The Brink of War?

[goji]

GDP PPP makes perfect sense, but surely only on a per capita basis ?

Russia is well up the list in 74th place.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...PP)_per_capita

Then we could speculate about how much of that is creamed off by the leadership.

[Moses]

GDP PPP makes perfect sense, but surely only on a per capita basis ?

No. It is totally different index: GDP PPP per capita shows not power of country's economy but workforce productivity. I.e. amount of goods and services what is manufactured by one citizen.

look at your URL: anybody here count #1 Lichtenstein the most powerful economy in world? and China is #100? Seriously?

[arsenal]

PPP is a smokescreen. It doesn't give you any more actual money to spend, it just means wages are lower. Cheap Big Macs won't help you in a drawn out conflict in eastern Europe.

I'm glad you're not pursuing the China as allies line, that too is a smokescreen.

History will record Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Empire as a tragedy. You could have taken any path but instead you elect a gangster who after 22 years of being mocked, ridiculed and reviled has finally gone into paranoia.

[Moses]

History will record Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Empire as a tragedy. You could have taken any path but instead you elect a gangster who after 22 years of being mocked, ridiculed and reviled has finally gone into paranoia.

Since collapse of USSR Russia grew GDP many times and now is 6th economic in World, and Putin still has votes of majority of population. Isn't that you call democracy?

Speaking about paranoia and paranoids lets take a look in US: even Ukraine accuses US in paranoia and sowing panic now https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...panic-over-war

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/polit...sky/index.html

[cdnmatt]

When Crimea was Autonomous republic within Ukraine at USSR time and late under Ukrainian pro-kremlin govt, nobody spoke about moving to Russia. Only after win of Nazi, Autonomous Republic of Crimea moved to Russia by national voting. There were no Russian invasion to Crimea - Russian bases existed there for many decades. Crimea just voted and joined Russia. NO ONE shoot heared on Crimea peninsula at that time. Ukrainian military forces just ran out, because they knew - they will have no support from Russian who are living there and are 2/3 of population

And the reason there were so many Russians in Crimea is because Stalin kicked all the Tartar's out and displaced them to Asia, then proceeded to move tons of Russians into Crimea.

Putin needs to learn to allow the Ukrainian people to choose their own future. This all started back in 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up, and since then Russia has been trying to get Ukraine back. For the first approx decade they tried diplomacy, and upon realizing that's not going to work, they decided a different tact was in order.

After some election rigging and poisoning of the opposition, Russia managed to get their guy Yanukovych in as Prime Minister. This only lasted a few years before Ukrainians decided they don't want a Russian puppet as Prime Minister, and the Orange Revolution happened. I'm sure we all remember those protests, as they were quite violent (eg. molotov cocktails being thrown on police). Yanukovych fled to Russia before the protesters got to him.

Putin decided, "fuck this, at the very least I need Crimea for my naval bases on the Black Sea and those sweet sweet natural resources". This was a pretty easy win since Stalin already laid the ground work by exiling all the Tartars from the region to central Asia and replacing them with Russian citizens.

Ukraine continued to drift more to the West sparking talks of joining the EU and NATO. Putin's like the jealous boyfriend who can't accept the break up,so now we have 127,000 Russiian troops in place and ready to invade. From Putin's perspective, tens of millions of Russian citizens were displaced and are now lost and struggling outside of their motherland. He's trying to put the family back together, kind of thing.

Unfortunately for Putin, tens of millions of Ukrainians starved to death under Stalin's rule due to his agriculture policies, so many of them aren't exactly overly enthusiastic to rejoin the mother land.

Putin needs to learn to let Ukraine do what they want, in the same vein that the US needs to immediately life all embargos against Cuba and let Cuba do what they want. The US can't possibly allow a liberal socialist nation to thrive and propser though giving people an alternative perspective, so that's not going to happen, but that's a whole different discussion.

[Moses]

After some election rigging and poisoning of the opposition, Russia managed to get their guy Yanukovych in as Prime Minister. This only lasted a few years before Ukrainians decided they don't want a Russian puppet as Prime Minister, and the Orange Revolution happened. I'm sure we all remember those protests, as they were quite violent (eg. molotov cocktails being thrown on police). Yanukovych fled to Russia before the protesters got to him.

Where you find information with so many mistakes??? Yanukovitch wasn't PM, he was legally elected president of Ukraine.
Let me show to you "orange revolution". Kiev capital of Ukraine now.











These people are in power now. They made disorders what you call "orange revolution". They call them self "Right sector" - do you see black-red flags? Nazi and nationalists. You can watch their fire lighted marches by Kiev yearly at January 1. Google "Bandera marches Kiev" and look in youtube.

Well, looks like attack on Capitol not far ago was also "orange revolution"? How did you say? "7 year in prison"???

[Moses]

======== decided they don't want a Russian puppet as Prime Minister==========

Right!
We even have proof of Russian manipulations: on the picture Russian official instructs Ukrainian ministers, senators and personally Ukrainian president what to do. Oh, sorry, it is Joe Bidden sits as a chairman on the chair of the leader of Ukrainian Parliament. And on right side like a student or manager sits Ukrainian president Petr Poroshenko (first from right).

Correct. No more puppet masters!!! Now it is totally independent country!



US will fight with corruption in Ukraine! Right.
Oh, sorry, what we see here? Hunter Biden (right) as a director of 3rd largest Ukrainian gas company Burisma at time of meetings of directors? For sure it is defamation! Right? And fact what Burisma became 3rd largest after H.Biden become director has nothing with name of his father.

[cdnmatt]

Moses, Ukraine is quite obviously trying to distance itself from Russia. There's kind of no way you can misread that.

Don't worry, if the Ukrainian people don't like what's happening, they've quite clearly demonstrated they have no problem taking to the streets and letting their government know they're pissed off.

[Moses]

Moses, Ukraine is quite obviously trying to distance itself from Russia. There's kind of no way you can misread that.

Not "Ukraine". But current nationalistic and corrupted Ukrainian government is trying to distance. They got support from US for to make coup d'état, ohhh, sorry, "orange revolution" at 2014 and now serve new owner.

Don't worry, if the Ukrainian people don't like what's happening, they've quite clearly demonstrated they have no problem taking to the streets and letting their government know they're pissed off.

Exactly that was in Crimea at 2014. And now you call that "Russian aggression".

Exactly that was in 2014 at the East of Ukraine in Donbas and now you call them separatists, but they just want have rights to speak Russian, to write Russian, to send their kids to schools with study in Russian, to watch Ukrainian TV in Russian language. Because they are Russians. There was "local language law" under Yanukovich that gave them warranty to save their identity, and now it is canceled.

Russia wants them within Ukraine. Russia does not recognize declared by them Donetsk People Republic and Lugansk People Republic. Ukrainian army kills them one by one. Russia supports them by humanitarian goods and weaponry. There is Minsk agreement signed by Ukraine in 2014 for to normalize situation. And Ukraine 7 years already does nothing to make steps what it took in obligation by this signed agreement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_Protocol

[cdnmatt]

Again, Crimea is a bit of a different beast. Stalin moved all the Tartars out, and moved Russian citizens in, hence wasn't exactly much resistance when Russian soldiers showed up to annex the place.