The real WEAKNESS of Russia - worth reading if interested in Ukraine situation

a reply to: rusblued9217

S&F

this is a highy informative thread!

a reply to: rusblued9217

But the west didn't make Yanukovych steal millions and shoot protesters (well maybe Russia influenced the shooting & certainly turned a blind eye to the embezzlement, a MASSIVE problem in Russia) [/i]"

Was Yanukovych shooted the protesters? According to video and voice evidence NOT.

If you are informed about the situation, I hope you had time to listen the Ashton-testimony, or watch the maidan-sniper video. Short version:





Today:

Meanwhile, the acting head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Sergey Pashinsky, said Kiev’s military operation in the Donetsk region towns of Krasny Liman, Slavyansk and Kramatorsk was in its its final stage, adding that “a lot of separatists have been eliminated during the operation.” He would not provide any figures thought.

Two months ago:

I take an objective look at all situations, size them up, discover the facts then come to an opinion.

I find a decent amount of information on the post. I'm also new to Ats. I'm a Canadian, who is half russian, quarter german, quarter British. 5th generation North America. I follow world events, politics, economics, and all sides of stories and biases. Although the point of russia being weak to energy exports, the same can b said of Canada or australia. China, is dependent on manufacturing exports, and the usa is only alive from enforcing the petro dollar. All of these countries are pretty high up on the world scene. All are equally dependent on the global economy, and each other to stay alive. Russia, has reamerged as a world power on par with China, but still combined are not as powerful as usa+nato, but both sides are mutually assured of complete inhalation if active war breaks out. Russia and EU, especially Germany are mutually dependent over energy supply, and finance. The fact Russia has equivalent level of advancement in military technology, production, and partnership with China. As well as Russia's continued space program, development, almost completed massive new launch facility. And the usa/world solely relying on Russia (even if temporary) to get man to space/iss. That Moscow was the only nation able to shelter Edward Snowden, and still have him, with his files yet to be disclosed. That Russia has been able to successfully reclaim Crimea. That they are surviving and standing their ground on 2 proxy wars in Syria, and Ukraine. Russia is just as susceptible as any of the other major world players! But it definitely isn't weak either. But for a prosperous and lasting future for Russia. Putin needs to concentrate on a continued building and growth of the Russian middle class. It's what revived russia after Communism and yeltsin. And it's what all the countries of the world need to do, or continue to aswell!

The West is fighting a overt/covert war against Russia for a very long time. I expected Russia to stand up to it someday. It is happening now.

Russia will not lose this fight. Sacrifices - yes, but defeat - no. Putin will be remembered positively by history.

The export/import figures do not matter. Commodities are very valuable before/during the war. It is foolish to think that Russian revenues are in danger.

originally posted by: maghun
a reply to: rusblued9217

But the west didn't make Yanukovych steal millions and shoot protesters (well maybe Russia influenced the shooting & certainly turned a blind eye to the embezzlement, a MASSIVE problem in Russia) [/i]"

Was Yanukovych shooted the protesters? According to video and voice evidence NOT.

Two months ago:

I take an objective look at all situations, size them up, discover the facts then come to an opinion.

...the acting head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Sergey Pashinsky...

Deputy Pashinsky take out a sniper rifle from Maidan

originally posted by: 13th Zodiac
Birth certificate or it didn't happen. I can claim to be a Russian to add propaganda too. $1000.00 to be in the top 1% hmmm.Stacking the arguement. Millionaires in the West still letting Children starve and homeless people living under bridges. Yes/No?

Also see you only joined since November, since the trouble started.Also questionable.

i agree with you man, and you know what...this profile pic reminds me of some one else's profile pic

a reply to: PLAYERONE01


I find your ideas amusing.

Do you disagree with the facts?

originally posted by: PLAYERONE01

originally posted by: 13th Zodiac
Birth certificate or it didn't happen. I can claim to be a Russian to add propaganda too. $1000.00 to be in the top 1% hmmm.Stacking the arguement. Millionaires in the West still letting Children starve and homeless people living under bridges. Yes/No?

Also see you only joined since November, since the trouble started.Also questionable.

i agree with you man, and you know what...this profile pic reminds me of some one else's profile pic

Major Kudos to you if you can guess who the profile picture is of?

I believe Rusblued has been exposed as another in the long line of paid disinformation shills on this site. All of his facts are highly flawed and skewed to present Russia in a negative light. Russian economy is no where near as bad as he's making it out to be and he propagates outright lies to try to prop up his biased furtive attack. One such lie is that Russian population is receding. This is an oft repeated fallacy that was true only up until the late mid or late 2000's. Google it even FORBES have released articles last year showing that Russia's population decline has now officially been reversed and their population growth is currently on par with China's statistically at around 0.4% - 0.5%.

I would read anything Rusblued has to say with extreme caution as he is desperate and uses lies and disinformation liberally in his posts, he clearly has an agenda here.

