukraine has increased since Russia invaded Georgia and then Crimea. Russia only has itself to blame for the fact that its neighbors are terrified of Russia violating their territorial integrity and want to run as fast as possible from its sphere of influence.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#50
post #10

I read this as why the economist and friends want russia to want war. but maybe im just cynical and jaded?

I don't think you're too cynical, but we can have our own takes. From what I was able to piece together, Russia isn't the one starting this conflict, in action. It's NATO aligned countries trying to get Ukraine to join NATO. Russia made it very clear, that ain't happening and they'll go to war over it. So who's still agitating for war? The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propa…

And Russia gets to decide whether another sovereign country gets to join a military alliance…why? Because they can? The amount of laundering of Russian propaganda on here is depressing if not surprising.
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