Vladimir Putin is pushing Russia into past: Maybe a generation, maybe a century
economist.com
economist.com
The issue is that now due to currency devaluing and most modern companies / orgs refusing to cooperate with Russian companies, not factoring in banking / capital flows, there are very few reasons for people with skills to remain in Russia or grow their skills in Russia. Without smart young people helping to push Russia forward, not just tech wise but in most technically hard industries, the outlook for Russians are not good. Why work somewhere where your compensation for time could be worth nothing or denied by the rest of the western world?
That said, I think the west fails to understand how similar young Russians still are to their parents from the Soviet era. For instance, unlike the US most Russians even in the current generation attend a state university, party and drink like crazy until they attend college and shortly after college get married and immediately have children. This is also consistent across a huge swath of fields. For instance, I have friends who are artists / florists who have two kids at 24. This kind of culture is not necessarily aligned with fleeing the country to the west. One of the most fascinating traits of my young Russian friends (most of whom are artists) is their denial or confusion of being "proudly russian", even prior to Ukraine many seemed embarrassed to be proud of their country.
That's not sanctions, that's because my $FAANG had hard evidence that Chinese tech company employees were switching to my company, stealing data, then leaving.
I've also heard people from my current parent company's headquarters (in Switzerland) will only hire Swiss citizens for important servers (SAP, etc). Not italians, germans, or french (and if you look at where they are headquartered, the city is literally on the border of germany and france, with many people commuting in daily).
Maybe I'm focusing on a different aspect than most people. I understand the emotion of pride. But people seem to often be encouraging pride in some group or development.
I can see why such encouragement makes sense when the audience meaningfully contributed to that praiseworthy state of affairs. But I don't see the justification for that for e.g. happening to have been born in a particular country.
Often people from poor countries feel greater pride in their countries than people from advanced economies.
If you talk about the bad things in the US a great many would nod in agreement.
Do the same to someone who lives in Azerbaijan, China. Iran, Belarus, etc and you risk more pushback.
I wonder if that's more specifically "[elite(ish)] people from advanced economies." There's this sort of transnational/globalist outlook thing going in some circles that looks down its nose at patriotism, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's mainly a Western cultural thing.
My theory is that they understand that a country like the US only earned all of its amazing rights and freedom due to generations of people pushing against the status quo and that invokes the same non-pride as people are feeling today.
Immigrants have not gone through the same upbringing as natural born citizens. As a result, they have a more rosy view of reality.
It takes some group of people not to accept what is reality today to forge a better future.
For example: BLM is heavily villainized by some groups in the US. Time will tell what the long term consequences of BLM will be(if any). But maybe we will look back decades from now when there is a turning point in the country and there ends up being equal justice and treatment for Black and Brown communities and maybe we will remember BLM as a contributor of change(but not the anti-US sentiment that went along with it).
We should remember that this is the result of the incentive systems they have had and the examples of material success (i.e. oligarchs) in the overtly kleptocratic system they inhabit, and not some kind of inherent cultural tendency of Russians. This is especially the case at this moment, when there is a tendency in the West to conflate Russians with the government of Russia.
> For instance, unlike the US most Russians even in the current generation attend a state university, party and drink like crazy until they attend college and shortly after college get married and immediately have children. ... This kind of culture is not necessarily aligned with fleeing the country to the west.
What do you mean by "not necessarily aligned"? The US has plenty of people who marry young and have kids. They disproportionately tend to be less formally educated, though.
Are you saying that young university-educated and married+kids Russians migrants don't fit in with their similarly educated contemporaries in developed countries? That also seems unlikely because that profile fits most educated migrants (i.e from India and China) to western countries.
Mainland China's claims on Taiwan are if anything more belligerent than Russia's claims on Ukraine have been. China has been building up the ability to cross the Taiwan Strait for decades. And its indifference for human rights and international law is clear.
The world must give thought, now, to how it deters China from invading Taiwan.
Get gun ownership up to 25% like Switzerland.
The reality is problematic for Taiwan, they are so dependant on the Chinese economy that any major pivot that results in an economic war could halve or quarter their economic output in very little time.
They do not have enough leverage to take the stance you are putting forth.
I can well imagine it's true, just not that you can tell by looking at TV interviews.
Unfortunately, the power of brainwashing is enormous.
