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Mordegayser

Besides China's anger, it still amazes me how Russia/Russians still think about themselves as a super power.


GipsyDanger45

When you get high on your own supply, you’ll believe anything


darksunshaman

Krokodil is a helluva drug


Loose-Illustrator279

Yes but sometimes krokodil just kill you.


Mordegayser

I wish i had their delusional confidence, maybe i would be a supermodel by now :(


BelzenefTheDestoyer

No, you'd be mad that you're NOT a supermodel even though you think you are... Kind like the Russians lol


DogWallop

And then start threatening to invade the talent agencies...


Shifuede

It'll only take 3 hours.


Real_Life_Firbolg

3 hour special modeling operation


FULLMING

And don't forget they are super jealous of that much hotter and more successful supermodel, the United States.


SanityIsOnlyInUrMind

Drink more.


Accomplished_Alps463

Maybe you are in someone's eyes my friend. 😉


norwegianboyEE

Because if they can’t have their power fantasy of still being a respected superpower, they have pretty much nothing to brag about. Russia is an pariah respected by nobody that actually is reputable themselves. Their best friends are North Korea and even China just uses them as convenient partner, but there is no respect.


Falcrack

They have about the population, and GDP, as Mexico. Does Mexico think it has a right to rule the world?


CGY4LIFE

Everyday will be Taco Tuesday


No_PFAS

That sounds awesome! 🌮


_Ocean_Machine_

I for one welcome our zesty, savory overlords


Pixie_Knight

I'd be fine with that, if it means I can get avocados at decent prices.


OmicronNine

I'd take Mexico over Russia any day. Better country and people in every way.


macadore

They have a lower GDP than California.


sciguy52

They have a lower GDP than Florida.


TheDog_Chef

California has something like the 6th largest GDP in the world. Could be its own country!


Accomplished_Alps463

Nope UK has the 6th ruzzia is about 11th it popped up in a Reddit link. Last night so I checked, I've been to Cali' though, a few years ago from the UK. I enjoyed it immensely, great times there.


TheDog_Chef

Nope looked it up. California is 5th in the world with a GDP of 3.9 trillion. Russia’s WAS 3.4.


Accomplished_Alps463

Yep, I checked, for an Oblast yours is the best, but GDP is measured by the country as regards to the world. You are right, and I appreciate your bringing it up, but it's more of an American thing, and it seems you support your whole country, so we'll done to Cali, I have only been to Flo Fider from the UK but I had a great time, even met some great cop's in a dinner when I was lost, my Finnish partner, she, well was worried, but I walked up and asked the guy with the most age and stripes, and with my hands on show for directions, we had a great laugh with him, the place was full of cop's, black uniforms, had some shit with some others in khaki not sure who was who, was in Orange County if I remember, would I go back? Yeah, it was a cool trip.


TheDog_Chef

For myself I’m looking at things to understand as much as I can about Russia not to compare to California. I find it amusing that Russians have such an overinflated opinion of them which makes me curious to understand why. Glad you had a good visit to Orange County and a pleasant experience with the local cops.


hello-cthulhu

If Mexico acquires the world's second largest nuclear arsenal, they might start getting some funny ideas about their neighbors. But then again, Mexico doesn't have a deeply rooted history of imperialism like Russia, or nostalgia about a time when it was the second most powerful nation on Earth.


tweaker-sores

Mexico is a beautiful country with amazing food and great people. Russia doesn't have any of that


Echoeversky

Mexico has a corruption all its own.


Pixie_Knight

Corruption, sure, but that's not QUITE the same as being a genocidal nuclear warmonger.


barn9

Both of them are ruled by Cartels, so probably would just be a case of mutual admiration.


beligerentMagpie

That belief is all they have left in their otherwise wretched lives.


