Ukraine says has 'compelling evidence' of plane shoot down

[freemehul]

Your argument on separation of powers is of course true on the national level, on the other hand international law is outside the jurisdiction of national government

That's perfectly true of course, but I was talking on the examplary level. Not that I mean by that, that you should export democracy, but merely that showing a poor example does not make for a convincing argument.

The problem was that it wasn't theirs to give away, the piece of paper or the tyrants has nothing to do with it, the ****ty part is that they gave away a piece of another nation without that nation having a say in the matter.

True, but I would say it is both, it wasn't theirs to give away, but even if it was, it would still be a bad decision to give away

Yes and so did Hitler and why should we let them?
It's better that we make a stand now where we can afford to be slow about it(because Ukraine is only our problem as long as we choose to make it our problem) rather than when he takes the next step and starts this sorta **** in a NATO or EU nation because then we'd have WWIII 5 minutes later. If Ukraine had been in EU or NATO WWIII would have already started months ago.

I would like to point out this though. Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons. Of course they were busy getting their hands on them as are the Iranians nowadays, but he didn't have them. The allies bombed his Norwegian heavy water factory and the German scienists weren't exactly the brightest minds when it came to the math about the bomb. Funny how it works, but those who migrated to democratic countries knew how to make things, those who stayed put and help tyrants did not. It's one of the better historical ironies.

That's why its better to take out Putin's ability to wage war. Wars are expensive, not only in human terms, but also financially. If he wants to make stand, let it be costly. Each time he lashes out, tighten the noose on him.

If you want take out a Russian bear, don't get the shotgun, because you may get mauled, before you kill it. Better is to snare it and wait for it to die of starvation. Its slow, but it's safe.

[Elldallan]

True, but I would say it is both, it wasn't theirs to give away, but even if it was, it would still be a bad decision to give away

Agreed.

I would like to point out this though. Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons. Of course they were busy getting their hands on them as are the Iranians nowadays, but he didn't have them. The allies bombed his Norwegian heavy water factory and the German scienists weren't exactly the brightest minds when it came to the math about the bomb. Funny how it works, but those who migrated to democratic countries knew how to make things, those who stayed put and help tyrants did not. It's one of the better historical ironies.

Not exactly true, Germany had and ample supply of brilliant scientists even during the war and would probably have managed to make their own bomb within a similar timeframe as the US if that heavy water plant hadn't been bombed.
What really hampered the Germans with respect to the nuclear sciences was that nuclear research requires a lot of fairly large structures and because Germany was so close to the theatre of war the allies could target their facilities with relative ease while the Manhattan project was hundreds of miles from anything even remotely threatening.

That's why its better to take out Putin's ability to wage war. Wars are expensive, not only in human terms, but also financially. If he wants to make stand, let it be costly. Each time he lashes out, tighten the noose on him.

If you want take out a Russian bear, don't get the shotgun, because you may get mauled, before you kill it. Better is to snare it and wait for it to die of starvation. Its slow, but it's safe.

Agreed, I simply meant that it's because the conflict happens in Ukraine that there even is that option, if something similar had happened in one of the Baltic states we would have had WWIII before we could say bear because any NATO member would have invoked Article V and then all of NATO would have been required to declare war on Russia.
And yeah, hunting bear with a shotgun is utterly ineffective and stupid, if you're gonna do something better do it right from the start and there is no kill like overkill ;)

Jokes aside, yeah I agree that economical sanctions is a far better choice at this point(because nobody wants WWIII), but the question is what we're going to do if Putin keeps pushing forward?
Yes war is expensive in the western world, because we buy all our stuff from profit seeking corporations. Russia has a lot of raw resources and their military industrial complex is largely owned or at least controlled by the government so in theory they can produce stuff at "only" the cost of the raw resources and labor ewtc, sure it's still not going to be all that cheap but it'd be a lot cheaper than our way of doing things.
Russia's budget was presented a few weeks before the MH17 incident and despite signs of receding economy(because of the sanctions from the annexation of Crimea) they raised the military budget by 25% by cutting it from welfare and education and by adding a new tax. We can't use our definition on what makes a working society on Russia because the government is clearly willing to cut things we in the west wouldn't be and there's no real signs that the Russian population are going to revolt over it.