Mariupol and Melitopol in particular are exceptionally strategic locations. This video does a good job of explaining why the land bridge to Crimea is so important to Russia:
The pain isn’t just economic. Everything he touches seems to have the completely opposite effect to what he says he wants, such as Ukraine/Finland/Sweden outside NATO. There is no logic.
I really dont think thats true. When Europe is spending billions to host millions of refugees already while inflation keeps climbing the appetite to spend yet more money to rebuild Ukraine is really going to pall. This will be a gift to Europe's far right and EU exit campaigns will spring up in response to the EU's attempts to distribute the pain and costs of this.
Moreover, I think the west has an overly optimistic view of how well it is going to handle 10-20 million Ukrainian refugees long term given how much political strife was caused by 1 million Syrians.
I really think it could break up the EU. I think this may even have been Putin's intention.
NATO is also unlikely to fast track Ukraine's membership in a destroyed state. It'll probably wait.
The "help from the west" I hope will come from e.g. that assets now frozen in London, Switzerland and elsewhere can be transfered to Ukraine as war reparations from Russia. I'm more pessimistic about the future when it comes to China/Taiwan, Russia (How do we even handle having a pariah state on par with Iran but the size of Russia on our doorstep?).
The name of the game now is probably self-preservation and saving-face for the Putin government. What "self-preservation" means to Putin is hard to guess but an embarrassing retreat from Ukraine doesn't seem like it's on the table yet.
What's the price of Ukraine as a non-Western state? I'm surprised we can spend hours valuing the cost of the sanctions but few can put a price on what Putin has been asking for.
Perhaps if the message is "I'm not a bully, I'm a school monitor with a badge to prove it" maybe it's different.
The best question to pose oneself is, if NATO was such a bully instead, where is the moral, good, international aid, charity, role model and respect that Putin has performed in times of peace? Where is his school monitor badge that he should have got?
Anyone who thinks Russia can invade NATO is as mistaken as the Russians that currently believe NATO can, and wants to, invade Russia. There are, unfortunately, hundreds of millions of people who believe one or the other.
Do you believe the West would go to war with Russia, only to add a few members to a giant military alliance that was designed for a post-WWII world?
The US will retreat and focus on China and the EU will try to become more independent from NATO and Russia (and they'll negotiate with Putin if need be, unless he already jumped on China's side for good).
No, I believe that alliance will defend its members, and given that Russia can't even successfully bully the poorest country in Europe, it is in no position to start a war over Finland or Sweden.
Of course Ukraine won't be a part of NATO.
The US can't withdraw from Europe, unless it wants to see the American hegemony collapse overnight. And if we know anything about empires, it's that they will keep hold on what they've spent decades building long past the point of positive ROI or reason.
Had Ukraine been a member of NATO or the EU would Russia have invaded? Almost certainly not, and that's because of the credible use of overwhelming military power to repel such an attempt. Why is the U.N. system inadequate in this case? Article 39 and 41 give the Security Council the power to repel breaches to the peace using armed force. But Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and thus effectively has a veto vote (lack of consent to use armed forces against itself is a certain outcome).
This exposes a real problem when the belligerent is a member of the Security Council. And as Russia cannot be trusted to honor their agreements, and the U.N. Security Council in matters involving Russian aggression can't be depended on, it is completely reasonable for the EU to bring in Ukraine and Georgia as members rather than have Russia initiate yet another war right on Europe's doorstep. This is the third time Putin has waged an aggressive war without provocation or any compelling case for defense.
And hopefully it still is a post-WW2 world. Putin is seemingly making a case of a pre-WW2 view of "might makes right" without any international system of peacefully resolving disputes. He's certainly not bound by any agreements. It's a recipe for a very expensive second Cold War.
Two weeks ago his goal was a land grab.
If anybody in the Russian army is worth half a ruble, they planned this to take months at least. They came straight out of engagements in Syria and Chechnya, which took years to turn. Whether they told their troops (who, in Russia, are synonim with "cannon fodder" since forever) is another matter, of course.
To be fair, the US policy leadership made similar misunderestimates of the difficulties it would face in Iraq, it just didn't have global sanctions crushing it's economy at the same time.
(On the other hand, a key figure in that determination and policy planning regarding Iraq was reportedly described by the General that commanded the invasion and early occupation as “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet”, so, there's that.)
1. It's not a constantly feuding cornucopia of tribes, regional warlords, and militias that have spent 20 years fighting eachother in a never-ending civil war.
