December 6, 2024 - 4:10pm
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the Biden administration of intentionally leaving a difficult inheritance in Ukraine for President-elect Donald Trump.
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, who interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin back in February, Lavrov said: “It’s obvious that the Biden administration would like to leave a legacy to the Trump administration as bad as they can.”
He suggested it was “similar to what Obama did to Trump” when, in late December 2016, the former president expelled 35 Russian diplomats from Washington. However, Lavrov falsely claimed it was 120 diplomats. “[Obama] did it on purpose, demanded they leave on the day there was no direct flight [to Russia]”, he said. “That episode, with expulsion and seizure of property, certainly did not create promising ground for beginning our relations with the Trump administration. They are doing the same.”
The Russian diplomat’s comments come less than a month after Biden’s decision to allow Ukrainian use of long-range American missiles to attack Russian territory. After defeat in the election, the Democrats had hoped to speed up assistance to Ukraine. A senior official in the Biden administration has since said that “the administration plans to push forward […] to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible” before Trump’s inauguration in January.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a White House request to pass $24 billion in additional aid for Ukraine. “As we predicted and as I said to all of you, weeks before the election,” Johnson told journalists, “if Donald Trump is elected it will change the dynamic of the Russian war on Ukraine, and we’re seeing that happen.” He added: “it is not the place of Joe Biden to make that decision now, we have a newly elected president and we’re going to wait and take the new commander in chief’s direction.”
In his interview with Lavrov, Carlson gestured towards the differences between Biden and Trump on Ukraine. He said that Trump had been elected “specifically on the promise to end the war”, and asked the Russian what his country’s conditions for peace were. “We were ready to negotiate on the basis of the principles that were negotiated in Istanbul and were rejected by Boris Johnson, according to the statement from the head of the Ukrainian delegation,” Lavrov responded.
In 2022, the Istanbul Communiqué almost resulted in a peace deal in Ukraine but was allegedly dismissed by the Ukrainian delegation on the advice of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The terms of that treaty would have made Russia one of a number of countries tasked with guaranteeing Ukrainian security while ensuring that no Nato bases or troops would be in the country.
Contrary to Lavrov’s claims, some have argued that far from being a hindrance to Trump, Biden’s support for Ukraine will give the incoming president a better negotiating position when talks begin. Writing for Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe argues that allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles and anti-personnel landmines combined with fresh sanctions on Gazprombank will “present still more leverage for Trump when he comes to office”.
Lavrov told Carlson that Russia firing the Oreshnik missile into Ukraine for the first time was an important signal to the West. He added that the US and Ukraine’s allies “must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call a strategic defeat of Russia”.
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SubscribeAnd Lavrov doesn’t joke…
More hot air. He knows if Russia ever fired as much as a slingshot at a NATO country the Russian regime would be destroyed within a week
Really? You believe the POTUS will risk serious damage to the USA for the sake of any member of NATO? Lithuania? Latvia? Poland?
I’m with De Gaulle on this one.
I believe they would yes, as not doing so would make America look incredibly weak. Projection of power is a strong deterrent, they’d lose it at their peril.
However the threat is enough to deter Russia anyway, which is why he’s carved off sections of Georgia and Ukraine rather than anywhere else
The difficulty is that the USA already looks weak. It has failed to effectively support Ukraine despite having encouraged it on the basis that the West was totally behind it unto victory over Russia.
Further the sanctions against Russia have failed in the purpose of destroying the Russian economy. The South has taken notice and no longer regards the USA with the awe it once did.
Say what? If anything, Russia looks weak. It was supposed to take Ukraine in a week. Two years later…
But Russia wasn’t the “sole hegemon” on the planet. It certainly was weak under Yeltsin and under Putin has played a weak hand quite well. Clearly not as well as hoped, but all the same it has obviously exceeded the USA’s expectations by a long way.
The USA however has played an excellent hand very badly. It was the sole hegemon but cannot get a “weak” Russia to do its bidding. Despite the PR to the contrary the USA has lost “face”. Other countries have noticed.
This isn’t good for the West generally…at all. The West once had geopolitical savvy leaders who understood how to maintain an image stronger than the reality. Now it has low grade chancers intent on personal enrichment rather than the nation’s benefit.
Russia has undertaken an incredibly damaging invasion of Ukraine (ie staggering losses and the distortion of its economy) – ie an ‘act of folly if not madness’ – which underperforms the US expectation it would act rationally, all for an outdated imperialism. This just hastens its death as a nation (demographics…). Its economy is in poor shape at the last if not completely dead per the west’s hopes.
