Russia

[Njugle]

The paranoia started long before now, the Russians held a series of military exercises in the North Sea a few years back, winding up every other party in the area and generally putting cat among pigeons. The effort required for Russia to create mayhem in the N Sea oil fields is minimal but the effect substantial.

 

Who knows, they may even choose to invade Forvik.

[paulb]

maybe the resident population have been issued with russian passports. the population is russian after all. he should not have mentioned his oil reserves the us may need to start bombing forvik to reimpose the rightful democratic ruler.

[TeeAyBee]

The paranoia started long before now, the Russians held a series of military exercises in the North Sea a few years back, winding up every other party in the area and generally putting cat among pigeons. The effort required for Russia to create mayhem in the N Sea oil fields is minimal but the effect substantial.

 

There have also been reports of Russian Bear-F long range maritime patrol aircraft encroaching on UK airspace.

 

Ivan is remembering the days when we were frightened of their missiles and the red war machine and hoping for a return to the days when they were a super-power too. Or are they? Is this a teenage "leave me alone, you don't understand me and my music" etc. tantrum? The country is less than 20 years old in its current structure after all.

[paulb]

weve had to fight them in the past both in the crimea (funny how history repeats its self) and around the north western part of india. then there was the fight with them post ww1. and all the other client wars that have been fought.

 

the russian empire has aways felt under attack from the rest of the world. they even came close to a total war with china in the USSR days.

now they do have some justification for feeling like this but they do need to change. after all we dont send gun boats to other countries any more do we.

[deardron]

The new bomb comes as Russia and the US appear to be reneging on nuclear arms limitation treaties signed during the Cold War and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

The head of a Russian foreign policy think tank on Tuesday warned that the two countries were on the brink of a new Cold War involving "an unrestricted nuclear and conventional arms race".

 

That's all the world needs, and i'm not blaming Russia alone here, the US are at it too.

Any Russian news of this? (deardron?)

Oops, just noticed this topic, close to its 1 year birthday Well, I don't remember news about that, at least there wasn't much noise about it. Speaking of Cold war association, the biggest problem is that USA with their anti-missile system in Poland and Check are doing the same thing as USSR who planned to place a similar system in Cuba in the early 1960's. As you might now, those plans resulted in so called Caribbean crisis. If you know USA's reaction from those years you will understand Russia's reaction today.

 

if you think that russia is going to be our friendly neigbour get this streight. they are not. they threatened the ukraine with war. they have been patroling our airdefences with there bombers.

Where did you hear that, my friend, that Russia threatened the Ukraine with war?? In fact I'm a Russian but was born in Ukraine when it had been the same country with Russia for 300-400 years (first the Russian Empire, then USSR). The family ties between R and U count many millions of people, so threating Ukraine with war is the last thing Russia will do.

 

The other thing is, that it's become a good business for some East European leaders to make Russia look a threat and get more and more money from the West "to defend themselves from the bear in the east". Consequently, the money of western tax payers are channeled into the pockets of the "frightened" guys living near Russia, who become more and more impudent towards Russia feeling the backing from the West.

 

It's especially ridiculous in the case of Georgia, one of the richest republic within USSR which is now the poorest of all post-Soviet. And being so poor, they take the first place in the world for military expenses per capita (!), having invested enormous sums, many many millions of dollars if not a billion. All this capital came certainly not from within Georgia itself. As the result of this militarisation they overestimated their capacities and attacked South Ossetia in early August. They were shouting missiles on domestic buildings, Georgian "peacekeepers" shooted women and children from tanks and threw grenades into cellars where people were hiding from attacks from the air. Thanks God the Russian army was quick to stop this bloodshed, and had they been a few hours late, Georgia would have occupied the only tunnel leading from Northern Ossetia to Southern Ossetia and the world could have forgotten about South Ossetians as such, as it hasn't been Georgia's first attempt to kill them all or run away (previously such attempts were done in 1920-s and early 1990's and were stopped only after Russians intervened).

 

So this is, guys, where your hard-earned (well, mostly Americans') are thrown into and why Russia is so "unfriendly".

