Sanctions on Russia

ruggeddriver70 said:Look, we're dealing with a crowd that views the West, the USA, and the EU as the ultimate villains, so they'll always spin whatever narrative fits that mold.

If the West lets Eastern European countries develop on their own, they complain about lack of interest. But if the West sets any conditions at all, then suddenly it's "interference in internal affairs" and so on.

Look, I’m giving you a straight answer here—Anders Aslund is a Swedish economist and a former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and his whole specialty is the economic transition from a planned system to a market economy.

Setting conditions is perfectly logical, provided those conditions actually make sense and lead to changes that serve the shared goals of both the donor and the recipient.

George Robinson43 said:It seems people still haven't grasped the fundamentals, yet they continue to dream of democracy in Russia.

The fact remains: the West did not help Russia. 🙏 🙏

The same logic applies to you. No, the West didn't help Russia—or rather, it didn't help the reformers back when it actually mattered... later on, it basically helped Putin, but that's a whole different mess.

As for the dreaming part? Honestly, I'd rather dream about democracy in Russia than live through a new Cold War that never should have been inevitable ... but hey, some people definitely know how to profit from that too.

rowdytiger13 said:Wait.
Zero interference.

Wait for it? Yeah, I'm not buying that.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Hold on, I'm not so sure about that.

I'm personally skeptical that things will escalate to direct intervention, but if they do, it's the wrong move.
Not every nation actually wants democracy, nor are they necessarily ready for it.
Let them be, just don't let them exert their influence.

slyfox43 said:If—and that is a massive if—they ever manage to pivot their entire identity from "us versus the world" to "we are just one part of the world," accepting that they aren't inherently special or entitled to unique geopolitical favors, then they won't have to beg for an invitation back to the table.

Back in the '90s, we didn't see that happening. There was a movement, sure, but it was really just a thin veneer wrapped around the same old imperialistic Russia we've always known.

Even if that packaging was thin, it could have made a huge difference... but they weren't given the chance. Now everyone just nods along like, "Oh, totalitarianism is just in their blood," and acts like there's nothing to be done. To me, that just feels like pure hypocrisy and turning a blind eye.

Shouldn't we be looking into where all that Russian capital from the 90s actually went? The CIA helped pull that money out, and honestly, they were pretty damn good at investing it.
The Russian reformist PM Yegor Gaidar warned everyone about this right from the jump, but he was totally ignored.
So, who's really to blame here?

rowdytiger13 said:I'm personally skeptical that things will escalate to direct intervention, but if they do, it's the wrong move.
Not every nation actually wants democracy, nor are they necessarily ready for it.
Let them be, just don't let them exert their influence.

And look, it isn't even really about the people—it's more about those deep structures, like the CIA, that run the whole show and pull all the strings. There's just no way for anyone from the outside to fix that.

rowdytiger13 said:I'm personally skeptical that things will escalate to direct intervention, but if they do, it's the wrong move.
Not every nation actually wants democracy, nor are they necessarily ready for it.
Let them be, just don't let them exert their influence.

rowdytiger13, Russia isn't Afghanistan—they're actually stronger and way more dangerous.
We can't just pull the "let them be" card when it comes to them.

How can you say Russians don't want democracy under any circumstances? Maybe they aren't ready right now, but back in the 90s, if I was your average Russian, I probably would've concluded that democracy just stripped away my basic security and tanked my quality of life from "bad" to "non-existent."

Maybe things didn't have to go down that way... I mean, would Europe have even cared about human rights or democratic ideals later on without the Marshall Plan (and you gotta look at that plan as more than just cash)?
I'm not buying it for a second.

"Quote:"

Kyle Nelson2 said:And look, it isn't even really about the people—it's more about those deep structures, like the CIA, that run the whole show and pull all the strings. There's just no way for anyone from the outside to fix that.

Look, you can track where that stolen money actually goes—the funding sources, the energy trade flows—and just cut them off. No matter how much it hurts.

Lisa Jackson7 said:rowdytiger13, Russia isn't Afghanistan—they're actually stronger and way more dangerous.
We can't just pull the "let them be" card when it comes to them.

How can you say Russians don't want democracy under any circumstances? Maybe they aren't ready right now, but back in the 90s, if I was your average Russian, I probably would've concluded that democracy just stripped away my basic security and tanked my quality of life from "bad" to "non-existent."