[freemehul]

Not exactly true, Germany had and ample supply of brilliant scientists even during the war and would probably have managed to make their own bomb within a similar timeframe as the US if that heavy water plant hadn't been bombed.
What really hampered the Germans with respect to the nuclear sciences was that nuclear research requires a lot of fairly large structures and because Germany was so close to the theatre of war the allies could target their facilities with relative ease while the Manhattan project was hundreds of miles from anything even remotely threatening.

actually they could have gone underground. It would have taken time. Also a problem was that Hitler couldn't set his priorities right (started building big ships when subs were strategically better, it was the same with things like the bomb). As to the scientists. British intelligence discovered after the war, that their math and engineering was wrong, even if they had the facilities, they still wouldn't have been able to build it unless they had some further trial and error. The Americans, British and Canadians got it right the first two times (well ok not excactly true but you hopefully get the point).

Russia has a lot of raw resources and their military industrial complex is largely owned or at least controlled by the government so in theory they can produce stuff at "only" the cost of the raw resources and labor ewtc

cheap resources make for poor quality weaponry. We have a saying in the Netherlands "goedkoop is duurkoop" (cheap is bought expensive). The cheaper you get it, the more you need of it, to offset against higher quality weaponry, in the end making the total amount more expensive.

Lets take the first gulf war as an example. Iraq had Russian made tanks pitted against American tanks. Now that's a good example of a one-sided battle that ends up very expensive for the Iraqi's. what was the exact ratio? I forget. 100 Iraqi tanks destroyed for only 1 american tank. Now a T62 was what on the open market about 44000 dollars (100 x 44000 = $4,400,000) and that's forgetting they also lost t72 (which were more expensive) versus an M1 inflation corrected about 1 million dollar, maybe high end 2 million.

That's half the cost, maybe even a quarter of the cost! Now this is just tanks. It works on similar levels with artillery, ships and planes.


Oh and then there is the labor to consider. Pull in the men to produce the extra resources at the facilities and you're gonna need some incentives to attract the extra working people they need. You have to consider that forced labor doesn't really work here, as they tend to be uneducated. The Russians had this problem in the eighties when they wanted more oil. What they did is offer better salaries to get them to Siberia. What they noticed is that production actually went down when salaries rose. You see what happened is the higher salary made the workers retire early. And these losses to retirement didn't offset the extra men gained by the higher salary. This is very counterintuitive, but is what happened. The Russian government hadn't considered the utility curve (free time with no salary versus working hours plus salary) and they forgot they had monopsony power (monopsony = lower salary + higher unemployment). What you get in a poor quality working environment is called the substitution effect, where it ultimately means this: rising salaries = desire for more free time. It is similar to a substitution effect that happened in South Korea when their economy boomed. More people went from eating rice products (= poor quality) to wheat products (= high quality).

So if extra production isn't to be, than the value will go up, even if it is a poor quality product by comparison to the western made higher quality product. Oh and since you're dealing with a government actor, market prices actually say very little. True prices might actually be higher, than what a government wants for it. Somehow most government actors tend to undervalue valuable products.


...anyhow gotta love living in a western economy, even if it is in recession ;)

We can't use our definition on what makes a working society on Russia because the government is clearly willing to cut things we in the west wouldn't be and there's no real signs that the Russian population are going to revolt over it.

no real signs yet I have to agree, but there are signs. You should read some of the articles of Ben Judah. Makes for some interesting read in regard to this.