[Njugle]

Very interesting deardron. Thank you for providing a perspective quite different from that presented by the media here. It appeared from many accounts here that Russia was simply trying to regain Georgia and using a deliberately provoked conflict as a reason to get in there.

[deardron]

Very interesting deardron. Thank you for providing a perspective quite different from that presented by the media here. It appeared from many accounts here that Russia was simply trying to regain Georgia and using a deliberately provoked conflict as a reason to get in there.

You're welcome Njugle. Western mass-media are very quick to assert that Russia wants to restore its power over countries like Georgia. This is not true, we don't want Georgia back, because it would cost us lots of money to dotate its economy and we'd rather spend this money to our own needs. It is because we remember quite well the times when USSR supported multiple "communist" regimes in Asia and Africa and then went bankrupt.

 

Of course, if Russia wanted to take over Abkhasia and South Ossetia, it would have been done in one day, because their population is very Russia-oriented, especially after 1992-1993 when Georgians attacked them very harshly. (It's still not done, because Abkhasia and South Ossetia are not going to be included into Russia, but stay as independent states.) But trying to please Georgia, Russia tried many times to mediate between Georgia and A/SO. The real problems began in 2004 when Georgia's current president Saakashvili came to power. His style was provokations, feints, giving and breaking promises. He refused to sign an agreement about non-use of force against A and SO. In 2006 the then military minister of Georgia promised to "celebrate new year 2007 in the capital of South Ossetia". So this war was destined to start soon or later. Of course, they hugely overestimated their force, so now they have clearly lost both territories for good. And the stay of Russian troups in Georgia near its borders was only needed to ensure that the military potential of Georgia is destroyed enough to cause problems in the future.

 

Let me also tell you how Georgia became a part of Russia 200 years ago, which is certainly not what your mass media will tell you. At those times Georgia was divided into small knighthoods which were constantly attacked by Persians and Turks. Thanks to the latter the Georgian population was constantly decreasing, from 5 millions in late Middle Age to 675 thousand by the end of the 18 century. In 1800 the Georgian king George XII wrote the Russian tzar a letter titled "Petition on the knees", where he asked to defend his country and to accept Georgians into "eternal citizenship" (this was not the first petition of that kind, but I won't go into that). The Russian tzar was first reluctant to give a positive reply, because he was not interested in wars with Persia and Turkey, but at the end he accepted the petition, because Georgia, as Russia, was an Orthodox country. A dozen of bloody wars against Persia and Turkey followed where many thousands of Russian soldiers lost lives. This also caused wars against several Caucasian tribes, such as Chechens, because they simply used to rob all caravans going from Russia to Georgia through Caucasian routes. In 1878 Russia completed freeing all Georgian territories from Turkey and by that time the number of Georgians had grown up to 2 millions.

 

So the existence of the Georgian nation and its territorial integrity is to be thanked to those Russian soldiers who offered their lives for Georgia's future 150-200 years ago. But today Georgians seem to have forgotten about it, they teach their school children that Russia occupied them many years ago and Georgia's president Saakashvili has recently opened a museum of Soviet occupation!! It's so cynical especially bearing in mind that Stalin and his friend Beria who was the director of KGB were both Georgians! Do you think we want Georgia back after that? No, never!!

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Very interesting deardron. Thank you for providing a perspective quite different from that presented by the media here.

 

The truth was out there.

 

Until they noticed and quickly cut to a Commercial break.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8XI2Chc6uQ&feature=related

[paulb]

intresting comment from the russiam pm.

we will never give up our land

i thought the russians were there as peace keepers. would this be the same peace keeping as they did in eastern europe.

of course it will be the wests fault after all we are the empire of evil. its our fault that russia from the mid 16th century has been building its empire. when they could not fund it anymore it collapsed. with all empires they grow stagnate and then die. the russians will want to re live their past glory but empires never re grow. thats why we still think we are a world power. who knows they may be a misunderstood country. but i think we would be fools if we did not keep our defenses up.

[Styles]

I have met the normal russian people a lot of times and was suprised how the same we were, I thought a lot of them, Russians are the same as us, its the others that in the future will be the enemy. I have a lot of time for Rissia and its people thay have been long maligned.

