Ukraine

[enigmatically2]

Corruption in the USSR started well before Yeltsin.

Russian state TV pundits starting to realise they will lose.

 

[EYESAILOR]

Yes

for instance collective farming and national food security

it also suffered tragic consequences when first introduced

Collective farming and soviet agricultural management was a disaster way beyond its first introduction ....and to suggest it was somehow superior to the USA is pure comedy.
The biggest beneficiaries of Russian collective farming were American farmers in the Mid West.
By 1972, despite the Cold War, the USSR was importing 10 million short tons of American grain. In 1973 their crop failed again and Russia negotiated the largest grain import deal from the US of all time and then exceeded that. Prices for US Grain rose by 30%. Without US farmers there would have been widespread famine and starvation in Russia.

My apologies for letting facts get in the way of your entertaining narrative.

 

[Horn Rock]

Friend in Holland just told me her gas/electricity bill for Nov was 445 euro. Hers is an average 3 bedroom dwelling. That's almost $700 Australian dollars - for one month...Seems very expensive to me....Is this what people are paying in the UK and elsewhere in Europe?

 

[slug zitski]

Collective farming and soviet agricultural management was a disaster way beyond its first introduction ....and to suggest it was somehow superior to the USA is pure comedy.
The biggest beneficiaries of Russian collective farming were American farmers in the Mid West.
By 1972, despite the Cold War, the USSR was importing 10 million short tons of American grain. In 1973 their crop failed again and Russia negotiated the largest grain import deal from the US of all time and then exceeded that. Prices for US Grain rose by 30%. Without US farmers there would have been widespread famine and starvation in Russia.

My apologies for letting facts get in the way of your entertaining narrative.

You are poorly informed…Un organized peasant farming could not feed a gigantic country

one of the most contentious issues in Ukraine was and is Americas forced land privatization

it has destroyed villages , towns and impoverished whole sectors of society ..creating resentment that fueled war

you must educate yourself before you go around the world blowing people up

 

[Rennmaus]

Russian national teams should certainly not be competing abroad. I have mixed feelings about Russian nationals competing abroad but if there isn't a blanket ban on Russian visitors, I'm not sure individual Russians should be prevented from competing. In general we will not know their views on the war, it is unreasonable to demand public expression of their opinion since a negative statement could have implications for themselves and their families. Nor can Russia as a whole be considered a democracy in a meaningful sense. Free societies don't impose collective punishments.

Unfortunately, Russian individual athletes are used for the glory of Russia, as propaganda means for the Russian superiority if they are successful. Hence I'm not in favor of letting them compete, although it may be tragic on a personal level.

Collective farming and soviet agricultural management was a disaster way beyond its first introduction ....and to suggest it was somehow superior to the USA is pure comedy.
The biggest beneficiaries of Russian collective farming were American farmers in the Mid West.
By 1972, despite the Cold War, the USSR was importing 10 million short tons of American grain. In 1973 their crop failed again and Russia negotiated the largest grain import deal from the US of all time and then exceeded that. Prices for US Grain rose by 30%. Without US farmers there would have been widespread famine and starvation in Russia.

My apologies for letting facts get in the way of your entertaining narrative.

Not to mention the Holodomor.

 

[slug zitski]

Friend in Holland just told me her gas/electricity bill for Nov was 445 euro. Hers is an average 3 bedroom dwelling. That's almost $700 Australian dollars - for one month...Seems very expensive to me....Is this what people are paying in the UK and elsewhere in Europe?

Yes …it’s very bad

utilities or food

supermarkets sell. Firewood

 

[LeoV]

Friend in Holland just told me her gas/electricity bill for Nov was 445 euro.

Very very very hard to believe. 300 Euro is already a lot.

 

[Rennmaus]

Very very very hard to believe. 300 Euro is already a lot.

If it's electricity and gas it's not unreasonable. It depends on how large the flat/house is, whether warm water is made with gas or electric, how old her appliances are, whether she takes showers or baths... It might be even cheap.