[Elldallan]

[QUOTE=freemehul;15308432]actually they could have gone underground. It would have taken time. Also a problem was that Hitler couldn't set his priorities right (started building big ships when subs were strategically better, it was the same with things like the bomb). As to the scientists. British intelligence discovered after the war, that their math and engineering was wrong, even if they had the facilities, they still wouldn't have been able to build it unless they had some further trial and error. The Americans, British and Canadians got it right the first two times (well ok not excactly true but you hopefully get the point).

cheap resources make for poor quality weaponry. We have a saying in the Netherlands "goedkoop is duurkoop" (cheap is bought expensive). The cheaper you get it, the more you need of it, to offset against higher quality weaponry, in the end making the total amount more expensive.

I think you're misunderstanding me here, what I mean is that they have control of the entire production chain so they can produce the weapons at the actual cost of the materials and the labor, not the inflated costs western corporations sell weapons at. So no, it doesn't neccessarily imply substandard equipment

Lets take the first gulf war as an example. Iraq had Russian made tanks pitted against American tanks. Now that's a good example of a one-sided battle that ends up very expensive for the Iraqi's. what was the exact ratio? I forget. 100 Iraqi tanks destroyed for only 1 american tank. Now a T62 was what on the open market about 44000 dollars (100 x 44000 = $4,400,000) and that's forgetting they also lost t72 (which were more expensive) versus an M1 inflation corrected about 1 million dollar, maybe high end 2 million.

That's half the cost, maybe even a quarter of the cost! Now this is just tanks. It works on similar levels with artillery, ships and planes.

Now you're comparing apples and oranges. The T-62, even the T-72 are outdated tanks. If you want to make a comparison you should compare something like the Leopard 2 with the M1 Abrams, the Leopard 2A6 comes in at $5.74M while the M1 Abrams comes in at $8.6M with most experts considering the Leopard 2 the better tank because they're virtually identical in armament and armour and top speed but the Leopard 2 doesn't have a gas guzzling gas turbine for an engine(if you remove the engine limitations on the M1 it can reach higher speeds but that will cause damage to the drivetrain and the tracks). The T-90 which is Russia's response to the M1 is reported to be a competent tank(weighing in at an estimated $4.3M) which is still half the price of the M1.
(Cost source is Wikipedia at the moment so it should be taken with a grain of salt but it still gives a general idea and they at least have sources for those figures)

And no, throwing more money at something doesn't necessarily mean a better product, case in point the JSF F-35 which has inferior range, acceleration, climb rate, turn rate, top speed, G tolerances and a smaller weapon bay than most current and next gen aircraft's.
Basically it's inferior at anything that makes up a good fighter and will still be one of the most expensive aircraft's in current history
It has stealth but so does the F-22 and supposedly the new aircraft's Russia is currently designing/testing.
I recently read an analysis of a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Korea where a bunch of F-35's and some F-22's faced off against the Chinese, the results weren't very encouraging

Because it's a joint service aircraft it means that all the branches(Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force) has their own demands/requirements so it ends up having to do all of them and not excelling at any of them(Mainly it's the USMC demand for VTOL/STOVL capability that's ruining things for everybody).
And this is the aircraft they also expect to foist on the rest of the western hemisphere, otherwise the unit cost is going to be astronomic because there will be fewer units to spread the development costs on.

Oh and then there is the labor to consider. Pull in the men to produce the extra resources at the facilities and you're gonna need some incentives to attract the extra working people they need. You have to consider that forced labor doesn't really work here, as they tend to be uneducated. The Russians had this problem in the eighties when they wanted more oil. What they did is offer better salaries to get them to Siberia. What they noticed is that production actually went down when salaries rose. You see what happened is the higher salary made the workers retire early. And these losses to retirement didn't offset the extra men gained by the higher salary. This is very counterintuitive, but is what happened. The Russian government hadn't considered the utility curve (free time with no salary versus working hours plus salary) and they forgot they had monopsony power (monopsony = lower salary + higher unemployment). What you get in a poor quality working environment is called the substitution effect, where it ultimately means this: rising salaries = desire for more free time. It is similar to a substitution effect that happened in South Korea when their economy boomed. More people went from eating rice products (= poor quality) to wheat products (= high quality).

