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Comment by emilsedgh | Hacker News Reader

Here is something irrelevant to the original post but relevant to your comment: I'd have a 50 year bet that Russia will join the EU.

From a cultural perspective, many eastern European countries have Russian roots and will make the transition smoother.

From a geopolitical perspective, neither have a choice. Both need to be able to compete with China and U.S. in terms of economy.

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Impossible. New member applications must be unanimously approved by the member states, and there are countries in the EU that would never be part of the same political organization with Russia, nor allow russian politicians to influence european politics. Never going to happen, and that‘s a good thing. Russia must deal alone with all the fallout of the terror they imposed on the neighboring countries in the last 100 years of history.

Even if Europeans want it, the U.S. will make sure that isn't going to happen. And they don't need to convince the whole EU and its citizens for that.

EU+Russia is just the worst thing that can happen for the US. Far worst than what Russia+China can bring.

https://longbets.org/ let's you create that bet

I would say you're going to lose that bet, China and Russia are making a completely different order in their backyard. Don't even think the EU has competent enough diplomats/stateman, coffers deep enough to entice Russia to decouple from their China partnership. Just look at the shit show that has become Europe's covid and vaccine response also the shit show of the EU diplomatic mission to Russia recently.

Given the Belt and Road Initiative(marshal plan ultra ultra) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization(NATO extra extra light). With NATO it hard to say which way Europe will go, our leaders might say go east Europeans while the big boss in Washington DC says stay where you are. God knows how many active operation Gladio like cells the US has active in the EU. To keep Europe separated from the greater Eurasian project China and Russia are building.

I just looked up at Operation Gladio. I never had any illusions about CIA but...

CIA is an abomination. I'm an immigrant to the U.S. and I have a deep internal conflict about the morality of the country I live in and the part I play in.

Now, the funny thing is, I come from a deeply corrupted third world country, Iran, which to some people is equivalent of evil (Which is not really far from true)

But I never felt this bad about morality of the society I live in. You know why? Because the Islamic Republic, all the evil, all the crimes against humanity committed by Iranian Regime, is forced on it's people.

But the U.S. nukes other countries, starts wars, makes safe and stable places unstable for smallest of interests AND AMERICANS SUPPORT IT [0].

This kills me. Sorry about the rant.

[0] Of course not all Americans.

Just look up the Phoenix Program, then tell me how much the west really cares about human rights etc. Its a nice story to keep the folks at home nice and quiet.

Then think about the last couple of decades with the Patriot Act and CLOUD act, social media censorship of dissenting voices its the Phoenix Program brought home. Probably helped with removing the socialist movement in the west and its now being replaced with woke imperialism.

Too be honest there is no pure good party on this world, just enjoy life and like you said you have already used your most powerful vote, voting with your feet. Take your labor power to the places you think will make you happy and can offer a future to next generation.

Which countries have Russian roots? I'm not aware of any.

Although not an EU country, Serbia would be the best example. However, I would say "Russian ties" rather than "Russian roots". For instance, they both are Slavic, Orthodox countries, and have been historically allied.

Serbian is not Eastern Europe...

Serbia is usually counted as being "eastern Europe", although it's not yet in the EU.

Eastern Europe is a word which is a bit contested. In the countries west of the wall, it came to mean all countries east of the wall. Perhaps with the countries around the wall being Central Europe.

However, the wall did come down. In many places that were on the east side of the wall, people take offence of the name "Eastern Europe" as they feel it refers to bad times they had and they want to get rid off. Rumanians and Ukrainians are all Central Europe, and they will refer to Georgia as Eastern Europe. I am not sure what Georgians think of the name.

It is a bit like some Irish taking offence by Ireland named as one of the "British Isles". That name is a reference to a past they want to get rid off.

Should be south Europe actually. Former Yugoslav (Yugoslavia) countries were never behind the wall.

Is there an official definition of “Eastern”? As a Brit, my general cultural impression is that Germany is “Central”, and every other country is northern / eastern / western / southern relative to that

Estonia and the other Baltic states have Russian speaking populations.

I'm not convinced about Russia joining the EU in 50 years; Putin is only 68 and can be reasonably expected to live another thirty-ish years. So we'd have to wait for him to die and the subsequent power consolidation within Russia.

>Estonia and the other Baltic states have Russian speaking populations.

There's a good chance that this point specifically would be why the Baltic states would oppose Russia joining the EU. Take a look at this table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Estonia#Ethnic...

That's a tricky question.

You could say Ukraine has Russian roots in that it split off of the Russian Empire and then the USSR. You could also say Russia has Ukrainian roots because that was the historic domain of the Kievan Rus.

Similarly, you could say Bulgaria has Russian roots because it gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century in the wake of the Russo-Turkish war. Alternatively, you can say Russia has Bulgarian roots in that Cyrillic was invented in Bulgaria in the 9th century and spread to other Slavic cultures.

The bottom line is that Eastern Europe and Russia have, for better or for worse, strong historic and cultural ties.

That is never going to happen.

Russia actually did try to come close to EU(more specifically the West, which includes the US). This was before the US invaded Afghanistan. Russia started co-operation with the NATO on information sharing regarding the terrorist activities in the AfPak region. And also provided some logistical support. In return Putin not only wanted to be part of NATO, but also wanted close collaboration with the West on all matters from finance, tech, media etc. Basically Putin was trying to integrate Russia with the West. Unfortunately, that co-operation was ended once the invasion of Afghanistan started. Putin might have felt that he was used. He went back and started a "modern-style" warfare against the West i.e. cybercrime, social media propoganda, taking down of Russian-origin collaborators of the West etc. This was very well presented in a documentary I saw few years ago on the analysis of Russia's political maneuvering against the West. Unfortunately I am not able to recall the name of that documentary.

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