Stage "art" used by "dark" side

Russia was retreating last 25 years to obvious western pressure. Country by country encircled by NATO or USA military bases. Provocation by provocation. Only in Georgia Russians did something against aggression. Last ten years I heard reports that Putin is planing to fight back. It started slowly by support of nationalism at home. Then obvious diversification of trade partners came. Last few years we can talk about direct rejection of Dollar in Russian trade. And this is what West got:



YT link if above does not work.

Covert operation is now officially announced.

Thank you my great US/EU overlords. Now I have angry bear at my porch.

Why the title? Compare it to flagships of US pop industry. Lady Gaga or Rihana or other puppets would fit perfectly into this show. Even the omnipresent pyramid is there. Propaganda tools in reverse mode

That was AWESOME!

originally posted by: Fargoth
That was AWESOME!

Yes. This is declaration of WAR. At least for homeland auditorium.

And nobody can say that West was not warned many times before. Rat in corner will bite.

a reply to: JanAmosComenius

We need a big blow out every so often. I wonder if Russia will invade here (US)?
I'm pretty sure the western governments have been pushing for war.

For those how don't know much about Ru-Ua relationship. UA was integral part of Russia under tsarist regime. Then Bolshevik revolution came and many people died by hunger during forced collectivisation of farms. This is called Holodomor (starvation) and was induced by Bolsheviks by design. From this time many Ukrainians hate Russians. This hatred was used by Nazi Germany during Blitzkrieg. Large part of Ukrainians seen Nazis as liberators and fought with Nazis against USSR forces. Many of them - under command of Stepan Bandera - were more then instrumental in genocide of Ukrainian Jews. Part of recent Majdan movement is seeing Bandera as their icon. That is represented by swastika and other symbols in the clip. Yes, it is propaganda, not all Majdanists are neonazists but they played important role during last winter. Also at least one batalion fighting against insurgents is based on this ideology.

originally posted by: Fargoth
I wonder if Russia will invade here US?

If they do the Wolverines are ready...

originally posted by: Fargoth
a reply to: JanAmosComenius

We need a big blow out every so often. I wonder if Russia will invade here US?
I'm pretty sure the western governments have been pushing for war.

I don't think so. But it depends on behavior of enemy. It can be nice parade marche like in Paris after Napoleon's invasion or total destruction like in Berlin after Hitler's invasion. Or Russia can be defeated ... It is really too early to think about this. Also there is not precedent situation when ICBM with nuclear warheads are in play. Lets hope this will not escalate to full hot conflict because otherwise all northern hemisphere is doomed.

a reply to: JanAmosComenius

Yeah I dont even know if nukes would be deployed we would shoot down Russias, Russia would shoot down ours. It would be a waste of time.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

My neighbor has a blue Cheyenne we can borrow...

originally posted by: Fargoth
My neighbor has a blue Cheyenne we can borrow...

Good deal. I hope the Cubans come too so I can grab some decent smokes after we flat blast them.

originally posted by: Fargoth
a reply to: JanAmosComenius

Yeah I dont even know if nukes would be deployed we would shoot down Russias, Russia would shoot down ours. It would be a waste of time.

No, US plan is to destroy Russian ballistic potential by attack from all direction via cruise missiles. This will not be successful by 100%. Few ICMBs will survive and will be fired toward USA. There is not known working shield against Topol missiles so USA will retaliate immediately and it would be end of civilisation as we know it. There is no win-win or even zero-zero result of this game. Just minus for everyone.

This is known from 50. as MAD (mutual assured destruction) and I'm pretty sure most players will try the best to avoid such scenario. What I see as more probable are endless civil wars fueled by both sides. Something like Cold war but much hotter.

a reply to: JanAmosComenius

Topols and MIRVS scary stuff.

originally posted by: JanAmosComenius
For those how don't know much about Ru-Ua relationship. UA was integral part of Russia under tsarist regime. Then Bolshevik revolution came and many people died by hunger during forced collectivisation of farms. This is called Holodomor (starvation) and was induced by Bolsheviks by design. From this time many Ukrainians hate Russians. This hatred was used by Nazi Germany during Blitzkrieg. Large part of Ukrainians seen Nazis as liberators and fought with Nazis against USSR forces. Many of them - under command of Stepan Bandera - were more then instrumental in genocide of Ukrainian Jews. Part of recent Majdan movement is seeing Bandera as their icon. That is represented by swastika and other symbols in the clip. Yes, it is propaganda, not all Majdanists are neonazists but they played important role during last winter. Also at least one batalion fighting against insurgents is based on this ideology.

www.historytoday.com...

Russia’s geography and climate hindered her development through the nineteenth century, at a time when the rest of Europe was modernising. The country was unlikely to experience a European-style agrarian revolution, and thus it would have been almost impossible for Russia to undergo a spontaneous industrial revolution. Agriculture was too precarious.

Perversely, the regions worst suited to agriculture receive the highest levels of rainfall. Whereas precipitation in Western Europe is distributed evenly through the year, July and August tend to deliver around 25 per cent of annual rain in European Russia. In the 1800s, in the south and west, Russia’s most productive soil regions, rainfall patterns (droughts in early summer and/or downpours around harvest time) conspired to ruin one harvest in three.