Yeah I get your meaning but look earlier in my reply, I meant the fact that because the Russian government owns the production chain start to end they don't for example have to pay off moneygrubbing shareholders etc.

So if extra production isn't to be, than the value will go up, even if it is a poor quality product by comparison to the western made higher quality product. Oh and since you're dealing with a government actor, market prices actually say very little. True prices might actually be higher, than what a government wants for it. Somehow most government actors tend to undervalue valuable products.


...anyhow gotta love living in a western economy, even if it is in recession ;)



no real signs yet I have to agree, but there are signs. You should read some of the articles of Ben Judah. Makes for some interesting read in regard to this.

Well I have to admit that there are certain part of the western economy I aren't too thrilled about, particularly the US part of the western economy and how their regulation race to the bottom is getting themselves and all the rest of us in trouble.
And yeah government estimations typically tend to undervalue things, especially when it comes to military hardware.

Yes admittedly there has been some signs of unrest, especially after the last election, but according to a lot of analysts at the moment the sanctions etc is so far actually raising Putin's popularity because now there's an enemy again that the people can be "united" against and since there is a distinct lack of press freedom in Russia the press is largely reporting the Kremlin slant on things and that slant alone, so fill the media with anti west propaganda and shuffle the widespread authoritarianism and corruption under the closest carpet, hopefully that can't last forever but the question is how long can it actually go on, Putin is never going to relinquish power voluntarily.

[freemehul]

I think you're misunderstanding me here, what I mean is that they have control of the entire production chain so they can produce the weapons at the actual cost of the materials and the labor, not the inflated costs western corporations sell weapons at. So no, it doesn't neccessarily imply substandard equipment


Now you're comparing apples and oranges. The T-62, even the T-72 are outdated tanks. If you want to make a comparison you should compare something like the Leopard 2 with the M1 Abrams, the Leopard 2A6 comes in at $5.74M while the M1 Abrams comes in at $8.6M with most experts considering the Leopard 2 the better tank because they're virtually identical in armament and armour and top speed but the Leopard 2 doesn't have a gas guzzling gas turbine for an engine(if you remove the engine limitations on the M1 it can reach higher speeds but that will cause damage to the drivetrain and the tracks). The T-90 which is Russia's response to the M1 is reported to be a competent tank(weighing in at an estimated $4.3M) which is still half the price of the M1.
(Cost source is Wikipedia at the moment so it should be taken with a grain of salt but it still gives a general idea and they at least have sources for those figures)

And no, throwing more money at something doesn't necessarily mean a better product, case in point the JSF F-35 which has inferior range, acceleration, climb rate, turn rate, top speed, G tolerances and a smaller weapon bay than most current and next gen aircraft's.
Basically it's inferior at anything that makes up a good fighter and will still be one of the most expensive aircraft's in current history
It has stealth but so does the F-22 and supposedly the new aircraft's Russia is currently designing/testing.

Yeah I get your meaning but look earlier in my reply, I meant the fact that because the Russian government owns the production chain start to end they don't for example have to pay off moneygrubbing shareholders etc.

actually most of the stuff they have is very outdated, in fact I've heard stories half of it in storage isn' t even in working order, meaning they'll have to produce it and it isn 't so much the resources as the labor that gets expensive

I agree that throwing extra money at it is no sure way to get a better product. the planes point is taken. entirely agree with that, problem is though a lot of the cheaper non western stuff is of rather poor quality. OK there are exceptions, a particular very succesful gun comes to mind for instance.

and no i was not talking about the shareholders. the wages is whats is Putin's problem ;)

there is no freedom of the press in Russia allright, especially when it comes to newspapers and television. But Russians too have internet and Putin doesn't have a great Firewall of China of his own. ;)
According to Judah about 40% of the Russians don't even watch the news on television anymore, they get it from internet sources. Most of those are in the cities though, nothing rural and yes most of these people have government jobs (I think during Putins term these jobs grew by 25%), but if your real wage goes down due to sanctions even that supposed job security provided by Putin means very little if you cannot buy enough to feed your kids. ;)