Russia has ‘achieved’ this by dint of its nukes. America always knew it had them, it just didn’t think it would do something so utterly stupid.
We’ve been multipolar for a long time. America is still on top.
Exactly. Russia went into the Ukraine war with most people believing that it had the second best army in the world. People now realize Russia has the second best army in Ukraine.
And as friend Assad falls in Syria we see Putin don’t have the clout he projects ex his nukes which would defeat his purpose. One wonders if good actors in Russia might take matters into their own hands.
We can but hope.
It wasn’t going to take Ukraine in a week that’s just western guff. Like they were trying to capture Kiev … you can’t do that with 42k conscripts. It was all about putting pressure on Ukraine to agree to a security pact the Istanbul peace conference. Boris blew that out of the water as it didn’t suit NATO.
Spot on.
Currently losing in Syria too
No, the West is losing in Syria, the current version of IS is winning.
The West isn’t even there really. Assad, who they were supporting, has probably fled. Russia is withdrawing it’s troops.
Russia is overstretched – Ukraine, the Sahel, up till now Syria.
Good joke. IS can be repressed at any time. And to say Putin isn’t losing in Syria is a stretch: it’s Ukraine, of course, sucking everything in.
They look strategically inept. Putin sees that and factors in that it will always be easy to out-maneouvre NATO.
The Ukraine made one good strategic move in the last 2 years and that was to invade Russian territory in the Kursk region. That has bought them the beginning of a better negotiating position which is why Moscow is ramping up recovery of that territory.
There is no way the US is going to risk war with Russia and all that that entails (nuclear exchange and mutual destruction) for a bunch of eastern european statelets that no regular person in the US can even point to on a map. Those are the facts plain and simple.
No regular person in the US can point to any foreign country on a map (except maybe Mexico).
Then East European statelets will get themselves some nukes.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia carved themselves off in 1991 and registered as independent states with the UN. I suppose Putin dun it. Why Georgia couldnt accept it I dont know. Different language, alphabet, culture, and real resentnent on both sides, when tge Tartar nations returned from exile.
How? Without killing everyone in Europe and US? If we continue with our antagonising after Trump gets into power Russia will probably lose patience and take everything up to the river. The western rump will then be demilitarised, neutral and NATO free forever. Russia has no need to attack a NATO country directly unless one directly attacks Russia.
Speaking personally, anyone who is making life hard for Russia as a nation, and the Russian people generally, has my full support.
… even though it’s a stupid thing to do because Russia isn’t going to change and can’t be defeated militarily?
If they won’t change, then it’s in our best interest to have them as weak as possible. Likewise China. If you have implacable enemies, you do your best to hamstring them any way possible.
Agreed. International politics is a game of push and pull. Each nation uses whatever power and leverage it has to protect its people, wealth, and interests and provide for their security and prosperity in the present and future. This invariably creates enemies and allies where interests oppose and align. The goal for national governments is to get the best possible outcomes for its citizens and their interests while also avoiding open warfare, because war is rarely in anybody’s best interest, and compromising with allies so as not to be completely isolated. As with any human activity, mistakes will be made, but at least we can all get on the same page as to the goals. The globalist dream where everyone gets along because everybody trades with each other and we all share in the profit has been shown to be the fairy land it always was, so now we can get back to the natural reality that nations compete for influence, power, and scarce resources.
I’m at a loss as to how NATO’s expansion Eastwards was in the interests of any of the original members of NATO. It is and always been merely a potential liability with no “upside” for those countries and their peoples…but rather good for the Military Industrial Complex which Eisenhower warned about all those years ago.
The globalist dream was sold to a gullible populace on the basis that all would benefit by those knowledgeable enough to know it was fantasy but that they personally would become wealthy. James Goldsmith warned about Globalism in his book The Trap.
You can’t be serious. Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltic states, etc. are now integrated into the Western military alliance, and the Western economic system. In any conflict with Russia, they’re all on our side, no Russia’s. That makes them weaker, and us stronger.
Contrast that to Belarus, which is now a Russia puppet state, aiding their war effort against Ukraine. If NATO had not expanded, Russia would have established similar control over the Baltics and other states long ago.
“they’re all on our side”…no, we’re on their side, not the same thing at all.
And the Baltic states being in the EU ensured no Russian control…no NATO involvement was necessary.
The EU has no actual power. There’s a reason all those states wanted in to NATO.