2. Prior to the star of the war, it had fully functional, developed-world logistics networks.
3. Russia borders it, it's not trying to project power across an ocean.
4. Russia is far culturally closer to Ukraine that the United States ever will be to Afghanistan.
5. People accustomed to developed world lifestyles get war-weary much, much faster.
In light of those four factors, Putin was banking on an easy victory, with Ukraine choosing a bad peace over a protracted, bloody war.
Its economy was not steered well since that point, but there's a world of difference between it and Afghanistan.
That's the why. Why now is a little bit trickier. But I think it's because of a fundamental weakness. Russia's military is essentially still the Soviet military. It's a decaying force using last generation military technology that is rapidly being left behind. MANPADs (infantry mobile air defense) & Javelins (anti-tank missiles) have all but rendered their planes, helicopters, and tanks obsolete. And, as a country, they are too corrupt and poor to modernize their military.
They're going to win this war but it's obvious that they're mustering about the best invasion force they can and even then it's been a slow moving brutal war. Five more years of Russian decay and Ukrainian modernization would bring the outcome into doubt. Ten years and maybe it's impossible.
And I rather expect Putin will try to do exactly that, and we see carnage the world hasn't seen since the last world war to try and goad NATO into reacting. What we need is for the U.N. general assembly to catch up with what's going on. It's not enough to just condemn the invasion. The purpose of the U.N. is to prevent world wars and right now they're not doing enough.
I think people overlook how rational the geopolitical calculus is, it's only shocking because eating so much short/medium term loss is counter to the interest of a "compromised" leader, i.e. one who has to answer to the public. My feeling is Putin has simply secured so much power that he can do what most leaders can not, pursue long term geopolitically maximizing gamble and survive it. I doubt he'll be deposed - no one wants to inherit this shitshow.
Also history rarely looks down on leaders who regain lost land, especially one of such cultural importance as UKR is to RU. If Putin can hold on to UKR, he'll have statues built of him for centuries and impartial historians 100 years from now will likely evaluate his conquest favorably.
In the meantime, the real question is ask what the west will lose not accommodating RU interests and maintaining sanctions comparable to a blockade. RU hasn't even began retaliating yet, they can (IMO will) extract disportionate cost from 40Trillion western block economy versus what the west block can punish a 1.5T RU economy.
Existential risk now pale in comparison to long term existential risk of irrevocably west/NATO aligned UKR, hence emphasis on eating "short/medium term loss". Soviets didn't want to hold AFG, it was peripheral counter insurgency work, on tier of Vietnam war was to PRC. UKR is reforging historic empire, it's core interest like TW is to PRC. As for holding UKR, it remains to be seen. There's very real possibly they'll Grozny the entire country and displace 20M+ which will destabilize Europe and make holding UKR feasible.
>if they keep making big mistakes.
Taking UKR isn't a big mistake, hasty special operations gamble was, but complete occupation isn't, especially now when RU is still capable. UKR with another 5 years US training and support would make such conquest out of reach, especially coupled with continued RU demographic/military decline. TBH for RU best time was 2014 considering how poor sanction proofing their economy went.
>look at what China has managed to achieve
RU isn't PRC in terms of demographics, and even PRC will eventually have to take TW / push back US aligned containment security architecture in East Asia. Common argument for PRC doing so in next 10-20 years is that's when PRC power will be maximal. RU has no peak to look forward to, is already on decline. It can't afford to wait.
Post USSR broken RU didn't have as many carrots as West/NATO. Their leverage was coalescing their big sticks after period of disorder. West/NATO equally culpable indulging UKR and failing to manage her as buffer led to RU resorting to sticks, because they couldn't compete on carrots.
>Even China has not made that mistake
Look at 1st, 2nd, 3rd TW strait crisis, PRC wasn't even capable of succeeding but they still tried. 92 consensus provided ~30 years of detente but that's gone, and PRC is building up to try again. Improving geo strategic conditions for long term security is rarely a mistake, especially considering RU headwinds. The mistake for RU is waiting this long in the first place.
>appeal to Ukraine than China to Taiwan
See how HK opinion on PRC shifted in a generation, and how TW's as well. That's what happens when new gen grows up in antagonistic political systems (again influenced/funded by west) - value fracture, identities diverge. Past certain point, appealing with carrots stop working. Again 1.5T RU economy can't out compete on 40T western block. Was even more lopsided 20 years ago. It's not they didn't try, they just didn't stand a chance.
