[RL] Ukraine - The Restoration Game
Day 5,586, 02:53
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Wilker Nath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8k-ZbsXDI
There is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know—she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organizers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up games company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: a game inspired by The Krassniad, an epic folk tale concocted by Lucy’s mother, Amanda, who studied there in the 1980s. Lucy knows Amanda is a spook. She knows her great-grandmother Eugenie also visited the country in the 1930s and met the man who originally collected Krassnian folklore, and who perished in Stalin’s terror. As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds the open secrets of her family’s past, the darker secrets of Krassnia’s past—and hints about the crucial role she is destined to play in The Restoration Game.
I saw RGR made an article inserting RL politics into the game once again. Now, do I think erep admins are involved in some coverup anti government coup attempt in a third world nation somewhere? No. Do I think that the activity boost resulting from the media module becoming a RL politics blog *COULD* be the best thing to happen to the eUS since Bubblar was PoteUS? Probably.
I’m bored, and I also no longer have desire to participate in the politics or war modules of this game, so here goes.
The Counter Case on Ukraine
Contents:
-Pacifism
-Local or Global Issue
-NATO Involvement
-US Foreign Policy
-Brief Talk on the eUS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
Pacifism
For context, I am indeed a conscientious objector. For both moral and religious reasons, I will refuse to enter the military or take a human life if instructed to do so by the government or a military officer. My reasoning? I could start quoting Matthew 5:38-48, and I would be genuine if I did, but really on the topic of pacifism I consider that to be retroactive justification for what I know in my soul to be the truth of human nature: human-on-human violence and bloodshed is simply wrong, and the survivors of such things too often come away with mental scars that can change the course of their lives.
I see Ukraine as a topic on which most people have already made up their minds, and are unlikely to change their opinion. Given that, my purpose for writing will no longer be strictly to persuade, but more to entertain. And given that, I see no issue going off on a tangent.
I must confess, the headstrong part of my mind does regret that I’ve aged out of the Selective Service age range, and sometimes daydreams about an event where I would be drafted, and have to stubbornly refuse military service in the face of equally stubborn and uncaring government officials. The reality would likely be far less theatrical in our modern day. I expect that, given the proper paperwork, I would be assigned an alternative service job without too much issue, and I’d spend years of my life far from home, but still in the country doing some anticlimactic duty as a replacement for military service. I doubt that I’d even see much resentment from fellow citizens for having done so, given how many people out there are already expressing apprehension at the idea of America getting directly involved in the Ukraine war. It's not the same country our parents and grandparents grew up in, in that regard. As tempting as it can be for me to get hot under the collar at the idea of Americans dying in foreign lands, I personally am unlikely to be in any danger unless the war comes to our homeland.
While I do hold that conviction, I also recognize that the rest of the world can’t be expected to do the same. I view it as a sort of oath to myself, reminiscent of the Hippocratic Oath “I will do no harm.” But just because I’ve taken this oath, does not make me immune to others who want to do harm to me. I recognize that if, in some magical fantasy, millions upon millions of Americans had a change of heart, if thousands of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin employees decided that the company they work for no longer lined up with their values and so searched for other employment, if military enlistment suddenly dropped 90%, if disarming all of our nuclear weapons was suddenly a serious discussion on the senate floor, far from making the world safer, America would likely become the target of opportunistic, imperialistic hostile nations. Peace through deterrence is a valid argument to make.
I accept that I don’t have solutions to the world’s problems. But still, I will hold myself to what I believe, even if only on an individual level. I will do no harm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9INnMMwvnk
That being said, it’s time to transition into the meat and bones of the topic.
Local or Global Issue
Put yourself in a newsroom. Imagine you’re behind a writer’s desk, and you have to come up with a short, simple slogan to get people fired up about what’s going on thousands of miles from their homes. Or better yet, imagine you’re a politician about to give a press conference, and you need a short sound bite that’s hard for the media to edit and take out of context. What do you say?
I’ll quote a little from RGR’s article.
”This should not be a left/right, or political issue. It's a matter of right and wrong. There have been murders, rapes, tortures, abductions, intentional targeting of civilians. These are the actions of a terrorist state. There is no way to justify this behavior.”
As far as elevator pitches for conflict go, this one does its job nicely. It targets peoples’ emotions, and it appeals to our sense of fairness, convincing us that the "other side" has done something terribly wrong that they need to get punished for. Let’s look at another one.
”Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong”
This one is a quote from our VP, Kamala. Memes aside, I was specifically looking for a quote that boiled down the question to its absolute simplest terms. This one has it laid out for us. Big country invades smaller country. Unfair. Wrong.
We can go back and forth all day talking about which side has the bigger war crimes, but when it comes down to it, very many Americans have very little idea as to events leading up to the invasion, and quite a large number don’t seem to care.
How many of us in America considered themselves up to date on the region’s news, history, background, and politics before the news of the invasion broke? Probably very few. How many of us consider ourselves well-read on the history and demographics of the breakaway regions even now? Probably, still, very few. What are the chances of a person being able to really understand the pulse of the culture of that region, even with strong effort? Well, for the vast majority whose native language uses the Latin alphabet, very very few. Including myself, almost nobody born in the US is capable of understanding the politics of Luhansk and Donetsk on an expert level. We can only google and jump to conclusions based on incomplete or translated data.
For jollies, though, what can we learn? Well, let’s take some raw numbers from the wikipedia pages of those two regions.
On Donetsk:
”According to the 2001 census, the Donetsk Oblast is inhabited by members of more than 130 ethnic groups.[55] The Ukrainian ethnicity is 56.9% of the population (2,744,100 people); the Russian ethnicity is 38.2% of the population (1,844,400 people).[55] The native language of 74.9% of the population of the Donetsk region is Russian, compared with 24.1% Ukrainian.[56] 58.7% of people of Ukrainian ethnicity considered Russian to be their native language.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk
(March 6, 2023, 5:34pm EST)
Already we have something that makes us second-guess at least some of what we’ve been told by the media.
Now for Luhansk:
”In the Ukrainian Census of 2001,[14] 49.6% of the inhabitants declared themselves as ethnically Ukrainians and 47% as Russians. 85.3% of the population spoke Russian as their native language, while 13.7% spoke Ukrainian, 0.2% Armenian and 0.1% Belarusian.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhansk
(March 6, 2023, 5:36pm EST)
These numbers similarly leave room for doubt as to whether this border region bleeds yellow and blue as much as the rest of their nation.