Also, the Polish Army is the 2nd most powerful force in NATO after the US. We should be very happy to have them on our side.
Which EU countries are under Russian control?
If no involvement was necessary then why did the Baltics join or for that matter long neutral Sweden..You seem to obsess on the USA as the root of all evil.. NATO has never attacked anyone. Putin was more afraid of Ukraine in the EU than in NATO as he knows what De Gaulle and you have pointed out about Americans fighting to defend far away areas…but wait we have done that twice before in Europe
Again not the question. They joined because they get a benefit. The original members don’t.
And I neither have an obsession nor consider the USA to be “the root of all evil”. However I do consider it has succumbed to hubris and consequently has made extremely poor geopolitical decisions which will lead to considerable risk and damage to both itself and the West generally.
Didn’t NATO attack Serbia?
In neither WW1 or WW2 was the continental USA ever at risk of any damage whatsoever. That happy situation was changed with the advent of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Hence the panic over Sputnik, Cuba etc. Any POTUS will of necessity consider those risks unless they are totally foolish.
That any POTUS would risk New York for Ukraine defies all reason.
“Didn’t NATO attack Serbia?”
Didn’t Serbia attack Croatia before?
I was on vacation in an apartment in Dubrovnik. I accidentally got into a conversation with the owner of the apartment. He was a boy during the siege of Dubrovnik and got a shrapnel wound in the back. The scar is still there. If he knew your opinion about aggressive NATO, he would call you a piece of sh.t, and I would be forced to agree with this definition.
I don’t recall Croatia as being a member of NATO at that time.
NATO was formed as a defensive alliance of its members, not a world policeman.
Serbia?
You’re kidding, right? Dead Russian soldiers, and burnt out Russian military equipment, are entirely good things for the West. As things stand, the Ukrainians are doing that job for us. We should support them in every way possible. If they were in NATO, that would be rather easier.
The war has robbed Ukraine of its best young men. The carnage on both sides has been appalling.
Yes, but the West can help Ukraine rebuild. Plus, every Russian soldier who is “pushing up the daisies” in Ukraine won’t be available to participate in Russia’s next invasion. That is an entirely good thing.
So you think the war should continue, with Ukrainians continuing to die, because they are killing Russians? The Ukrainians seem ready to end the war, even though they will not get their land back.
I think the West should have supported Ukraine to the fullest from the start. If there is to be peace, I hope Ukraine makes a full scale effort to kill as many Russian soldiers as possible prior to that peace being concluded. The death of every Russian soldier makes the world a better place.
After all, much of the probably lost land was on the other side of an 8 year civil war, and was shelled for these 8 years. Dies Z really want them back? Inhabitants of Donetsk abd Luhansk are still deprived of their pensions and medical supplies.
At this point I’d rather be allied to Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic states than France or Germany. In an actual war I have a feeling they would be the more useful of the group, and it’s not like the USA went to great efforts to convert them. They had been dominated by the USSR and as soon as they were out from under them they wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again. Russia was dominating eastern europe and they were hating the Russians for that long before anybody knew who Lenin was. Can you blame them for wanting to join the other side?
I don’t blame them at all…it’s a great deal for them…provided the assistance given when attacked is actual true, effective military assistance. There is no obligation that it will be.
But I do blame the West for NATO expanding eastwards when it said it wouldn’t. What was gained? And Russia has been driven into the open arms of China, a huge geopolitical error by the West.
It needn’t have happened. The East European states would have been secure in the EU. Russia was never going to attack them, the EU was too important and valuable to Russia to do so. Russia could never hold them anyway.
So all in all a colossal error by the West, very much as Mearsheimer said. The consequences are yet to play out.
At least the current war has convinced Western Europe of the folly of trading with Russia. Hopefully that trade never resumes.
There is no problem to trading with ANY nation, no matter the nature of its ruling regime, eg China, various Middle East countries etc with whom the West trade quite happily.
The problem is becoming dependent on them as the West has done. The US military industrial complex actually depends on various products from China; not a sensible position to be in if hostilities ensue.
We will see if “onshoring” is actually pursued successfully, and must hope it is. Of course the USA could well become isolationist (it is certainly in its own interests to do so) in which case Europe will have to grow up, stop sheltering under Uncle Sam’s coat-tails, and start doing things itself instead of just preaching at others. It really can’t come soon enough. The shock of reality destroying the cosseted infantile pretensions of Europe’s ruling elite will be very entertaining.