[Elldallan]

actually most of the stuff they have is very outdated, in fact I've heard stories half of it in storage isn' t even in working order, meaning they'll have to produce it and it isn 't so much the resources as the labor that gets expensive

Well it's true that most of their stuff is outdated, the problem is that it doesn't tell the whole story because they don't throw their stuff away when it becomes outdated, they put it in cold storage.
Estimates thinks Russia has about 500-600 T-90's which are comparable to western MBT's and they're building more.
So that saying most of their stuff is outdated is true but a little misgiving, Russia has quite a large population and they're perfectly willing to throw away the lives of their soldiers so the general idea seems to be to keep all the old stuff and in case a conflict happens they can draft their population and put em in that old stuff and they can be of at least some use. For example during WWII the German Tiger was far superior to anything the allies had, attacking a Tiger it was expected that you'd have to use 6-9 Shermans and you'd loose all but one or two of them. But that was considered acceptable losses because they allies could produce the Shermans in such numbers that such loss ratio wasn't a problem. So you can either throw those old outdated tanks in sufficient numbers at something until it breaks or you can send in a bunch of them and mix in 1-2 of the modern tanks which will improve the kill ration but their own losses will be buffered by the outdated stuff. It's a strategy we'd never use in the west and that would probably never work in the west because no western soldier would accept going into a tank knowing they were just cannon fodder, but for indoctrinated Russians I don't know, it could work and their government has never beeen known for their compassion and care for human lives.

I agree that throwing extra money at it is no sure way to get a better product. the planes point is taken. entirely agree with that, problem is though a lot of the cheaper non western stuff is of rather poor quality. OK there are exceptions, a particular very succesful gun comes to mind for instance.

and no i was not talking about the shareholders. the wages is whats is Putin's problem ;)

Often that cheaper non-western stuff comes out of the same factories that makes the more expensive non-western stuff. It's common practice as far as I know that when a component/product fails to meet the tolerance limits but still works it's common to sell or ship it under a different brand.
Yes it's quite possible that the wages will become a problem for Putin, one can always hope :)

there is no freedom of the press in Russia allright, especially when it comes to newspapers and television. But Russians too have internet and Putin doesn't have a great Firewall of China of his own. ;)
According to Judah about 40% of the Russians don't even watch the news on television anymore, they get it from internet sources. Most of those are in the cities though, nothing rural and yes most of these people have government jobs (I think during Putins term these jobs grew by 25%), but if your real wage goes down due to sanctions even that supposed job security provided by Putin means very little if you cannot buy enough to feed your kids. ;)

Indeed they don't have a firewall but English literacy is limited so they'll quite often be checking Russian sources which can of course I guess be better than the image the state wants to project but it can also be worse, much worse. For example the "theory" that MH17 was in fact MH370, which didn't crash but was taken by the CIA to an airforce base, filled with corpses and sent off to europe and detonated over Ukraine to cause this entire situation.

[freemehul]

true a lot of it is in storage, but again it costs money to get it in working order, a lot of money...

and again true Russia has a lot of people about 146 million and again true they're perfectly willing to throw them away. But that will only get them sofar. Also demographics are down in Russia in the sense that just like most European countries the birth rate isn't very high. In fact Russia was in demographoc decline since 1991. It only recently (since about 2012) seen a rise in its population. Its mostly due to the poor quality of their hospitals, partiularly their maternity wards, that and old men with vodka. People tend to get edgy when their children start to die, no matter what country you're in.

In fact the last time a Russian government did this kind of war, it triggered a second revolution, where a certain Vladimir Ilyich Oeljanov spoke about "peace and bread" in St. Petersburg. OK he was brought there by train by the Germans, but you get my point.

and yeah English literacy is bad. But Russian literacy isn't. There's a lot of Russians outside of Russia. Russians outside Russia is a double edged sword. It cuts both ways. For Putin and against Putin. Take Italy as an example. In the fourties right after the war, there was this talk about how the communist might get a majority in Rome. Needless to say that a lot of talk by Italians abroad convinced some Italians to change their mind and vote for Christian politicians. That and a particular plan by a man called George Catlett.

