Russia Surrounded

[germaphobian]

Back in the day Navalny used to make these sorts of videos:

 

[hmg]

He doesn't look nearly as ill as we were led to believe last year.

 

[DannyL]

Putin does not look doomed right now. Far from it. I was obviously wrong. Executing Prigozhin gave him a new lease of life.

I'm not sure. Wishful thinking on my part maybe. I wonder about the effect of sanctions and ongoing cost of the war. I think you were right to say it was a failure in terms of achieving goals and unpredicted costs.

 

[luka]

remember when Stan was saying this was the best sanctions package ever assembled and Putin would be deposed by his own people within a fortnight?

 

[Clinamenic]

Wagner Man falling out of the sky was a hinge point in history.

Fall of the Valkyrie

 

[Clinamenic]

remember when Stan was saying this was the best sanctions package ever assembled and Putin would be deposed by his own people within a fortnight?

False, I've been avidly pro-Dugin since I could understand the word 'teleology'

 

[luka]

the proof is there in black and white. stan is like Alden Pyle in the Quiet American lololol

 

[Clinamenic]

the proof is there in black and white. stan is like Alden Pyle in the Quiet American lololol

I don't understand most of the constituent elements of this sentence.

 

[luka]

its a book by gramham greene. craner hates it. everyone else thinks its great. the message of the book is that americans are simple minded.

 

[Clinamenic]

its a book by gramham greene. craner hates it. everyone else thinks its great. the message of the book is that americans are simple minded.

I can understand why Craner, generally demonstrating good taste, hates it.

 

[Clinamenic]

The dudes live in the greatest country on earth.

 

[Murphy]

 

[vimothy]

the fraught geopolitics of ukraine were baked in since it declared independence in 91

 

[vimothy]

it's always been a problem, the only reason it seemed otherwise is this mysterious phenomenon whereby we assumed history ended at the same time

 

[vimothy]

bush and thatcher, if not their antecedents, were quite aware of this

 

[vimothy]

they were on record saying that they didn't want to see the fall of the ussr. which was overtaken by the resurgence of russian nationalism which precipitated its collapse. which then places the newly independent state of ukraine (after it gave up its nuclear weapons, and with its proximity to Russian gas pipelines and control over the black sea and strategically important sevastopol port) front and centre in a geopolitical struggle between europe and russia.

 

[vimothy]

and which europe is structurally incapable of competing in, since it lacks the ability to defend itself, relying instead upon NATO, and principally upon the US. europe is not in that sense a geopolitical actor, yet it is caught up, necessarily by the ukraine crisis, stretching back to the fall of the USSR, in a geopolitical conflict

 

[vimothy]

there's a tragic element to all of this

 

[Mr. Tea]

there's a tragic element to all of this

What with, you know, all the people getting killed, and stuff?

 

[...]

it's always been a problem, the only reason it seemed otherwise is this mysterious phenomenon whereby we assumed history ended at the same time

What's all this "we'?