 

[Horn Rock]

Very very very hard to believe. 300 Euro is already a lot.

She's got no reason to lie. She's in Govt housing in Nijmegan. It's nothing flash, but not unreasonable either.

 

[slug zitski]

The Netherlands is a rich country..they can adapt

modest income countries like Spain can Not react in the same way

Energy poverty is real

 

[Mambo Kings]

Which started under Yeltsin, after the coup, he disbanded democracy and in came government brutality. Selling state assets to loyal underlings. Which became oligarchs after a lot of violence and murders. Putin was the hand picked successor. Continued and expanded this method. And the Russians looked away and never protested in meaningful numbers.

Meanwhile in Ukraine there was never an attack on the democratic rules, till the Russian puppet tried it, Yankovich. Street protests made that fail. That was Maidan about. Ukraine had oligarchs too, but as it was still a democratic rule, the election results were surprising and they could not pick one/ subdue to one strong man and competed underling with supporting different parties.

Could be that it was harder for Russians to protests, but this made the difference between two very similar states.

Hey Leo

We agree and share the common view that Russia cannot be allowed to invade Ukraine ...and we both support Ukraine repulsing the Russians.

However you are starting to sound a lot like propaganda painting the Russian civilians as an evil species . Like several others on this thread I disagree with that assessment. I think that interpreting history incorrectly will lead to incorrect conclusions looking at current and future events.

FWIW Putin and Yeltsin are fundamentally different characters. Yeltsin was a politician who succumbed to criminal and corrupt practices. He was a politician first and subsequently a corrupt politician. In contrast, Putin was a criminal who realized the vast opportunities that existed for crime and corruption in politics. Putin was a criminal first, well before his first political office, who entered politics and government with the sole intention of pursuing criminal goals.

There is little doubt that Yeltsin promoted Putin in order to have a thug on his team who could get certain things done that others did not know how to do. There are various theories as to how Putin obtained the Presidency and why Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly. We know that a corruption scandal was beginning to emerge that Yeltsin's family had received bribes from a Swiss construction company (Mabetex) that did work on the Kremlin and other government property. We know that the presidential property management department had formerly reported to Putin . We know that the FSB (intelligence and security) reported to Putin. It is not unrealistic to suppose that if anyone knew where the smoking gun lay that would link Yeltsin to Mabetex, it might be Putin. We also know that as soon as Putin became president the Mabitex case collapsed, despite the Swiss prosecutor offering the Russian prosecutor hundreds of documents seized in Switzerland. Putin had appointed a new prosecutor , the evidence disappeared, and the inquiry was dropped .

Under Yeltsin, 46 decrees had been issued defining and guaranteeing the roles of regional government in Russia and defining the limits of federal power. When Putin became President...they were cancelled, every one.

Putin was a hardened, successful and sophisticated criminal when he became President. He understood the importance of telling the population what they wanted to hear and offered them a "law and order" president. At the same time, he swiftly reorganized the Oligarch structure , shifting it from a loose group of wealthy shady businessmen who had used corruption, bank loans, vouchers or just plain luck to obtain former soviet assets; into an organized crime network owing absolute fealty to Putin that would cut Putin's investment company into their deals .......and then introduced them into a systematic rape of State, publicly quoted companies and even multinational assets owned in Russia. The Oligarchs that hesitated were dealt with ruthlessly and replaced by Putins henchmen. It is unparalleled in history. Never has a major government of a major nation been taken over and used as a platform for crime on anything like this scale.

It is doubtful that the average Russian voter had any understanding of what happened . Those that did rightly feared for their lives.

 

[LeoV]

Look into the laws that came into effect after the Yeltsin coup and the first Chechen war.

I did say it was maybe harder for Russians to protest.

 

[LeoV]

She's got no reason to lie. She's in Govt housing in Nijmegan. It's nothing flash, but not unreasonable either.

