Posts by Amanda Allen4

goldenowl73 said:The Russian Congress is proposing that they strip citizenship from anyone criticizing the government or the military just to make room for visa applicants.😵

In the U.S. Congress, they suggested stripping Russian citizenship for criticizing the government or the military to clear ways for visas.

https://twitter.com/GazetaRu/status/...miT3NV5jrBQaTA

And what happens if someone actually loses their Russian citizenship?

They could move to some country in the European Union and claim refugee status with all the perks that come with it—whereas, as an American citizen, they might be denied a simple tourist visa!

Which option sounds better to you?

nimblemoose2 said:According to reports from iStories via Meduza, roughly 700 professional soldiers from the Russian Armed Forces' 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade attempted to leave their service, but their superiors refused to let them go.

The troops reached out to iStories following an August 15 report featuring interviews with soldiers from that same brigade, who were allegedly involved in killing and looting civilians in the Ukrainian village of Andriivka near Kyiv.

A twenty-one-year-old named Daniil Frolkin told iStories that he once followed a direct order from his commander to kill a civilian. Other soldiers interviewed by the outlet corroborated Frolkin's account.

One soldier, speaking anonymously for safety reasons, mentioned being recently reassigned to the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. He claimed that 80 percent of the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade wants to desert, yet command won't allow it.

We will see more of this.

Well, clearly "professional" soldiers signed contracts to kill and be killed for a paycheck—and apparently, every contract must be honored, right?

There are two distinct types of socialism:

1. Communist socialism—viewed as a transitional stage toward a classless society.
2. Democratic socialism—functioning as a system for the redistribution of capital.

The first one? It’s a total utopia—and as such, it's dead and buried. But the second? That actually exists within numerous political parties inside our democratic capitalist society.

Jeremy Peterson4 said:A few months back, I was saying that once the oil ban hits, the next logical step is slamming the door on Russians traveling through Europe.

Let's see how they handle that. We'll find out if they end up thanking Putin or deciding he’s become a liability they need to get rid of.

Moscow is already calling a potential EU travel ban "Nazi policy."

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu compared the European Union's proposal to stop issuing visas to Russian tourists to "Nazi policy" this past Saturday.

"We're seeing yet another blatant display of Nazi politics here. Basically, high-ranking European officials are relentlessly pushing this Russophobic idea of banning all Russian citizens from entering EU countries," he claimed.

European Union members like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic have already started moving unilaterally, implementing policies that restrict or completely scrap visas for Russian citizens in response to Moscow's war against Ukraine.

Finland has been planning to slash the number of visas issued to Russians since September, and Poland is looking at doing the exact same thing.

Denmark is calling for a total ban across the entire bloc, though their politicians noted they could probably just pull the trigger themselves even if the other members don't jump on board.

Germany, which usually acts as the heavy hitter when it comes to shaping EU policy, is taking a slightly softer stance, arguing that innocent individuals shouldn't be punished for what the Kremlin is doing.

Meanwhile, while speaking at the International Anti-Fascist Congress near Moscow, Shoigu recycled the same old excuses for invading their neighbor.

He argued that the nationalist policies of the Kyiv leadership—which has the West backing them—have spent years targeting Russian culture within Ukraine, creating a direct threat to Russian security.

Shoigu claimed that in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian is spoken, the "Kyiv regime has been committing horrific crimes against citizens for eight years now," referring back to the start of the fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in 2014.

"At the same time, NATO has become increasingly present on Ukrainian territory, and Kyiv has committed itself to joining NATO. All of this has created unacceptable security threats for Russia," Shoigu told the crowd. -

Pulled from the live news feed.

The first International Anti-Fascist Congress near Moscow?
What is the actual purpose of this thing, and who is even showing up?

quietridge92 said:Lithuania is currently working on banning Russian tourist visas—it looks like a few other countries might be weighing similar moves. It makes me wonder: should we consider banning Russians from entering the US altogether?

They'll just head over to Mexico instead. I mean, a trip to a spa in Tennessee is much better than some Baltic coast anyway.

casualtiger2 said:Nothing would be easier if they just pulled their troops out of Ukraine.

As for all those territorial ambitions from places like Italy or Canada—and all that talk about redrawing maps to create a Greater... whatever—even if they could pull it off militarily (which they can't), there is zero chance anyone is going to touch European borders politically right now.

Sure, but that’s only the first step! Once that happens, you have to deal with the massive assessment of war damages and their subsequent compensation—and let me tell you, that is no small matter.

Europe is completely fractured, and if you want proof, just look at the tourism industry.

