Veller says that Russia is incapable of civilizational advances (a point that I’ve also made for years) and, as a result, will always be at war with the West. Or whomever has civilization if the West self-destructs, I want to add.
Only the extraordinary hubris of Western leaders convinces them, time and again, that Russia’s drive towards eternal war can be changed or softened by acting sweetly towards it.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Russia is incapable of civilizational advances (a point that I’ve also made for years) and, as a result, will always be at war”
They don’t even hide it…. one of the foundation documents (if you want to call it that) of the putin administration (by Surkov iirc) explicitly said russian identity is tied to territorial expansion and when russia stops ‘conquering’ neighbors it ceases to be russia….
And still…. the idiots think they’ve figured out how to change russia…. so stupid….
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That’s one thing about Putin. He’s a very simple fellow. He always made his intentions abundantly clear. Russia with no borders from Lisbon to Vladivostok. This is said openly and insistently. But nobody dares to hear what he says because then one would have to do some thinking and adjust one’s strategy. Or create a strategy. And God save us from having to think and adapt. The population ix supposed to be endlessly malleable but its leaders are incapable of adjusting even a bit.
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If he wants open borders they should join the Schengen area.
Russia doesn’t have the ability to conquer Europe or administrative capacity to govern it if they did.
The easiest way for them to achieve this goal would be to join the EU, but this would require them to get over themselves, which seems to be the root of their problems.
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“ussia doesn’t have the ability to conquer Europe or administrative capacity to govern it if they did.”
There you go being rational again…. that is no way to understand what russia is or what russia wants to do….
the russian government now needs ongoing military conflict to keep their heads above water, less conflict in Ukraine will simply meant re-directing it somewhere else….
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/russia-is-preparing-for-more
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This behaviordoes make sense though. Russia is a mostly landlocked country (the arctic doesn’t count) so gaining access to the sea is of utmost importance. This would make the Baltics and the Black Sea their primary targets, not some abstract goal of world domination or neoliberal globalization.
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Then why did they invade Ukraine 8 years after annexing the Crimea and controlling the Black Sea?
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Whstop if you are onto a good thing?
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Yes, exactly. Russia’s war doesn’t have an additional purpose beyond the war. The war is the purpose.
I’m not being myself for a purpose. I’m being myself because I don’t know how to be anything else. Russia doesn’t know how to be anything else either.
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Also, if this platform had an edit function, I would correct my spelling errors, but what can you do?
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“Whstop if you are onto a good thing?”
russia had a _great_ thing… they were getting massive amounts of money selling hydrocarbons to Germany… which was an industrial giant and russia’s main friend in Europe… which made excuses for them to keep the resources coming (and ignoring countries like Poland, Finland and the Baltics telling them to not trust russia).
They threw that away and good luck finding a russian that regrets that. russians actually thought it was degrading to get money from selling oil and gas in a mutually beneficial way. They utterly despise countries that like peace and prosperity.
Again, they don’t hide it. Just talk to russians online and speak positively of their situation before 2022… express regret that so many russians live in poverty (spoiler: they dont’ care) express regret that so many russian soldiers have died for nothing in Ukraine (spoiler: they don’t care).
You can either accept reality or hide away from it in a fantasy where everyone acts rationally…
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Natural resource export typically benefits a tiny elite while underming the manufacturing sector due to currency appreciation. It’s completely predictable that this deal would devastate the Russian working class and they would consider it humiliating.
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“l would devastate the Russian working class and they would consider it humiliating”
It’s not the working class I’m talking about…. the very russians who benefitted most (and those who identify with them) hated it and considered it demeaning.
And russia has always been about benefitting a tiny elite while undermining everyone else and keeping them in poverty… and almost all russians are fine with that.
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In SA, the mining oligarchy could justify themselves because they felt they were building civilization from scratch in Africa. Musk seems to have wanted to do something more meaningful, which is why he built cars and rockets rather than software like other tech CEOs.
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Russia definitely had the best time, economically and in terms of the standard of living, of its whole history.
Then they went and collectively, joyfully, happily threw all that away. And they are not remotely sorry.
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The reality for me is that whatever Russians do or don’t believe hardly matters and is only interesting as an intellectual exercise. Accept reality is a tedious cop out and non explanation.
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