>might be planning to displace 20M+ people, somehow I doubt that would improve things.
Destabilized europe with 20M refugees while RU has defendable UKR geography and resources is a massive long term "improvement". More than half of world's population are neutral/still need RU exports. I don't think warcriming to victory is the plan considering how kid gloves RU ROE has been so far, but it's likely the inevitable outcome if RU demands aren't met. RU peer-level military strategy is artillery slowly glassing everything. They don't have capability to prosecute a high tech war with relatively less disruption.
Then you get a job (in IT, often while still in college) and here's upward mobility :) There are obviously less jobs on every level of "upwards" compared to the USA, but there are still plenty. Many people also (used to?) freelance for Western customers. Until recently, if you don't engage in politics life was pretty good. One aspect of being upper middle class in Russia is that you are surrounded by cheap labor, so everything - healthcare, home improvement, nannies, etc. - is dirt cheap. E.g. you could have a reliable full-time live-in caretaker for an elderly person for like $500-600/month (before the recent ruble collapse) in Moscow; even cheaper in other cities I suspect.
Another peculiar aspect with Russia is that it's very centralized, so it really helps to move (imagine Silicon Valley -> Seattle/Austin/... -> the rest - type centralization, but with an even steeper salary gradient and for nearly ALL jobs, not just IT). Ideally you want to be in Moscow; some other major cities (Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk) are also not so bad but people still move to Moscow if they can.
You get minor bottle necks and the working system breaks.
To start or rebuild the system you start will all the bottle necks and have to add the pieces one at a time until you have something working.
Younger me was appalled when I learned most everyone seems to operate in a just-in-time fashion. Remember when you could go to the supermarket and ask if they have any extra in the back room? Stores don't even have that any more, everything shipped to the store goes straight to the shelf. Then COVID comes along and fucks that up.
Supermarkets don’t usually have much extra stuff because they carry a lot of perishable stuff. This is no different than outdoor markets for millennia. If anything, we’re a bit better off due to refrigeration and better preservation techniques, but if you have too much slop, that just means greater food wastage.
There is still a backroom for places I go. You can see it behind the milk cartons.
After 20 years of failed Western imperial warfare over several countries, this statement is really, really incorrect.
The problem is, in fact, that imperialism got back on the menu in 2001, and in 2003 it became the main dish. At that point, anyone who had a doubt on what to choose, followed the chef's advice. It would have been silly not to.
The US absolutely wanted Iraq as a puppet regime, not just on its own but as a toehold for a project to transform the region into a set of US economic satellites. Numerous people who went on to senior defense and foreign policy roles in the Bush Administration wrote about that intent before Bush was elected, and agitated to use 9/11 as the pretext for that war immediately after it happened, but were initially drowned out by people that thought we ought to address the people that actually launched the attack first.
The US also very much wanted to exploit Iraq’s resources to fund that project and insulate the US against the economic power of other oil producing states to influence domestic economic conditions.
Because the definition of "puppet regime" in US terms is "a somewhat democratic government that can be conditioned to work only in the ideological confines we set". Only where that fails, like in Egypt or Pakistan, they support overt strongmen.
The first 5-10 years or so of post-Saddam Iraq were an attempt at achieving the former. Then Iran brought some stability and it was accepted as the lesser evil, because resources and political support for the occupation were over.
That is not what a puppet regime is...especially when you consider that "ideological confines" for the US means free trade, civil liberties, justice system, free elections. Calling that a puppet regime is whitewashing the truly horrible puppet regimes that Russia is installing.
Because state production policy, not nationality of the firms involved, was the mechanism of influence sought.
> And how come they didn't install a puppet regime, winning the war and all?
They did; for quite some time after it was established, the post-Saddam Iraqi government took direction from the US.
It didn't turn out to be durable nor did the US manage to use it as the planned lever against the rest of the Middle East, in part because a substantial part of the war and post-war planning was coordinated by “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet” [0] (to quote Gen. Franks) and as a result the occupation/counter-insurgency phase was both botched from the beginning and, arguably, not really a realistic way of achieving some of its broader objectives even if it had been planned competently and executed ideally, and in part because the US changed policy priorities and executive administrations during the occupation away from the original objectives (in part because different policy makers has different ideology, and in part because of recognition of the how badly the situation was botched.) Hence the upthread description of failed imperial warfare, which would not be used of if the imperialist objectives motivated the war had been achieved.