Maybe things didn't have to go down that way... I mean, would Europe have even cared about human rights or democratic ideals later on without the Marshall Plan (and you gotta look at that plan as more than just cash)?
I'm not buying it for a second.

Maybe Russians are ready, but if they are, they'll make their own move.
I'm pretty much against outside interference now, even though I used to advocate for it. It's simple: not every nation follows the same path or shares the same history. That doesn't make them better or worse... it just means things aren't the same everywhere. China will likely develop a system tailored to its own needs (they haven't been truly communist for a long time anyway).
The Western model of democracy doesn't fit everyone. Maybe it works for Russians—only time will tell—but it doesn't work for everyone, and if it turns out it's not for them, what then?

rowdytiger13 said:Maybe Russians are ready, but if they are, they'll make their own move.
I'm pretty much against outside interference now, even though I used to advocate for it. It's simple: not every nation follows the same path or shares the same history. That doesn't make them better or worse... it just means things aren't the same everywhere. China will likely develop a system tailored to its own needs (they haven't been truly communist for a long time anyway).
The Western model of democracy doesn't fit everyone. Maybe it works for Russians—only time will tell—but it doesn't work for everyone, and if it turns out it's not for them, what then?

When I talk about interference, I'm talking about the kind they actually asked for—back in '91 and '92 when Yeltsin and Gaidar were begging for financial and (actually useful) advisory help.
The Swedish economist Anders Aslund laid out how the USA basically cashed in on a "peace dividend"—slashing defense spending and wiping out their budget deficit by a whopping trillion dollars over about a decade.
Meanwhile, they found it impossible to cough up even $30 billion to support those Russian economic reforms.

We haven't hit that breaking point yet, obviously, and who knows when or how it'll happen.

China has already built its own custom setup, and since the rest of the world is just waiting to see what happens next, we'll just have to watch.

Lisa Jackson7 said:Look, we aren't talking about some unilateral takeover of Ukraine or Russia—we're talking about cooperation, obviously, with partners who actually want to work together.

Back in '91 and '92, Boris Yeltsin and Yegor Gaidar begged Western governments, financial institutions, and their experts to step in and help—properly, of course.

I think I was being plenty specific... the whole thing is massive and extremely well-documented.

Plus, Gaidar actually warned and pleaded with the USA and Europe to look into how the CIA was letting shell companies be used to stash massive amounts of wealth looted from Russia—wealth used to build corrupt networks of high-level politicians and businessmen.

The response he got? Basically, "that's just standard capital flight, it happens, and unfortunately we can't (read: won't) do anything about it." ☕

Putin had great practical training and was practically a darling of the West whenever it suited them.

Western advisors tended to give pretty much the same advice and formal blueprints to all former Soviet states. Ultimately, implementation falls on the locals; outsiders can't do that for them.

The main economic hurdle was pivoting from a planned economy to a market one, which meant privatizing state assets. A few countries handled this well, while many others—including ours—did it through corruption. Russia likely saw the worst kind of oligarchization. The state coffers ended up empty because real value wasn't captured and a functional, driving market economy never took root. But that is strictly the responsibility of the Russian authorities; just as no outsider is responsible for our own "circle of elites" philosophy. Foreign players can offer advice, but they don't call the shots or execute the plans.
Given the general economic and democratic illiteracy of the public during the early transition years, the blame rests almost entirely on those in power at the time.

Another interesting point comes from an interview I heard recently with a Westerner who was involved in those processes. He mentioned how scientific institutions would simultaneously ask for help while feeling resentful about it, simply because they were used to being powers rather than beggars. They hated having to ask outsiders for anything. In fact, many institutional actors—not just the CIA—were probably relieved when Putin arrived with his illusion of neo-Soviet relevance.

The West could have worked more on international relations to perhaps soften the slide toward despotism. Apparently, Reagan was more inclined toward plans to integrate Russia into the West, whereas from Bush senior onward, that policy was abandoned—partly for pragmatic reasons (both Bushes) and partly due to ideological friction with the undemocratic shifts under Putin (like Obama trying for a "reset"). Clinton, though, seemed to be on good terms with Yeltsin. 🤔

But it's easy to be a general after the war is over, and honestly, it doesn't matter anymore.

