Ukraine and Russa

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St_Francis said:
I think this all has a lot more to do with geopolitics than either religion or ideology.
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This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, absolutely nothing at all, and it has very little to do with ideology from Putin’s standpoint.

Putin is a meglomaniacal mafia boss who keeps operates through a system of oligarchs. It is all about personal power, prestige and money for Putin and his cronies. A good way to deal with this is to refuse to grant any visas to anyone connected with Putin’s regime (or anyone connected to his lackeys). . When the wives of his inner circle start crying that they can’t go shopping in London or New York anymore, that would seriously annoy Putin and his cronies, mafia bosses don’t like that sort of thing
 
Brendan_64 said:
This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, absolutely nothing at all, and it has very little to do with ideology from Putin’s standpoint.

Putin is a meglomaniacal mafia boss who keeps operates through a system of oligarchs. It is all about personal power, prestige and money for Putin and his cronies. A good way to deal with this is to refuse to grant any visas to anyone connected with Putin’s regime (or anyone connected to his lackeys). . When the wives of his inner circle start crying that they can’t go shopping in London or New York anymore, that would seriously annoy Putin and his cronies, mafia bosses don’t like that sort of thing
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I am curious as to how you have formed such an opinion? I mean, what sort of sources of knowledge?

And do you know about the (possible) involvement of the West in the protests?
 
Thanks guys for making this easy to follow. Some of these bigger threads are easy to get lost in.
 
It would seem that the 20 year truce is over and the Cold War is resuming.
 
Brendan_64 said:
I don’t know of any statues of Communist dictators anywhere in England.

So these ethnic-Russian Ukranians chose to hold their pro-Russian rally, and wave Russian flags around a statue of Lenin and you don’t see a link? Was this just pure coincidence? Were these people ignorant of Lenin as a Communist icon? Somehow I don’t think so.
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I think the point would be that Lenin is part of their history. There is quite a bit about “Englands” history that is undesirable as well. I myself would be hard pressed to choose between Henry the Eight and Lenin. 🤷

OP: Russia is expanding it’s area of influence if not it’s borders. That Europe is powerless to stop them is obvious. So, we’ll have to see how far the USA is willing to let them go. Too far would be my guess.

ATB
.
 
Brendan_64 said:
I don’t know of any statues of Communist dictators anywhere in England.

So these ethnic-Russian Ukranians chose to hold their pro-Russian rally, and wave Russian flags around a statue of Lenin and you don’t see a link? Was this just pure coincidence? Were these people ignorant of Lenin as a Communist icon? Somehow I don’t think so.
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Of course they weren’t ignorant of it. In fact, they owe their very presence in Ukraine to Lenin and his successor who carried out a genocidal campaign against Ukrainians and moved in a lot of Russians. The Russians in Ukraine know all of that.

One thing we need to realize is that the “communism” of the Soviet Union was a fraud from beginning to end. It was, in reality, a brutal dictatorship that was eclectic in its social and economic policies. A few of the top leaders lived in luxury and dribbled rewards to followers. The rest of the population lived at a standard far below that of the west. There are not a lot of differences between what it was and what Putin and his cronies are turning Russia into today, other than the fact that ordinary Russians can come and go from Russia. But even Lenin allowed that, early on.

Since the OP wondered about religious minorities and their future, it needs to be remembered that Russia always oppressed religious minorities. After the communists had subverted the Orthodox Church, they tolerated it and sometimes even worked hand-in-glove with it. Stalin, in particular, favored it during WWII as a way to encourage nationalism. Russian Orthodoxy is intensely nationalistic and territorial, and claims that no Christian church should operate within “it’s territory”, which it claims includes Ukraine. (Also much of Western Europe, as well as all of Alaska and California) I believe religious Christian minorities in Russia and whatever portions of Europe Russia conquers will have a rough go of it.
 
This aggression reminds me of how Hitler started out with aggressive acts and dared intervention. First came annexing the Saarland, then occupying the de-militarized Rhineland, then invading Austria, and then the Sudetenland, and finally all of Czechoslovakia.

Nobody did anything to stop him. Nobody seriously realized his ulterior empire-building agenda. So, he continued with it, assuming that he could get away with it. In fact when he instigated a fake border incident with Poland (similar to General Tojo’s border incident with China) and justified invading Poland, he was surprised that France and the UK declared war. Finally somebody objected, but by that time, Hitler’s military was so strong, that his opponents were too weak to do anything concrete. In fact, even declaring war was meaningless. At first it was called the Phony War. Neither France nor the UK responded militarily until eight months later.

Stop this megalomaniac immediately!
 
