Sanctions on Russia
in War in Ukraine ·
urbanotter said:Try saying that to a retiree living on a meager $0.00 pension, or to someone supporting a family on a middle-class salary.
And really, what is this war being fought for?
So that Ukraine wouldn't be "dependent" on Russia, but rather on America and the West.
Or it's fought in the name of these lofty slogans about being a sovereign, independent nation with the right to decide its own destiny.
But the reality is that a country can only truly be independent if it has the weapons to defend itself.
If you can't, you're always dependent on someone else.
We call ourselves independent, yet we can't even move a finger if Brussels doesn't give us the green light.
Just yesterday at a local fishermen's meeting, they were pushing the idea that certain projects can't get off the ground simply because Brussels hasn't approved our management plans yet.
All these imposed sanctions are largely a facade, because the flow of Russian energy imports and exports continues unabated, while things like Coca-Cola or hamburgers are just distractions for fools.
Ukraine has already restricted wheat exports, and Russia will likely follow suit.
And when you consider that Russia accounts for 26% of global wheat exports, there isn't a replacement out there that can fill that gap.
Food—which both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of—is a more critical strategic resource than fuel. Even though it's hard to produce one without the other, to grow enough food, you absolutely need sufficient energy and vast amounts of farmland.
Then you have the oilseed industry, where Russia and Ukraine are also heavy hitters, followed by a whole list of metals and raw materials that the modern world simply cannot function without.
You don't have to praise Russia, but you can't just ignore it either.
Personally, I couldn't care less about Russia; I would never want to live there, just as I didn't want to live in the West. I just want to live in my own country among my own people.
But you can't just erase Russia from the map if they won't allow Western moguls to come in and strip them bare, the way they did during the era of Yeltsin.
It seems like such a straightforward problem to solve, really; if only Russia would simply cease its military aggression against a sovereign, internationally recognized nation—whether that's coming from the Kremlin or the broader Russian Federation—and just head back home where they belong. I was reading an article about international diplomacy the other day, almost like something you'd see discussed on CNN, and it struck me how much simpler things might be if everyone just respected established borders. It’s one of those situations where the solution feels obvious when you step back and look at the big picture, much like how a complicated puzzle becomes clear once you find that one missing piece.
And of course, we’d be expected to foot the bill for all the war damages they caused.