It is very hard to believe that was one month bill for energy. And if she is in govt housing, she is living in a normal house. Then 455 is very very high. Unless it is in very bad shape and nominated for the wrecking ball, but then her rent is very low.

BTW, in November and December every household get a 190 Euro rebate here. In Jan there is some budget cap on prices. So even if it is 455 she does pay 265. But for sure here bill is not the normal case. A statistic outlier.

 

[estarzinger]

Hence I'm not in favor of letting them compete, although it may be tragic on a personal level.

I am a bit surprised that is your take - punishing (relatively) powerless civilians for the evil of their governments. For me the 'counter-propaganda value' would seem to be far far less than the evil of 'collective punishment', which we (the west) has generally signed up not to do (specifically written in various Hague and Geneva agreements).

I have several Russian acquaintances and colleagues. These are intelligent, honest and kind people. I led a large team that looks at business opportunities in the prior soviet states, and we found that the assets were in very poor condition, the local market opportunities near zero, but that the talent pool was extremely strong. In the soviet era, they were leaders in math, physics, material science, chess, etc - that basic human capability/raw material is still there, just not supported the way it was.

Ignorance among 'the masses' is not a Russian-only issue, it is, unfortunately, a part of the human condition. Very roughly 50% of the human population is extremely easy to condition to falsehoods. When you have national class/funded propaganda a significant fraction fo the population will be swayed, no matter if they are Americans, Germans, Brits or Russians.

As an aside - recent reporting (wall street journal) saying that the Himar launchers we sent Ukr had software modifications that (1) geofenced the targeting, not allowing Russian soil targets; and (2) disabled their ability to fire ATACMS, because the pentagon did not want Ukr being able to fire the missiles sourced from one of the other users. Probably these modifications could be relatively easily reversed by the US if they wanted to, I presume but don't know that they are somehow protected/encrypted enough that it would be hard for Ukr to reverse them themselves.

 

[Rennmaus]

I am a bit surprised that is your take - punishing (relatively) powerless civilians for the evil of their governments. For me the 'counter-propaganda value' would seem to be far far less than the evil of 'collective punishment', which we (the west) has generally signed up not to do (specifically written in various Hague and Geneva agreements).

I have several Russian acquaintances and colleagues. These are intelligent, honest and kind people. I led a large team that looks at business opportunities in the prior soviet states, and we found that the assets were in very poor condition, the local market opportunities near zero, but that the talent pool was extremely strong. In the soviet era, they were leaders in math, physics, material science, chess, etc - that basic human capability/raw material is still there, just not supported the way it was.

Ignorance among 'the masses' is not a Russian-only issue, it is, unfortunately, a part of the human condition. Very roughly 50% of the human population is extremely easy to condition to falsehoods. When you have national class/funded propaganda a significant fraction fo the population will be swayed, no matter if they are Americans, Germans, or Russians.

As an aside - recent reporting (wall street journal) saying that the Himars we sent Ukr had software modifications that (1) geofenced the targeting, not allowing Russian soil targets; and (2) disabled their ability to fire ATACMS, because the pentagon did not want Ukr being able to fire the missiles sourced from one of the other users. Probably these modifications could be relatively easily reversed by the US if they wanted to, I presume but don't know that they are somehow protected/encrypted enough that it would be hard for Ukr to reverse them themselves.

Maybe we Germans are just used to collective guilt.

I try to see the world through Ukrainian eyes, seeing a Russian athlete compete as if nothing happened while I'm struggling to keep my life and my livelihood. No, judt no.

 

[Steam Flyer]

There are a lot of Ukrainian programmers/engineers who are among the most clever in the world. If the HIMARS had some feature disabled that they wanted to use, I would expect them to be able to work around it... like they have done with the drones and the missiles. But I'd expect it is a higher priority for them to deploy them and get best usage out of them, as supplied.

Hey Leo

We agree and share the common view that Russia cannot be allowed to invade Ukraine ...and we both support Ukraine repulsing the Russians.

