[thriftwy]

"Some voting" is not good enough. "Signing some treaties" is also not good enough.

The only way people are going to respect some arrangement is if they believe it's good for them. Russians now believe "some voting" they had forced on them was catastrophic and "some treaties" are fundamentally unfair to them.

The geopolitics of Crimea are questionable. Black Sea Fleet turned out to be glass cannon of questionable utility. It's mostly about popular wishes and not about pragmatics. Before 2014, Putin was swimming in cash yet his approval ratings were Bidenesque.

[simion314]

I bet that Ruscist that controls all your media is the cause Ruzzians blame everyone else then a Putin and Ruzzian oligarchs for the hell in Ruzzia, replace the leadership , fight corruption and I guarantee that people will change, they will become more civilized and more optimists, I seen it in Romania. In regime like in Ruzzia where you can't blame the leader you are brainwashed to find others to blame.

[thriftwy]

Russia is a nice place to live. I've not been to Romania but I doubt I'd prefer Romania to Russia.

So all the fuzz about "hell" izz mizzguided.

[simion314]

>Russia is a nice place to live

Sure Moscow or St Parkersburg and nice to live if you are a Zed or apolitical and maybe is great if you are an violent abuser since now is almost legal to beat your family if you ensure you do not break their bones. Just ensure your kids do not say soemthing bad about the army or KGB then you might have to pay.

Did you do your mandatory military service or you bribed you way out of it ?

[thriftwy]

That information is 20 years out of date now, a random small town will be quite livable and often rich in culture and history.

Of course it is not comfortable to live in a country if you oppose the core value of its people. Just go to Ukraine if Zed makes you throw a fit. What holds you.

The latter.

[mopsi]

> The only way people are going to respect some arrangement is if they believe it's good for them. Russians now believe "some voting" they had forced on them was catastrophic and "some treaties" are fundamentally unfair to them.

That is deeply delusional. The Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe were held together only by force. 50 years of Russian domination only led to severe economic stagnation, lack of freedom and prosperity. Half a century of lost progress. Russia does not have an unfairly lost empire. Europeans are not your slaves. You can't even run your own country properly, yet you somehow believe that the Americans should hand you on a silver platter an empire to run. How does that make any sense?

Nothing is going to get better before you get rid of this imperialist delusion.

Even USSR as it existed after WWII was not of your own making, but an unfortunate side-effect of massive American military aid provided under the lend-lease agreement, which allowed to roll over European nations after Nazis had been defeated, and keep them hostage for half a century.

Germans managed to snap out of their delusions. 30 years after Nazis brought them to a similar total collapse, Germans did not have a Gestapo officer as their president, did not decorate official events with swastikas, did not reurgitate Nazi propaganda, did not complain how the entire world as wronged them, did not demand the US to cut ties with the UK and France, and did not wage genocidal wars against neighbors in an attempt to reach the 1942 extent of Germany. Instead, 30 years later, they had become the cornerstone of pan-European cooperation towards peace, liberty and prosperity.

If anything, the mistake made in 1990s was not making Russians face the consequences of their actions to the same extent Germans were forced to and thus Russians have not internalized that the 1990s were the result of their own actions. Are you not old enough to remember the depth of Soviet mismanagement and the ножки Буша that saved the country from starvation? But KGB and CPSU leaders were not hanged, apprachiks were not banned from public life, nuclear weapons were not taken away and the country was not demilitarized, Russian imperialism and Soviet ideology were not rooted out in favor of universal humanist values.

Ironically, it looks like those who do not learn from history are indeed doomed to repeat it. Putin has put the country on the path of reliving the 1990s, this time with much less international sympathy. Do they grow chicken in North Korea?

[thriftwy]

Russians genuinely do not care about Eastern Europeans. Last time I've checked, the only Eastern Europeans living in Crimea were Russians, with some Crimean Tatars and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Ditto for the "new territories" including the Donbass.

Actually, same for Kiev (add some Jewish minority in Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk). So you do not have anything to do with it.

The rest of advise is unwanted. It looks like Russia is not going to collapse in any of the modes you have described, and it's going to hold whatever lands it is holding, and that is how it's going to be.

[simion314]

Dude, read Ruzzian media. Kremlin always threatens us, those idiots are expert linguists, historians and they want us to do whatever they want. Not sure why they hate we entered NATO to defend ourselves if they do not plan to attack, the nukes still work so there is no chance Eastern Europe invades Ruzzia to liberate your from Putin, you are stuck with him.