Now, with that ethnic and language makeup, did these regions have political differences in the 2010s with the rest of the country regarding Ukrainian or Russian identity? Has the demographic makeup changed over time? Was the change natural, or did one side or the other encourage people of their ethnic group to move into the region in an effort to change the land’s identity over time? Do these differences go back to ‘91 when the Soviet Union fell? Longer than that? Do people who live there debate with each other over whether it was justified when whichever tzar conquered the land they live on? Anecdotal, word-of-mouth evidence tells me there was some conflict leading up to this, but that’s just as reliable as anything else on the internet.
For the purposes of this article, I very much wish I was qualified to put together a comprehensive political timeline of events leading up to the current war, but being an English speaker, even if by some stroke of luck I manage to put the timeline itself together without missing something important, it would take me much longer to put together an adequate presentation of all the context.
Suffice it to say I don’t have the answers to the questions I asked above, and neither do 95% of Americans. And yet, so many of us are so eager to feed on that simplistic appeal to fairness and condemn Russia as the aggressor.
Who knows, maybe the attack was truly unprovoked, maybe Putin was sniffing something strong when he made his claim that the people in those breakaway regions need assistance in securing their independence. That could very well be true. And something else, I wouldn’t be surprised if, counter to the claims that independence was the goal, the breakaway regions end up under Russian control permanently after all the dust settles. I wouldn’t put it past Putin. But I think not enough of us in the West recognize our own ignorance of the context behind all of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80_39eAx3z8
NATO Involvement
Before you bring your pitchforks and torches into the comments, know that I’m not saying not to support civilians in Ukraine. It’s a certainty that in Kiev, in other parts of Ukraine, there are loads of people who don’t deserve a war in their backyard, and have done nothing personally to provoke it. There are innocent people everywhere in the world. There’s nothing wrong with sending them humanitarian aid.
What I do question is why we’re sending tanks there. Why are we sending guns and ammunition? Why do we have military advisors there? Why have we sent 12 figures of USD to a foreign nation? We are, after all, depleting our own weapon stockpiles and that of NATO for the sake of a non-NATO country. Is the fairness aspect of Russia fighting to liberate two Russian-speaking regions (supposedly to give them independence) worth the amount of stress we’re putting on our economies and military infrastructures?
These questions get a bit nerve-wracking when you compare it to the lend-lease deals leading up to our involvement in WW2. They get even more nerve-wracking when you consider how many NATO countries as well as Russia are nuclear-armed. We are, after all, only 90 seconds to midnight according to the official doomsday clock.
Those who study history may already have had a clue where I’m going next when I mentioned military advisors 2 paragraphs up. I believe the technical term is “Mission Creep”
In the beginning of the Vietnam conflict, we simply had military advisors there to train South Vietnamese troops. Over the course of multiple presidential administrations, it escalated into multiple years of drafting people for military service, and led to a famous era of protests in our country. It is my worry that the escalation in Ukraine will continue, and eventually draw our country into another foreign conflict. “It’s just a few people to train their military” will transition to “We just need a few people to guard weapon stockpiles” and “we just need to bolster security and police in civilian-occupied zones.” Eventually we’ll get to a point where American deaths (or claims of deaths) will prompt more direct involvement. Before we know it, we’ll have an entire decade of war and death and (quoting RGR again) “murders, rapes, tortures, abductions, intentional targeting of civilians.” Wouldn’t it be better to let Ukraine either stand or fall on their own? I believe the conflict would be over quicker if that were to happen. Those who put emphasis on the horrors of war reaching the civilians of Ukraine would (one would think) support something that leads to a quicker end to the war.
There’s also the matter of the Nord Stream pipeline. Officially, we don’t know who did it, but evidence strongly suggests the American government is responsible. I would think that the military intelligence of several countries involved already know for sure, and the public just isn’t allowed to find out yet. By attacking and destroying an asset for trade between a NATO country (Germany) and the Russian nation, whoever did it has risked sparking a war in which both NATO and Russia are against them. If it was a joint NATO decision or the decision of one independent NATO nation, then revealing the culprit would give Russia a just cause for war on NATO. If it was Ukraine, we’d be forced to ask why a nation we’re sending hundreds of billions in aid to would do that to us. The best thing we could hope for is that it was done by some non-sanctioned non-government group, or that Russia did it to themselves for some puzzling reason. Sadly, I think neither of those are the case.
Needless to say, I don’t like how close we are to direct NATO military involvement. After all, what happens if/when Russia decides that transport vehicles within Ukraine's borders from NATO nations are “fair” military targets due to the military nature of the things they are transporting? What happens if citizens of a NATO country, civilian truck drivers hauling military weapons for example, get caught in an explosion completely by accident? What if Russia wasn’t intending to target them, but they die anyway? What happens if a shipping vessel in the Black Sea carrying military equipment gets mistaken for a Ukrainian military ship and destroyed by Russia? What happens if, for some reason, a passenger ship is in the area and gets sunk? Nothing good, presumably.
We are very close to war. We need to back down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc5Nk1DXyEY
US Foreign Policy
Above, I drew parallels between current events and events leading up to American involvement in Vietnam, and the First World War. I compared the mission creep in Vietnam to what I see as the start of mission creep in Ukraine. Now, I’ll be looking at wider US Foreign Policy from the past century and asking some simple questions about our nation’s positions on the world stage.
Afghanistan is a recent involvement that came to a head.
-Was the outcome desirable to our nation? Why or why not? What went wrong?
-Did the local population seem to want us there?
-Was the government that we supported able to stand on its own without us?
-Were the tax dollars used for training said government’s military worth it?
-Were the American lives lost in the region worth it?
Afghanistan, given the outcome, might be compared to US involvement in Iran in the 1970s.
-Was the outcome desirable to our nation? Why or why not?
-Did the local population seem to want us there?
-Was the government that we supported able to stand on its own without us?
-Were the tax dollars worth it?
-Was the creation of a nation with a government that hates us worth it?
What if we ask these same questions about Cuba? Libya? Somalia? Nicaragua? Vietnam? Do I even need to ask? South Korea seems to have been the exception to prove the rule.
All this to say: What do you think the political boundaries of Ukraine will look like in 15 years? Will the current government still be there? Will the breakaway regions still be part of Ukraine? Will the entire nation fracture into a dozen or more independent states? Will the locals, following years of American soldiers giving them the My Lai treatment, still want us there? Will a change in government reflect their desire for an end to American involvement?