The West isn't omnipotent. Even in "banana republics" closer to home, they succeed sometimes and fail others. With a power like Russia, it's hard to achieve much without an active partner on the other side. Gorbachev and Yeltsin were somewhat that, but Yeltsin eventually built a corrupt oligarchic economy. In reality, Yeltsin's biggest mistake was combining corruption and low energy prices with a shaky democracy. That created the perfect environment for Putin, who is just as corrupt but benefited from high energy prices and built a dictatorial security apparatus that traded chaos for a certain type of order. I'm not sure if the West truly had the power to change that.🤔

Comparing this situation to post-WWII Japan or Germany just doesn't work. Those countries were completely leveled and occupied. In those cases, any local resistance or defiance against the West was basically wiped out. Direct oversight prevented the kind of systemic corruption you see in Russia, and honestly, they probably started with much lower corruption levels anyway—though I'd need to look into that.
I’m not entirely convinced that corruption won't wreck the reconstruction of Ukraine, too. They’re practically begging for Western intervention, let alone dealing with a Russia that has nothing left to lose.

Lisa Jackson7 said:When I talk about interference, I'm talking about the kind they actually asked for—back in '91 and '92 when Yeltsin and Gaidar were begging for financial and (actually useful) advisory help.
The Swedish economist Anders Aslund laid out how the USA basically cashed in on a "peace dividend"—slashing defense spending and wiping out their budget deficit by a whopping trillion dollars over about a decade.
Meanwhile, they found it impossible to cough up even $30 billion to support those Russian economic reforms.

We haven't hit that breaking point yet, obviously, and who knows when or how it'll happen.

China has already built its own custom setup, and since the rest of the world is just waiting to see what happens next, we'll just have to watch.

Are you being serious right now, or just messing around? You're talking about reforms led by a politician who got a full pardon from every possible prosecution, while his daughter went from being an engineer to a business mogul with a husband holding accounts in the Cayman Islands. Seriously?

slyfox43 said:If—and that is a massive if—they ever manage to pivot their entire identity from "us versus the world" to "we are just one part of the world," accepting that they aren't inherently special or entitled to unique geopolitical favors, then they won't have to beg for an invitation back to the table.

Back in the '90s, we didn't see that happening. There was a movement, sure, but it was really just a thin veneer wrapped around the same old imperialistic Russia we've always known.

The 90s were also defined by things like Abkhazia, Ossetia, and keeping up support for Transnistria.

In Abkhazia, Russians helped carry out ethnic cleansing against Georgians.

Lisa Jackson7 said:"Quote:"

Look, you can track where that stolen money actually goes—the funding sources, the energy trade flows—and just cut them off. No matter how much it hurts.

It’s all similar to limited sanctions. Neither an integration policy (China, Russia) nor a blockade strategy (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc.) guaranteed to deliver the intended results. They might work, they might not, and they could easily make things worse...

Nobody has a crystal ball here. These aren't simple, predictable systems that we can just map out for a reason.

I mean, why on earth would the West bother helping a nation that basically dissolved from within? It seems like they were so desperate to keep pace with their rivals that they poured endless amounts of money into space races and massive military budgets, all while their own people were struggling just to put food on the table. Then, of course, you had the Chernobyl disaster, which I suppose just drained whatever tiny bit of resilience they had left. That’s probably why we saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and such a massive exodus of anyone who actually had the means to leave.

And now, it feels a bit contradictory, doesn't it? On one hand, they're looking toward Western aid, but on the other, they still insist on acting like a major superpower by getting involved in all sorts of various interventions everywhere.

They lost the Cold War, plain and simple; the country was defeated, and if you ask me, the better move in the 90s might have been to focus on disarmament or even breaking up their power rather than offering them a helping hand.

Back in the 1990s, Russia needed a fundamental overhaul of its leadership—de-Sovietization should have been a non-negotiable prerequisite for any meaningful cooperation with the West.

Because that didn't happen, we ended up with Putin.

And because of that failure, "brilliant" Americans effectively disarmed Ukraine to the benefit of Russia. Looking at the nuclear situation today, we can see just how "wise" that move was—assuming, of course, their goal was to trigger this exact war with a twenty-five-year delay.

Now we're seeing the fallout. It turns out they were simply turning a blind eye, and now it’s too late to sharpen the claws; when it actually mattered, the response was nowhere to be found.

They practically fed them, allowing them to evolve into this particular evil. It will be a miracle if this conflict in Ukraine doesn't spill over into the rest of Europe.

Even Hiccup didn't rush across the entire continent immediately; everything moved in stages. You could say Ukraine is the precursor to a Polish scenario—a prelude to much broader conflicts. The Czech Republic was sacrificed like a lamb just to feed a hungry wolf.