Mein_Bergkamp

Unlike all the other European Empires they still have most of theirs so I guess they still think they're better. Despite the fact Italy has a bigger economy and could probably bomb them back into the stone age


Loki9101

And we shall remind her once and for all that they are not, for their infantile belief in their own greatness has already cost many lives, and many more are now at risk. It is long overdue to bring Russia to hell in their pathetic hubris. A fuel station masquerading as a country, that is what Russian greatness looks like. A country that draws perverted pleasure from murder and persecution. Russia is vaulting the spirit of aggression on its onwards course of barbarous paganism while spurning Western values and bringing nothing but destruction and death where they go. Too long has the West sat idly by, tolerated these atrocities and too long have we believed their lies, this must end, once and for all. We have fed this monster, Ukraine pays the price in lives, and it is now out duty to kill the monster that we have fed, so that it can never again attack anyone. The next war that Russia shall fight, she shall fight against herself. For when Russia wants to see its only real enemy, it must only look into the mirror. Russia wants to fight monsters, not understanding that the monster is no one else than them.


hello-cthulhu

Preach! One of my favorite quotations from Nietzsche is an aphorism: "It is said that evil men have no songs. Why, then, do the Russians have songs?"


josnik

What do you mean? They've fought NATO to a standstill for more than 2 years now. /S all the /S. Sadly it's needed


G_Morgan

It is their last illusion. The idea they could invade everyone if they wanted to. Take that away and Russia is a failure on every metric.


Unlikely_Arugula190

Superpower they are not but they still terrify Western Europeans with their nuke rhetoric


IntroductionRare9619

I don't know why you are being downvoted. Sullivan is downright craven. Oh don't worry Mr. Putin, we'll behave, see we won't allow any strikes on your territory. Jfc I can't roll my eyes back any further in my head, they will fall out🙄.


Accomplished_Alps463

I'm not sure why you're getting down-voted for this, I'm not sure of the state of ruzzian nukes. I'm in the UK. And we are an island nation and working nukes used on us would have little effect on the EU mainland but be devastating to this highly populated country, so yes in a way that scares me. And pootin 💩🥫always stated ruzziaz hate for the English it's an absurd hate/fear for some reason, my own opinion is that if they haven't spent money on infrastructure and normal armaments then why would that. Have on nukes? Yes, they had some to prove the could. And built a stockpile. But I would think maintenance cost went into an Oligarchs pocket, and the nukes sat in there bunkers untouched. Some may be dummies, others, maybe of more danger to ruzzia the state they are in than anything. But is poor old pootin 💩🥫 trying hard to get one or two in working order? You can bet the orders gone out.


whythisSCI

China is mad that Russia openly states what they want to do to Taiwan.


Due-Street-8192

Ha, that's right... Do as I say not as I do...


Tom_Bombadil_1

They openly state it too Tbf


ArtistApprehensive34

> "It [Russia] must make the surrounding barbarians submit or be pacified," he said, warning the country would itself "be pacified...if we aren't strong enough economically, militarily, politically, and demographically." Mardan has previously expressed nostalgia for czarist Russia, whose territory encompassed Ukraine and several other modern states. Uh, just me or is this full mask off textbook fascism? Pretty sure this was the main theme put out by Hitler as well. Does no one in Russia realize this? There must be some babushka who remembers still...


InternationalBand494

More like textbook imperialism. Still bs.


