Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

analogbear5 said:Communism is a socio-political system where the working class holds control and ownership over the means of production (capital).

In Russian hands, that turned into Party rule—Russian style—built on terror and genocide.

Honestly, we can thank the Russians for killing off the most logical critique of capitalism.

You’re talking about the USSR, not modern-day Russia.
In today's Russia, capital sits in the hands of Putin's oligarchs, not the working class.
If you look at it objectively from the outside, Russia is operating under a form of feudalism rather than communism.

Maybe one day we'll settle on a specific name for this bizarre blend of Russian ideology. Right now, it's hard to pin down without being either totally off or somehow wrong.

First, you have to digest this mess of Soviet flags, old-school propaganda, and religious blessings.

Matthew Young35 said:You’re talking about the USSR, not modern-day Russia.
In today's Russia, capital sits in the hands of Putin's oligarchs, not the working class.
If you look at it objectively from the outside, Russia is operating under a form of feudalism rather than communism.

It’d be feudalism if the peasants were actually the ones driving production. Instead, you've got this mafia-style setup making a killing by exploiting natural resources rather than moving drugs. There’s a reason Aleksandr Litvinenko coined the term "mafia state."

analogbear5 said:It’d be feudalism if the peasants were actually the ones driving production. Instead, you've got this mafia-style setup making a killing by exploiting natural resources rather than moving drugs. There’s a reason Aleksandr Litvinenko coined the term "mafia state."

Whatever you say... This has absolutely nothing to do with communism.

Matthew Young35 said:Whatever you say... This has absolutely nothing to do with communism.

Of course it doesn't. I mean, Putin is about as much of a communist as Milan Bandić was. Plus, you've got the nukes. Just a bunch of mobsters, really.

I guess there's more communism in some Israeli kibbutz or a tiny South American country than there ever was in Russia from the days of Lenin until now.

Looks like Gerhard Schröder headed off to Moscow for his "annual getaway." Honestly, you can just tell this is classic Russian-style trolling—that signature blend of arrogance and blatant lying that our former German Chancellor has really mastered over the years.

Former #German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Has arrived in #Moscow. "I’m just here for a quick little vacation." He even told a reporter that Moscow is actually a lovely city.

The whole chat went down right near the Rosneft headquarters, which makes sense since Schröder used to run the show there as chairman of the board. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/...kDG30GNAxWFc-g

So, looks like the FBI has managed to trip over their own feet again... they fell for a total bluff, and now the pros have basically handed over the identities of their own assets on a silver platter. 😂

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/st...35542180929536

Honestly, it feels like so many Russians have completely lost their sense of reality because they're so deep in all that propaganda. I was reading about this wild situation in Vietnam where a Russian woman actually went after locals on the street just because she thought they were being unpatriotic toward Putin and her home country.

This video of a Russian tourist in Vietnam Trying to attack locals for not supporting Putin and Russia is going viral in Vietnam.

She’s out there screaming things like, “Are you against Putin? Are you against my country? Are you fascists?” https://t.co/n4aA1FjSNl

goldenowl73 said:Looks like Gerhard Schröder headed off to Moscow for his "annual getaway." Honestly, you can just tell this is classic Russian-style trolling—that signature blend of arrogance and blatant lying that our former German Chancellor has really mastered over the years.

Former #German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Has arrived in #Moscow. "I’m just here for a quick little vacation." He even told a reporter that Moscow is actually a lovely city.

The whole chat went down right near the Rosneft headquarters, which makes sense since Schröder used to run the show there as chairman of the board. https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/...kDG30GNAxWFc-g

There is nothing mysterious about this. Since he is already in Moscow on "holiday," he will inevitably pick up his next set of instructions along the way.

goldenowl73 said:Honestly, it feels like so many Russians have completely lost their sense of reality because they're so deep in all that propaganda. I was reading about this wild situation in Vietnam where a Russian woman actually went after locals on the street just because she thought they were being unpatriotic toward Putin and her home country.

This video of a Russian tourist in Vietnam Trying to attack locals for not supporting Putin and Russia is going viral in Vietnam.

She’s out there screaming things like, “Are you against Putin? Are you against my country? Are you fascists?” https://t.co/n4aA1FjSNl

Ahahah, now this is getting ridiculous. 😬
With one single exception—Russian tourists in East Asia mostly behave like a horde of drunken hooligans. Honestly, they can be even more obnoxious than British youths on the Spanish islands. 😂
In reality, they’re worse than those two idiots from this comedy show.
So, if I were you, I’d take news like this with a massive grain of salt. 😬

Jesse Sanchez4 said:Did you catch that story about how Ukrainians tried to lure Russian pilots into a trap along with their jets?

The whole situation is actually pretty hilarious 😁 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1551535542180929536

It’s a star story, honestly, dating all the way back to the Korean War (think Operation Moolah—offering $50,000 for a working MiG-15, which would be roughly $560,000 in today's money).

What they're offering now is pocket change, especially when you consider the actual market value of the airframes they'd be walking away with...

I mean, is anyone really going to hand over a perfectly good Su-35 or a Ka-52 for just a million or two bucks?

It's wild... ☕

brightheron64 said:It’s a star story, honestly, dating all the way back to the Korean War (think Operation Moolah—offering $50,000 for a working MiG-15, which would be roughly $560,000 in today's money).

