I think arguing over which russian empire he’s actually trying to get back is just quibbling.
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hopefully now ukrainians will wake the **** up
Agreed, and I think the only move the US has to reduce the risk of facing a choice of dissolving NATO and ceding half of Europe to Russia or engaging in WW3 is to show significant strength now.
We should be seriously considering deploying troops to every NATO country that shares a border with Russia. I don’t think it’s considered 100% likely that we actually honor Article 5 for the Baltic States if it means WW3, and I don’t think Putin wants to start WW3 either.
So I think the game theory optimal strategy here is basically each side forcing the opposition to start WW3 to get what they want. Putin wants Ukraine, and we don’t want him to have it, but he knows we aren’t going to start WW3 over it, so it’s his for the taking. If we put US and NATO troops in between him and taking NATO countries, it means that invasion starts WW3, and changes his calculus significantly. If we wait until he launches an invasion, then the US has to escalate it to a WW3 level to stop it.
Make Russia Great Again!
https://twitter.com/francska1/status/1495474850458226689?s=20&t=zDldUmm1nL3KgOhzhgirRQ
And usually unchecked megalomaniacs show so much restraint.
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Nor does it matter. Putin’s justification isn’t some actual intellectually honest position. If he wants Poland, it will be a remarkably similar speech like this Ukraine speech.
4am 2/22 in Kyiv is 4 hours and 40 minutes away. 9pm EST tonight. Moscow is one hour ahead of that.
To you, yes but too many people lump everybody in Eastern Europe with the Russians and it’s pretty infuriating when you see it from this perspective.
Czech Republic was not part of the Russian Empire or USSR. Lumping them together is what I hear from dumbass tourists who just reinforce stupid American stereotypes with their ignorance.
Anyway, the start of WW3 certainly won’t be remembered for the speech that triggered it. That was a rambling mess.
Grunching, but this is a very bad tweet.
US media is saying it would happen later this week conditional on Russia not invading.
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Who is lumping them in together? Putin’s threats and leaning on hegemony over the former republics doesn’t end at the former national republics. Poland was not an entirely subjugated country but it wasn’t free either. Russia supporting coups and vassal states throughout Eastern Europe because there’s no “real history of independence” in a country that didn’t exist until 1989-1993 like many of the Central Europe states would worry the shit out of me too if I lived there.
I’m not saying that an honest reading of this part of European history (which tbh is not something I’m remotely well informed on) would support Putin, just that a dishonest reading predicated on Russian nationalism works that far easily.
was tsarist the biggest empire they had? Anything east of germany for sure at one point was russia at any rate.
You actually live in CZ. What are you hearing from colleagues etc about the fear of a future Russian invasion? Anything?
What if Russia does a “liberation” instead of an “invasion”?
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My wife’s great grandfather who emigrated about 1910ish, called himself either a “Russian of polish decent”, “polish” or “a subject of the Tsar” on various census and other government forms (he got a couple of patents”.
My wife’s best friend from college came here at age 9 back in the early 80s. When she had children, she was VERY upset that their birth certificates said “mothers birthplace Russia” out of fear that it would be held against them some day (and they were born 10 years after the Soviet breakup).
I mean my family in Poland aren’t worried except for the Schizoid ones.
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https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1495873188663861264
Not sure how trustworthy this account is, but…
Guardian reporting it, at least per headline
CNN now reporting on TV that the Kremlin has ordered the Russian Defense Ministry to “maintain peace” in Donetsk and Luhansk.