[Elldallan]

true a lot of it is in storage, but again it costs money to get it in working order, a lot of money...

Depends on what state it was when it was put in mothball and how it's been maintained since, but considering the state of the soviet armed forces at the fall of the union and the state of the Russian armed forces until Putin came to power you're probably correct, a lot of that mothballed equipment is probably completely useless or will need significant reconstructive maintenance before it can be used again

and again true Russia has a lot of people about 146 million and again true they're perfectly willing to throw them away. But that will only get them sofar. Also demographics are down in Russia in the sense that just like most European countries the birth rate isn't very high. In fact Russia was in demographoc decline since 1991. It only recently (since about 2012) seen a rise in its population. Its mostly due to the poor quality of their hospitals, partiularly their maternity wards, that and old men with vodka. People tend to get edgy when their children start to die, no matter what country you're in.

Quite possible, I haven't really studied Russian nativity and infant death rates.

In fact the last time a Russian government did this kind of war, it triggered a second revolution, where a certain Vladimir Ilyich Oeljanov spoke about "peace and bread" in St. Petersburg.

And then he went on to kill a lot of people and start almost 80 years of oppression.
And the last time the Russian government engaged in a war of attrition was after that man was dead and buried. Sure that war could have resulted in a revolution against the Soviet state except that their "liberators" turned out to be far far worse than the oppressors.

and yeah English literacy is bad. But Russian literacy isn't. There's a lot of Russians outside of Russia. Russians outside Russia is a double edged sword. It cuts both ways. For Putin and against Putin. Take Italy as an example. In the fourties right after the war, there was this talk about how the communist might get a majority in Rome. Needless to say that a lot of talk by Italians abroad convinced some Italians to change their mind and vote for Christian politicians. That and a particular plan by a man called George Catlett.

Well from what I've heard the support for Putin even amongst Russian expatriates, he brought Russia out of a the crisis and for that a lot of people like him, and he's working to restore Russian national pride for which a lot of ppl also like him for. But my main point about lack of English literacy is that they're limited to Russian sources which are to a large extent Putin proponents, it's quite widely accepted that Russia employs a lot of ppl to post messages on forums and social networks to glorify Putin, Russia and to spread their propaganda.

[goodz]

Russia has a smaller population then the USA. They have way less ability to draft and way less equipment. If they had some kind of staged war America would promptly win. Alas they would not do that. You would be fighting dudes with guns amongst civilians and hope they don't nuke you or an allie or both.

Russias economy is largely based on oil. If you want to beat them focus on green energy and become independent. Financial sanctions are kind of a joke when you have to keep purchasing their goods.

[freemehul]

Depends on what state it was when it was put in mothball and how it's been maintained since
the oppressors.

Well from what I've heard the support for Putin even amongst Russian expatriates, he brought Russia out of a the crisis and for that a lot of people like him

OK two things to point out. First Russian maintenance record is bad like really really bad. Has been like that since Tsarist era and hasn't changed since. Its so bad that you can't trust anything supposedly mothballed.

Second these expatriates that post these things don't do it for free. They get paid for it and the pay already is bad. That's why you have so many Russian hackers. It is mostly bread crime through extortion of western businesses like webshops. The posting doesn't make enough to get them through the month. They only like him because he pays him, when that fund dries up, rest assured they won't like him anymore. ;)

As to the liberators and oppresors, yes you have a point there, and that's exactly my worry too. But why must we always assume the worse thing will happen? I'd rather keep options open and assure that the better side comes out of it.

[Elldallan]

OK two things to point out. First Russian maintenance record is bad like really really bad. Has been like that since Tsarist era and hasn't changed since. Its so bad that you can't trust anything supposedly mothballed.