However you are starting to sound a lot like propaganda painting the Russian civilians as an evil species . Like several others on this thread I disagree with that assessment. I think that interpreting history incorrectly will lead to incorrect conclusions looking at current and future events.

FWIW Putin and Yeltsin are fundamentally different characters. Yeltsin was a politician who succumbed to criminal and corrupt practices. He was a politician first..

Putin was a hardened, successful and sophisticated criminal...

Putin was a upper-mid level spymaster accustomed to building self-funding intel/sabotage ops; so he had some understanding of how to build a bigger oligarch network. Plus, he understood that loyalty of the security services and military was paramount to being able tor rule Russia.

And this is part of the key, Russia has no tradition of stable gov't, or peaceful transition of power; nor of gov't that serves the public interest. Yeltsin didn't -become- a corrupt politician, he was a Russian politician which means strong-arming everybody he could. Fortunately for Putin, he was more interested in drinking himself to death rather than competing for ultimate power.

But the popular sentiment among the average Russian was, get rid of democracy and market economics. Give us a strongman who will make the trains run on time, and put bread on the store shelves. Their taste of western-style democracy, of gov't that serves the public, and open markets, was one of instability and insecurity (partly because the wanna-be oligarchs undercut economic functions when they could) and they wanted stability and security more.

publicly quoted companies and even multinational assets owned in Russia. The Oligarchs that hesitated were dealt with ruthlessly and replaced by Putins henchmen. It is unparalleled in history. Never has a major government of a major nation been taken over and used as a platform for crime on anything like this scale.

It is doubtful that the average Russian voter had any understanding of what happened . Those that did rightly feared for their lives.

The origin of gov't is in despotism... a strongman ruling by force, and appropriating for himself (and his war band) any resources he wants. The rise of a more benevolent form of gov't came from some degree of advances in agriculture where people had leisure to do more than work for food and fight over it. With leisure came contemplation, with contemplation came education, with education came the concept that "hey, if my peasants are better-fed and have better tools, they can give ME more."

Summed up in the Meiji slogan "Rich country, strong army!"

 

[estarzinger]

Maybe we Germans are just used to collective guilt.

I try to see the world through Ukrainian eyes, seeing a Russian athlete compete as if nothing happened while I'm struggling to keep my life and my livelihood. No, judt no.

This is no sort of statistical sample, but I have actually talked with my Ukr friends and colleagues about a topic near to this - should I work with my russian friends in the current environment, should I help them get work? My Ukr friends are ofc totally, absolutely furious at 'Russia'. But the specific individuals are basically just like the Ukr guys (and gals), young IT people trying to get thru life. The Ukr's even know some of the Russians personally from work before the war. So the Ukr's are conflicted about this but have told me clearly that they will NOT hold it against me if I deal with these Russian individuals. They could not hold their anger back enough to work with them themselves, but they do understand these are just normal people trying to get by with little personal power to change anything.

 

[slug zitski]

Maybe we Germans are just used to collective guilt.

I try to see the world through Ukrainian eyes, seeing a Russian athlete compete as if nothing happened while I'm struggling to keep my life and my livelihood. No, judt no.

American athletes travel the world without needing to answer for endless American wars and atrocities

half a million dead children …not my problem

be aware that this video , a simple question to Madeline Albright is …age , content restricted in America

 

[estarzinger]

There are a lot of Ukrainian programmers/engineers who are among the most clever in the world. If the HIMARS had some feature disabled that they wanted to use, I would expect them to be able to work around it... like they have done with the drones and the missiles.

Perhaps, but it could be in encrypted firmware, which would be relatively hard to 'fix'. We don't know from the reporting how it was done. And yes, they have gotten great value from the system as is, so probably not a priority.

 

[dogwatch]

Perhaps, but it could be in encrypted firmware, which would be relatively hard to 'fix'.

Hard is as far as it goes. Ultimately code has to interwork with its machine- or bytecode environment or OS interfaces and those are known quantities.