Putin’s ratings soared in the past couple of weeks and are at the highest point they have been for 5 years. His approval rating now stands at 75,7%.
Putin’s cronies the bandits are robbing the country blind. Hospitals lack the most basic supplies but millions were invested into the Olympics and trillions will be needed to keep the Crimea. Education is in shambles. The immense luxury of Moscow offers a sharp contrast with the poverty of the rest of the country. Elections to Parliament and the presidential elections were shamelessly rigged. Peaceful protesters are jailed. Freedom of speech is dead.
But Putin invaded somebody, and the people of Russia love him.
Economy means nothing, people. Its power is non-existent.
Clarissa's Blog 
It is not going to last that long with sanction on Russia, they will have no idea whats coming for them, they will suffer big time like back when they were USSR.
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No they won’t. We can’t even put credible sanctions on Iran, who everyone is at least willing to make a token effort towards containing.
You think Europe is going to sanction the country that provides their electricity? Even if they considered it, you think they’ll dare do anything that might reveal European military forces to be the farce they are? Not a snowball’s chance.
On the other end of the globe, China might have long-term interests in acquiring Siberia, but they’ll happily provide an economic corridor to Russia as long as it keeps American eyes focused on the other side of the globe.
So Europe and China will not only not participate in sanctions, they will actively continue (and in cases, increase) trade with Russia. That’s not including the numerous countries that will enjoy watching Russia stick one in America’s eye, across the Middle East and Latin America in particular.
Meanwhile, American troops will continue to rely exclusively on Russian supply routes to get in and out of Afghanistan, and Russia’s promise not to annex the International Space Station.
It’s about time the west stop going off half-cocked and stop pretending we can enforce policies when any resistance whatsoever proves we can’t. Acknowledging reality is the first step to winning. If the ‘solution’ is to pretend and then spend the next decade time and time again watching Putin call our bluff, let’s get out with some modicum of face right now and just declare Europe east of the Oder outside our interests.
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“If the ‘solution’ is to pretend and then spend the next decade time and time again watching Putin call our bluff, let’s get out with some modicum of face right now and just declare Europe east of the Oder outside our interests.”
– Yes. That would at least not leave the West looking ridiculous on a daily basis.
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I had no idea my relatives in the 90ies suffered because of any sanctions. Never heard that word.
Besides, the situation in FSU is so bad that no sanctions will be felt by 99% of population at all. See, a plus can be found in anything. 🙂
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You are right, el. The sanctions are meant to punish the oligarchs and nobody else. I also agree that we suffered from many things in the 1990s but sanctions were not among them.
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One thing I’ve noticed here is the infantilizing effect of (current?) Russian nationalism. If you try to talk about questions of law, procedure, etc you just get
“Russians will never accept….” an infant’s demand, that needs no justification beyond it’s immediate wants.
If you try to point out how unbalanced and unrealistic Russian coverage of Ukraine has been you get the equivalent of “nah nah nah I can’t hear you!” or “but my mommy said it!”
It would also expect the horrible interpersonal interactions you’ve described. Very small children are liable just blurt out whatever they’re thinking and don’t imagine that other people don’t want to hear it or could be hurt by it because of course, other people don’t have feelings….. not that count anyway.
Very, very weird.
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“It would also expect the horrible interpersonal interactions you’ve described. Very small children are liable just blurt out whatever they’re thinking and don’t imagine that other people don’t want to hear it or could be hurt by it because of course, other people don’t have feelings….. not that count anyway.”
– All true. A friend of my mother’s started calling all her Ukrainian friends to congratulate them exuberantly with the annexation of the Crimea. When told that she was being rude and insensitive, she said, “I saw on television that people in Russia were celebrating the Crimea, so I thought the right thing to do was to congratulate everybody.”
So yes, extreme infantilization is definitely taking place.
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He had boils on his butt, so probably not such a good fuck buddy.
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Oh do behave. 🙂
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Putin must have read Machiavelli’s “The Prince.”
I feel bad about sanctions, whether against Russia or Iran, because I think the people who suffer the most from sanctions are the people at the bottom, the starving people.
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Who, in this case, overwhelmingly support the policies that brought about the sanctions in the first place. Fuck ’em..
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This just in, there’s now a proposal for Ukraine to renounce the 1994 accords and actively pursue nuclear weapons.
Pretty sure no one can read this, but for the sake of completeness:
http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114871,15659358,Ukraina__Poslowie_chca_broni_jadrowej__Jest_projekt.html#BoxWiadTxt
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I also think that people who are really needy will not feel any impact of the sanctions. But the rich ones, the ones who love to hate our country while keeping their families and their money here will feel it for sure.
Russia is the third-world county with nuclear power. But still our main enemy is not Russia, or Iran, it’s China.
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