Agreed, especially considering the economical meltdown had early in the post soviet time.

Second these expatriates that post these things don't do it for free. They get paid for it and the pay already is bad. That's why you have so many Russian hackers. It is mostly bread crime through extortion of western businesses like webshops. The posting doesn't make enough to get them through the month. They only like him because he pays him, when that fund dries up, rest assured they won't like him anymore. ;)

The expatriates are not the hackers, as far as I know. Most of those hackers still live in Russia because it's cheaper to pay them then(lower living costs) plus western police can't get at them.

What I was trying to say is that some Russian expatriates in the west still seems to like Putin because he brought Russia out of the slump it had during Yeltsin.

As to the liberators and oppresors, yes you have a point there, and that's exactly my worry too. But why must we always assume the worse thing will happen? I'd rather keep options open and assure that the better side comes out of it.

If we expect the worst we won't get any unpleasant surprises. And the thing about liberators/oppressors was a reference to WWII about how a lot of people under Soviet reign thought of Nazi Germany as liberators, that is until they found out that Nazi Germany was even worse oppressors than Soviet Russia. If Nazi Germany had treated the peoples they "liberated" in the east with some decency and kindness they could have had a huge wave of volunteers and possibly sparked an uprising in Russia itself, but instead they decided that slavic peoples were "untermenschen" and needed to be oppressed as badly as they could manage..
It's not a statement on the current/future state of Russia, it's anybody's guess who will succeed Putin because he's mercilessly stomped any politician that could possibly be a threat to him.

[freemehul]

actually guess again. Most of the hackers I get are of Russian origin allright, but the IP traces from countries such as Moldava, Romania, Belarussia, Czech republic, Ukraine and Latvia and they're from regions like Sebastapol (Crimea peninsula) for instance. If you know your geography of Europe like I do, particularly with regard to ethnicity and regional distribution, you'd see the cultural makeup of these hackers real soon. Now granted these are just based on a sample, so it is perfectly reasonable that there could be a bias, but I get similar stories from others.

I understood that reference (I am a bit of a WW2 history nut, when it comes to these kind of things). I would like to point here too, that there are exceptions. Some other European countries come to mind.

Yeah he mercilessly holds the TV and newspapers, but his hold on the internet is not as powerful as it seems. If he wants to stomp, let him stomp on the fascist, commie and other extremist elements, as long as he isn't able to touch the grey moderate middle mass. I seriously doubt he has the energy to stomp on everything. If that observation is true, better to direct his arrows on the wrong people instead of the right people.

In case you wondered why I think he doesn't have the energy for it. Last time I saw him on TV (with regard to this Ukraine negotiation) his face was a bit puffy. If you read between the lines of Ben Judah's article in newsweek about a year ago, particularly with regard to his working schedule on a regular working day, it paints a really interesting picture of him. It kind of reminded me of the routine of a man who was then in his fifties who had a home in the alps. He was 56 when he died (OK cause of death was suicide, but that's beside the point). Putin is now about 6 years older. Secrecy surrounds Putin, but he can't hide everything behind his suit. ;)

[khronosschoty]

Actually, I think Ukraine shot the plane down, and, Ukraine is run by Neo Nazi thugs who want to kill Native ethnic Russians from (ex)-East Ukraine.

[goodz]

Wait russia hasn't conquered ukraine yet?

Also the nubs discussing a war between russia/allies ignore that russias population isn't really that large. germany/france combine for a larger population. America is like 2x their population alone.

Even in WW1 russias army was around same size as germany. Although Russia was the soviet union and had a lot of states it no longer has.

Anyway all that matters is russia would easily be defeated by a western european alliance, a north american alliance, and quite possibly even by china if china for some reason felt the need to invade them. BUT Russia is a nuclear power and invading them would likely result in a terrible consequences for both sides.

Russia does have military capability to defeat ukraine though :d

[Palem]

Wait russia hasn't conquered ukraine yet?

Keep rolling 1's =\