I don’t know the answers to those questions exactly, but I’m much more confident on the following questions:
-Will the outcome be desirable?
-Can the government we currently support stand on its own without us, or will we need to give it perpetual support?
-Will the tax dollars be worth it?
-Will the American lives lost be worth it?
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWijx_AgPiA
Brief Talk on the eUS
Before I leave, I'll direct you back to this article's introduction. I'll say that I don't disagree with DMJ's reasons for leaving. There's not enough people to make virtual politics fun anymore. Our system (at least what it was a year or two ago when I was more active) was created for a more populous eNation, and it doesn't scale down well. I see the eUS having shrinking pains with attrition, as opposed to growing pains. A few people do a disproportionate amount of work to benefit a much larger proportion who do little more than 2-click. I have a RL, I don't need to get involved in that. I'd rather just make media entertaining, then sit down and read the comments.
One way to make media entertaining? Well, if you've read to the end of this article, you can testify to having been entertained, even if you disagree or want to get angry at me for my stance.
Stay classy
o>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTqrdZ_cgQ
There is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know—she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organizers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up games company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: a game inspired by The Krassniad, an epic folk tale concocted by Lucy’s mother, Amanda, who studied there in the 1980s. Lucy knows Amanda is a spook. She knows her great-grandmother Eugenie also visited the country in the 1930s and met the man who originally collected Krassnian folklore, and who perished in Stalin’s terror. As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds the open secrets of her family’s past, the darker secrets of Krassnia’s past—and hints about the crucial role she is destined to play in The Restoration Game.
I saw RGR made an article inserting RL politics into the game once again. Now, do I think erep admins are involved in some coverup anti government coup attempt in a third world nation somewhere? No. Do I think that the activity boost resulting from the media module becoming a RL politics blog *COULD* be the best thing to happen to the eUS since Bubblar was PoteUS? Probably.
I’m bored, and I also no longer have desire to participate in the politics or war modules of this game, so here goes.
The Counter Case on Ukraine
Contents:
-Pacifism
-Local or Global Issue
-NATO Involvement
-US Foreign Policy
-Brief Talk on the eUS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
Pacifism
For context, I am indeed a conscientious objector. For both moral and religious reasons, I will refuse to enter the military or take a human life if instructed to do so by the government or a military officer. My reasoning? I could start quoting Matthew 5:38-48, and I would be genuine if I did, but really on the topic of pacifism I consider that to be retroactive justification for what I know in my soul to be the truth of human nature: human-on-human violence and bloodshed is simply wrong, and the survivors of such things too often come away with mental scars that can change the course of their lives.
I see Ukraine as a topic on which most people have already made up their minds, and are unlikely to change their opinion. Given that, my purpose for writing will no longer be strictly to persuade, but more to entertain. And given that, I see no issue going off on a tangent.
I must confess, the headstrong part of my mind does regret that I’ve aged out of the Selective Service age range, and sometimes daydreams about an event where I would be drafted, and have to stubbornly refuse military service in the face of equally stubborn and uncaring government officials. The reality would likely be far less theatrical in our modern day. I expect that, given the proper paperwork, I would be assigned an alternative service job without too much issue, and I’d spend years of my life far from home, but still in the country doing some anticlimactic duty as a replacement for military service. I doubt that I’d even see much resentment from fellow citizens for having done so, given how many people out there are already expressing apprehension at the idea of America getting directly involved in the Ukraine war. It's not the same country our parents and grandparents grew up in, in that regard. As tempting as it can be for me to get hot under the collar at the idea of Americans dying in foreign lands, I personally am unlikely to be in any danger unless the war comes to our homeland.
While I do hold that conviction, I also recognize that the rest of the world can’t be expected to do the same. I view it as a sort of oath to myself, reminiscent of the Hippocratic Oath “I will do no harm.” But just because I’ve taken this oath, does not make me immune to others who want to do harm to me. I recognize that if, in some magical fantasy, millions upon millions of Americans had a change of heart, if thousands of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin employees decided that the company they work for no longer lined up with their values and so searched for other employment, if military enlistment suddenly dropped 90%, if disarming all of our nuclear weapons was suddenly a serious discussion on the senate floor, far from making the world safer, America would likely become the target of opportunistic, imperialistic hostile nations. Peace through deterrence is a valid argument to make.
I accept that I don’t have solutions to the world’s problems. But still, I will hold myself to what I believe, even if only on an individual level. I will do no harm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9INnMMwvnk
That being said, it’s time to transition into the meat and bones of the topic.
Local or Global Issue
Put yourself in a newsroom. Imagine you’re behind a writer’s desk, and you have to come up with a short, simple slogan to get people fired up about what’s going on thousands of miles from their homes. Or better yet, imagine you’re a politician about to give a press conference, and you need a short sound bite that’s hard for the media to edit and take out of context. What do you say?
I’ll quote a little from RGR’s article.
”This should not be a left/right, or political issue. It's a matter of right and wrong. There have been murders, rapes, tortures, abductions, intentional targeting of civilians. These are the actions of a terrorist state. There is no way to justify this behavior.”
As far as elevator pitches for conflict go, this one does its job nicely. It targets peoples’ emotions, and it appeals to our sense of fairness, convincing us that the "other side" has done something terribly wrong that they need to get punished for. Let’s look at another one.
”Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong”
This one is a quote from our VP, Kamala. Memes aside, I was specifically looking for a quote that boiled down the question to its absolute simplest terms. This one has it laid out for us. Big country invades smaller country. Unfair. Wrong.
We can go back and forth all day talking about which side has the bigger war crimes, but when it comes down to it, very many Americans have very little idea as to events leading up to the invasion, and quite a large number don’t seem to care.
How many of us in America considered themselves up to date on the region’s news, history, background, and politics before the news of the invasion broke? Probably very few. How many of us consider ourselves well-read on the history and demographics of the breakaway regions even now? Probably, still, very few. What are the chances of a person being able to really understand the pulse of the culture of that region, even with strong effort? Well, for the vast majority whose native language uses the Latin alphabet, very very few. Including myself, almost nobody born in the US is capable of understanding the politics of Luhansk and Donetsk on an expert level. We can only google and jump to conclusions based on incomplete or translated data.
For jollies, though, what can we learn? Well, let’s take some raw numbers from the wikipedia pages of those two regions.
