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Comment by hevi_jos | Hacker News Reader

Well, that is because Russia IS Europe. At least a significant part of it.

All the culture, the history in Russia is European. It is for sure more European than the USA is.

Russia became isolated because of communism. Now the USA wants to isolate it because it is not in the economic interest of the US, but certainly it is for Europe.

Europe is a small old continent with lots of people but lacking natural resources like oil. Russia is the biggest country in the world, with very few people and lots of resources.

If Europe continue dancing to the US tune, Russia will go closer to China.

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Russia isolated itself by reckless moves like using polonium and novichok against opponents in the West. Some of it like the takeover of Crimea are understandable reactions against a sense of encirclement from the West and NATO, but others like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary.

LOL! Polonium and novichok are reckless, but Crimea, and, more importantly, Lugansk and Donetsk regions are not?

I would say it is the other way around. The later led to thousands dead and millions displaced. On a net scale they are worse than Estonia, which threw 30+% of population into being stateless at the fall of Soviet Union.

> like shooting down the Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine were completely unnecessary

do you seriously think this was a deliberate action?

if so, what would be the rationale and goal of doing it?

ps: why is noone blaming the airline for flying over a warzone? this to me is the real 'culprit' in that one..

Russia and China are natural allies for the time being, but in the event that the US loses it's global position as a leader that is subject to change. China is aggressive in it's dealings with Russia and there's a huge Chinese population in Siberia which might be used as an excuse to incite unrest and possible annexation of some territories in the not so far future.

There was a techno thriller realised after the end of the cold war about China invading Siberia for the resources it would afford then and the US helping the Russians because it didn't want Siberia in Chinese hands (because they'd develop the resources where the Russians economically couldn't).

Wish I could remember the name of it.

>and there's a huge Chinese population in Siberia which might be used as an excuse to incite unrest

Russia is also quite good at making 're-education' camps, and can be quite prickly when prodded.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/world/europe/chinese-lake...

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