Unit2Sucks said:
This whole conversation is ridiculous. No one really believes that this war has fpck all to do with people in Ukraine or anything like that. Putin wants the 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Ukraine's Black Sea shelf. He needs to keep his shwthole petro state going and all that Black Sea natural gas is a threat to him bec Russia has no other economic juice.
That's why Putin will throw as many old broken Russians as he has to at this war and will destroy as much of Ukraine as he needs to. He doesn't care what happens there so long as he prevents that NG from entering the market without him getting his cut.
I'm glad to see others have begun to realize how pointless it is to spar with Putin's cheerleaders. They have no interest in a reasonable discussion.
Sorry but that`s just an incredibly dumb statement and explanation. Russia already is the richest country in the world in fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), they already have the world`s largest natural gas reserves. They`ve barely tapped their shale oil, while US shale oil is now peaking. Putin didn`t put his country through a dangerous and bloody war by proxy against NATO for 2 trillion cubic feet of gas, when Russia`s natural gas reserves stand at 1,700 trillion cubic feet, that`s just beyond laughable.
Russia is an industrial power, set to pass Germany this decade to become the world`s 5th largest economy PPP. It has just about every resource and mineral in droves, and the cheapest energy costs in the world. They have already cornered the world wheat market, and are set to corner many industrial sectors that are energy intensive, like aluminum, steel, cement, paper, fertilizers etc, while western Europe and much of the world will struggle due to energy poverty.
Russia was economically annihilated in the 1990s, when its assets were carved out, its industry destroyed by neoliberal shock therapy "reforms", which were essentially a scheme to economically subjugate that country and to carve out its assets. Nearly half the country was plunged into abject poverty, rampant criminality, alcohol addiction and even hunger prevailed, somewhere between 5 to 10 million Russians died prematurely. The 1990s were one of the major catastrophic eras of Russia, along with the advent of Bolsheviks, who killed somewhere between 20 and 40 million Russians, and the nazi aggression which killed another 20 million Russians.
Objectively speaking, Putin has been very popular in Russia because he righted the ship and pulled Russia out of its neoliberal misery. After the Soviet state and currency collapsed in the 90s, Putin ended up having to drive a cab in St Petersburg in order to make ends meet. This period was a decade of deep economic struggle and trauma for the country, Russians who lived through it are grateful to Putin for having restored his country's social fiber and economy. He took back the country's assets from oligarchs, nationalizing oil and gas, paid off the country's crippling debt and build huge currency, gold reserves along with a national fund.
Ukraine on the other hand is still stuck in a neoliberal dystopia, oligarchs still run the country, while the muscle is provided by right wing militias. Zelinsky was the creation of one of these oligarchs, Kolomoisky, who like the other oligarchs had muscled in on Ukrainian state assets and built a media empire, producing a heavily-promoted TV show with Mr Z starring about a teacher turned politician who does a Mr Smith goes to Washington routine, gets elected president and cleans up the government. That show and role helped propel Zelensky to the real version of Ukrainian presidency. Zelensky also used his russophone persona in order to sell Russophone voters on a platform of peace and reconciliation, before doing a 180 after getting elected, in part because right wing militias were completely against that, and they were the political muscle in Kiev.
Without this corruption, Ukraine would have been a rich country, they have a lot of natural resources, and a well-educated population. Ukraine was the most industrialized, most advanced state in the Soviet Union. A lot of the industry and infrastructure that was built in the Soviet era was left to rot. The other problem in Ukraine is that the country is roughly divided in half in terms of its heritage and national identity, with Western Ukraine/Galicia being closer to a Central European Slav identity while the south and east are russophone regions with a Russian-Ukrainian
Malorussian culture.
The exploitation of these divisions between Galicia and Malorussia is at the heart of this war, the cultural dynamics aren't unlike those that tore apart Yugoslavia in the 90s. Much like in Yugoslavia, these two communities have a lot more in common than not, but have been hampered by the rise of a brand Western Ukrainian nationalism that was hostile to the Russophones. It is a shame that this took place while in the rest of Europe those issues were resolved (Spain, Ireland, Belgium etc). That was the focus of Prof. Petro presentations I have posted above, I strongly recommend his presentations, which not only describe the problem of the Ukrainian conflict, but also offers solutions and a path to peace in that country.