On Donetsk:
”According to the 2001 census, the Donetsk Oblast is inhabited by members of more than 130 ethnic groups.[55] The Ukrainian ethnicity is 56.9% of the population (2,744,100 people); the Russian ethnicity is 38.2% of the population (1,844,400 people).[55] The native language of 74.9% of the population of the Donetsk region is Russian, compared with 24.1% Ukrainian.[56] 58.7% of people of Ukrainian ethnicity considered Russian to be their native language.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk
(March 6, 2023, 5:34pm EST)
Already we have something that makes us second-guess at least some of what we’ve been told by the media.
Now for Luhansk:
”In the Ukrainian Census of 2001,[14] 49.6% of the inhabitants declared themselves as ethnically Ukrainians and 47% as Russians. 85.3% of the population spoke Russian as their native language, while 13.7% spoke Ukrainian, 0.2% Armenian and 0.1% Belarusian.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhansk
(March 6, 2023, 5:36pm EST)
These numbers similarly leave room for doubt as to whether this border region bleeds yellow and blue as much as the rest of their nation.
Now, with that ethnic and language makeup, did these regions have political differences in the 2010s with the rest of the country regarding Ukrainian or Russian identity? Has the demographic makeup changed over time? Was the change natural, or did one side or the other encourage people of their ethnic group to move into the region in an effort to change the land’s identity over time? Do these differences go back to ‘91 when the Soviet Union fell? Longer than that? Do people who live there debate with each other over whether it was justified when whichever tzar conquered the land they live on? Anecdotal, word-of-mouth evidence tells me there was some conflict leading up to this, but that’s just as reliable as anything else on the internet.
For the purposes of this article, I very much wish I was qualified to put together a comprehensive political timeline of events leading up to the current war, but being an English speaker, even if by some stroke of luck I manage to put the timeline itself together without missing something important, it would take me much longer to put together an adequate presentation of all the context.
Suffice it to say I don’t have the answers to the questions I asked above, and neither do 95% of Americans. And yet, so many of us are so eager to feed on that simplistic appeal to fairness and condemn Russia as the aggressor.
Who knows, maybe the attack was truly unprovoked, maybe Putin was sniffing something strong when he made his claim that the people in those breakaway regions need assistance in securing their independence. That could very well be true. And something else, I wouldn’t be surprised if, counter to the claims that independence was the goal, the breakaway regions end up under Russian control permanently after all the dust settles. I wouldn’t put it past Putin. But I think not enough of us in the West recognize our own ignorance of the context behind all of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80_39eAx3z8
NATO Involvement
Before you bring your pitchforks and torches into the comments, know that I’m not saying not to support civilians in Ukraine. It’s a certainty that in Kiev, in other parts of Ukraine, there are loads of people who don’t deserve a war in their backyard, and have done nothing personally to provoke it. There are innocent people everywhere in the world. There’s nothing wrong with sending them humanitarian aid.
What I do question is why we’re sending tanks there. Why are we sending guns and ammunition? Why do we have military advisors there? Why have we sent 12 figures of USD to a foreign nation? We are, after all, depleting our own weapon stockpiles and that of NATO for the sake of a non-NATO country. Is the fairness aspect of Russia fighting to liberate two Russian-speaking regions (supposedly to give them independence) worth the amount of stress we’re putting on our economies and military infrastructures?
These questions get a bit nerve-wracking when you compare it to the lend-lease deals leading up to our involvement in WW2. They get even more nerve-wracking when you consider how many NATO countries as well as Russia are nuclear-armed. We are, after all, only 90 seconds to midnight according to the official doomsday clock.
Those who study history may already have had a clue where I’m going next when I mentioned military advisors 2 paragraphs up. I believe the technical term is “Mission Creep”
In the beginning of the Vietnam conflict, we simply had military advisors there to train South Vietnamese troops. Over the course of multiple presidential administrations, it escalated into multiple years of drafting people for military service, and led to a famous era of protests in our country. It is my worry that the escalation in Ukraine will continue, and eventually draw our country into another foreign conflict. “It’s just a few people to train their military” will transition to “We just need a few people to guard weapon stockpiles” and “we just need to bolster security and police in civilian-occupied zones.” Eventually we’ll get to a point where American deaths (or claims of deaths) will prompt more direct involvement. Before we know it, we’ll have an entire decade of war and death and (quoting RGR again) “murders, rapes, tortures, abductions, intentional targeting of civilians.” Wouldn’t it be better to let Ukraine either stand or fall on their own? I believe the conflict would be over quicker if that were to happen. Those who put emphasis on the horrors of war reaching the civilians of Ukraine would (one would think) support something that leads to a quicker end to the war.
There’s also the matter of the Nord Stream pipeline. Officially, we don’t know who did it, but evidence strongly suggests the American government is responsible. I would think that the military intelligence of several countries involved already know for sure, and the public just isn’t allowed to find out yet. By attacking and destroying an asset for trade between a NATO country (Germany) and the Russian nation, whoever did it has risked sparking a war in which both NATO and Russia are against them. If it was a joint NATO decision or the decision of one independent NATO nation, then revealing the culprit would give Russia a just cause for war on NATO. If it was Ukraine, we’d be forced to ask why a nation we’re sending hundreds of billions in aid to would do that to us. The best thing we could hope for is that it was done by some non-sanctioned non-government group, or that Russia did it to themselves for some puzzling reason. Sadly, I think neither of those are the case.
Needless to say, I don’t like how close we are to direct NATO military involvement. After all, what happens if/when Russia decides that transport vehicles within Ukraine's borders from NATO nations are “fair” military targets due to the military nature of the things they are transporting? What happens if citizens of a NATO country, civilian truck drivers hauling military weapons for example, get caught in an explosion completely by accident? What if Russia wasn’t intending to target them, but they die anyway? What happens if a shipping vessel in the Black Sea carrying military equipment gets mistaken for a Ukrainian military ship and destroyed by Russia? What happens if, for some reason, a passenger ship is in the area and gets sunk? Nothing good, presumably.
We are very close to war. We need to back down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc5Nk1DXyEY
US Foreign Policy
Above, I drew parallels between current events and events leading up to American involvement in Vietnam, and the First World War. I compared the mission creep in Vietnam to what I see as the start of mission creep in Ukraine. Now, I’ll be looking at wider US Foreign Policy from the past century and asking some simple questions about our nation’s positions on the world stage.
Afghanistan is a recent involvement that came to a head.