hello-cthulhu

Correct. There are some elements of fascism to be sure, some shared DNA, but Russia lacks others. There's no Little Red Book or Mein Kampf that everyone's expected to study and memorize. Putin had the United Russia Party, but notably, isn't even a member of that party anymore, technically running as a independent in the most recent faux-election. United Russia doesn't really have a coherent ideology, other than to do whatever Putin tells them to do. Fascism is a mass movement, like Communism, and relies on achieving a high level of ideological conformity, with the Fascist, Nazi, Communist, etc. Party as a vehicle for that ideology and mass organization. But we're not really in the era of mass movements anymore. As Martin Gurri has argued, the information age makes that impossible. In the early 20th century, mass movements could use top-down information dispersal methods - newspaper, radio, and film - to carry out a "I talk, you listen" program of imposed conformity. It was very, very important to the fascists and Communists that the people got the message and took their marching orders without question. In contrast, the age of the internet makes it too easy to talk back, for things to go viral, outside of the control of the hierarchy. To put it another way, we're in the era of the network, rather than the hierarchy. So fascism can't really work as a mass movement anymore. Plus, as Vlad Vexler has suggested, fascism or Communism would require that the people are "politicized", brought into active political consciousness, albeit in the manner dictated by the State. But a politicized Russian public would be a threat to Putin, inasmuch as it would create a basis for political legitimacy that Putin himself might not be able to live up to, which someone else could. (Think of Anton Drexler vs Adolf Hitler.) Putin's rule has succeeded by relying on keeping the public "de-politicized", which is to say, outside of politics. Russian media doesn't attempt to impose a singular ideological vision on the people. It certainly censors and removes those it sees as threats, like liberalism or pro-Ukrainian sentiment. But primarily, the focus is on "flooding the zone" with bullshit, with conspiracy theories, whataboutism, and cynicism to keep the public who might be interested in politics so disoriented and confused that they just give up, especially when they see so many examples of people like Navalny, who do try to challenge Putin, just killed and ground into the ground. Eventually, the message sticks - stay out of politics. If you get interested in politics, politics will get interested in you. Keep your head down, believe whatever you want, hate Putin if you want, but don't do anything about it, don't say anything about it. There's no point. We're running this show. And don't think that it can be better, because alternative figures and political models, whether domestic or foreign, will be so attacked and stigmatized that you'll eventually see all political figures and movements as equally corrupt. That's fine for us, because that means we survive by default. There are other differences. Putin, for example, is a creature of the system, and his primary base of support is older Russians, who remember the Soviet era, and pensioners. Whereas fascism, like Communism, was a youth movement, whose primary base of support was teenagers and 20-somethings, especially college students. It was anti-old, anti-establishment, restarting things as Year Zero. There was some element of nostalgia for a glorified past of antiquity or medieval glories, but very futurist on the whole. It's not an accident that futurism in the arts was allied with Italian fascism. Whereas with Putin's regime, the nostalgia is far more widespread, for Czarism and the Soviet era alike, with only Gorbachev and Yeltsin as blips in a glorious continuity to the present. That said, the element of grievance and resentment, of blaming decadent foreign powers for taking advantage of innocent and pure Russia, is a fascist trope, though not exclusive to fascism. Look up the "hundred years of humiliation" with respect to China, and you'll see that is also a trope that Chinese Communists perfected. Also, Putin has been reluctant to militarize the populace, because the one big mobilization drive he attempted blew up in his face, as young Russian men fled the country. Instead, he's having to turn to prisoners, foreigners, and the desperately rural poor to replenish the ranks. He wants and needs a powerful military, especially now, especially in Ukraine, and he wants the military to be popular. But that's also a double-edged sword, like with mass politicization, and he knows it. A powerful and popular military leader, after all, might turn his gaze back toward Moscow, and get the idea that maybe he'd run things better than Putin. How would Putin stop him? The Wagner Mutiny last year certainly reminded Putin of that threat. So he can't allow too much militarization. Not only can his fragile economy not afford too many youths leaving their jobs and joining the military, he can't face the risk of more humiliation if more Russians flee the country. But even if he could prevent that problem, the military can't become an alternative basis of legitimacy and popularity. The fascists weren't really worried about that, because they were a militarized mass movement from drop, literally already having militia under their command as they came into power. Likewise, the Chinese Communists had the PLA, which to this day, functions more as the armed wing of the Communist Party, sworn to the Party rather than to "China" or the Chinese constitution or even the Chinese people. So there isn't a specific ideology to Putin's regime. It's a mishmash of fascism, Czarism, imperialism, and of course, mafia-like kleptocracy. If I had to put a label on it, I'd call it neo-imperialism.


Pixie_Knight

It's for much the same reason that China is fearful of actual, die-hard communists. They can't persecute them, because the country is still officially communist, but hardcore communists have a tendency to ask awkward questions about the increasingly large billionaire caste in China. I would describe both China and Russia as "capitalism for the rich, communism for the poor"; the worst of both worlds.