The Chinese are an inherently civilized people. The Russians are not.
The alliance between China and Russia, such as it is, is a result of economic synergy, Russia’s resources and energy with China’s population and manufacturing base, and a mutual desire to overthrow th US led world order. It is a temporary alliance of convenience borne of global geopolitical circumstances. The eastward expansion of NATO has nothing to do with that. Russia’s ambitions to dominate Eastern Europe go back centuries and so do the resistance of those nations to it. It’s an entirely separate dynamic. The one has nothing to do with the other. Russia would still be trying to dominate Eastern Europe and China would still be the most convenient international ally regardless of the NATO status of a handful of countries that had already joined the EU. NATO membership wasn’t decisive to the situation regionally or globally.
You have to wonder why the West supported the Russian domination, plus allocated Ukraine large amounts of Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian land at Yalta.
Because Stalin demanded it and was in a position to do so.
Churchill was entranced by Stalin and loved playing the “world statesman” hence the “naughty document”.
The Sudeten problem was, of course, solved by the expulsion of the German population as were the “border problems” of the newly re-drawn states. Many of those families had been there for centuries but were ethnically German and thus expelled.
Presumably Ukraine was attempting to solve the Donetsk problem by ensuring the flight of ethnic Russians.
Well, I think it was a wartime conference under war conditions between an increasingly uneasy alliance of convenience.
Both the USA and USSR knew they would be rivals after the war was over so I’m sure there was a lot of give and take from both sides trying to position themselves for the postwar order.
Fine. Send your own kids to die in the mud then.
What’s the running total of Americans who’ve died in combat defending Europe since 1949? Still zero I think. You’re kids are much safer on a military base in Europe than in many, many American towns and cities.
Which is exactly what I’m saying: it’s OK for Ukrainian kids to die in their hundreds of thousands defending your interests just so long as your own kids don’t have to.
The Ukrainians fight because they know better than most what Russian domination would bring them.
You talk as though they will do nothing to you in reply.
They’re already doing everything they can to hurt us. China has been stealing our technology, infiltrating our gov’t and universities, and trying to cause general mayhem for 25 years at least. Time to fight back.
Yes it has. I doubt the policy is one of deliberate “hurt” though, merely what happens when an expanding power meets the “boundaries” of another power. Friction is inevitable.
And China is doing well in the competition. It has gathered Russia into its embrace (thanks to Western stupidity) and is busy cosying up to much of the “South”. Not great for the West.
But actual fighting isn’t the solution; intelligent geopolitical diplomacy is. The West used to be good at it, but back then the West, particularly the USA, had a “brahmin” class which no longer exists.
Not be defeated militarily, but made a pariah state. Never trade with Russia, ever. Expel all its citizens from Western countries. Build up the military of Western nations to deal with the inevitable day when Russia launches another unprovoked attack on its neighbors. Do everything possible to break its economy. After all, the Soviet Union collapsed because its economy couldn’t cope any more.
The Soviet economy was “Socialist”: it doesn’t work. The Russian economy isn’t.
No, it just an ill formed economy based on fossil fuels built to benefit the criminal gang that runs the country
So what? Many are, some are friends of the West…but they are still wealthy and the people benefit to some extent.
The Russian economy is a “kleptocracy”. Putin and the oligarchs steal everything they can get their hands on from the Russian people. Where do you think Putin got the money to build his palace in Krasnodar Krai? Do you think his Presidential salary would cover it?
Again, so what? The Middle East countries with whom the West happily trades and consorts aren’t bastions of democracy and freedom.
How other countries are run is no business of the West. The West should concern itself with the welfare of its own people.
Those countries don’t go about launching unprovoked invasions of their neighbors. Russia does,
And that is not the West’s business.
So, if somebody broke into your neighbor’s house, and started hacking them to pieces with an axe, you’d just sit there watching TV?
Putin got rid of the oligarchs in 2001. Piroshenko handed control of Ukraine’s regions to oligarchs in 2014.
I understand wanting to make life hard for the Russian state – it’s a bit simplistic IMO – but why single out the Russian people? What’s the logic behind this?
My thought too. The Russian people seem to be very long-suffering under the weight of successive forms of tyranny, with some very courageous examples of resistance.
The comment against them was unthinking.
It’s tempting to think that (allowing them the victim card). But given that they’ve never managed to overthrow the tyrants and install something better when plenty of other countries have done suggests there’s something special about Russia. And that the Russian people just don’t care enough to do anything about it. So to some degree they are complicit. And someone keeps voting for Putin.
