AIBU to ask what your next move would be if you were Putin?

[Chowbellow]

So. You're Putin. You rule a massive amount of people. You're ex KGB. You want to take over the world perhaps (or maybe just want to play!).
What is your next move now that the West is in crisis as you won't supply them with oil/gas?
Your people are dying but you've loads of people. You've invaded a non NATO country so you know they won't touch you.

He’s not a toddler. A psychopath and toddler may be alike in that they both lack empathy, but there is where the comparisons end. A toddler is driven by emotion and instinct. A successful psychopath is rational, he can outthink and outmaneuver. I think this is where respect comes in. If you don’t respect someone you invariably end up underestimating them, and there is a danger in that. A huge one. I do not like Putin. My father is Russian, and my grandmother Ukrainian. My father will not return to Russia, and neither will I. Respecting someone for the power they hold and the threat they pose does not mean you like, approve of, or admire them.

Putin miscalculates, but he isn’t stupid. At all. He’s a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB, so he knows all the tricks of that trade. He also knows countermeasures and ways to ensure his own security. Not foolproof of course, but close enough.

He’s a typical strongman of the Russian tradition. I don’t think he wants to rule the world, but he does want power over his sphere of influence (I.e Warsaw Pact countries). He wants Russia to be a power in the world, and he wants a legacy.

It’s hard to say what’s indigenous to Russia, because Russia is made up of so many different people and cultures. It’s also made up of lands that have changed hands so many times. The first proto Slavic state though was Kievan Rus’, and that is what Putin is basing his claim on.

Ok, so in terms that I understand it's like the UK conquering Ireland and not understanding why the Irish people wanted to be independent?

And yes, Ukraine has its own shady ties with Oligarchs behind the scenes, it has issues when it comes to corruption. And Putin is correct when he speaks of a Nazism problem there. He is also correct when he says that Ukraine have committed war crimes against civilians in Donetsk and Donbas. What he’s overlooking is a Nazism problem within the borders of Russia. What he’s overlooking is the war crimes Russia has committed against Ukraine.

www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/10/eastern-ukraine-conflict-summary-killings-misrecorded-and-misreported/

I do think there is a problem with reducing conflicts to absolute good versus absolute evil, and to either pretend there are no issues with the side you happen to support, or to find excuses for them. Unfortunately you end up with both sides doing that, becoming entrenched in their viewpoints while civilians pay the price.

I’m trying to think of a parallel. Imagine if Cornwall was an independent nation, and the rest of England opposed that.

I believe that happened!

Cornwall were Celts I think. The rest of England were Angla-Saxon and invaded by Romans but Cornwall held strong somehow? I may be wrong on this.

I’d have to do some more reading on that area of history but yes, Cornwall is one of the Celtic nations, whereas the English are Anglo Saxon.

Basically Russians and Ukrainians are both Slavic nations with a long shared history that dates back to Kievan Rus’. Ukraine spent many centuries as part of other countries rather than a national in it’s own right, and the country it was part of for the longest period was Russia and then the Soviet Union. Ukraine as we know it now emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

*Nation

In terms of Russia and Democracy, Russia is a country with no real democratic tradition, and no democratic infrastructure. There was an appetite for it when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it was horribly mismanaged to the point that the experience put people off it in favour of the devil they knew: the strong autocrat.

I’m copying and pasting what I wrote in the Russian windows thread about what the oligarch assassinations mean, as well as context as to what the Oligarchs actually are:

it’s hard to explain just how bad Russia was in the 90s. We’re talking massive homelessness, severe food shortages, people walking up to cars in rush hour traffic and blowing up a car, dead bodies with their heads shot off washing up on river banks daily, rival bratva members suddenly appearing in a busy street and shooting at each other with AKs. Good luck if you were just going about your business and trying to scrape together a semblance of living. What little you had you were required to pay protection fees with, lest you and your family become a target (as opposed to just merely being caught in the crossfire). Meanwhile, the Oligarchs are building their wealth off that. Is the average Russian going to spare sympathy or tears for an oligarch? Of course not, why on earth would they?


When Putin came along, he cut deals and took it off the streets. Of course it still existed, but the average person can accept that if the alternative is what they already lived through.

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To get where they were, in Russia, means they have their own share of blood on their hands, and lots of it. It’s one branch of the mafia targeting the other in order to assert dominance. Shit versus shit.

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Lukoil was the only energy company in Russia that spoke out against the war. The former President, Alekperov, resigned a week after sanctions were announced. I have no idea where he is currently but you can bet his security are on hyper alert currently.


No one was genuinely supposed to believe this was an accident. It’s a warning shot, aimed at Alekperov and/or any other Oligarchs that have any notions of deposing him.


Long story short is that the Oligarchs collected their wealth in the 90s, following the fall of the Soviet Union and during a period of free-for-all gangster capitalism under Yeltsin. This essentially put them in control of the newly born Russian Federation, although they were loathed within the country. They were a problem for Putin, so he cut a deal with them. They could keep what they had, they just had to bend the proverbial knee and know their place. Abramovich, for example, agreed to this. Berezovsky (you may know the name in regards to Aleksandr Litvinenko) did not. Berezovsky ‘committed suicide’.


Even bought to heel as they were, they still have enormous influence. The western press openly pondered the possibility of the Oligarchs, angry at the sanctions of the seizure of their assets, getting rid of Putin (I suspect this may have been, at least in part, motivation for the sanctions on the first place). If the western press thought it, you can bet your ass Putin did.


