| > Most certainly a serf-subject in one of its puppet states, then, perhaps an active member of NATO - already well known across the globe for committing decades of atrocity in states deemed inferior by a heinously racist oligarchic ruling class in the Western hemisphere. It's infinitly amusing how you keep trying to pin Anglo-American obsessions on a person like me from a completely different culture. We don't have oligarchs, because Russians stole everything when they occupied the country and forced us into communism. Real estate, businesses, factories, even single-family farms deemed too big were confiscated. Economically speaking, the entire country had to start from scratch in 1991. Nor do we have much history with racism, because until the USSR collapsed and borders opened up, virtually no-one had ever met a black person. I was well into adulthood when I met a black person for the first time. Felt like meeting an alien. :) As to serfdom, my grandfather's grandfather was born as an actual slave in Russian empire. Bought and sold like property. I don't find many similarities between my current situation and his life back then. > The USSR is long gone. The way Russian Federation treats its neighbours is no different from how the USSR or the Russian empire treated them. There was a glimpse of hope for change in early 1990s, but those were crushed when Russia launched an extremely violent war against Chechenya, and when Soviet hardliners managed to consolidate power and put their man in charge of Russia again. > I highly doubt your country would tolerate having its enemies begin construction of hostile bases along its borders. Nobody was building any bases anywhere before Russia invaded Ukraine. Europe saw unprecedented reduction of both domestic and foreign troops, down by 5-10x compared to Cold War levels. For example, German army went from 300k+ soldiers and 3800 tanks in 1980 down to 60k soldiers and 225 tanks in 2015. The US had 5000 tanks in Germany in 1989. By 2015, none were left. The story about "enemies building baseses along Russian borders" is complete nonsense. Have you not bothered to look up facts? > Would you be so willing to have your enemy build 10 bases along your border, all the while saying they "don't mean you any harm" while their military is busy actively demolishing countless sovereign states around the world, murdering millions of innocent people in cold blood, building 1,000 bases across the landscape for the purpose of torture and other highly illegal activities? That's the life I'm living right now, less than 200 km from Russian border. Russia has been modernizing, rebuilding and expanding their army since mid-2000s, and they started/are currently waging the largest war in Europe since the WWII on completely fabricated excuses. For three decades, Russians have been threatening that "the masters will be back". Should we bomb Moscow before that happens? |