-Was the outcome desirable to our nation? Why or why not? What went wrong?
-Did the local population seem to want us there?
-Was the government that we supported able to stand on its own without us?
-Were the tax dollars used for training said government’s military worth it?
-Were the American lives lost in the region worth it?
Afghanistan, given the outcome, might be compared to US involvement in Iran in the 1970s.
-Was the outcome desirable to our nation? Why or why not?
-Did the local population seem to want us there?
-Was the government that we supported able to stand on its own without us?
-Were the tax dollars worth it?
-Was the creation of a nation with a government that hates us worth it?
What if we ask these same questions about Cuba? Libya? Somalia? Nicaragua? Vietnam? Do I even need to ask? South Korea seems to have been the exception to prove the rule.
All this to say: What do you think the political boundaries of Ukraine will look like in 15 years? Will the current government still be there? Will the breakaway regions still be part of Ukraine? Will the entire nation fracture into a dozen or more independent states? Will the locals, following years of American soldiers giving them the My Lai treatment, still want us there? Will a change in government reflect their desire for an end to American involvement?
I don’t know the answers to those questions exactly, but I’m much more confident on the following questions:
-Will the outcome be desirable?
-Can the government we currently support stand on its own without us, or will we need to give it perpetual support?
-Will the tax dollars be worth it?
-Will the American lives lost be worth it?
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWijx_AgPiA
Brief Talk on the eUS
Before I leave, I'll direct you back to this article's introduction. I'll say that I don't disagree with DMJ's reasons for leaving. There's not enough people to make virtual politics fun anymore. Our system (at least what it was a year or two ago when I was more active) was created for a more populous eNation, and it doesn't scale down well. I see the eUS having shrinking pains with attrition, as opposed to growing pains. A few people do a disproportionate amount of work to benefit a much larger proportion who do little more than 2-click. I have a RL, I don't need to get involved in that. I'd rather just make media entertaining, then sit down and read the comments.
One way to make media entertaining? Well, if you've read to the end of this article, you can testify to having been entertained, even if you disagree or want to get angry at me for my stance.
Stay classy
o>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaTqrdZ_cgQ
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I personally don't want eRepublik to be about RL politics. It would add more division and toxicity to a community already rife with same
also I do not agree with this article
Fair enough, but I do think some transformation of media usage and game culture is in order. The website is dying, we're suffering attrition. I'd rather keep people engaged at the cost of taking the game itself seriously, if that's an option.
I'd be interested in more articles in general, even if they have nothing to do with the game itself
There was obviously a conflict that led up to the war with valid points on both sides .
One could have an elaborate and sensitive view on the topic but what's the point if Russia has chosen brute force and violence as the solution of these conflicts.
The isolation, the designation as terrorist state, the infinite support for Ukraine and the simplistic Cold War worldview we are a democracy they are a tyranny is exactly what they deserve. They would deserve a deeper understanding and more sensitive approach if they themselves were able for anything like that.
interesting sentence : "It’s a certainty that in Kiev, in other parts of Ukraine, there are loads of people who don’t deserve a war in their backyard, and have done nothing personally to provoke it"
if NATO provoked the last 2 dozens of wars since 1950 shall NATO countries deserve a war in their backyards ?
Just wondering how difference is different ? Colin Powell's "White powder" performance, Yougoslavia, etc ?
or you will say as usual "oh no no this is different"
Interesting that the author takes ethnic numbers as some explanation on the situation pointing to Wikipedia 2001 year population while neglecting the factual dynamic of different nations population in 1990 year when UaSSR was almost before 1991 when USSR broke up.
After 1991 year the massive evidence that many people changed their nationality from Russian to Ukraininan just changing the passport. And culturally they continue to speak Russian indeed they were russians by birth but ukrainians on paper - yet another proof
Also historic fact that after 1920 year these Donbass territories experienced in massive ukrainization of population when Ukraininas from West Ukraine moved to Eastern Ukraine. THis was Stalin's politics to make Eastent Ukraine more "ukrainian"
Lastly the author seem not follow the origin of the conflict escalation after 2014 "maidan"
Yanukovich was the UA president where he gets around 25 millions population support mainly people fro Donbass
When Western Ukraine politicians with 5 billion dollars support of Victoria Nuland sponsored the "maidan" Yanukovich was getting off the power contradicting UA Constitution law.
People from Donbass started to think that "their" president was overthrown and stopped recognised the Kiev's central power. That was the MAIN reason of Donbass start going to be on their own. Kiev initiated anti-terrorist operation.
This is key fact - recall - Not war with Russia but Anti-Terrorist Operation in Donbass.
Kiev sent troops to Donbass in March 2014 (17 March 2014 to be precise) while Girkin (pro-russian activist) appeared only in April 2014 - this is also publicly available and verifiable fact
So everyone can easily answer the question - who first sent the troops to Donbass and who initiated this conflict escalation in 2014.
or you still will claim "oh no no this is different" ??? ahaha
Kyiv sent troops to Donbass in March 2014, as if Russia could not send troops to Sakhalin unless initiating a conflict with Japan.
"oh no no this is different"
Who cares if it's different or not? Russia has chosen to go down this path. We can go down this path too.
Allegedly there's a Russian general called Winter and Europeans will feel cold. I haven't felt anything.
Next winter, maybe nuclear winter 😉
Big words every year...but we have many years ahead so you have to be creative!
Что?
After 1991 year the massive evidence that many people changed their nationality from Russian to Ukraininan just changing the passport.
В паспорте Украины нет национальности, получение паспорта не обязывает смену национальности.
Russia chose the Russian way again, that is violence. I feel for the people (Russians, Ukrainians and all other) living in Luhanks and Donetsk whose homes and future was totally demolished. Many of them had to flee from their homeand or died. It is obvious that the situation is complex, and neither side is innocent. It is also likely that Russia did not plan like this, they planned from a week of "special operation". But they failed, and then comes the ego, and seeking ways to make it seemingly OK, without huge face loss. So they choose to demolish, and invade. Meanwhile they got humiliated and lost considerable amount of army and equipment. They probably also realized that it is already a huge face loss for one of the biggest army of the world. The question is whether they want to go full war or back off with a suitable peace agreement and use propaganda to show it as a victory. However this is by no means victory to anyone living at Luhanks or Donetsk.