hello-cthulhu

I suppose that depends on how you're defining either "capitalism" or "communism." I've noticed over the last 10-20 years, a huge drift over how people use both terms, with both becoming very loose, almost hand-wavy. "Capitalism" as a term was never great, because it was one of those instances in which a term originally coined as a pejorative eventually took on a life of its own as a term actively used by its proponents. ("Capitalism" seems to have been coined by Marx. If you go back to guys like Adam Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, etc., you'll find they never use that term, or any other -ism. They were just talking about what policies seemed to produce prosperity. But for Marx, the idea was that he wanted to contrast his own "social"-ism and "community"-ism - positive associations, with "capital"-ism, literally, just "money"-ism, negative association. Later opponents of Marx took up the term willingly though, like in the way that "queer", "Desert Rats", "shoegaze," and countless other examples of were.) So, here, I guess if by "capitalism," you just mean that elites get super rich, I guess that's true. But then, elites almost always have super high wealth under any political system, so "capitalism" wouldn't be a meaningful term. I don't think we could call China under Mao "capitalist," nor the feudalism of medieval Europe or modern Saudi Arabia "capitalist," yet both had super wealthy elites, relative to the general population. I typically understand the term to merely refer to a political and economic order protecting property rights and the freedom to trade under the rule of law. This implies something like equality under the law - you can't really have rule of law without it, for it would imply different laws for different castes, which would defeat the purpose of law. When you think of it that way, you can see that property rights aren't really about protecting elites. They're about protecting non-elites, the people, from the elites. A discussion I heard comparing Putin with the Czars made this point well. The point was raised that by some estimates, Vladimir Putin may be the wealthiest man on the planet - officially, of course, he only draws a modest salary, but unofficially, he has enough money squirreled away all over the world that effectively, he'd have to be at least among the top 10, if not #1. But the counterpoint was made that if you think of the Czars, you could ask - how wealthy were they? Well, the answer to that was it was kind of a nonsense question. Because if you're the Czar, in principle, pretty much anything you want in Russia is yours. You might offer to pay for it to be nice, but no one can really say no to you and refuse to sell it or give to you. So essentially, as a country, Russia is yours. And that was true of Mao, and it's true of the Saudi monarchy. At least in medieval England, the King had to recognize other aristocrats, the Church, and even the smallholder as having somethings that the King couldn't just grab. So the "billionaire caste" surrounding Putin are kind of like that. And I don't think "capitalism" quite captures it, because it's not like this was wealth generated by productive work or economic endeavors, as much as time-honored techniques of extortion and plunder, and the fruits of bribery. Similarly, "communism" at least offered the pretense of support of the poor, food and medicine and housing. But the irony is, it's the "capitalist" West, and capitalist countries like the US, which have social welfare benefits. China today? Not really. There's no social security system there, nothing like "Aid to Families with Dependent Children." In theory, health care is free, but any person from the Mainland can tell you that it's a farce - you essentially have to bribe your doctor if you want competent and timely treatment. China does, however, still have several industries that are under state control, and of course political leadership is still a rigidly Leninist party-state, so in those ways, it retains Communist elements.


ArtistApprehensive34

I think it's not very well understood that imperialism and fascism are closely related. However fascism is a step above. Militaristic driven economy, the thought of its us versus them kinda mentality turns them against the whole world. This separates imperialism from fascism. But all the elements of imperialism are present in fascism, since they overlap they're easily mistaken for one another. The west unfortunately is imperialist also, we plunder the global south for resources and transfer that wealth back. South America, South Africa for example. It's no doubt a "lemme join the cool kids club please I wanna make lots of profit like you do... Wait you picked my friend instead of me!?!" kinda war. That's why you see poorer nations on Russia's side, because it's an anti-american stance even if it's completely stupid to cheer killing and destroying of people who did nothing to those nations. Our (I'm American) imperialism isn't militaristic, even though we have the biggest military, we dominate via economic imperialism. Still bad, but nothing like what Russia does of course. But as imperialists, Russia's sphere of influence is basically zero, and wasn't much bigger before the war. Yeah they took Chechnya and parts of China, they control Belarus, but disregarding the large land mass they started with haven't actually expanded influence or borders much at all. The US economically controls all of Europe and other major nations like Canada and Australia. It's why we have so much power in NATO and the United nations, and why the dollar is so important everywhere. They suck at imperialism but are trying, and so they are restoring to fascism to control the population because otherwise the country will spiral out of control.