The place where I vacation is absolutely swarming with foreigners. They all flock to someone else's Mediterranean coast instead of just staying home and making things work in their own backyard.

gentlerider7 said:Putin: In a nuclear war, nobody wins, and we should never pull that trigger

So, Vladimir Putin is out there claiming that in a nuclear war, there are absolutely no winners and we should never, ever start one. He dropped this whole line during a speech at a conference reviewing how the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is actually working, according to the Associated Press.

Like the president pointed out, Russia—being a party to the NPT and one of its key holders—is supposedly "consistently following both the letter and the spirit of the Treaty."

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

He shouldn't have even bothered saying this—everyone already knows it!

It is absolutely mind-boggling that he’s making these claims, especially considering how much the Russians keep threatening us with nuclear weapons. This isn't just a propaganda failure; it's a total Russian embarrassment—actually, let's call it what it really is: Russian anti-propaganda.

Jessica Peterson2 said:If you took away the pro-Kremlin TV networks for even a month, most Russians would realize what's happening, and that support would evaporate pretty quickly, wouldn't it? ☕

I truly hope it turns out that way. It would be a massive relief—even if we have to wait a full year for it to happen. And honestly? If things actually shift, we’d likely see that intense anti-Russian sentiment on the other side finally die down, too. Wouldn't that be something?

The vast majority of Russians actually back Putin and his invasion of Ukraine

“Russian borders know no limits”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62331061

I was just reading that Russia is sitting on massive cash reserves—somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 billion. Now, half of that is frozen under sanctions and completely out of reach. That still leaves them with roughly $300 billion to fund this whole conflict. If we look at the math—given that the war has lasted less than six months—their costs have been running at about $75 billion.

The real question is: how much longer can Russia actually sustain this fight?

Kate Cook27 said:Yeah, absolutely. Celebrating the Soviet Union has been a major factor since 2014. It mostly centered around glorifying Stalin—for a while, you'd see murals of him or his quotes on pretty much every building. And Lenin, too. At first, people wondered why the focus was on Stalin, but it served as an intro to the whole "fight against fascism" narrative, since he was the leader during that era. Everything bad he did before or after the war just seems to have been wiped clean. All that matters now are the murals and the iconography you pointed out. The older folks naturally want those Soviet Union days back, and the kids just absorbed it through propaganda. The Soviet Union flag acts as a symbol of that old power and influence—and then there's that ribbon people wear, the St. George ribbon, which serves as a reminder of Victory Day on May 9th. There are just so many symbols and layers at play here.

Why on earth would the older generation "naturally long for the days of the Soviet Union"?

My entire logic was that the USSR wasn't even a functional state to begin with, and nobody actually wanted to defend it—which is precisely why it collapsed. Nobody had to launch a military invasion against the USSR to bring it down.

Gerald Torres84 said:What’s the current outlook now that the EU is essentially cratering? Are we looking at this coming fall or winter, or does it drag into next year? Russia is naturally going to double or even triple its GDP because those sanctions were actually just part of the Russian playbook all along. Westerners simply don't grasp how to play 4D chess, and they are destined for failure.

Well, I had it completely backwards.

I honestly thought Putin was actually an American agent—fighting this war specifically because that's what the USA wants and profits from!

Nathan Thomas12 said:You're acting like Hitler and the Russians were totally separate. They signed a pact first and then teamed up to invade Poland.

Exactly—they were allies right up until Hitler decided to change his mind.

I brought up the Russians being attacked by Germany specifically to show how they—as a former victim of war—are now doing the exact same thing to others! It's to highlight how the world should judge these Russian crimes in Ukraine by the same standard used for those former Nazi crimes in Germany.

urbanotter said:It isn't really about being fascinated by Russia; rather, I find this irrational, deep-seated hatred toward everything Russian quite baffling.
I actually used to own a Sputnik watch and some tools from over there, and honestly, they were pretty decent quality.

And hey, their vodka isn't bad either.😉

But look, we are supposed to be discussing sanctions and economic impact here, not whether or not someone "loves" Russia.

The thing is, economics doesn't care about your personal feelings or political ideologies.
When sanctions—which are essentially just political products—are applied, they stifle the economy, and everyone ends up paying the price for that political decision,
though clearly, those who imposed the sanctions feel the sting most acutely.😉

What do you mean, "hatred toward everything Russian"?

