Jingthing

Incredibly toxic and false propaganda.

Thailand is definitely on the list of those Russian draft dodgers headed towards Asia. Some will bring lots of money, can work remotely, and others are spending most of their savings just escaping. At the numbers we're looking at, I think its time for the issue of these refugees, estimated 700K to a milion people, to be looked at internationally. Many will never be able to safely return even if they wanted to. Many left on incredibly short notice, like a day. I guess they are refugees even though at this point they aren't likely to be regarded as such unless coming with special circumstances.

There are many possible actual escalation scenarios and once it gets started the more chances for tragic errors.

Not mutually exclusive. It's no crime to be Russian. I love my "favorite neighborhood Russian" NFKRZ now in exile in Tblisi. Not to mention the up and coming Zack the Russian also in exile in Tblisi. Or the amazing and brave founder of the 1420 youtube channel Daniil (street interviews with Russians about the war, etc.) last seen in Rotterdam. So many Russian people are amazing even though in some sense all share at least some collective guilt for their government. But it is a crime to be a Russian war criminal. Putin is helping to make more and more of those every day.

As soon as you see the word BIOLABS in Ukraine it's time to put on the tin foil hat deflectors.

Yes and no. China unless they have a revolution is intent on eventually taking Taiwan. They were never going to be as reckless and foolish as Putin who has really lost the plot invading Ukraine in the first place. They are very patient.

I'm aware the war started back then when dictator Putin illegally annexed Crimea. I'm aware of violent separatist movements in some Eastern oblasts that Putin has incited and fueled. Those are all in Ukraine territory What sovereign nation does not violently oppose violent separatists within their borders!?! Thailand certainly doesn't accept that within her borders and hasn't for many decades. Are you even aware of the decades long violent conflict in the SOUTH here? So your theory of why Thailand sucks up to Putin is patently absurd. No of course I'm not defending intentionally targeting civilians by anyone anywhere. The one sided way you are painting the conflict in the east is pure propaganda. It's like the blatant lies you would expect from people who think any of the sham referendums are legitimate and actually believing those new four oblasts are now part of sovereign Russia. They are not. They are Ukraine and they are still Ukraine. What happens in Ukraine between Ukrainians is an internal affair. When criticism is due from abroad, it should come, in extreme cases, international actions should be considered such as sanctions, etc. But in no way whatsover should INVASION, OCCUPATION, ANNEXATION, and active GENOCIDE be considered within the range of acceptable international actions in response to internal conflicts within the borders of sovereign nations. Russia is doing all that and Ukraine (with help from the west) has no choice but to defend against them. Ukraine is fighting for the very continued survival of their nation. Putin is fighting for what? Pushing a MILLION Russian men don't think they should be cannon fodder for his bizarre imperialist fixation on Ukraine and insistence that their budding democracy needs to be totally crushed by basically ERASING their entire national identity with no qualms about literal mass genocide of their people and literal flattening of Ukraine's villages and cities including those of Russian ethnicity.

I don't know or really care about the original but it's a very common phrase and it's very often quite apt to be used to describe many individuals. For example the ex US president. He clearly wasn't directly on the Kremlin payroll, but his fawning over Putin (and most other strong man autocrats in the world) over many years fits that role of that common phrase.

What tourists other than some oligarchs in yachts and draft dodgers stopping here in their Asian escape circuit?

Yeah I guess NK is a threat but it's hard to view him as anything but a clown who has cried wolf way too many times. I think he's acting up lately because he's not getting the attention he needs in light of the war.

Lovely (genocidal) people. You can't negotiate with such people. You can need to defeat them in war. It's not Ukraine threatening genocide against Russia. It's Russia threatening genocide against Ukraine. Thailand or any other country being neutral on this gives support to genocide. There is no moral or ethical middle ground on this. Russian Lawmaker Says Eliminating Ukrainians the 'Only' Solution (newsweek.com)

That doesn't make any sense. Putin was happy to keep Ukraine as a slave of Russia state before 2014. Then he stole Crimea and fueled illegal separatist movements in the East. He wants Ukraine again as a slave state, ALL of it, but if he can't get there, again, he's OK flattening it. He's losing badly in Ukraine and the only thing his corrupt military is good at is ruining cities and murdering civilians. He's added a new specialty. Chasing Russia's young men out of his country. To add, that will cripple his economy. Pushing a million draft dodgers (they're still flowing out) and the "limited" mobilization stated as 300K is really another million. Those are mostly men with productive jobs. Now they can't produce and can't spend. The dodgers include a good portion of Russia's best and brightest especially in IT. Women in Russia are not equal in the workplace so replacements are thin on the ground. National Suicide. From Russia, With no Love.