What they're offering now is pocket change, especially when you consider the actual market value of the airframes they'd be walking away with...

I mean, is anyone really going to hand over a perfectly good Su-35 or a Ka-52 for just a million or two bucks?

It's wild... ☕

What exactly constitutes a million dollars to a Russian pilot? ☕
He wouldn't even be able to lug a basic water heater out of a bathroom in Ukraine if he’d had his leg amputated.

analogbear5 said:It’d be feudalism if the peasants were actually the ones driving production. Instead, you've got this mafia-style setup making a killing by exploiting natural resources rather than moving drugs. There’s a reason Aleksandr Litvinenko coined the term "mafia state."

Yeah, but honestly? This isn't even news... you see these kinds of structures popping up all over the place within the global neoliberal order.
Think about the big oil giants—like Saudi Arabia, for example? Or those other niche countries built entirely on one or two resources, or just banking services and high-end tourism, etc.

It’s especially hilarious looking back from where we are now—the fact that these mobsters in Eastern Europe actually thought they were the precursors to democracy.

Donna Wells2 said:Hahaha... so I lived under communism for 20 years, but I clearly have no clue what it is?
When there was no oil, no sugar, no coffee, no chocolate... when you could barely find a car, when power outages were the norm, when you couldn't dare whisper a word against the local locksmith or the party without ending up in a cell, when "verbal offenses" were a crime and that bloody red star tore through and slaughtered a third of America...
If you want to get technical... communism never truly existed in the USSR; it was socialism as an order... because communism was just some theoretical phase they thought they’d reach one day, right?
Go read a little bit of "Utopia"... study some actual facts before telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.
By the way... by resolution, the Council of Europe has condemned all communist systems, just like fascism and Nazism... labeling them as inhuman and barbaric.

How can you explain this, Franjo Habulin & Co, considering how people here still boast about and celebrate that old regime and its leader?☕

The Estonian Prime Minister’s message to the West: 'Stop worrying about Putin's feelings'
https://news.yahoo.com/estonias-prim...223606146.html

Sitting in her office at the Stenbock residence—a polished, neoclassical building tucked away in the heart of Tallinn's historic old town—Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wanted to take a deep dive into the last eighty years of European history. Unfortunately, she was only allotted twenty minutes.
....

"I believe a fundamental mistake was made following World War II," Kallas remarked, seated beneath a portrait of Mojsi receiving the Ten Commandments. "While Nazi atrocities were universally condemned, the crimes committed by communists were never given that same scrutiny.
Consequently, we are witnessing a massive resurgence of Stalinism within Russia right now. Seventy percent of Russians support Stalin, despite the fact that he was responsible for twenty million deaths, notwithstanding the mass deportations, the gulags, the wars, and everything else. In Estonia, the history books were completely rewritten after the fall of communism, whereas Russians are still being taught the exact same version of history we were forced to endure during the Soviet era, which was absolute garbage."
...
Estonia itself was annexed by the Soviet Union back in 1940, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler agreed to carve up Eastern Europe under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Later, the Nazis invaded and occupied the country after Hitler betrayed Stalin by launching Operation Barbarossa in 1941—that failed attempt to strike the Soviet Union during World War II, a conflict that spanned through modern-day Ukraine.
...

Henry Sullivan4 said:How can you explain this, Franjo Habulin & Co, considering how people here still boast about and celebrate that old regime and its leader?☕

So, let me get this straight: we’re talking about someone born in 1957 who claims to be an original veteran from the resistance era? Seriously? How does that math even work? You're telling me someone born in the late fifties was out there fighting in the liberation wars? It sounds completely absurd. Is anyone actually buying this?
I mean, honestly... who exactly is playing whom here?
It’s nothing but lies and pure deception, targeting those who don't have a clue what they're talking about—people who just swallow these romanticized stories about how "everything was so much better back then." Seriously, how many times are we going to fall for this?

goldenowl73 said:Honestly, it feels like so many Russians have completely lost their sense of reality because they're so deep in all that propaganda. I was reading about this wild situation in Vietnam where a Russian woman actually went after locals on the street just because she thought they were being unpatriotic toward Putin and her home country.

This video of a Russian tourist in Vietnam Trying to attack locals for not supporting Putin and Russia is going viral in Vietnam.

She’s out there screaming things like, “Are you against Putin? Are you against my country? Are you fascists?” https://t.co/n4aA1FjSNl

Over in Turkey, people got jumped by Poles and locals for doing the exact same thing.

Timothy Williams5 said:What exactly constitutes a million dollars to a Russian pilot? ☕
He wouldn't even be able to lug a basic water heater out of a bathroom in Ukraine if he’d had his leg amputated.

Yeah, honestly, that Russian pilot is just being dense; he clearly doesn't realize he's "handing over" an aircraft worth at least 60 million USD, assuming we're talking about a jet.

I mean, seriously, if you're going to try and seduce me or screw me over, at least be a generous benefactor about it...

If you had actually bothered to read that awful piece I linked, you’d realize it’s nothing more than an unofficial joke that has absolutely zero connection to the Ukrainian intelligence services...

The same Russians, who aren't exactly dim-witted, sit together watching movies about tanks right on the front lines just before a drone strike hits and they're left digging trenches in radioactive soil... I won't even go into further detail...
The bottom of civilization.