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"a groundbreaking study..." hm, I'm left wondering what's groundbreaking in this article. It's all accurate and well known information and barely scratched the surface. If anyone learned anything reading this, they are simply not knowing Russia beyond Hollywood movies.
Russia has been more sinned against than sinning. Gorbachev was lied to and manipulated with assurances of a "Marshall -like plan" to get him to dissolve the Soviet Union. During the Yeltsin years the West literally had advisors dictating every aspect of the Political, Economic and Monetary recovery plans in the newly formed countries. Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were persuaded to give up their nukes in exchange…
I live in Kazakhstan. We are irrelevant to the world because we have very weak economy and terrible, all-pervading corruption, not because we don't have nukes. If we had them, they would probably have been sold to some terrorist groups out there already.
"a groundbreaking study..." hm, I'm left wondering what's groundbreaking in this article. It's all accurate and well known information and barely scratched the surface. If anyone learned anything reading this, they are simply not knowing Russia beyond Hollywood movies.
Sorry, are you saying you have read the book already? I know it was released in April as a hard cover.
Confused and confusing. Saying that Khordokovsky was "no saint" is...an understatement. He refused to pay tax in Russia, he was charged in the US for money laundering resulting from one of the largest tax fraud schemes ever, he was the main money launderer for Russian organised crime, he was involved in massive political corruption (it is forgotten today, the reason why Yukos was targeted was all of the above...Weste…
Whatever advice he got was useless as it never could be applied to Russia and they did not even try. They just stole whatever they could.
As Chernomyrdin said: We wanted to make it better but it ended up as usual.
Putin also did what was good for Putin and reestablishment of the empire. Problem of course is that as great player as he is Russia is still in deep trouble. Reckoning when it come will be terrible.
Putin and his friends do a pretty decent job of running an old-school oligarchy. That's not really the problem, there is nothing groundbreaking in their approach. The problem is that the "Western" bloc (if there ever was such a thing, really) is currently ruled by elites that fundamentally share those values: weak collective institutions, strong private corporations, the bottom line as the final measure of virtue, an…
I see your point with respect to the US, there's a very corporatist oligarchic tendency on the right, but I really don't see that in Europe at all. Europe has gone to great lengths to stand up to corporations, and that includes many European conservatives of which I count myself one. There's a much broader acceptance among moderate European conservatives that regulation is essential to well functioning market economi…
Europe may pretend to have principles, something USA seems to have given up upon, but in the end, - for a huge part of the ruling class - it's all about the money.
There's an irony that a western country, Germany, moved Lenin to Russia in 1917, which was a significant factor in the revolution that followed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are they really getting punished for Ukraine though? My impression is that Europe by and large does almost nothing, partly out of fear of getting cut of from Russian gas. There are some economical sanctions, yes, but do they hurt Russia? More than they hurt Europe's farmers? If there's any punishment, it certainly is not effective. Russia still occupies large parts of Ukraine (even some areas outside of the Crimea).
They aren't getting punished enough, that's a fact. And currently Europe is subsidizing green energy a lot, so it's a slow process. If i'm not mistaking, Ukrain is becoming more and more anti-Russia.
I think it’s a global issue. Pretty sure almost everyone has had these thoughts when reading a news article about some wrongdoing of a foreign government and thought “why don’t we just nuke those Reds?”, “why can’t we just come and take over the North Korea”, “that’s it, it’s time to show those damn Iranians who’s the boss on this planet”.
The media has evolved to take advantage of our emotional response. Hate seems to be the most useful one.
"a groundbreaking study..." hm, I'm left wondering what's groundbreaking in this article. It's all accurate and well known information and barely scratched the surface. If anyone learned anything reading this, they are simply not knowing Russia beyond Hollywood movies.
Sorry, are you saying you have read the book already? I know it was released in April as a hard cover.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm implying on the : "he plays everyone like a fiddle". The sanctions against Russia are still in place and it seems to be working. It will only get worse when Trump will ( probably) lose. Their ally is China and they are the weak partner on that end and China knows it. Additionally, Russia is probably getting an extra "big reward" in the coming year for their meldding in the western world.
He's managed to keep sole control of Russia for 20 years, and probably made himself one of the wealthiest people in the world, so he's definitely playing fiddle for a lot of people