Even when the harvest was good, yields were poor compared with the rest of Europe. By the nineteenth century, Russian yields (the number of grains harvested for every one sown) had barely increased since the Middle Ages, while average Western European yields had increased by four and a half times. A major reason for this was that farmers simply did not attempt to improve production. Communications were so poor that any potential market in a city was too far away for individual farmers to supply. Farming was so difficult that many Russians viewed it as something to escape from.

Even after the 1861 Emancipation, Russia’s peasant farmers felt no inclination to seek better results. The peasant’s commune or mir (the word also means ‘universe’) taught him all he needed to work his land. His only other source of knowledge (peasants were usually illiterate) was the Church, which, stultified with superstitious beliefs about the natural world, ensured that any wisdom about improving agricultural practices would have been rejected or ignored. Added to this, the unpredictability of weather patterns and the lack of a financial incentive meant that Russia’s farmers did not spend time, money or effort trying to increase production.

Russia’s short growing season (six months on the steppe, compared with around nine months in Western Europe) means that agricultural activity must be an extremely intensive burst of work in the warmer months which might, or might not, pay off at harvest time. Russian peasant farmers knew that the only way to complete all the necessary work in the time available was to pool labour. (This basic knowledge was part of the ideology behind Stalin’s hated collectivisation programme of the 1930s.) By necessity, therefore, peasant families grew to include several generations living and working together.

Fertilising the soil could have improved peasants’ yields significantly. However, long snowy winters and frequent food shortages made it difficult to keep livestock healthy. A lack of manure, and slow decomposition in Russia’s cold climate, meant that land recovered very slowly. The simplest way to find fertile soil was to look for virgin land. The total area being farmed increased from 197 to 317 million acres between 1809 and 1887, with new farms developing in the north and east. Here the land was less fertile and larger farms were needed to produce the same unreliable results. The population was increasing significantly (from 45.6 million in 1800 to 125 million by 1901, for example), and this, combined with ‘land hunger’, created mass dissatisfaction. Later tsarist policies tended to make it harder for peasants to leave their mir and, as families grew in size, many peasants found themselves farming plots which were simply too small to feed them adequately.

Without an agricultural surplus first, Russia could never have supported a ‘natural’ industrial revolution, as Britain did. Stalin’s drive to modernise with the first two Five Year Plans (1928-33 and 1933-37) and the forced collectivisation of the 1930s succeeded in transforming the USSR into an industrialised nation, but these policies were driven by the Soviet government. Thereafter, the USSR seemed able to conquer Russia’s natural geography and climate and build cities where humans had never lived before. It took a colossal and painful effort, though, for the Soviet people to overcome Russia’s natural obstacles to modernisation.

Russia’s geography and climate have undoubtedly caused problems for the state in recent centuries; but these issues, as well as the dramatic scale of the modernising operation before the Great Patriotic War, or the shocking brutality of the war itself, can distract the student’s attention from the hardships which the country’s physical environment inflicted upon individuals. The major consequence of Russia’s geography and climate has always been very simple, yet very significant.

In 1891-2, a famine occurred in an area of around 900,000 square miles in the fertile areas around the River Volga. It affected between 14 and 20 million people, and killed an estimated 400,000. Though many of these casualties occurred as a result of disease, a study of this famine (and of many others in Russian history) leads the historian to an inescapable conclusion. Any study of the geography and climate of Russia through its recent incarnations reminds Western students of a kind of distress which they will probably never experience. It is important to realise and to remember that, because of natural geography and climate, Russia’s people have struggled to feed themselves adequately. This kind of perpetual, fundamental concern for such a large proportion of the country’s population is perhaps one explanation why Russia’s rulers have found it relatively easy to exert such strict control over their people.

Its interesting how little known facts like these can give a deeper understanding to significant political upheavals. For example in Syria one of the worst droughts on record reminiscent of Americas dust bowl in the 1930s impoverished large numbers of people leading to civil unrest and eventually fuelling civil war, its not to say these matters at the sole reason for upheavel but they significantly contribute more than some people realise.

a reply to: funkadeliaaaa

Yeas, live of peasants was unbelievably hard. Also I have to note that we can hardly talk about Ukrainian nation before World War I. There were more ethnic groups (mainly Polish, Russians and Jews) Illiteracy among peasants was almost absolute. Many peasants learned to read and wright only after they were forcefully drafted to tsarist army. For many of them was Communism first non-christian ideological system. Higher ranks in army were Russians - and were hated. The army was based on fear and many officers behaved like beasts. Especially toward end of war there were hunger among soldiers, they didn't have proper equipment even ammunition. Bolshevik propaganda spread among lover rank soldiers like a wildfire. Mainly because they promised to get rid of hated landlords and to give peasants land. This happened shortly after end of War but Bolsheviks needed to supply theirs own army so nothing radically changed in live of village. One landlord changed by other. Then the collectivisation started. It was something totally against world view of peasants. They did not understood it. First they got land, now they should lost it again?