Kieselguhr [none/use name]

That might be true about 2010 Medvedev, but how is it consistent with 2025 Medvedev? You make him sound like he’s Navalny lolmao

Putin was friendly with the West at one point too

Currently alive English people are responsible for not prosecuting Tony Blair after the Chilcot Report. Tony Blair is still alive. Get on it.

Okay. I don’t know what else to say.

No need to say anything, you just need to read books.

Okay. So you see what I’m saying then. Imperialists do this stuff.

Except what you have linked was already US State department propaganda

Could you please define imperialism in anywhere between 20 and 1000 words?

So what is a clandestine propaganda campaign if not this kind of shit:

On a tour in late September sponsored by Beijing, the 22 journalists from 17 countries visited bazaars [in Xinjiang] and chatted with residents over dates and watermelon slices. They later told state media they were impressed with the bustling economy, described the region as “full of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity,” and denounced what they said were lies by Western media.

The trip is an example of what Washington sees as Beijing’s growing efforts to reshape the global narrative on China. It’s spending billions of dollars annually to do so.

In a first-of-its-kind report, the State Department last week laid out Beijing’s tactics and techniques for molding public opinion, such as buying content, creating fake personas to spread its message and using repression to quash unfavorable accounts.

You are deeply unserious. Even the lack of evidence is clandestine by your thinking.

Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic

The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.

Does this threaten “international security”, liberal?

House passes $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas

Somehow it’s a crime when Russia does it to us, but good ‘information ops’ when we want to discredit Beijing’s Belt & Road initiatives worldwide

a decline in options for Russian tourists travelling abroad.

umm can’t they go literally anywhere except the EU? Like Egypt, Thailand etc.

This makes no sense; the kind of Russian tourist that wants to visit Paris or Milan wouldn’t visit a random beach resort in the DPRK

this is just subliminal messaging for people scrolling:

“RUSSIA! NORTH KOREA! THEY ARE BAD, RUSSIA IS NOW JUST AS OSTRACIZED AS NORTH KOREA”

Also, I’m glad North Korea is less ostracized now because of this

“democracy” (in a country that already has elections)

At least implementing ranked-choice or score voting system would be something less nebulous, an actual goal that could be reached in a short period of time

Wouldn’t be enough but if I were a liberal, getting rid of an arcane voting system would be something I’d protest about

I guess D’hondt is better than FPTP but whatever

I’m not that up-to-date about the Serbian electoral system though

The bomb squad investigated themselves and found they are not at fault

Apparently it’s peak democracy not to have elections because the constitution allows it during a war that most Ukrainians want to end as fast as possible through negotiations but who cares what the plebs want

that’s why we need to abolish private property in the means of productions

The worldview he learned from his father will affect not only 1.4bn Chinese people, but the whole of humanity.

They just have to include this quote in the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Great Man Theory

Yeah just to be clear, I’m not saying he said this, I just did some philological excavation.

All in all, if Russia gave it her 100% military power even excluding nukes they could’ve ended it in 2 weeks even in 2022, simply by doing decapitation strikes and bombing every bridge airport and power station

This NYT article is the source, I think

“That is not the question,” Mr. Barroso said Mr. Putin told him. He continued, referring to the Ukrainian capital, “But if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks.”

So Barroso said Putin said this (in 2014)

an excerpt:

It’s also entirely possible that Ukraine has a few more surprises in store for Russia. The unpredictable element here is when the Russian economic elite, for whom this war is hardly a favorite undertaking, will finally lose patience. What movements that might trigger within the halls of power is anyone’s guess. The consequences are just as uncertain.

As for the recent talks, there doesn’t seem to be any clear roadmap for what comes next, at least not publicly. It’s essentially a continuation of the same process, largely because the Russians are keen on perpetuating the illusion that they’re open to compromise and genuinely seek peace.

Of course, the rhetoric coming from state-affiliated media outlets paints a different picture. Their message is clear: if their baseline conditions aren’t met, the war will continue. It’s a decidedly bellicose stance, especially when coupled with attempts to achieve through diplomacy what they haven’t been able to on the battlefield.

Negotiations will undoubtedly continue. The hour-long meeting on Monday simply wasn’t enough time to delve into the complexities. The Ukrainian side publicly released its memorandum outlining the preconditions for a ceasefire, handing it over to the Russian delegation. The Russians, on the other hand, presented their proposals only in Istanbul. In other words, and I have to say, from Ukraine’s perspective, it’s the kind of proposal you could reject on gut instinct alone. Moreover, the limited time for review doesn’t help matters. It was almost a given that the Monday meeting wouldn’t yield a breakthrough. However, it does allow them to say that a third meeting will take place.

It feels like they need to strike a delicate balance in praising Ukraine, but also not praising them too much that people would think they don’t need Western aid

All of this is of course very far from actual materialist or even realist analysis

I’ve decided to check in with the libs and endured half an hour of a shitlib news podcast on Ukraine (2x speed though)

The expert (basically just a journalist) said:

• The war is a stalemate, since the Russians said they’d win in a couple of weeks, so they are quite humiliated, especially because of the recent attacks

• Despite the stalemate the Russians are unwilling to compromise on their demands

• One of their demands is the lifting of sanctions, which signals that the sanctions do hurt the Russians

• Yeah it turns out the Russian economy did not collapse in a few months after the first round of sanctions, but who knows what will happen, they are very strained

• It might be true that there’s some fatigue in the Ukrainian populace, but the drone strike boosts morale

• In Ukraine, human resources (mobilization) are the main challenge, especially in the absence of spectacular successes (like in the autumn of 2022)

• Trump courts Putin and criticizes Ukraine, which reinforces the “proxy war” narrative for Russia and makes them less willing to compromise

• Ukraine was very smart to do Operation Spiderweb completely independently, it shows that they are capable

• This allowed Ukraine to signal its capability to carry out independent operations for which Russia may not have a ready countermeasure. This implies they are not in such a dire position that they are forced to accept all Russian conditions and, in essence, surrender

And so on and so forth, it truly feels like a parallel universe, but some facts start to seep in, but very very slowly (he mentioned that 6 million Ukrainians fled the country in the first year of the war)

and I mean REALLY BAD.

Like attempting to assassinate the president of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world?