Mickey_Finn said:
I think the point would be that Lenin is part of their history. There is quite a bit about “Englands” history that is undesirable as well. I myself would be hard pressed to choose between Henry the Eight and Lenin. 🤷
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I have yet to see any English person waving a banner of Henry VII at a political rally. If this sort of thing has happened then kindly point me to the evidence for it.
Mickey_Finn said:
IRussia is expanding it’s area of influence if not it’s borders.
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So what’s happening in Crimea now. Russia has taken over military bases in Sevastapol, disarmed and disbanded the Ukranian forces there and apprehended the senior officer. Putin has fully recognised the recent referendum in Crimea as being legally valid, and has since declared that Crimea is an inseparable part of Russia. Crimea is in the process of being annexed and absorbed into Russia.

This is what Putin stated yesterday in his address to the Russian Duma.

"Members of the Federation Council, deputies of the State Duma, citizens of Russia, residents of Crimea and Sevastopol, today, in accordance with the people’s will,** I submit to the Federal Assembly a request to consider a Constitutional Law on the creation of two new constituent entities within the Russian Federation: the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol,** and to ratify the treaty on admitting to the Russian Federation Crimea and Sevastopol, which is already ready for signing. I stand assured of your support.

March 18, 2014, 15:50 The Kremlin, Moscow"
Mickey_Finn said:
That Europe is powerless to stop them is obvious. So, we’ll have to see how far the USA is willing to let them go. Too far would be my guess.
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It’s not about Europe of the USA, it’s about NATO. This isn’t some inferior opponent that can easily be stopped by sending in a few planes and tanks. This is Russia. This is a probable resumption of the Cold War. When has the USA ever used force to try to stop Russia? When you have an equal opponent, also armed with nuclear weapons, and engaging in conflict in his own backyard, you cannot stop him by using military force, particularly when you are based thousands of miles across the ocean from him.
 
nmgauss said:
Stop this megalomaniac immediately!
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How? This isn’t Iraq, Afghanistan or some other military minnow, this is a military force equal to that of the USA, and engaging in conflict his own backyard. Russia has the military advantage here.
 
Brendan_64 said:
I have yet to see any English person waving a banner of Henry VII at a political rally. If this sort of thing has happened then kindly point me to the evidence for it.

So what’s happening in Crimea now. Russia has taken over military bases in Sevastapol, disarmed and disbanded the Ukranian forces there and apprehended the senior officer. Putin has fully recognised the recent referendum in Crimea as being legally valid, and has since declared that Crimea is an inseparable part of Russia. Crimea is in the process of being annexed and absorbed into Russia.

This is what Putin stated yesterday in his address to the Russian Duma.

"Members of the Federation Council, deputies of the State Duma, citizens of Russia, residents of Crimea and Sevastopol, today, in accordance with the people’s will,** I submit to the Federal Assembly a request to consider a Constitutional Law on the creation of two new constituent entities within the Russian Federation: the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol,** and to ratify the treaty on admitting to the Russian Federation Crimea and Sevastopol, which is already ready for signing. I stand assured of your support.

March 18, 2014, 15:50 The Kremlin, Moscow"

It’s not about Europe of the USA, it’s about NATO. This isn’t some inferior opponent that can easily be stopped by sending in a few planes and tanks. This is Russia. This is a probable resumption of the Cold War. When has the USA ever used force to try to stop Russia? When you have an equal opponent, also armed with nuclear weapons, and engaging in conflict in his own backyard, you cannot stop him by using military force, particularly when you are based thousands of miles across the ocean from him.
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I’m not persuaded of this, but I would look at it from a different perspective.

It took 100% of the cream of Russia’s army and equipment to knock a piece off little bitty Georgia. It’s not the Soviet army that once threatened to pour through the Fulda Gap into Germany in overwhelming numbers and with more tanks than had ever in history rolled at the same time.

What I believe would have given Russia serious pause would have been if the West had bothered to well train and equip Ukraine’s own forces. I doubt Russia was ever desirous of testing its conscript army on a well-trained army of volunteers, even a much smaller one. Getting a spanking, even an indecisive one, from a Ukrainian force would have been more than even Putin could have survived politically. I don’t think Russia’s leaders would have risked it.

But of course, nobody did anything to aid Ukraine, either militarily or financially, which left a big opening for renascent Russian imperialism. Now the West needs to rethink a great number of things. Whether it will or not remains to be seen. Inasmuch as the West, as a whole, is presently leaderless, one doubts it. And Putin probably doubts it as well.
 
Brendan_64 said:
How? This isn’t Iraq, Afghanistan or some other military minnow, this is a military force equal to that of the USA, and engaging in conflict his own backyard. Russia has the military advantage here.
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Russia has the military advantage, definitely, because it’s right there, has an enormous “Fifth Column” in Ukraine and has a nuclear arsenal to brandish as soon as it might see the first Apache helicopter on the Ukrainian horizon.