Russian living standards have never been as high as at present hence Putin being re-elected.
The World Bank GDP PPP figures has Russia in 4th place, the UK in 10th. No doubt the figures are “skewed” by there being some people of colossal wealth but it is also undoubtedly the case that the average Russian is much better off.
The plan to destabilise Putin by destroying the Russian economy has failed, and the West is left with only proxy military means ie Ukraine. That too is failing, but not before the devastation of Ukraine.
If Putin and all his oligarch friends gave back all the money they stole to the Russian people, Russians generally would be pretty well off. However, that doesn’t seem likely.
Foolish mistake to confuse average citizen PPP vs median citizen PPP…try again
Look up the figures the World Bank website.
Excellent comment. After all, the Baltic States and Poland were part of the Soviet Bloc, and they have transformed themselves completely. Russia on the other hand has failed utterly.
Come on. Ukraine’s economy remained much worse, and compared with Poland is a joke, it was the poorest country in Europe before Russua’s invasion. Remember when the British governnent tried to give Ukraine medical supplies in 2014, and the Crown. Agents had to give up , as they couldnt get past the bribe demanding Customs?
Sure, but the current conflict will be the making of Ukraine as a nation. It will turn to the West, and purge all remnants of “Russian-ness” from itself.
Ugh.
They did overthrow the tyrants ie the Tsars…but Kerensky then lost regrettably
According to Levada Center – non government, Putin’s popularity is 85%
I thought about it very carefully, and I stand by it.
Is the government responsible or are the people, or is it both? It’s not an easy question. Israel is arguably punishing the entire population of Gaza for the actions of a few Hamas militants on October 7th of last year, but the people of Gaza did elect Hamas and have done very little to stop or undermine them in the intervening decade and have given no indication they are willing to even acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Is Israel not at least somewhat justified in considering themselves at war with the people of Gaza rather than just Hamas, and isn’t their military doctrine of eliminating Hamas even at the cost of civilian suffering justified by the observed sentiments of the Palestinian people? The Russians are certainly not the Palestinians but it’s reasonable to infer that at least some of the people support the policies of the government. That’s what the logic is, not that I myself agree with it in this case.
To my mind, these things have to be examined on a case by case basis and take the history and possible mitigating factors into account. Historically, I tend to sympathize with the Russian people myself. They’ve been ruled by one kind of autocrat or another for basically their entire history, and many have been particularly brutal, from the Mongols on down. Putin is far from the worst the Russian people have seen in terms of leadership, so there’s an element of fearing the possible alternative here. Another thing to consider is that we’ve all heard that there have been many protests in Russia against the war and the sacrifices being made. I can’t recall seeing any example in media of any Palestinians taking to the street to protest Hamas actions after Oct 7th, either in Gaza or elsewhere, though I do recall quite a bit of celebration. In the end, I don’t think the Russian people are nearly as culpable for the Ukraine invasion as the people of Gaza are for Hamas, but they can’t be entirely absolved either. It’s a matter of degrees that reasonable minds can disagree about. I would hope the original poster didn’t mean what he wrote literally and that it came across as more of an absolutist position than he intended.
Do you think the Russian people were responsible for the invasion of Ukraine any more than we were responsible for Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq?
“Tony Blair” didn’t invade Iraq. An alliance of like minded Western nations invaded Iraq. As to whether that invasion was warranted, well, opinions vary.
Again, no I don’t. I think it’s got to be assessed on a case by case basis. I don’t blame the Russians themselves for Ukraine. I do lay partial blame for Hamas on the Gazan Palestinians. I assess the situations differently but i rexognize that holding people responsible for the actions of government is sometimes justified. I was simply explaining the logic.
As for Iraq, I’m an American so of course I blame George Bush and the neocons for that. Blair was a degree removed from the intelligence shenanigans that were perpetrated by the Bush administration. His only sin was to believe what his ally was telling him. The people of the UK just got dragged along for the ride, which seems to be a disturbingly common pattern over there. I give both Blair and you folks a pass on the Iraq debacle.
You forget that the original evidence of weapons of mass destruction came from Blair’s government.
Yes, a far too disturbingly common pattern. Strange also how rich those UK politicians become…
Not as rich as Putin….
Putin isn’t a UK politician so how rich he gets isn’t of concern, any more than how rich US politicians become.
Britain is the centre of the world again, is it? For the record, I live in Australia.