I don't think it will bite them because even though Thailand COULD be seen internationally as a fully engaged player, they are not, whether they want to be or not. It's like Belize made such a vote in the UN. Not noticed. Not cared about. Nicaragua joined the likes of Belarus and North Korea. Belarus matters because they are directly helping Russia and North Korea matters because they have nukes, but Nicaragua's vote is a curiousity at most. Of no real significance.

Heard of MAD? Don't wish for nuclear war unless you're suicidal.

Don't forget playgrounds. Putin's army is weak tea at best but the one thing he is really great at is pulverizing cities and the mass slaughter of non-military civilian targets. If he can't win in Ukraine, and he can't, then nobody can have it and he intends to level the joint. Understanding Ukraine is not perfect and it's not populated by saints with excrement smelling of lavende, this is clearly a battle of decent civilization vs. evil comparable to WW2. Yes Putin is playing the role of Hitler. Being neutral in such a conflict is not morally defensible.

Yes MAD would be the end but I don't get your point. It is Putin and Putin alone who is openly threatening a first nuclear strike, albeit a smaller one. It's well understood that once you go down that path, a vicious escalation ladder follows, which indeed risks MAD.

It's here. You just haven't noticed. Thailand's government wants to position itself to the Russian government as friendly to Russia for economic reasons while still enjoying a superficial pose of neutrality to the west. That's how they roll.

Ignoring the off topic whataboutism for days, you have posted blatant conspiracy theory misinformation referring to the nonexistent "biolabs" in Ukraine. Marjorie Taylre Greene thanks you.

Of course, and interestingly that's a typical rhetorical trick of a certain notorious ex-US president, another Putin synchophant.

Well mine got stuck in transit ages ago. If they had picked it up in time and recorded it, I would have made the first mailing report. But at this point I'm pretty sure it will never show up as delivered. So accepting that, at this point, would now be an OK time to call them and ask if it was recorded or not?

The risk is definitely up there and hasn't been this high since the Cuban missile crisis and it was quite high back then to the point where it was really really close to actually happening because of a miscommunication. As back then, neither side actually wants full nuclear war. But once the insidious ladder of escalation gets going, irrational things can much more easily happen. Putin doesn't want nuclear war and the west certainly doesn't either. Putin is using the threat of starting to use nukes to intimidate Ukraine and the west to give it all up. That won't work and he must know that. So he's definitely playing with fire. To quantify the specific risk is impossible though. That said there is a big difference between now and then. Back then it was MAD or nothing. Now the supposed option of a limited nuclear attack is in the conversation with the presumption that won't lead to MAD. That's very dangerous thinking because it probably would lead to MAD. Probably scenario if Putin starts. Some kind of limited use. The west responds with massive power without nukes. Then Putin responds. He would have already used nukes. How could he do something less in response?

Well I suppose the vast majority of Thais are apolitical on foreign policy and also the Thai government in all its "wisdom" has invited in Kremlin propagandists to broadcast here in Thailand. So although I haven't seen surveys, I reckon if there were such surveys that Kremlin propaganda would have infected the people here to a significant degree.

Putin may or may not be even worse than Hitlerian Nazis; it doesn't have to be that sort of dark competition but there is zero doubt that Putin is a fascist dictator with no regard for human life including fellow Russians. If he does lead the world to MAD, then he will then be in his own special category in the history of villains. Opinion | Putin Isn’t Just an Autocrat. He’s Something Worse. - POLITICO

Phony war? That would be surprising to all the Ukrainians civilians fascist dictator Putin has slaughtered I guess they're phony dead and their relatives are phony mourning. I guess the estimated 700,000 plus Russian men who fled Russia because of mobilization can go home now.

Then why are they in the UN in the first place?