But I think it would be a mistake to believe the Russian armed forces are equal to those of the U.S. Yes, the Russians have their elite troops, just as we do. But the bulk of the Russian army consists in draftees of questionable training, whereas the bulk of American forces are very well trained and motivated volunteers.

But that’s not to say the Russians won’t catch up someday or even surpass the U.S. With “unilateral disarmanent” people running the U.S. government, as at present, one can’t be too sanguine about relative military capabilities in the future.
 
Russia and the US are really strong allies. The mass media spreads tons of deception, yet we usually take them verbatim. Why?
 
Ridgerunner said:
It took 100% of the cream of Russia’s army and equipment to knock a piece off little bitty Georgia. It’s not the Soviet army that once threatened to pour through the Fulda Gap into Germany in overwhelming numbers and with more tanks than had ever in history rolled at the same time.
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And you reckon that the NATO forces are the same forces that they used to be? Both sides NATO and Russia are not what they once were. Russia has the upper hand here as they are on the ground and on home territory. Russia is in the process of finalising its annexation of Crimea and there’s not a thing that the USA or anyone else can do about it.

It’s a bit like the USA moving in to annex a part of Northern Mexico. Do you think the Russians could do anything to stop them? No.
 
Brendan_64 said:
And you reckon that the NATO forces are the same forces that they used to be? Both sides NATO and Russia are not what they once were. Russia has the upper hand here as they are on the ground and on home territory. Russia is in the process of finalising its annexation of Crimea and there’s not a thing that the USA or anyone else can do about it.

It’s a bit like the USA moving in to annex a part of Northern Mexico. Do you think the Russians could do anything to stop them? No.
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I do not for a minute think NATO forces are what they used to be. They’re both better and worse. Worse in terms of quantity in both men and equipment. Worse in self-defensive political resolve. Better (among some) in training and individual capabilities. Better in terms of weapons sophistication. The Brits have a tiny, but excellent force. The French (interestingly) have a larger and pretty tough force. Germany has gone very slack in numbers, but their weaponry is superb and the forces they do have are professional.

I agree anything the west tries to do now is too little and too late. The preventive would have been the development of a crack Ukrainian army that could smack the Russians hard if it came to it. That alone, i believe, would have deterred Putin. He can’t afford a poor showing, even temporarily. It’s a shame we didn’t. Ukraine actually has a 40,000 man army. The Russian army is about 150,000 actual combat troops. So, the Russians would sure have an advantage, and do now. But Ukraine’s population would produce a lot more than 40,000, and if we had trained and equipped them well, we wouldn’t be seeing what we’re seeing now.

But we didn’t.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Russia and the US are really strong allies. The mass media spreads tons of deception, yet we usually take them verbatim. Why?
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Russia and the U.S. are anything but allies. Obama has unfortunately come late to the realization that giving Russia a plastic “reset” button didn’t count for much as compared to reconstituting the Soviet Union; Putin’s dream.

And one doesn’t have to believe the media, which is not terribly inclined to be anti-Russian or pro-western anyway. One can believe the Ukrainians, the Tatars and the Catholic clergy who have also told the story of the Russian conquest of Crimea.
 
Ridgerunner said:
The preventive would have been the development of a crack Ukrainian army that could smack the Russians hard if it came to it. That alone, i believe, would have deterred Putin. He can’t afford a poor showing, even temporarily. It’s a shame we didn’t. Ukraine actually has a 40,000 man army. The Russian army is about 150,000 actual combat troops. So, the Russians would sure have an advantage, and do now. But Ukraine’s population would produce a lot more than 40,000, and if we had trained and equipped them well, we wouldn’t be seeing what we’re seeing now.

But we didn’t.
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We didn’t because we didn’t have a crystal ball. It’s very easy to say what we should have done after the event has happened, but this event was not foreseen.

Do we invest and train the forces of every small nation that could potentially become prey to a neighbouring larger nation? And do we even do this when the larger nation was apparently on good terms with us prior to the aggression?

Are you suggesting that we now invest in developing crack armies for places like Latvia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijhan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, and anywhere else that has substantial concentrated populations of ethnic Russians? Do you think the US tax-payer would be willing to fork out huge amounts to fund this?
 
Ridgerunner said:
Russia and the U.S. are anything but allies. Obama has unfortunately come late to the realization that giving Russia a plastic “reset” button didn’t count for much as compared to reconstituting the Soviet Union; Putin’s dream.

And one doesn’t have to believe the media, which is not terribly inclined to be anti-Russian or pro-western anyway. One can believe the Ukrainians, the Tatars and the Catholic clergy who have also told the story of the Russian conquest of Crimea.
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Revelation 12:9 RSV
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Are you taking scripture too lightly? What type of ‘deception’ is Satan involved in? I contend that it’s our false perception of ‘reality.’
 
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