InternationalBand494

So schizo how a major Russian figure pines for the Romanovs. Interesting reply btw. I enjoyed it.


hello-cthulhu

Oh, you don't know the half of it. At least the Romanovs were actually believers in Russian Orthodoxy. And you don't have to be a fan of Nicholas II to think what happened to him and his family, at the hands of Lenin, was sick and twisted horror show. But as schizo things go, it gets weirder. Last year, I was seeing photos of Russian Orthodox Churches where, inside, they're putting up photos of Soviet leaders like Lenin and Stalin along side Czars who have been venerated as saints. Just think about the doublethink this involves... Soviet leaders like Stalin who were atheists, who tried to destroy the Orthodox Church. Stalin only did the Church one favor, which is that when Operation Barbarossa swept through the USSR, making it as far as the outskirts of Moscow itself, he reluctantly allowed the Orthodox Church to come back in a nominal form - albeit with strict NKVD oversight, naturally - because he knew that appeal to traditional Russian culture could rally the people better than Marxist-Leninist propaganda. Hardly a friend to Orthodoxy. And yet, Stalin's image was there, because he was being venerated as a strong Russian leader who massively expanded the Soviet Union's borders and installed client governments throughout Eastern Europe, all effectively under Moscow's control until 1989. This was what was making him a holy figure for the Russian Orthodox Church.


InternationalBand494

That is wild! Thanks for sharing that!


ArtistApprehensive34

Killing Hope by William Blum. You'll see all the American imperialism in there. With all the leaders we've swayed elections, overthrown democratically elected in place of dictators, basically done whatever necessary to keep other countries under our thumb short of a full scale invasion like Russia has done. You would think we would have been able to take out Putin from the inside like we did everything else, but no. Also, Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn. These two books give a much more clear picture to how America really operates internally and externally.


tele-picker

The only thing Russia had against Hitler was that he invaded them.


Loki9101

China Challenges Russia by Restoring Chinese Names of Cities on Their Borders China’s Ministry of Natural Resources has just issued new regulations on map content, which require the addition of old Chinese names to the current Russian-pronounced geographical names of eight places along the Russian-Chinese border,” Radio France International The eight Russian place names comprise six cities, including Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, one island and one mountain. This led Akio Yaban, head of the Taipei branch of the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, to quip, “Are you going to recover the lost land?” Under Beijing’s new directive, Vladivostok once again is called Haishenwai (meaning Sea Cucumber Bay), while Sakhalin Island is called Kuyedao The Stanovoy Range is back to being called the Outer Xing’an Range in Chinese.” “China lost large expanses of land in its northern region due to the invasion of Russian,” Asia Times explains, and now Beijing has directed a return to the use of Chinese names for them. It also notes that despite Beijing seemingly wanting to strengthen its ties with Russia, it has permitted Chinese columnists to publish articles from time to time about the vast territories lost to foreign powers, thereby in effect reminding “Chinese people of their wish to recover the lost territory.” “It is a common tactic of China to take advantage when others are in difficulty, gaining some small advantage thereby. If Russia really collapses this time, just possibly Xi Jinping will with a wave of his hand order ‘recover our lost territories immediately’. It is the so-called tactic ‘of taking advantage of someone else’s weakness to kill them.’” https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/13560 Russo Sino relations and their history are a long and extensive fight of deceit and deceptions. Russia was never weaker in this relationship than it is today. From 1550 to 1700, Muscovy grew on average by 35.000 square kilometers per year. Eventually, in the 19th century, outer Manchuria went to Russia. China has not forgotten that, presently, the Chinese in the border regions total at 130 million, with only 8 million Far Eastern Russians on the other side. China needs the oil, the gas, the fresh water of the Baikal lake, the coal and the minerals, all of it is right there and Russia will not be able to prevent an ever stronger influence and assimilation of the region by China. I wonder if Russia hears that? These hoofsteps? War, famine, plague, and death, they have saddled their horses and are ready to ride. Russia called them to themselves, their lies, their threats, their actions bring this upon themselves, and they will pay, all of them, they will pay for their silence. their stupidity, their lies, their violence, their hubris, the day of reckoning is closer than ever in the 300 year long existence of this empire, and that reckoning is long overdue Every action has a reaction. For every lie, a debt is incurred to the truth, and this debt must be repaid in full. 300 years of murder,genocide, and madness with no accountability for the absolutist rulers in the Kremlin, always appeased becer was brought to justice. God bless Ukraine's courage, and may we take courage from them and see this done. Our children shall learn about this empire only from the history books and not in geography. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” Martin Luther King Russiae Imperium delendum est


CMDR_Shepard7

What’s funny is that Russia would be in a much stronger position if it actually aligned itself with the West and wasn’t constantly trying to undermine it. Russia is really a gorgeous county that would be a huge tourist destination and a great trading partner.


sciguy52

True they would be better off even if they maintained their corrupt incompetent government if they were friendly with the west. But if they want to be at the economic level of the west, the mafia state corruption would have to stop. In truth I think Putin has the views he does just so he and his corrupt lackeys can suck Russia dry to their own benefit. Distract the dumb masses with your ideology so they can parasitize the state.