[Ertieiddabanks]

Some excellent comments from deardron. When the situation in S. Ossetia was going on all we saw was the Georgian perspective, Russia today on sky channel 512 had a completely different viewpoint and this confused me somewhat. I'm so used to believing BBC news's impartiality that when i was faced with a diametrically opposed view i had no idea who was spinning propaganda and who was telling the truth.

 

I never watch sky news as it belongs to rupert murdoch and he puts his business interests before impartial media interests( you won't see anything too bad about the chinese on sky news as murdoch wants/has the satellite concessions from the authorities), however i've always believed the BBC to be unbaised and now i'm not so sure.

 

For those of you with torrent software here's an excellent look at the background to the conflict:

 

http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1600535/3876110/

[paulb]

the land belongs to georgia its not russian.

 

Where did you hear that, my friend, that Russia threatened the Ukraine with war?? In fact I'm a Russian but was born in Ukraine when it had been the same country with Russia for 300-400 years (first the Russian Empire, then USSR). The family ties between R and U count many millions of people, so threating Ukraine with war is the last thing Russia will do.

it was putins spokes person.

when russia has got rid of there ex ussr leadership and when they want to start a proper relationship with there neighbours. thats when i will start trusting the russians. but i dobt that will happen they have never been a democratic state.

[deardron]

intresting comment from the russiam pm.

we will never give up our land

i thought the russians were there as peace keepers. would this be the same peace keeping as they did in eastern europe.

What do you mean with "peacekeeping in Eastern europe"?

("we will never give up our land" - this is not my quote BTW..)

 

its our fault that russia from the mid 16th century has been building its empire.

Back at those times everyone was building empires, when the colonisation of America, Africa, India, South-East Asia and Australia was beginning. Compared to England the Russian empire wasn't that big

 

when they could not fund it anymore it collapsed. with all empires they grow stagnate and then die. the russians will want to re live their past glory but empires never re grow. thats why we still think we are a world power. who knows they may be a misunderstood country. but i think we would be fools if we did not keep our defenses up.

You say the same what your mass media tell you about Russia - that it will restore its status as an empire and you should be afraid of it. So you as an obedient guy, believe in everything they pour into your ears. As I've said before, Russia has no plans to become an empire, we can't afford it economically and we don't want to send our soldiers abroad to get killed, as our population won't support it. Anymore questions on this one?

Speaking of the situation in S.Ossetia, Russia tried to keep peace there as long as possible. A war is always a humanitarian catastrophy with thousands of refugees (about 30 000 S.Ossetians fleed to Russia in August). And we are especially interested in peace in that area because we're preparing to conducting Winter Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi, which is very close to Caucasus. The main problem was the Georgian president who is an absolutely uncontroled and psychologically unbalanced person. But even having him, now we can say that there will be more stability in this area than before, thanks to Russia's intervening into the conflict.

 

I'm so used to believing BBC news's impartiality that when i was faced with a diametrically opposed view i had no idea who was spinning propaganda and who was telling the truth.

 

I never watch sky news as it belongs to rupert murdoch and he puts his business interests before impartial media interests( you won't see anything too bad about the chinese on sky news as murdoch wants/has the satellite concessions from the authorities), however i've always believed the BBC to be unbaised and now i'm not so sure.

I always struggle to understand why many western mass media are so negative towards Russia and misinforming the public about the situation there with lies and fantasies. I've heard stories that Russian users who wanted to oppose this mainstream were shut up at message boards at BBC, Spiegel etc. The video KOYAANISQATSI has posted is one of the very few examples of this censorship that has surfaced. So it seems there's a big iceberg under the water..

[deardron]

it was putins spokes person.

I don't remember that

when russia has got rid of there ex ussr leadership and when they want to start a proper relationship with there neighbours. thats when i will start trusting the russians. but i dobt that will happen they have never been a democratic state.

So you mean it's exclusively Russia to blame that it doesn't have good relations with some of its neighbours??

 

And do you mean all this anti-Russian propaganda in the West is a sign of a proper democracy and freedom of speech??

[Styles]

Stalin was one of the heros of wolrld war 2, we should not forget our allies so easy.