The cultural and scientific achievements of both Russians and Germans are accepted globally as part of our shared civilization—but there is a massive difference between appreciating culture and hating what Putin is doing in Ukraine right now. It’s no different than how people rightfully loathed what Hitler did in Russia during World War II.

darkdriver said:How exactly does a nuclear arsenal not help when you're facing a country that only has conventional weapons?
Hypothetically speaking, if Vladimir decides to just wipe them off the map using a single tactical strike of just a few kilotons against those million Ukrainian soldiers—even if they all managed to gather at once along with their HIMARS, Javelins, Stingers, and everything else—what can Ukraine or the West actually do about it, besides slapping on the 58th round of sanctions?

Ukraine can't do a damn thing, whereas the West actually has the atomic bombs to strike back.

Jose Clark2 said:I suspect these megalomaniacal theories simply aren't grounded in reality. Even fifty Putins couldn't pull this off. It's pure fantasy. In my view, his actual objective is Ukraine—if not bringing it back into the Russian sphere of influence, then at least securing part of it as a buffer zone, keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Ultimately, Ukraine's pivot toward NATO is what triggered this Russian reaction. It's the red line Putin has been talking about for fifteen years.

Putin and his enemies aren't afraid of NATO because they know he isn't actually coming for them. NATO was nothing more than a convenient excuse to invade Ukraine.

The real motive is different. To them, Ukraine is just a province of Russia—much like how the Midwest is just another part of the States. They view Ukrainians as Russians, just as they view people from the Midwest as Americans. That is their core stance.

So, if they manage to conquer all of Ukraine—or even just a chunk of it—they will declare victory and claim the war is over. At least for now, anyway... though what happens next depends entirely on the massive consequences this war will have on them.

JesterRace said:Exactly.

This is going to be the single biggest headache for the Russians—if it isn't already.

Their most educated professionals are fleeing to the West in droves! What’s left behind? Just a bunch of dull-witted, primitive old-timers who exist solely to spout propaganda—people like urbanotter.

Honestly, I don't think the current regime in Russia even *needs* highly educated people. In fact, they're more of a liability than an asset—so the fewer of them there are left in Russia, the easier things stay for the current administration.

Melissa Rivera5 said:The only real screw-up here is that Putin himself broke the non-aggression pact regarding Ukraine. Throughout this whole war, he won't even admit it’s an actual war—he just keeps calling it some kind of "special operation." I mean, Lavrov literally said they aren't even attacking Ukraine. So much for being reliable, I guess.

Backed into a corner? I'm still trying to wrap my head around how Russia ended up stuck like that just because of some internal Ukrainian issues. It feels like it doesn't even matter if the West decides to negotiate or listen to them or whatever. I guess the guy just cooked up a problem from scratch and then decided to start a war over it.

If there’s actually some other reason for this besides just grabbing territory, it definitely isn't about the LNR/DNR situation, Nazism, or banning the Russian language. I really hope that's the case, because if not, then someone over there is seriously missing a few brain cells if they honestly believe Ukraine belongs to Russia.

I mean, it’s pretty much impossible to wrap your head around anyone else's perspective when they’re constantly lying and playing mind games without exception. You literally can't trust a single word coming out of the Kremlin. And honestly, trying to find common ground is even harder when they start acting like toddlers, throwing around threats about nuclear holocausts or erasing the United Kingdom from the map. Then you've got that head of Roscosmos(!) floating around posting pictures of "decision centers" and all that nonsense. It’s like watching some spoiled brat who has zero clue how the real world works, thinking they have an absolute right to demand ice cream from a random kid on the street just because they feel like having it right this second.

I don't even get what people expect. What kind of "understanding" are we talking about when they lie about everything so aggressively? It’s wild. I don't know how they aren't even embarrassed to be so shamelessly and brazenly dishonest.

This war is actually very easy to understand. Russia invaded Ukraine to conquer it.

Is there anyone here who doesn't understand the motives behind the German Blitzkrieg in Austria back in 1938? This invasion of Ukraine is identical, except it isn't a Blitzkrieg.

Donna Wells2 said:To me, this feels way more like George Orwell's 1984.

Big Brother sits at the top!
Directly underneath is the inner party... the elite that makes up about 2% of the population.
Then you've got the outside party working for the elites, making up roughly 13%.
And at the very bottom, you have the masses, who account for a staggering 85%.
They've even got a Ministry of Truth acting as their thought police... honestly, it’s like it was ripped straight from the book!

Comparing Russia to Nazi Germany:

1. Public support for the regime and its policies is roughly identical.
2. Conquests:
a) Austria in 1938—annexed in a single day on March 13th via blitzkrieg, all with the support of the Austrians.
b) Ukraine in 2022—it's been dragging on for over four months now due to relentless Ukrainian resistance.