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Сui prodest.... If you can't realise the reasons behind the actions than just look who's gaining profits and benefits from these actions... To me it's pretty obvious that the democratic elves are the biggest benefactors of this process. As you've noticed they are selling weapons and liquid gas, besides they've implemented tax benefits for those manufacturers who will relocate their factories to the elven kingdom making this relocation even more profitable to cut off the last doubts owners might have...And the ships are transferring the factories and plants across the Atlantic ocean at this very moment...
Now you say: "Russian companies are selling raw materials and fuel to Asia" Ain't we were selling these to EU with the same result? Have you heard about Seymour Hersh investigation “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline”? These are the consecutive links in the same chain: to cutt off the EU from the cheap eastern resources and raw materials. And now after months they are trying to convince us this were some ukrainian rebels on the fishboat... Why mr. Hersh is not prosecuted to the full extent of the law than?
Now about Putin and his reasons. I personally don't like him but i'm in the same boat with him and when he dived down into the abyss on 24th Feb 2022 most of the russian ppl have got only 2 options: to row or not to row. Since that moment it doesn't matter anymore which reasons he had at the beginning though I think he had serious reasons to do that, not just imperialistic approach about which our neighbours are yelling at every corner. This doesn't matter anyways. The only thing that matters for us now is whether we come out of this or not when all the NATO are proxy-fighting against us and setting our borders on fire.
This is why i'm donating part of my earnings on military needs and taking military lessons, because democratic elves are knocking at our doors claiming us the biggest evil. The only thing I can do now is keep rowing and to prepare for further escalation. That's it.
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I didn't mean to attack you and i got your point, you can do whatever you want, to support or condemn anyone, you are just another rower in another boat and you can even choose to not to row...
I just wanted you to understand what motto the decent amount (i believe) of the russian ppl have and the preconditions which have brought us into this war
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Oh wow, so emotional, ok let's try once again...
I don't want to dive into historical depths now about who took who but simple logic says to me, if you are small helpless country near a big nuclear one you need to maintain good relations with it, it's easy to do if you speak the same language (not anymore?) go to the same church (not anymore) have the same history together (not anymore). And where from came all these differences sudenly...rhetorical question...
I had to point you out somehow and yes to me you are "some EU guy from above comments", didn't mean to enlighten you...
If you ask to spare you, i wiill for sure, assuming you have the most accurate information right from Kharkov. And once again I didn't mean to enlighten you or giving advices, I just gave you my own point of view, if that insulted you somehow I didn't mean to.
Now speaking about families...
My son is on Balkans now, he is living there with his mother for more than 10 years already and i'm having troubles seeing him because of war and yes I'm worrying for their safety, he is 1/4 Ukrainian btw and knowing russian and ukrainian history there are many families who are having family and friends connections between each other, which are being cut due to war and this is bad and getting worse and worse...
If you think that i'm pro-war than you are mistaken, i don't see anything good in any war and especially in fratricidal one.
There are plenty of keyboard soldiers nowadays, it has became an important part of the war also. When my country asks I'll get dressed and go fight in a real war, until than i'm preparing just in case and entertaining myself as a KEYBOARD soldier! That's it 🙂
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wrong things are just wrong, like your article.
The entire world is in a debt to Ukraine that money cannot pay.
Just watch that video with the guy who stood for all of us and took the bullets.
Slava Ukraine!
Idk.. maybe like the western half.. maybe poland... but either way Germany just needs oil/gas/winterheating. Either way as an American I have no qualms paying Ukraine to kill Russians.
I am not a Serbian iRL, I only play for eSerbia, so don't get me into the "they just love Putin and Russia category" because of my avatar. I am actually a proud Croatian. Catholic. Someone who dislikes communism.
If mainstream media and reporters from the area of conflict were more objective and independent (financially most of all) they would report somewhat different stuff, give us all the bigger picture and most likely encourage the discussion about what goes on there. If that was a thing most of the people would probably make their own conclusion about who the aggressor is and who the victim is even though its not that easy to conclude. To some portion both countries are both victims and aggressors.
I'd probably say that Russia is the bigger aggressor, but it wasn't really unprovoked invasion, NATO asked for it, Ukraine was a great proxy shield and gun at the same time. Both of those statements go one with another and I'm pretty sure thats something we'd all agree with if the msm media were objective.
Imagine a world where most of the people lost all the faith in journalism and science, two things most of us trusted the most until recently. How sad..
"NATO asked for it" What did NATO do to "ask for it"?
NATO staged a coup in 2014 in Ukraine.
He encouraged Ukraine to disobey the Minsk agreements (which was confirmed by the direct participants and guarantors of the agreement, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande), armed Ukraine, encouraged the Ukrainian army to shell and kill civilians in the Donbass, created laboratories for biological weapons directed against Russia, etc.
We never even intended to implement the Minsk agreements, it was just our Western bluff to deceive Putin and give Ukraine time to strengthen its army and prepare for war with Russia - that is the context of the bombastic interview that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave this week for the German Zeit weekly.
Prove NATO "staged a coup in Ukraine." Prove NATO "encouraged Ukraine to disobey the Minsk agreements." Prove the nonsense about "bioweapons" and "shelling Donbass." You are somewhat correct about the "strengthen Ukraine's army to prepare for war with Russia" part, but only because it was the best way of trying to prevent another Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there was no "bluff" about it -- this was made quite clear at the time. And had NATO really wished to strengthen Ukraine's army, they didn't do a good job of it, as we've seen. And we've also seen what REALLY strengthening Ukraine's army looks like. So a bunch of nonsense and conspiracy theories, all poorly translated by Google.
George,
Wasn't the purpose of Nato to be a defense entity for its members? Yet, there are very few conflicts the US/Nato don't have their finger in. So, why is Nato getting involved in this regional conflict? It's all about $$ and influence, and we (Americans or actually our politicians) won't let go of either, willingly anyways. Someone underestimated the situation and didn't think there would be tanks rolling in Ukraine, and now everyone and their mother is paying for it, some more dearly than others.
And all the "prove this, prove that", sounds like an argument from a 5 year old. Nobody has to prove anything, when the end result is clear. Nato is (almost) at Russia's borders after a very clear message from the Russians that it wasn't acceptable. Americans are more "diplomatic" (sneakily getting their agenda to move forward) where the Russians are more "direct". It's a cultural difference, which you may understand if you've ever said something you thought was "funny" to a Russian at a bar 🙂
You are correct. Expecting people to make proveable statements is childish. The adult thing to do is let people lie. The REALLY adult thing to do is to pretend people's lies are the truth.
