No fit for a modern civilization eh............ words cannot really describe my sentiments....... I just hope one of his own will take Putin out
Be it in London, Morocco, Egypt, Italy, USA, anywhere... not come across a Russian who is anything less than arrogant, rude, and self-centred with absolutely no respect for anyone or anything else. And I've met quite a few now. So how they act in "war" does not surprise me one iota.
I feel like adding 'after him being raped, tortured, castrated and beaten with a sledgehammer' - but I guess that would make me as bad as him.
According to the last census there are 8,334,100 residents in Ukraine who consider themselves as ethnic Russian - what is not so well known is that the second largest Russian population outside of Russia is in Germany. They are made up of 3 groups - firstly the so called Aussiedler. When Catharine the great became empress in the 18th century she enabled many people of German or Austrian descent to resettle in Russia (she herself was German) and these became known as the Volgadeutsch, because they were mostly concentrated around the Volga river. Anyone who has read Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky will recognize that there was a significant German population in Russia and later in the USSR. For security reasons Stalin resettled most of them further east during world War 2 towards and within what is now Kazakhstan. The truth is that they were never really considered 'Russian' though over 250 years their knowledge of German was shady to say the least, and through marriage and forced assimilation many had Russian names. When the USSR collapsed scores of these people emigrated to Germany. They were given German passports immediately whether they spoke German or not. Here they are considered by most as being 'Russian' - and mostly they think of themselves as Russian. Often they have Germanized names - so the ''Vladimir'' at home became the ''Waldemar'' here, with immediate voting rights. This pissed the Turks off no end who had been here for generations without the same rights. Actually one of these chaps played for Watford - a certain Alexander Merkel who played for Germany at under 20 level but then chose to play for Kazakhstan. The second group of Russian living here are Russian Jews - altogether about 250,000. And the third group are 100% ethnic Russians. Altogether they make up about 3 and a half million. Many on arrival obviously were disturbed by how multi cultural Germany is - you know like ''Why are there so many Turks etc. here'' Unfortunately most of them have voting rights and are one reason why the AfD have gained in strength here. On the whole I have found Russians (and German/Russians) to be amongst the most racist, most nationalistic (for Russia not for Germany) people around and to be intensely conservative and homophobic - as well as being mostly drunk. But to be honest I can't say that the Ukrainians I have met have been that different. Maybe i'm just pissed off with the fact that I had to live and work for many years here before qualifying for German nationality, and some Turkish friends of mine still don't have it, whereas someone speaking only Russian got it on arrival. Also pisses me off to see Syrians and Afghans pushed to the back of refugee queues to make way for Ukrainians. All in all - of all the nationalities I have got to know here the Russians are pretty much last on the list. But the thought that about 3 million of them have voting rights in Germany gives me the creeps I don't know their political attitudes to Putin and what is going on (I haven't asked) but they have been behind demos here against the sanctions being imposed.
It would appear now that the only hope for peace would be for Putin to be taken out by a coup (probably a Military Coup) If the West/Nato take any direct action against Russia then two thirds of the world will end up as an inhabitable wasteland and the other third will just die a slower more painful end to life Much as it pains me to say this Putin has to die for the world to live EDIT I dont believe the missiles in Poland were purely an accident, I believe it is Putin testing how far he can push NATO
One part of me wants Putin to be brought before a war crimes court and be made to face up to what he has done. If that shoild happen though he would spend the rest of his life behind bars, and would no doubt still have his band of followers spewing out the same warlike retoric. I have believed for a long time now that someone within needs to take him out, but will a way be found?
Such a thing would lead to a power vacuum Frenchie with a very uncertain future - there are worse megolomaniacs than him in Russia.
Yes it would leave a vacuum, but with a ruined economy, a military in tatters, and many in the population losing husbands and sons, you would hope that a group, rather than a single figure would come to power. I think on balance that is a chance worth taking, but it will take a long time before the Russian government will be trusted.
Surely Russia is in the same situation now as it was for the start of the Russian Revolution, only difference is it is the ones who won the revolution that now need replacing A history lesson for all
Just a query here Duggie - the majority of demonstrations and opposition in Russia to Putin use the hammer and Sickle at their demos meaning the main opposition to him would be a so called Communist one (I say ''so called'' because it never was Communism). There is great nostalgia there for the USSR and this is mostly opposed to Putin - so it is not a case of ''the ones who won the revolution that now need replacing''.
The Russian/Peoples Revolution ended up as most do as a Dictatorship, that is the History lesson Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely It makes no difference where the revolution starts (extreme left or extreme right) the end result is almost always the same, a Dictatorship that hold on to power by terror tactics against its own people ie Hitler and Stalin, nothing to chose between them
I assumed from duggie’s post that what he meant was that current monied/powerful in Russia today are akin to the Orwell’s pigs’ outcome in ‘1984’. Sorry, duggie, got distracted by Nina Simone documentary! Hadn’t seen you’d answered.
Animal Farm and 1984 were a warning of the outcome when the people who run a country have no opposition or the opposition is wiped out
During the adverts… I remember reading ‘Animal Farm’ when I was about 12. I had no clue it was allegorical, I just thought it was a bloody miserable story!
We forget that it is only thirty years ago that Mikhall Gorbachev was leading the Soviet Union to be something like a social democrat group of countries. A coup brought an end to that, but many of the countries released have forged far more successful policies that have improved the lives of their populations.
There is too much focus here on Putin and on the links between dictatorship and the brutal attack on another country. So called democracies are also well capable of such acts. We talk of Russian propaganda forgetting that Bush and Blair both assured us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched within 30 minutes - the press strengthened this lie and the majority believed it until contrary evidence later emerged that we had been lied to - is this any better or worse than Putins claims about Nazis in the Ukraine ? On the basis of this The USA attacked Iraq with the help of the UK - based on lies and causing an estimated 200,000 civilian dead through so called shock and awe tactics - much more than those which have happened in the Ukraine. So what is the moral difference between the two wars ? The treatment of prisoners ? - remember Guantanamo and the American belief that anyone who took up arms against them must be a terrorist. Freedom of information ? Assange would have other ideas here. The main difference lies in the fact that Iraq did not have a means of bringing graphic photos to the World's attention in the way that Selenskiy has brought it to such a fine art. We had demos against the Iraq war - but were there economic sanctions against the USA - were there any calls for such a step ? Did anyone seriously think of pumping weapons into Iraq so that they could defend themselves ? Was there any freezing of American assets Worldwide ? None of that happened and the difference between then and now are startling. Did anyone talk about the necessity of taking out Bush or Blair ? Or talk about the necessity of moving heavy weapons up to the borders of the USA ? Maybe the comparisons between the two wars have become lost on us but maybe countries such as India and China are more able to draw that comparison. Condemn countries for invading others certainly - but do it impartially and in all cases otherwise it smacks of double morality. So to bring a long text to an end - is the present invasion of the Ukraine morally any different to that against Iraq and, if so, why ?
But should it have lead to Worldwide sanctions against the USA, freezing of their overseas assets, and the sending of weapons to Iraq Duggie - applying the same logic as in the present case ?