As these examples show, the more you feed a wolf, the hungrier it gets.

It’s just nature. With a wolf, you either stay out of its way or you lure it into a trap and kill it. There is no third option.

The problem is, nobody can lure Putin into a trap. He isn't stepping foot in the West while this war continues, and until he has security guarantees, it's doubtful he'll ever visit a Western nation again—regardless of his status as the Russian President.

We’re essentially looking in the rearview mirror here. It’s easy to sit back now and claim that denuclearizing Ukraine was a mistake. But back then, there was a very real chance of seeing a Belarus 2.0 situation—or something even messier—given the political chaos and those questionable questions about their ability to actually control their own military assets.
I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea that Pakistan, India, or let alone South Korea have them either. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone during the collapse of the USSR being particularly happy about the prospect of nuclear weapons existing anywhere. If they had to be somewhere, it probably made more sense for them to be within the Russian Federation, given they hold most of the resources.

Betty Murphy3 said:Back in the 1990s, Russia needed a fundamental overhaul of its leadership—de-Sovietization should have been a non-negotiable prerequisite for any meaningful cooperation with the West.

Because that didn't happen, we ended up with Putin.

And because of that failure, "brilliant" Americans effectively disarmed Ukraine to the benefit of Russia. Looking at the nuclear situation today, we can see just how "wise" that move was—assuming, of course, their goal was to trigger this exact war with a twenty-five-year delay.

Now we're seeing the fallout. It turns out they were simply turning a blind eye, and now it’s too late to sharpen the claws; when it actually mattered, the response was nowhere to be found.

They practically fed them, allowing them to evolve into this particular evil. It will be a miracle if this conflict in Ukraine doesn't spill over into the rest of Europe.

Even Hiccup didn't rush across the entire continent immediately; everything moved in stages. You could say Ukraine is the precursor to a Polish scenario—a prelude to much broader conflicts. The Czech Republic was sacrificed like a lamb just to feed a hungry wolf.

As these examples show, the more you feed a wolf, the hungrier it gets.

It’s just nature. With a wolf, you either stay out of its way or you lure it into a trap and kill it. There is no third option.

The problem is, nobody can lure Putin into a trap. He isn't stepping foot in the West while this war continues, and until he has security guarantees, it's doubtful he'll ever visit a Western nation again—regardless of his status as the Russian President.

From what I can gather, Putin doesn't let anyone get within ten feet of him. I actually watched that stadium performance and spent some time comparing the guy giving the speech to various photos of Putin, and I swear, I'm almost certain that whoever was standing there on that field was some kind of body double rather than the actual Putin himself.

Anonymous j*** Nestlé just leaked their entire database

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/...x9uBvFo7A&s=19

Kenneth Cruz67 said:From what I can gather, Putin doesn't let anyone get within ten feet of him. I actually watched that stadium performance and spent some time comparing the guy giving the speech to various photos of Putin, and I swear, I'm almost certain that whoever was standing there on that field was some kind of body double rather than the actual Putin himself.

There is zero chance that was Putin. Look, I’m not really into conspiracy theories, but there are just way too many people around for him to take that risk. He stays tucked away in his bunker where nobody gets close.

Carl Lee27 said:Anonymous j*** Nestlé just leaked their entire database

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/...x9uBvFo7A&s=19

Woow, this is starting to feel more like that movie Idiocracy. 🤣

Lisa Jackson7 said:Even if that packaging was thin, it could have made a huge difference... but they weren't given the chance. Now everyone just nods along like, "Oh, totalitarianism is just in their blood," and acts like there's nothing to be done. To me, that just feels like pure hypocrisy and turning a blind eye.

Shouldn't we be looking into where all that Russian capital from the 90s actually went? The CIA helped pull that money out, and honestly, they were pretty damn good at investing it.
The Russian reformist PM Yegor Gaidar warned everyone about this right from the jump, but he was totally ignored.
So, who's really to blame here?

It was the CIA, which, as we can see, maintained the actual levers of power the entire time. That is true continuity of power. One has to wonder why Gaidar didn't clear that mess up himself if he truly had the agency to do so. (He didn't.)

Then again, if there was a collection of "accessories to the crime" in the West, there certainly was; and I think you know my long-term stance on them. What is unfolding right now presents a genuine opportunity to purge and reform Western institutions, and I won't mourn if that window closes without being used (much like how you won't mourn the missed opportunity you believe existed for integrating and reforming Russia.)