[0] it's looking like the planning for the Ukraine operation by Russia may have had similar levels prioritizing what the ruling clique finds to be ideologically-appealing fantasy over hard-nosed practicality in its planning.
And just because these conflicts existed doesnt mean imperialism guides everything. If it did, and the US practiced full imperialism they would own half of middle east by now, and millions of arabs would be dead.
IMO this about sums it up, the fierce American Imperialism. You just cannot put American imperialism and Russian Imperialism in the same paragraph without being a Russian troll or apologist.
Russian Imperialism: conquer nations through medieval, brutal wars, for no reason other than "they border us, so we must attack them first", displace 30% of the population to Siberia (10% in gulags), move in your Russian colonists to take their place, install your own people at the top of the country, you can only do good trades with Russia and its allies, maybe you'll have your entire resources stolen anyway.
In today's news:
"I assure you, we will overcome adversity, and we will do everything to no longer depend on the West in any strategic sectors of our life that are of decisive importance for our people".
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
In any event making Russia 100% dependent on China's indulgence doesn't seem like a seriously smart move for Lavrov and co.
He's a spy, not a soldier. He relies on subterfuge and fabrication. And he's being undone as his fabricated and delusional view of Ukraine, Russia and the world bangs up against reality.
After watching this bombarded hospital I wish them to burn in hell. They deserve much stronger sanctions than North Korea.
It should be noted that sanctions have done nothing to change the behavior of North Korea's leadership to be more palatable to the West. I bet it'll be the same with Russia.
But we do know that it is currently an extremely totalitarian country that developed nuclear weapons and ICBMs while under sanctions, and it continues to have a gun pointed at the head of South Korea (e.g. enough dug in artillery to level Seoul a couple times over).
The sanctions are working. Russians are going back in time and soon will be standing in line for bread.
Chelsea a large premier league team owned by an oligarch has been frozen and he can't sell like he wanted to.
Nikkita Mazepin has been removed from F1 and sanctioned along with his oligarch father and no longer can travel in EU.
Aeroflot(russian airline) grounded its planes because they will get seized and cannot enter EU/US air space.
Other oligarchs are moving their expensive yachts because those are getting seized. Their other assets such as properties and bank accounts are being frozen all over the world and they a lot real estate in the UK. This definitely hurts.
The list goes on and on.
Do you really think the Russian government will withdraw from Ukraine because people can't buy McDonald's in Moscow anymore?
China isn't sanctioning Russia. I bet the oligarchs and other elietes will continue to get whatever Western status goods they want through smuggling (just like North Korea!), and the Russia people will have sufficient Chinese-manufactured consumer goods (like everyone everywhere else), just equivalents with different logos.
We'll see, but "being unhappy" is a far cry from deciding to take on some KGB goon who appears to have no compunction against murdering rivals.
I highly doubt there will be regime change in Russia because some politically-connected oligarchs' wives can't flout their Hermes handbags in Paris. That seems far more like a fantasy than a realistic expectation.
No. Sure, they won't have access to Western technological miracle products like Netflix, Facebook, and PornHub, but they have plenty of grain production, processing, transportation, and baking capacity for as much bread as they want, particularly since they'll be exporting less of their own wheat.
Your examples are very telling. Wow, Russians are being excluded from sportsball, motor racing, sex tourism, and extravagant yachting excursions! Nothing of value was lost.
Their actual concerns will be the German, Italian, and Japanese precision machine tools, optics, and PLC/robotics/automation components that their own industry relies on. These are the real worries, not a goddamned soccer club.
Placing sanctions on people close to Putin and freezing their soccer team worth billions of dollars definitely has an impact.
Many car manufacturers are pulling out and not selling parts. We live in a globalized society and Russia was a part of it. Putin was betting on oil/natural gas money but that soon will be gone.
And for stuff like that, there's always front companies and smuggling (if they can't find what they need on the market in China). IIRC, that's what they used to do during Soviet times.
But it is possible to know that their behavior continues to be extremely unacceptable to the West. So if your goal with sanctions is to stop the invasion of Ukraine and to get Russia to stop threatening its neighbors with similar, it's very likely that sanctions won't work.
IMHO, sanctions are something the West does when it doesn't want to solve a problem but still wants to feel like it's doing something.
