tgw

The chaos after Yelzin - you mean the chaos which Putin probably instigated himself ? Chechnia as well as the residential bombing attacks in Moscow are highly suspect. Yes, Trump must never be in power again.

I expected Russia to become part of what we call "the West". This would have happened if Yelzin transferred power to someone who believed in democracy. The problem was that Yelzin transferred power to Putin in exchange for Yelzin's family and "the family" - extended clan of oligarchs aligned with Yelzin. Putin would of course renege on that deal. Putin is the main cause of Russia's drifting towards hell since 1998. He duped the West. And the West's fault was to not fight Putin early or even at all.

okay, and the reasoning some people suggest is that Ukraine should have known, they should have yielded, etc.

Orban is on "our side"... theoretically. And he's not a good person.

The question was about the reason for doing it. And then, in this war, who is "terror bombing civilians" ?

I understand very well why wars happen, particularly this one. It's good to read that you support Ukraine, but your posts strike a different tone, often putting Russia and Ukraine at the same level and not acknowledging the scale of Putin's evil.

oh yes it does. also, I tie the "mistakes" as you call them to persons, not to countries. Biden's USA is not a problem. Putin's Ruzzia is a huge, monstrous, mass-murderous, genocidal problem that is also a direct enemy of almost all Western country because Putin has been conducting intelligence operations aimed directly against Western governments and countries. in essence, what you are doing here is explaining the motive of Putin's crime. means, opportunity and motive. the attack has been motivated by theft. makes it worse. maybe, if you are interested in doing an "analysis" as you wrote in your post, you can compare the war crimes committed by Ukraine with those committed by Russia. Also include a victim count.

I don't agree with everything the West does. IMO Bush and Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. should have gone to prison. BUT what the Ruzzians do is hugely different, it is mass murder, self-confessed genocide, targeted war crimes, where the goal is to commit the war crime, not striking a military or otherwise significant target. So stop with the "you too" tactics, whataboutist nonsense. There is no moral equivalence here.

once he's determined you are impervious to his BS, he puts you on ignore

these are the facts. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-peace-negotiations.html

stop the lies. Putin has never offered realistic terms, nor did he offer terms that were trustworthy. Ukraine offered realistic terms.

can you please explain what's farcical about the rules based international order

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/07/9/7464863/ the article is also available in Russian. maybe an easier read for some habitual posters here.

today: 64 F-16 arrived in Ukraine in a week or so we will hear from Ruzzian trolls : "we destroyed 72894 F-16 !" I obviously made the numbers up, but you get the gist.

I hope they didn't, but let's wait for definitive information.

nah, Ruzzia likes to retaliate against weaker than them. Or at least against who they believe to be weaker than them, like all bullies. So it will retaliate by killing more innocent civilians, preferably babies, and if they can't strike babies, then they will do with women and children. That's Putin's Ruzzia.

As I was distracted, I read the title wrong : "Woman impersonator assaults police in Pattaya bar". Double take, because that could work too.

Publicly seeding doubt is not indicated during a national and worldwide emergency situation. It's something that people are welcome to do once the situation is under control or turned out to be less serious than it potentially was. During such a crisis I consider it normal for the government to control the media. And from my point of view, it failed to do so, in addition to anti-mask people, there were plenty of contrarians and charlatans in the media that caused thousands if not more unnecessary deaths. If COVID had really been serious, it would have been nearly impossible to contain in most countries. An emergency situation is not about you, me, or our rights to free speech or whatever. It's a time when the nation must follow and support the elected leaders and trust their judgement and their experts. That's why it's important to have elected leaders one can trust to do the right thing to try and save as many people as possible. Watch Japanese people carrying out emergency procedure rehearsals. That's how society should act in case of emergency. COVID has certainly been a wake-up call. Even China with their police state and government-controlled internet was unable to completely control information. Our countries certainly need to do some serious thinking about how to protect our populations from a future pandemic, one that could potentially pose a lethal threat. All while the "population" is working with all its might again being protected, because they "did their own research" and are being manipulated by demagogues, populists and foreign powers. The alert and quarantine system has to work much faster and be way stricter, supplies need to be organized as well as production maintained. Huge challenge.

thank God, finally

I would agree if we were in a pre-social media environment. But seeing how rational and factual arguments do not reach the minds of a large part of people, and how some groups successfully pushed some ludicrous narratives to manipulate opinion, one has to wonder.

the Ruzzian ministry of defence and war crimes told the press that that all missiles hit their intended targets.

thanks for clearing that up !

Burning and looting is sadly normal in France every time something "emotional" happens, especially when it involves immigrants or people with an immigration background, much of which resent the establishment and thus support Mélanchon's extreme left, but in essence the rioters are anarchists and petty criminals seizing the opportunity to commit crimes, loot and in general cause mayhem. There are a number of reasons for this, the most important being previous government policies, many stemming from Mitterrand. The rioting and looting after the election doesn't seem to be worse than usual.

apparently, there are only "plans" to make it illegal again. this is Thailand, also known as the hub of unrealized plans. but I have questions about the legal cannabis now (I know nothing about drugs or cannabis) : - is the legal stuff currently sold of satisfactory quality (I read about THC limits, whatever that is, I suppose it's the actual drug active ingredient) ? - is the legal stuff cheaper than the illegal stuff was ?