While I appreciate your candor and opinion, I cannot understand your lack of respect for the hostility the West has shown toward your country, and worse, your citizens. You are not a soldier, and if it were a perfect world, you never would be. But, Europe and America are gunning for your oil, your mineral reserves, your fertile lands and your children's future. Russia enjoys a literacy rate far higher than America. You have the largest fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in the world, with energy reserves that are the envy of most nations. For ten years, NATO has pumped funds into the Ukraine/Donbass conflict and supported puppet leaders. Perhaps the Kremlin has chosen to defend its people? The SMO was hard to accept, but the incursions of NATO/Ukraine missiles were equally unacceptable. By early next year, the outcome will reveal itself. Let's wish for peace and an equitable treaty for all
It is Ukraine that begs for Weapons, it is Ukraine's propaganda that is running thin, we see Russia moving huge amounts of military hardware, while the west struggles to keep Ukraine supplied, all of Europe is suffering for their support of this war.
Thank you for your articulate and candid explanations - in places like Counterpunch and Paul Jay's wonderful TheAnalysis News, as well as here - of a complex and highly nuanced situation. At some risk from Moscow, where you've been both an elected politician and political prisoner on occasion. It seems pointless to respond to simplistic comments that some make assuming that opposition to US imperialism necessitates support for Putin's insane adventure, even when events have proven that Biden and NATO could wish for no better de facto ally in their ongoing campaign for global hegemony. Or to the archaic fantasies of an invincible Russian economic and military machine of others, when, as you've accurately predicted the course Putin and co's campaign has been pathetic as well as brutal because of the degree to which Russia's industry and military has been hollowed out by the plundering of the gangsters-in-suits whom he essentially represents.
I do worry that Putin's domestic oligarchy is all that is protecting Russia from falling under the control of foreign oligarchy. If we in the West had not gone into a predatory feeding frenzy in the 90s, maybe some kind of economic democracy might have flourished in Russia. Instead, Russia's fledgling political democracy has now drowned under the domestic oligarchy. It is a tragedy caused by the West but enabled and carried out by Putin. Nonetheless I have sympathy and admiration for Putin as a nationalist. He has played his limited hand as well as he could and as long as he could. Probably he was never going to win against the overwhelming economic might - and overwhelming hypocrisy - of the West. The best he can hope for now is to be China Lite, a democracy-free zone of economic autonomy. Russians are going to have to wait decades more for democracy. Until then they will be ruled by oligarchs, whether foreign or domestic. What a tragedy.
Nowadays when I hear "Winds of Change" I just weep for what might have been.
While I appreciate your candor and opinion, I cannot understand your lack of respect for the hostility the West has shown toward your country, and worse, your citizens. You are not a soldier, and if it were a perfect world, you never would be. But, Europe and America are gunning for your oil, your mineral reserves, your fertile lands and your children's future. Russia enjoys a literacy rate far higher than America. You have the largest fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in the world, with energy reserves that are the envy of most nations. For ten years, NATO has pumped funds into the Ukraine/Donbass conflict and supported puppet leaders. Perhaps the Kremlin has chosen to defend its people? The SMO was hard to accept, but the incursions of NATO/Ukraine missiles were equally unacceptable. By early next year, the outcome will reveal itself. Let's wish for peace and an equitable treaty for all
It is Ukraine that begs for Weapons, it is Ukraine's propaganda that is running thin, we see Russia moving huge amounts of military hardware, while the west struggles to keep Ukraine supplied, all of Europe is suffering for their support of this war.
Thank you for your articulate and candid explanations - in places like Counterpunch and Paul Jay's wonderful TheAnalysis News, as well as here - of a complex and highly nuanced situation. At some risk from Moscow, where you've been both an elected politician and political prisoner on occasion. It seems pointless to respond to simplistic comments that some make assuming that opposition to US imperialism necessitates support for Putin's insane adventure, even when events have proven that Biden and NATO could wish for no better de facto ally in their ongoing campaign for global hegemony. Or to the archaic fantasies of an invincible Russian economic and military machine of others, when, as you've accurately predicted the course Putin and co's campaign has been pathetic as well as brutal because of the degree to which Russia's industry and military has been hollowed out by the plundering of the gangsters-in-suits whom he essentially represents.
I do worry that Putin's domestic oligarchy is all that is protecting Russia from falling under the control of foreign oligarchy. If we in the West had not gone into a predatory feeding frenzy in the 90s, maybe some kind of economic democracy might have flourished in Russia. Instead, Russia's fledgling political democracy has now drowned under the domestic oligarchy. It is a tragedy caused by the West but enabled and carried out by Putin. Nonetheless I have sympathy and admiration for Putin as a nationalist. He has played his limited hand as well as he could and as long as he could. Probably he was never going to win against the overwhelming economic might - and overwhelming hypocrisy - of the West. The best he can hope for now is to be China Lite, a democracy-free zone of economic autonomy. Russians are going to have to wait decades more for democracy. Until then they will be ruled by oligarchs, whether foreign or domestic. What a tragedy.
Nowadays when I hear "Winds of Change" I just weep for what might have been.
Brilliant.