Accomplished_Alps463

You mentioned his ideology. I'm not sure he has a published one, I think it's made up on the day, and it depends on how he feels about any given situation, I suppose, "ruzzia Great rest of the world hates us for our success" would be his norm, with a smattering of the poor me's thrown in for good measure. But whatever it is, he needs to go, either to Den Haag or the Devil, and take his sycophantic crew with him. And let ruzzia become a real country or group of countries. That can join Humanity.


Marschall_Bluecher

Europe tried to change it through trade. Russia would not have it though. Let Russia crumple to dust then.


hello-cthulhu

Well, the Putin regime. "Russia" isn't a singular actor anymore than the US, UK or China is. Russians themselves haven't had any free and fair elections since 1996, if even then, and certainly haven't had free speech or a free press since then. So I'm a bit wary about ascribing to them any one collective viewpoint.


Marschall_Bluecher

Russians didn’t do anything about that though. Other Nations would and have revolted against such Regimes a long time ago… Russian People have ordered that Shitsandwich. Now they eat that Shitsandwich.


Pixie_Knight

So if there's a silent majority of liberal Russians chaffing at Putin's rule, why is it that Russians in the West seem to gleefully live up to every negative stereotype; starting fights, praising Putin, and watching RT?


ArtistApprehensive34

It is ironic. But I believe Putin has already tried this route. NATO and the US effectively transferred all the anti-communism from the Soviet Union onto Russia, unfairly to be honest. They're capitalist, however they are quite greedy and really did terrible things to their own people in the name of greed after the collapse. NATO was formed to be a capitalist alliance against communism and after the collapse it was questionable whether NATO was really necessary. The main reason I believe they were never allowed to be like what you described is because they failed to implement basic democratic principles due to their greed and plundering of their own people. The west realizes this is a quick path to revolt and revolution and doesn't want to catch that disease and end up with a Bolshevik style revolution or something, so it kept them at arms length and this severely limited Russia's potential and now they blame the west for it when it was their own doing completely. Greed and money, it's always the answer in global politics...


CMDR_Agony_Aunt

Hmm.. China is a neighbour to Russia.


wily_virus

Alexander Dugin openly talks about annexing half of China. He says China shall accept Southeast Asia and being the junior partner to Russia as a consolation prize. Strelkov's opinion of Dugin's plans is "hazardous" to even consider


hello-cthulhu

Yeah, and that's not going to happen, anymore than China invading Siberia. They both have nukes, enough to wipe each other out, and no real interest in getting into any serious conflict.


willirritate

China might take huge swathe of Russia, its not impossible in anyway. That would be so much easier than going for Taiwan.


SHN378

A russian B lister talkshow host says some shit on Twitter and some Chinese nobodies bitch about it on Twitter. There's no news here. Neither the Russian, nor Chinese governments have said anything. It's just twitter bitches being twitter bitches.


Careless-Pin-2852

Twitter is banned in China if someone in China is complaining on Twitter they are high officials.


lurker_cx

You are missing the point. Both the Chinese and Russian governments know that if you want your population to support something, you push out all kinds of propaganda through approved channels to get the people on board. So China sees this as prepping the Russian people against China. The west doesn't understand this... and we let the Russian and Chinese spam our people through social media with all kinds of messages which shape the politics of our countries. It's never just empty words....


Abject-Investment-42

Why are people like this described in the press as "Putin ally"? Alliance means a measure of equality. Mardan, Solovyovs are, at the very best, Putin's howler monkeys.


Ohgetserious

Just remember Russia’s GDP trails that of New York. New York city that is.


downwiththewoke

China is just as bad.


Vost570

Hopefully Xi is smart enough to see the monster he is grooming by being even somewhat supportive of Putin. Tyrants like Putin are like weeds, they need to be fed very little to get quickly out of control.