As for the stuff about people making money off of war, do you have any idea how many TRILLIONS of dollars this war has cost the West in lost output, in higher energy prices, in slumping stock prices? Clearly, you don't. But then, not knowing what you're talking about is what "adults" do.
Do I have to prove I can read, if i'm writing/responding to your posts? It really is that trivial, but feel free to complicate it and justify things in your own way.
As for the economic effects, i don't think i'm the one that doesn't understand (or want to).
Have a good night.
The evidence is everywhere. Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande admitted this.
Russia is the winner in World War 2 and according to the UN Charter, it has the right to react if Nazism turns into vampires. Shelling Donbass, expelling and killing civilians there is a form of neo-Nazism.
Russia had the right to react. It was only obliged to inform France, Britain and had the right to attack Nazi Ukraine according to the UN charter.
They hid it from you.
Merkel and Hollande "admitted" 'to nothing more than trying to arm Ukraine to prevent another Russian invasion. As for the rest of your conspiracies, tell me, who is this "they" who is hiding things from me, and where do YOU get YOUR information, where things aren't being "hidden?" Russian telegram? The unbiased and reliable Serbian news? Who?
The west pretty much supported that coup... which Russia claims goes against Budapest... Which we in the west can state cheap Russian Gas broke it first.. which Russia can stated EaP in 07 broke it..
Or if you think Euromaidan wasn't western supported, you would also be part of the frontlines of support Putin if you were just born in a different region.
Define "support." And the only people who call it a "coup" are Putinists.
Jesus christ you are either really stupid, really brainwashed or a combination of both. You have no feet planted in any reality at all.
That was pointed at the idiot Putnin fluffer PRC x3 not you George
I'd say the US had seen the opportunity here to bleed Russia without direct NATO/Russia war. But again, here the super powers are after their own interests:
The US to bleed out Russia, while selling weapons and gas
China to import cheap oil/gas while making creative profit on embargoed goods, while likely happy that their neighbour is getting weaker on the long term
India to import cheap fossils, and very carefully uttering words like "it is no time to war", however just like for any super power they also adjust their plans how to profit from this
Really like the kids in the kindergarten, if not openly but likely everyone is happy that one of the biggest bully gets beaten/weakened by the underdog. The kid with the US T-shirt is openly supporting the underdog, the two others are seemingly supporting peace and try to be neutral on the surface, but at the mean time they are planning how this will servee them better. Ultimately they all hope that the kid with Russia T-shirt will be beaten/weakened, so they have less problem in the future.
Why would anyone want to bleed Russia? Their (self-selected) role in the world was to be Europe's gas station. As long as they were doing that, nobody cared about them. The U.S. had moved to on China as a potential adversary. That ended once Russia invaded. Why would countries want to shake up a status quo that is so beneficial to them? Selling arms? This war has set the world back trillions of dollars in lost production. No amount of arms sales make up for that. It's one thing to have this conspiratorial mindset that allows you to believe you know what's really going on, but at least have thought things through and looked at the big picture. Wealthy countries did not benefit from this war. They would have made more money by letting Russia have as much of Ukraine as it wanted, as long as the hydrocarbons kept flowing. That they didn't means you ought to have some other conspiracy in mind to explain why they have opposed the invasion so vigorously. It's almost as if they really do believe in this idea of self-determination and democracy, especially when they see Russia as a predator which threatens their own if left unchecked. But then, that's not a clever and cynical explanation, so it can't be right.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/russia-ukraine-war-cost-world-economy-1-6-trn-in-2022-says-study-123022200402_1.html
On the big picture I kind of disagree. It for sure that for most ordinary man disrupting the support chain is BAD, leads to loss of money, worse quality of life. But on the other hand super powers have much wider horizon than ordinary people. In game theory if I loose less than you, then the scale is tipped in my favour and while it hurts me it hurts the other much more.
I don't say the US planned and that it was not Russia (as a too confident super power) who ultimately chose this aggressive action. They simply tought that they can exploit the weakness of the west and as they could get away in 2014 they can do it again. They prepared for a one week special operation and get away with it. However they failed, failed miserably.
Now in this situation all the other super powers naturally started to exploit the confict to their favour, be it agenda of saving the weak, wealth or both and they reacted accordingly. I do believe that the US saw the opportunity to bleed Russia without direct conflict and is happy to do it just as much in the current situation than being on the right side (at least from their point of view). I also believe that all other big players do their own dirty deals (India, China).
I don't want to say that they gang up on Russia now since Russia asked for it, but I do believe that everyone is majorly motivated by their own interest and the smaller component is the "charity" part.
In my opinion the adversary of USA is China, and ideally Russia would be a distant partner against China, the inverse, how China was a distant partner of USA against the Soviet Union in the 80s.
As the result of the war Russia loses it's economic relations and influence in Europe. This is some kind of geopolitical win for USA, but only if we believe Russia was the enemy to beat. And starting the war with these obvious results was a Russian decision not American.
In fact all of the NATO advances in Europe aren't really the results of the talent of USA, rather the failures of the Soviet Union and Russia. The Soviet Union made eastern Europe hate the East and make alliance with the West ( NATO ). Now Russians make Ukrainians hate Russia, and Ukraine will be an ally of the West too. If Russia captures Ukraine maybe 40 years later, but it will happen inevitably.
If Russia occupies Ukraine it will be in this war. Would you bet on Russia to hold to his promise if you got burnt? If Ukraine stands it will join Eu, may be Nato, but for sure they will get a huge support to fortify and defend against the next invasion from the democratic world. They will sure not love the Russian government any soon. And occuping them would be likely bloody as well. What more one can lose compared to this war? There are countless of people who lost their relatives and fuelled by anger. Russia would have to fight a guerilla war from Ukraine rebels. Never be safe to sleep, who, when will sabotage them next.
Excellent article for an American, which is rare. In principle, Americans are superficial, uneducated, they believe the media and propaganda... 90% of Americans are brainwashed.
The USA has no enemies who want to conquer it. There are only nations and countries that want revenge for the evils that the USA has inflicted on them and are looking forward to the downfall of the USA. The list of those countries and peoples is over 50. In those countries, the USA created chaos, killed, provided weapons, as it is now in Ukraine.
Put yourself in a situation where someone in Canada or Mexico kills American citizens and is supported by Russia or China with weapons.
How would the USA react in that situation?