Happily not, but it is remarkable how rich UK politicians become by the UK being “dragged along” when there is no benefit whatsoever for the people of the UK…pure coincidence, no doubt…lol..
Speaking as a citizen of Australia (which was also involved), I supported the invasion at the time, and I still think it was a good thing (although I think it would have been better if Saddam had been deposed at the end of Gulf 1).
Casualties happen in war. But the avg Gazan probably hates Hamas too, who steal their food and terrorize citizens as well.
I would hope you’re right, but I’m unconvinced. Until there is a real grassroots movement to accept Israel’s existence, abandon terrorism, and stop this river to the sea rhetoric, I will remain unconvinced. I’ve little patience for violence, especially when it’s objectively pointless and strategically stupid. Hamas poked a bear on October 7th 2023 and the people got mauled for it. They had to know a retaliation would come and how one sided it would be. I would hope the Palestinians recognize they’re suffering because of Hamas actions and would reject them now but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The problem is that Israel destroyed Gaza and has no plan for what to do now.
That is indeed a problem. The hasty stroke goes oft astray, and such seems to be the case with Israel. They retaliated quickly and impulsively without a solid strategy in place. They will no doubt pay for it in a long campaign that is more expensive and bloodier than it could have been with a more considered military and political strategy. That said, the fact remains the Palestinians must accept their defeat in a military sense, just as the Germans did in WWII, or the cycle will just continue some ways down the road. After all, that’s part of the reason there was a WWII. The strategic failures of this Israeli government and its insufficient planning is a costly problem, but it doesn’t change the conditions of victory, which is that Hamas is destroyed and the Palestinians of Gaza accept Israel’s right to exist and reject terrorism.
The logic is that the Russian State is comprised of the Russian people. Every Russian that dies on the battlefield weakens the Russian State in both a military and a societal sense. Every Russian that struggles to get enough food to eat has something other than the conquest of Russia’s neighbors to think about. The Soviet Union’s economy collapsed years ago. Why can’t the Russian economy collapse now.
“The terms of that treaty would have made Russia one of a number of countries tasked with guaranteeing Ukrainian security …”.
Or they could have just put the fox in charge of the hen house.
I thought the Budapest Memorandum already made Russia a guarantor of Ukrainian security (in return for them giving up their nuclear arsenal)? They didn’t abide by that one so why would Ukraine trust them again?
They were soviet weapons and Ukraine didn’t have the launch codes.
Bucharest was an agreement not a treaty …. we broke the Minsk agreements and have antagonised Russia non stop since 2008. Remember who broke the ‘not one inch further East’ promise at the first opportunity? I’m afraid this is on us. We wanted it we got it and now it’s gone badly wrong … like most recent western military adventures. Why would Russia trust us again?
Quite! Russia wanted to be in the Western “tent” but was rejected. It won’t ask again; it is now in the China tent.
In short the situation wiser Western leaders tried, and eventually succeeded in preventing, has been created by the West.
Surely the West never ever considered having a criminal enterprise like the Russian State in its “tent”? It would be like inviting the heads of the Five Families to be on New York’s School Boards.
You realky think Russia is more criminal than Ukraine?
Yes. Russia has been a nation of barbarians for the entire 500 years of its existence as a “nation”.
There are plenty of good Russians, but I don’t think there will ever be a good Russia.
This is a scaling problem that educated men and women will never understand.
There may be one wonderful Russian living next to you, one amazingly tolerant Muslim, one smiling and law-abiding African-American, and all the educated men and women around you will point to him and accuse you of intolerance. But as soon as the concentration of Russians/Muslims/African-Americans living nearby reaches a certain critical value, the educated men/women will disappear into thin air, and you will be left alone with the rabid idiots.
Good analogy … I always try to explain it in terms of microcosm and macrocosm … they have completely different social effects but one ultimately leads to the other where immigration is concerned. Alas, western governments policymakers are too thick to understand or care about this and refuse to consider anything but the microcosmic.
Hi, EU. Scaling problems are important in the modern world and should be talked about more (but they aren’t). For example, one genuine asylum claimant or one economic migrant should be welcomed with open arms. But a million every couple of months is an entirely different matter! And should be treated entirely differently.
They are invaders
Not this century anyway….
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The idea that Russia can just set itself on war and then declare the impossibility of a ‘strategic defeat’ (ie nukes if we are going to lose) needs to be thought through. It implies they think they can show up in any world capital and demand control.
Russia has just suffered a strategic defeat in Syria, Sergei old fellow.