Hey Rusblued, please write something in Russian to at least prove you are Russian as you claim. Something that would not be easily translated via google translation app. Come on you can do it, everyone is suspicious of your activity now. Your thread which started as a veiled attempt at mere economic edification has predictably turned into outright politicized agenda grinding against Russia and Putin on all possible fronts. You are clearly a shill and I think everyone in this thread is watching you with a slanted eye. You guys really have to up your game because it is not even convincing anymore. Come on write something complex in Russian to at least save face for the moment...or will you turn tail and run?

Although this article seems to be well written at the first glance, I can't get around the extreme negativity towards Russia and especially Putin.

Russia is not a third-country world, even the OP wants to paint that picture. Russia is one of the five "Great Powers" in the World - influencing activities on a global scale. It has very strong ties with India, China and even Europe.

The truth is that Russia has a very large arms and weapons complex producing most of their weapons inside with very little import. From 2000 to 2008 Russia had a an average of 7% annually growth rate, mainly due to political stability. Average salaries have grown from $80 to almost a $1000 over the last 15 years. Poverty rate reduced to 12% from 40%. Middle class has grown from 1 Million individuals to over 104 Millions in 10 years. Russia paid almost all of it's foreign debt in 2006 via the Stabilization Fund of Russia - today they have one of the lowest foreign debt of all major countries.

Russia has a far better diversified portfolio as the OP pointed out: Energy, Space, Transport, Aviation, Software (Third in the world for outsourcing), etc. It's not just basic commodities. Telecommunications (GLONASS) is massive right now.

If you copy a chart from Wikipedia, don't falsify it:

upload.wikimedia.org...

Russia also had an extreme high trading surplus last year.

Sure enough, Russia has a lot of negative sides but so has every other country as well, but that's not the discussion here.

Russia is far from being weak and if they would be weak, it would be dangerous for all of us.

originally posted by: rufusdrak
Hey Rusblued, please write something in Russian to at least prove you are Russian as you claim. Something that would not be easily translated via google translation app. Come on you can do it, everyone is suspicious of your activity now. Your thread which started as a veiled attempt at mere economic edification has predictably turned into outright politicized agenda grinding against Russia and Putin on all possible fronts. You are clearly a shill and I think everyone in this thread is watching you with a slanted eye. You guys really have to up your game because it is not even convincing anymore. Come on write something complex in Russian to at least save face for the moment...or will you turn tail and run?

From my experience, Google Translate is pretty good. I really have no way of knowing, but you can kinda cross check it by putting what it translated back into the other side and translate it back into English. It's usually fairly close.

For example, let's try it on what I just typed:

Исходя из моего опыта, Google Translate довольно хорошо. У меня действительно нет никакой возможности узнать,, но вы можете любопытное крест проверить его, поставив, что это переводится обратно в другую сторону и перевести его обратно в английском языке. Это, как правило достаточно близко.

And if you put it back in, that apparently, according to Google, translates back into English as this:

From my experience, Google Translate is pretty good. I really have no way of knowing, but you can kinda cross check it by putting it translates back to the other side and put it back into English. It is usually close enough.

Not quite the same, but pretty close.

The OP gives away his/her position in a few posts but then says they are neutral when the OP certainly isn't. The language used is also in line with another prolific poster on the crisis. Are multi-accounts allowed on ATS? It would be easy for a moderator to check because I am pretty sure I know who it is.

I did a hour or so check of some of the figures and as pointed out there is some very selective cutting and pasting going on.

a reply to: rusblued9217

I noticed you stopped debating your other thread and was curious as to why?

As I said before to be effective in debates you need to define your vernacular and definition of thesis strong words. So what is "weakness" and what is "strength". Then is this your opinion or something you regard as fact.

Your very thorough and I appreciate the effort of your thread however as I stated it's your premiss/thesis/thread topic that is flawed. Though I admit I do not clearly understand your definitions of weakness and strength.

From a military/strategic standpoint Russia is "strong". I am definitely no anti west person but, there are far broader strategic advances being played out then consumer economics. Everything you said about Russia's economy is true. But, it's not a condition of strength as you explain. Russia has a single economy of fossil fuels. True however because of its wealth distribution (or lack of) the people/oligarchs that the government is concerned with is also less. It's obvious the governments of Russia as well as China have found their citizens expendable. The citizens of Russia (even more so then china) don't matter that much in terms of having their comfort and interests protected.

In the west however, the entire function of government is based on the comfort of its citizens. If the economy of the USA were to be strategically sabotaged through either military force or other means the resulting chaos would be terrible if not fatal to the governments I the west. Once social upheaval in terms consumer confidence was destroyed the social infrastructure of the west will most likely collapse. The consumers are so used to inflation being kept in check by the CPI via cheap goods the impact would be massive if a trade war and supply routes were disturbed from the east.

The same is not true in a country with massive wealth consolidation. It's fairly easy to hide and protect a few hundred people and sacrifice your populace compared to the entire citizenry of more wealth spread nations.

I would consider this a weakness in terms of strategy for military attacks.