That there is an enemy state/government standing on its border that wants to destroy it?
We know how it reacted in situations when under the pretext of "threatened national security" it waged war all over the world, far away from the USA.
Ukrainians are Russians, and they were separated by historical circumstances. It is the same people (except for western Ukraine). The world powers and the Vatican created the Ukraine project so that Russia would have an enemy on the border. Divide and conquer is an old saying that is still used today. The situation is the same with Serbs and Croats. Exactly the same project.
VUntil the 9th century, there was a state called Khazaria on the territory of today's Ukraine and southern Russia. Read about it because the current president and prime minister of Ukraine are Khazars/Jews. How is this possible when Ukraine is 99% Orthodox/Christian country? Ukraine is not Israel, but it is for some reason. USA wants to dismember Russia and take its wealth. Ukraine is just a proxy country that will do the dirty work and disappear.
I'm afraid that the entire West will also disappear, because when someone is cornered like Russia, it will defend itself by all means (of course, nuclear if necessary).
And again you prove yourself to be more of an imbecile than I thought possible.
Let's talk about the Wars that Russia has waged since oh let's say starting about 1945.
Let's talk about the long list of war crimes they have committed. But of course not mother Russia it is a paradise for a nonthinking fool like yourself.
You should STFU and stop embarrassing yourself.
The West is going nowhere. One thing we have all learned is Russia's military is a paper tiger and it's military equipment is third-rate at best.
It is bogged down in Ukraine being destroyed by a very competent well trained Ukrainian force.
Putin's Russia is on the downslide.
Hate to break it to you but big daddy Putin is done. It is now only a matter of time before the whole shitshow collapses.
But hey enjoy the kool-aid while you can.
Don't tell fairy tales
Here'e the list for you since 1939
Poland
Finland
Baltic States
Indo China
Korea
Viet Nam’
East German Uprinsing
Hungary
Czechoslovakia
Angola
Afghanistan
Georgia
South Ossetia
Abkhazia
Transnistria
Tajikistan
Chechnya 1/2
Dagestan
Russo-Georgian War
Syria
Central African Republic
Russo-Ukrainian War
*
Here is the list for you since 19.th century
Mexico,
Texas,
Arkansas,
Louisiana,
Tennessee,
Mississippi,
Alabama,
Georgia,
Florida, South Carolina,
North Carolina,
Virginia,
China,
Cuba,
Nicaragua,
Haiti,
Dominican Republic,
etc
etc...
Both Lists above have merit; though neither are appropriately comprehensive.
Louisiana was PURCHASED; akin to Alaska... ( https://64parishes.org/entry/spanish-colonial-louisiana )
Sakhalin / Kuril/e Islands Annexed post 1945. ( https://www.communityheritagemaps.com/sakhalin-island-a-history/ )
*
Instead of Mexico we can also write present-day states: California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming.
But my intention wasn't to be detailed. I just want to show how someone can be uneducated, blind and brainwashed - while making stupid lists.
1. "90%" - The Pareto Principle has an ineffable lens effect in the global perspective; specifically the 90% of "Americanisms" are characteristics of 10% of United States Citizens which are highlighted 90% compared to the 10% of 'rational behavior' [AKA : no news = good news]
2. The USA has been, and indeed remains, a country in transformation. While this cannot be a justification for "undue 'meddling'" since the Barbary Wars / Great White Fleet it remains appropriate precedent.
3. To claim that ALL of anything is anyone seems myopic at best, and far worse than obnoxious at its worst.
4. A valid point regarding Khazaria; perhaps it is why some "Western" Historians have insufficient interest in pre-French Revolutionary History? Then again, not many wish to afford the Tartars / Mongols sufficient prominence in Eurasian Development; including but not limited to both The Great Wall and indeed the Kremlin.
5.History will continue its transformative nature; perhaps Fusion power will end the momentary Tulipmania surrounding Crypto-Currencies? Perhaps all that will remain is the Global South if the northern Hemisphere Squabbles itself into Oblivion? Will A.I. / GPT x.x morph civilization into the world depicted in Wall-E?...
Until such queries are posited all any can do is enjoy the sunshine and the rain, as both remain vital.
So glad to see your back
But i dont think you should involved RL with the game
Keep up with your articles and you activity, o7!! 😃
Oh, this naive softened western citizens who considers that turning a blind eye or appeasement of aggressor give them possibility to live in the good old world. Revanchist ideas was promoted in Russia for last 15 years, military power was enhancened while West pumped up it with equipment and money. War in Georgia, 2008 showed that nobody gives a **** about military aggression. Weak reaction on Crimea annexion and direct military support to separatist in Donetsk and Luhansk region showed Putin that he may continue to make him dreams true to gather lands for Russian Empire restoration or USSR v.2.0.
If you think that putin will stop at that regions of Ukraine that he claimed already as 'part of RF' you are wrong. You will be wrong also if you consider he stop if give them whole Ukraine. There is Moldova with Transnistria, there are 'nazist' Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, where russians 'are oppresed' even stronger. Later will come turn for 'rusofobic' Poland, brother Bulgaria and so on. Given up to nuclear blackmail once, you would be step back always until you find yourself beaten up by sticks of Rosguardia in Berlin, Paris and Miami. If NATO surrender Ukraine putin's army become 10 mln soldiers bigger.
The world could evade great war in 2008, if such or similar sanctions would be provided against russian state then. It could have been prevented in 2014, maybe. But if you still hope that new 'Munich Pact' with new Hitler help you now, you are badly wrong. The World war is near.
NATO came too close- that is all problem, putin said 10 years- hey hey stop stop- who listened? what changed? nothing...so dear armanych, dear yankees, dear ukroclowns why still dont understand what is basic point?? u r only puppet in NATO game-yours countrymans died only for yankee interest and money...halloooooo wake up yankee dollar is pure fake- they need wars, they need plunder,if u think not so u can explain list of countries where they killing for what? only for resources and who cares how millions people died there? fat yankee care about syrian,afgan victims? ofc no..they care how many ukrops will dead? ofc no
u want prediction? they will stop money for UA and u will with naked hands against rus, u know why? because dollar problems and maybe china war in future- yeah will weapons but no for ukraine more but for self..remember my words-now is 8 march 2023- in september 2023 we can meet in discusion here again and u will see-just half year
If you woild be a decent man I could reply but these :ukroclowns', 'ukrops' said enough to not touch such substance.
There is a lot of Methane in Siberia.