Maganov is the tenth ‘mystery death’ of prominent Russian Oligarchs this year, the second from Lukoil. Most have been from Gazprom. He’s cleaning house in regards to the energy sector. It may be that a plot was uncovered, and it may be to send a message to remind them to watch their step. It may be both.

@whumpthereitis Thanks for that. I think that we all know that Russia issues warnings along with every cartel in Mexico etc. He will deny it while also knowing that everyone else knows that it's a warning. The suicides are typical of him (KGB), of MI6, of the CIA. We can't pretend that any of our countries are beyond reproach in that regard. It's interesting though that he managed to corale the mercenaries to take the gangs off the streets. Over here, we don't hear their history, we don't get their news. You have to read between lines. I mean seriously, who believes that an oil magnate in Russia falls out of his window accidentally? Our media never questions it though - they simply report that he fell out of a fucking window? That's what flabbergasts me! Why, are we, who have free press (allegedly) not reporting on anything but the facts? I don't get it.

Is there a media blackout or something which prevents mainstream media outlets in the Uk from surmising?

Chowbellow, do you feel able to say which country you're in/from when talking about "here" and "we"?

You said earlier that you're not from the UK, and it is making your posts quite confusing. Eg you talked earlier about "us" killing Russians, however the UK is not killing Russians.

Similarly, there's plenty of coverage in the UK mainstream media of eg Maganov's "fall from a window", and none I've seen suggests any acceptance of the official Russian line.

Or did you just mean it's not on your personal Facebook feed?

Well I definitely hope you don’t suffer a “fall out the window” or off your balcony @Chowbellow

That said, I didn’t think what Putin wanted was any big secret. He’s made it clear for fuck all ever. He’s made it VERY clear since 2006. He made it clear in 2008. He made it clear when he invaded Crimea, and yes, it was an invasion, and no, the sovereign nation of Ukraine did not invite him to trample their borders, and he’s made it clear in 2022. He wants a lasting legacy, and he wants that legacy to be the re-establishment of the USSR. He has fomented the Russian people to support this, and polls now show that 75% of Russians say the Soviet era was the greatest in Russian history, so he has all the support he needs at home, and everyone going against him DOESN’T have that support from their constituents in their home democracies. I mean, you can’t even get an entire Mumsnet thread to agree. Ukraine is the writing on the wall - if Russia takes it, then Russia will collect the rest of the former Soviet states like marbles. Putin does not want to allow any group with military influence to interfere in what he deems the Russian sphere of influence. The EU isn’t a military influence. But NATO sure is. Which is why he lost his rag over Ukraine originally getting a NATO Membership Action Plan in 2008, and keeps going on his rant over how Ukraine isn’t a country again and again and again. Putin saying any former USSR state isn’t a “real” country should tell you everything about his motives and beliefs. The truth is that even Crimea, which Putin claimed Russia had such an inherent right to, doesn’t belong to Russia historically. Less than 6% of its history is “Russian.” It was only part of “Russia” for 168 years.
www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/putins-rambling-manifesto-causes-stir-in-kyiv-and-among-ukraine-observers-worldwide/

As for Russian ships sitting in the Irish Sea, what difference does it make? They’ve already got missiles that can reach from Russia to London in an hour, faster than you can evacuate. Ships are just posturing. If they bomb, it will likely come from Russia itself, or their positions in Ukraine, and they’ve already flat out stated London will be the target. In June, a Putin spokesman said they’d attack the UK by cutting off our power supplies, which they’ve now done, and they said in the same “speech” that they would start by bombing London, IF bombing the West ever starts. So it’s not like they’re keeping these plans or motivations super secret.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-ally-london-bomb-world-war-3-b2108980.html?amp

A lot of people have forgotten how many people Russia lost in WW2.
Everybody seems to have forgotten that we paid the USA £60 billion for joining the Allies in WW2. The last payment of £1billion was made in 2006. We also paid Canada for their involvement. Under the Lend-Lease programme.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6215847.stm

we paid the US and they didn’t join in until Pearl Harbour was bombed and yet they get way more glory and recognition than Russia. The losses were less than the Russians as well.

Probably more similar to the problem with. Northern Ireland, power sharing and the Good Friday Agreement under Tony Blair put a hold on decades of terrorism.

The sacrifice in blood the Russians made is second to none. And their war against fascism, when they eventually got double crossed by Hitler making that key mistake of invading Russia in winter, should not be forgotten.

Let’s not, however, pretend that Russia could have done anything other than throw meat into the proverbial grinder without US support. Sans-materiel, Russian soldiers are no better than fodder. You need arms and vehicles to do anything, and they had barely any real industry outside of agriculture and related machinery at that point that could ramp up to the levels needed in time. After they topped up, then it was another story. The Allies soon found that quantity is a quality all of its own.

Likewise the UK and rest of Europe, the resource base of the USA was the lifeline that kept things going. Had the UK fallen, or the US decided against entering (assuming the Japanese didn’t go after Pearl Harbour for, uh, reasons as they secured oil elsewhere), then things would be very different.

In general I mean 'we, the West', so the UK, the EU and the US.

I don't think that I mentioned us killing Russians though?

polls now show that 75% of Russians say the Soviet era was the greatest in Russian history
Polls taken by who?

That's interesting that it appears to be news though to 'us' Brits (in London) that he has threatened London. It's obvious why those ships are off the coast of Ireland. He knows full well that Ireland hasn't any military defence capabilities.

Pardon?

The 'we' in that post was referring to Ukraine defending themselves WITH SUPPORT FROM THE WEST.