[mopsi]

> Russians genuinely do not care about Eastern Europeans.

That's not what actions say. Constant economic, political and social sabotage since the end of USSR, combined with hostile rhetorics from popular slogans like "The masters will be back!" to official demands to kick Eastern Europe out of NATO, leave little doubt. There is nothing people in Eastern Europe wouldn't like more than the luxury to focus on domestic issues and pretend that Russia doesn't exist at all, but Russian actions force us to divert considerable amount of resources towards ensuring that you stay where you are. Russia is the only reason why we need to have an army at all. Were Russia a normal country like Germany or Spain, we could disband the army tomorrow.

> It looks like Russia is not going to collapse in any of the modes you have described, and it's going to hold whatever lands it is holding, and that is how it's going to be.

Total delusion. Russian economy is already a dead man walking. The financial blockade keeps getting worse, and even the people from your central bank are saying: "Потому что [если] не будет нормальных расчетов за продукцию по внешнеэкономической деятельности, для нашей и экспортно, и импортно зависимой страны это просто все, это погибель". You can't run a modern country on Dogecoin or "import substitutions" hammered together by some Vanyas, that much is clear to everyone. This won't end in any other way than the previous time.

Likewise, Crimea is already lost. Every air defense system you set up there gets blown up by Ukrainians using weapons that cost a tiny fraction of their target. Without air defense, the remaining forces are sitting ducks. Russian ground forces will eventually either get destroyed, or pull out like they did from Kherson to save what's left. This is purely a matter of time. The navy has already abandoned Crimea.

Not to mention Eastern Ukraine. 10 000 Russians die every month just to keep the frontline where it is, and twice as many get wounded or crippled for life. It will only get worse as Soviet era stocks deplete and get replaced with older and older junk with every passing month while Ukraine keeps getting better and better new production as western arms factories gear up. At the start of the war, European factories were producing large caliber artillery ammo in batches of tens of thousands. This year they will produce over a million units, up to three million next year, going as far as it needs to go.

I wonder when will you finally wake up to the reality that Putin blundered the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sell oil and gas while it still has any value, and use that flow of money to bring Russia to European level of prosperity. Gazprom is now in the red while Germany has produced 2/3 of all electricity this year from renewables. The window of opportunity is closing. Every Kinzhal blown up by Patriots somewhere in the skies over Ukraine costs as much as a modern schoolhouse, but instead of engaging in international trade and investing in schools that produce value for decades to come, you only get a loud bang. Putin is destroying your opportunity for a better life. Why do you choose to accept that?

[thriftwy]

> popular slogans like "The masters will be back!"

Ahem. WTF?

As I've already said, Russians don't care and don't think in such terms. No slogans.

The rest of the logorrhea invokes "не говори гоп, пока не перепрыгнешь". Don't do the stuff you peddle.

[mopsi]

> Russians don't care and don't think in such terms.

That's a lie and you know it. Variations of it like "We can show it again!" (that is, rape our way to Berlin) are in very widespread use among the Russian public and represent exactly the way most Russians think. Revanchism is the cornerstone of Putin's Russia, and that is also clearly present in your constant complaining how Russia has been humiliated and unfairly treated, and how it is entitled to anything more than it currently has, while the truth is that western nations spent a lot of money to relieve the humanitarian disaster that came from your own long-term mismanagement that you now try to pin on the Americans. You are - without any shame - biting the hand that fed you.

[thriftwy]

As you can see, I am polite to you and you use that opportunity to invoke the most grave insults you can think of.

Russians did indeed win World War Two as a part of victorious Allied coalition. The "raped their way to Berlin" is represents a completely undeserved slur. The German army did not consist of fertile women but of seasoned and well-armed German males who invaded Russia previously (under Meth as we've just learned) and they had to be killed first.

The Germany after the atrocities that they have done was at complete mercy of winners, who in their wisdom and kindness has chosen to spare it. We didn't have to.

The only way Russians may care about Eastern Europe is extinguishing the sources of such unpleasant noises.

[racional]

Hey, can you point to some live instances for these fun quotes ("The masters will be back!", "We can show it again!")? Particularly from anyone public and notable? Original Russian is fine; no need to translate.