The General Russia Thread

No. Not at all. Read Emuran's latest reporting on the subject.

Dude, I'm an Emuran fanboy, I read his every word with religious intensity, he is the wind beneath my wings. That said, the most recent thing he's mentioned has been the resignation of a reformer and certain signs that the ceasefire is weakening.

Depressing as all that is, and I am a strong partisan of democratic reforms everywhere in the world, but I dont see what that has to do with the Obama administration's perntceived national interest. Those guys couldn't care any less about reform.

They only survive on American and European funds. They came into power with American and European support. They continue to fail even with the extremely lenient terms the Americans and Europeans put on them for IMF loans and so on.

Poroshenko's government is already showing signs of bad dysfunction, like every other Ukrainian government before that. If you think the US will continue coming out ahead in Ukraine in the forseeable future, you're wrong.

Edit - So apparently the issue of Ukrainian refugees in Russia is being covered. Only took them a year and a half. Although notice how they are trying to downplay and obscure the fact that most of Eastern Ukrainian refugees have moved to Russia by putting their number there at 300,000, which is actually only the (11 month old) number of a specific category of refugees, those who have asked for temporary asylum. The total number of Eastern Ukrainian refugees in Russia right now is 1.2 million, of which 858,400 are seeking legal stay. Why such fun with numbers, Guardian?

Edit 2 - At least the CS Monitor doesn't fiddle with the data.

edited 5th Feb '16 9:20:15 PM by KnitTie

I still don't see how the US isn't ahead, Russia lost a section of it's sphere of influence and isn't getting it back, sure that's not a win under Liberal IR ideas, but as you've repeatedly pointed out Russia is playing under Realist IR rules and we have to play by Russia's rules.

That part was never truly our sphere of influence. Ukraine has been trying to get the hell away from Russia ever since Ukraine became a thing. I'd say fucking let it be, but someone had to keep appointing gold-hogging puppets like Yanukovich then act surprised when they fuck up and get deposed.

Pretty much what Lumi said, Ukraine has always been more or less outside of Russia's sphere of influence politically, as evidenced by things like it not recognising Russian language on a state level despite it being very widely used both in day-to-day life and in politics and its enthusiastic support for Georgia in 2008. Ukraine is definitely in the West's (Heh. Remember how you used to hate this term?) sphere of influence right now, but this problem has all the chances of fixing itself a la Yushchenko due to the sheer incompetence of the current government.

edited 6th Feb '16 5:44:37 AM by KnitTie

Domestic politics not being under Russia's control doesn't mean Ukraine isn't part of Russia's sphere of influence in IR terms, simply the way that the Russian goverment has reacted to everything in Ukraine shows that if nothing else the Russian goverment regards Ukraine as in its sphere. The same applies to other goverment, the US regards both North and South America as its sphere, the UK regards Ireland as within its sphere, the French could be argued to still consider West Africa as within their sphere.

As for my dislike of the term "the west" it stands, it's a term that's often used when it shouldn't be (as in when there's no one single position held by western nations), especially in the context of the situation Ukraine.

edited 6th Feb '16 6:14:53 AM by Silasw

Yes, I shouldn't use "the West" here, where it's pretty much just the USA with the Baltics cheerleading.

But regarding the spheres of influence, Poroshenko's government so far is firmly headed where all the previous governments were headed - disillusionment of the people, loss of legitimacy and another political crisis, so I think it's a bit early to talk about whether Russia is getting Ukraine back or not.

edited 6th Feb '16 7:08:04 AM by KnitTie

Not ALL of Ukraine is trying to escape Russian influence. About half (including those not in open revolt) are perfectly fine under Russian influence. The half that isn't, in the west and north-central part of the country, should be allowed to go on.

But when the promises of the West being better and instant boon fade away after not panning out, the ones who stick by the West will simply leave. The ones who don't will turn back toward Russia. So no, Russian influence in Ukraine isn't permanently gone.

You can add Poland to that list, the rest of Europe is split in a lot of different ways.

Fair point on if the current Ukrainian goverment will last, we'll have to wait and see.

I agree, but if we're gonna go more in-depth we should probably move thread.

I would, but apparently Poland is getting "Putinized" nowadays.

No, I have no idea what this means.

edited 6th Feb '16 9:01:48 AM by KnitTie

Based on posts that increasingly resemble Angrish in the Eastern European politics thread, the current ruling party in Poland is enacting increasingly anti-democratic laws and/or is attempting to amend the constitution to permit doing so.

I'm not sure about the validity of the "Putinization" term, since it seems that they are a lot more batshit than the current incarnation of United Russia. And that they are highly Russophobic.

Hence my derisive attitude towards the term, which is nothing but cheap fear mongering.

That or an attempt to use Poland's Russiaphobia to move it off its current path, if authoritarianism is associated with Russia it might become less popular.

As a guy who knows several nationalistic Poles in real life, I can say that that's highly unlikely. They deflect all attempts at comparison between Prawo i Sprawiedliwość and United Russia with claims that Pi S doesn't do authoritarianism, it does social conservatism, which is good due to the inherent specialness of the Polish people, who are able to instinctively act as "one organism" when they have the interests of their nation in mind and therefore function better than when they operate "under the premises of liberalism" and care only about themselves.

edited 6th Feb '16 12:22:05 PM by KnitTie

Yes, such comparisons are likely to backfire, especially when many right wingers in Poland love to have a strong authoritarian figure who does not back from staging a coup and breaking the constitution (including locking up the opposition). Although it's Pilsudski that is used as such a figure most of the time.

I'd like to apologise Russians for Antoni Macierewicz. I don't like Putin's policies in many cases but NOBODY deserves to be falsely accused - and Macierewicz's new commision* for Tu-154 crash in Smolensk appears to be made purely to promote the idea that Lech Kaczynski (Polish president from 2005 to 2010) didn't die in a plane accident and instead was assassinated (that there was an explosion on a board of a plane). It's very unfortunate that Poland's new minister of defense is a conspiracy theorist on par with 9/11 truthers.

• Which by the way has no actual experts on plane accidents.

edited 6th Feb '16 1:39:42 PM by WojtekPod

Hey, no need to apologise, Russia is not a country that has the right to take offence at conspiracy theories about planes. Besides, it's not like we haven't spent the last 250 or so years putting Poland through tons of shit because lol imperialism - I'd be paranoid too if there was a nation responsible for repeatedly screwing my people over for most of the modern history.

edited 6th Feb '16 1:16:51 PM by KnitTie

Its nice to see a Russian and a Pole be nice to each other.

I can't remember where I saw it... but that reminds me of a joke about a Polish man finding a magic lamp, the genie grants him three wishes, his first wish is for the Mongols to invade Poland, they do and there is mass pillaging and raping, his second wish is for the Mongols to invade Poland, same result, and his third is, you guessed it, for the Mongols to invade Poland, when the genie asks him why he wished for such tragedies to befall Poland, he responds by saying that "every time the Mongols invade Poland, they have to go through Russia twice"

edited 6th Feb '16 2:54:22 PM by FieldMarshalFry

I might annoy people with this◊, but I can't resist.

I posted that joke two pages ago...

Also known as Polish President Remover Maneuver.

edited 6th Feb '16 3:07:36 PM by AngelusNox

meh, I don't really pay much attention...

Kadyrov does gator wrasslin'.

What the fuck is that? Is that real or is it some Russian parody show?