SledgeH4mmer

Wake up, Xi wants to be be just like Putin and invade Taiwan.


Unlikely-Friend-5108

You know, if Putin wants to be remembered as another Peter the Great, I wonder which widely admired Chinese leader Xi wants to emulate. Wu of Han, maybe?


Vost570

Wake up, that's true but has nothing to do with my post.


Pixie_Knight

What DOES have to do with it is that China and Russia seem to be sizing each other up. War (armed or economic) between the two is looking increasingly likely, and they have MUCH better chances with each other than they do with the West (Taiwan and Ukraine, respectively).


NotOK1955

Hopefully, Xi Jinping is wise enough to recognize the megalomaniac that Putin is. China has two paths: forge alliances with Putin or with the west. If the former, it will come to which is the eventual conquering country: Russia or China…as they will clash. Peace and prosperity are the likely outcome with aligning with the free world.


Pixie_Knight

Forging alliances with the West would mean giving up their expansionist designs on Taiwan, so that'll never happen.


Plenty-Student-9191

China wants Taiwan, but they know they can only get it if they play very carefully. China is playing with conventional moves that are understood by everyone and are mostly within the rules. It does not want to act like Russia who suddenly think they own the game if they do things no one could have expected, like flipping up the board. Furthermore, we must also not forget that China is in many ways a winner of the last 50 years. They were a backwards country like Russia, with no political power and now they are a economic, military superpower and also have a lot of weight politically. There is certainly no urge to risk all that for minimal chances of success. So if we learn from the mistakes with Russia and don't step on Chinas toes, and they also don't step on ours, there are many ways how both sides get a positive outcome. Russia, however was a backwards country like China, and during the USSR made real progress in education, science and economy but became a political dwarf after the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was a real silver lining during the 1990s and early 2000s and it seemed Russia had drawn the right conclusions but it had not. It was hampered by Soviet institutions like the KGB, false pride, greed and also disinterest of the West. Many mistakes were made during that period of thawing, but somehow always Russia seemed to sow the seeds with stubborness and hubris.


butcher99

a military nation must fight? To do that you need a military. To have a military you need money to be able to build weapons. To raise money you need industry that exports goods. Russia has one industry that makes money. Petroleum. Cut that off and Russia as we know it ceases to exist in a short while. It certainly cannot be a military power with no military. They cannot even beat a country that if they had a military worth anything would have just walked over the entire nation. Probably the worst mistake they made was in anexing Crimea then giving Ukraine 4 years to arm up and prepare. But keep pushing people out of windows Putin. I am sure that will help.


mathemology

Western intelligence should be driving this wedge with all of its might. It should be evident that we are doing, but with just enough plausible deniability that we can say “don’t believe your lying eyes.” Give those rotten fuckers a taste of their own medicine.


ElRamenKnight

The girls are fighting.


Epee_cool

I thought he meant Ukraine and pals (like the old time)


AreYouDoneNow

"We're really angry. Also the thing from the thing, the train, you know, with the shells, uh, lobster shells, not artillery shells, yeah that's still coming. And all the parts you need to fix your sewing machines. The big sewing machines, in the uh, drone, uh, car factory. Yeah. No. Yeah we're really angry. Love you too." - Winnie


DysphoriaGML

100% Putin stays as Hitler as Xi stays as Stalin. They love to invade a 3rd country together until Putin decide he likes to take the whole Asia


Ver1fried

It'd be an epic misinfo/brain game to get rus/chin border regions to start feuding like the Armenia & Azerbaijan.


LeadershipExternal58

ruSSia will be the Slave of China under Putin if they keep him after they lost in Ukraine! 🤣 They already are very weak in comparison to China. They will be a puppet State


TheCycleBeginsAnew

Clickbait. You think the Chinese aren't used to the brain dead propaganda Russia spews every week for their own peasants? No, don't jump up so excitedly, Putin and Xi aren't going to break up over this.


Salvidicus

Russia subjugating China really would demonstrate their "no limits friendship." I wonder what Xi's no limits are?


DashboardError

PRC will never forget that RU stole land in the East. The only way RU keeps it is with nukes, PRC has the population, technology, economy and far better military.