From the consumer stand point yes the west has immense opportunity for a higher standard of living for the common person compared to Russia. It would all change however if another world war broke out. We in our comfort have become far less self sufficient then either Russia or China in terms of subsistence living and manufacturing.

I would say the global community is very linked to each other. Each side can create absolute havoc. China would have less people to export to (but if you don't care if millions suffer for it's not a true weakness in terms of military strategy) but, the west can't afford to buy anything because of massive and immediate inflation (because of complete domestic production without eastern supply chains) and manufacturing holes. The whole thread is simply about economics for consumer citizens. Which is fine but the thesis should clearly state that rather than imply Russia is at a strategic weakness.

They are not. We I the west who have more have that much more to loose if it falls apart. We will not handle rationing well especially in America. We have become accustomed to comfort and most if not all (statistically speaking) of Americans would be at a complete loss without these comforts.

Russians don't have these comforts and can and already ration and live through substance agricultural means by far far greater numbers.

Just something to think about when passing judgements such as strength or weakness.

People with this pipe dream about US debt collapsing the country, please.

Russia is weak, this post is 100% accurate. Russia's military is even worse than their economy. I could go on for hours how their navy is a joke. Their aircraft carrier is follwed by two tug boats because it breaks down so much. the carrier is non-nuclear which means it needs to refuel at sea. ship is so bad it can only do a 3 month tour. some decent weapon systems are not operational. They are 30 years behind the west. Russian poorly trained conscripts would fair badly verse western trained soldiers. Only thing Russia has as a advantage is number of tanks, something the west could outdo them on but doesn't. Once Russian gets denied western imports the country will cease to function without relying on China, this will mean money too.

When Russia attacked Georgia the road leading there was covered with broken down tanks and trucks. The US shut down the GPS coverage and Russian smart bombs were useless. Russians hurried and set up their GLONASS system that leaves much to be desired. Most use GPS as well as GLONASS, I've used just the GLONASS and it was bad, just not accurate like GPS.

How is Russia a nation that couldn't match the US in conventional arms during the soviet union to match the US now? they are 1/8th the country they were. They are still suffering a massive brain drain, the most intelligent people are moving to the west. It's a giant mafia state ripe with corruption.

Russian officers sold weapons to Chechen rebels to kill their own troops.

Russia would win a war because their people are all ready used to living like garbage? Sorry another pipe dream. US manufacturing is still the largest behind China and America has the infrastructure to ramp up production to WW2 levels. We also as a nation can feed ourselves, not something Russia can say even though they have massive amounts of farm land it goes un-farmed. Russia has half the population the US has it would lose a conventional war very easily.

there is a lot of RussiaToday watchers here believing Russia is a great power, its not this is why.

The US is stated to become the worlds largest exporter of natural gas and OIL. The petrodollar is going nowhere.

Sorry to bust your reality but American power is growing not shrinking. If the only thing you think will destroy America is the debt, i mean come on. Its a major problem but not unfix-able.

online.wsj.com...

originally posted by: Reinmax
The OP gives away his/her position in a few posts but then says they are neutral when the OP certainly isn't. The language used is also in line with another prolific poster on the crisis. Are multi-accounts allowed on ATS? It would be easy for a moderator to check because I am pretty sure I know who it is.

I did a hour or so check of some of the figures and as pointed out there is some very selective cutting and pasting going on.

Ok post the real info. I mean he only posted a reliable source that doesn't have some agenda like RT or other state owned and funded kremlin propaganda service.

a reply to: maghun

you know that was all proven to be false info. The Berkut were all from Crimea and other eastern cities. They have identified the snipers from the unit and arrested some. You are posting some convo about people who knew nothing and spouted conspiracy theories that the Russian state funded propaganda was turning out.


Here are the Russian FSB state sponsored terrorists talking about faking the election.

www.youtube.com...

that's what you pro Putin lovers say about the rebels in Syria. "CIA sponsored terrorists." It's not like the people in Ukraine would rise up against Yanu a Russian puppet from the start. A country that was annexed by the soviets, who also had millions killed by them. No it was obviously the west who did it, who wouldn't want a Russian puppet as head of state.

Love this site. Like yesterday clowns were saying blackwater was in eastern Ukraine. Turned out it was a Russian PMC company there.

a reply to: rusblued9217

Wow, thanks, brilliant thought really! China can be a very helpful partner and a very dangerous enemy. They are smart people so you know, if Putin hasn't considered the opportunities for them, China surely has.
Now they just have to wait, till the sanctions stir up some riots amongst the people, and do the same thing as he did- just you know: better planned and on a larger scale. Because their politicians are not a single KGB-agent gone crazy...
Still don't get why not someone in his own lines is attempting to stop him. There should be smart people amongst Russian politics too, who see, how little Putin is endangering all of them.

a reply to: rusblued9217


Fantastic thread! Well thought out and written in terms that even I could understand. Thank you, rusblued9217, one of the best posts I've read here in a long, long time.