I also think sanctions will end up being counterproductive. They'll fail to address the military situation AND geopolitically they'll push Russia into a deeper alliance with China, strengthening the latter.
You've already seen an example of that with Belarus. A few years ago it got sanctioned and its leader was forced to turn to Russia for help. Now it's militarily supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And there is still a chance sanctions will change their behavior even if in some cases like with NK it hasn't worked.
Sanctions aren't chosen because they are effective at changing behavior, but because they limit capacity if they fail to change behavior. The sanctions on Russia are not “we believe Putin will behave in response to the sanctions” but “we intend to destroy Russia’s economy and thereby limit it's ability to engage in aggression until and unless we are convinced that Putin has made a durable course correction.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4-zYV_6Tgk
I hope they have evacuated all residents from there. Even if no one left Mariupol through evacuation corridors.
Seems like here: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.1186918,37.6934124,333m/data...
This video being described as “difficult to watch” seems a lot like propaganda.
I don’t know what the truth is, but I know it’s not black and white.
Some further reading:
https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1498490752065757184
https://yasha.substack.com/p/insurgency
Putin is evil (and a child of the end of history). And yet, fighting fire with fire in heated, nationalistic conflicts has never been a recipe for improvement.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-israeli-strike-damaged-g...
Not sure if it's limited to certain news outlets, but that's the overall feeling I'm getting.
Just say he is Russian instead.
>Which might explain why they would be targeted.
Why is it hard to believe that Russians would intentionally target Ukrainian hospitals? Have you seen what the Russian media and social media say about Ukrainians?
Russia literally bombed and killed 47 civilians waiting for food last week.
>but I know it’s not black and white
Russia started an irredentist invasion of an independent democratic country.
How is that not black and white?
We are humans and our opinions and ideas fall on continuums in many dimensions. Lets keep talking, to anyone, with respect.
For god's sake, call anyone that voted republican (why do you even call them "a republican"? Maybe they just didn't like Hillary back when?!) and talk to them with an open mind and be kind. I think that would be the best thing to do for your country right now.
And yet... this is the first time that Russians experience the anguish they have caused to Central and Eastern Europe over the past 80 years. USSR caused untold misery, to Russians too, but to its non-Russian subjects mostly. Economies were exploited, lives and bones were broken, culture subdued. Attempts to leave USSR be peaceful means were violently quashed, such as in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and lots of smaller events along the way. Pro-USSR sentiment in Russia remains strong, as was support for annexation of Crimea.
At some point, "ordinary Russians" need to understand that the "Russian empire" machine they support, by sentiment if not democratic votes, brings misery and destruction to all who stand in its way.
In my experience, this sentiment is also not limited to "domestic-only" Russians, who perhaps lack access to "different bias" sources of information. I knew a number of highly educated and intelligent Russians living in the West, who still drank the kool aid.
I'm not saying, it's their turn to suffer, but for this reason I'm struggling to muster depths of sympathy.
One of the heavy pregnant woman photographed there has her instagram full of hundreds of Russians calling her a crisis actor, wishing her and her (yet unborn) child death and being raped. [0]
That's also the position of Russia MFA [1]
[0] https://twitter.com/ComeGentleNight/status/15019005935977185...
[1] https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/150192182043753676...
I agree, Europe should stop buying Russian gas. But the Russian people are closer to all of this.
EDIT: as a sibling commenter points out, many western countries are still directly financing the war via payments to Russian state fossil fuel companies. How many westerners would be willing to endure a year or more of high prices and economic downturn to resist the Russian invasion (yes, Americans favor boycotting Russian oil now, but (1) will they still after a year of high gas prices and (2) many other western countries are far more dependent on Russian oil than America)?
I’m a little worried that Russia will decide to lay waste to Ukraine and not stop until they’ve killed the government. :(
https://mobile.twitter.com/MSF/status/1393868206566223872
Of course Israel said Palestinians they were fighting were nearby, but that is what the Russians are saying too.
I don't remember the maudlin, mawkish melodrama of hospitals and clinics being bombed by a US armed country being such a big deal in the US last year.
Actually Biden's team is in Saudi Arabia right now discussing a deal for Saudi Arabia to export more oil if the US drops its minimal sanctions last year relating to its bloody war in Yemen and disembowlment of a Washington Post reporter in a Turkish embassy.