So shall we war the shit out of Russia?

[DiscoCicero]

Hello everyone, I'm new.

Anyway, you may have noticed from the news there Place called Ukraine.

Now word on the street is that Russia is sad because Ukraine, going back and forth between pro and anti kremlin fractions since becoming a thing, landed pretty hard on anti-kremlin. There were these riots and Russia lost one of the biggest parts of its now tattered flak jacket of puppet states.

This has of course made Russia sad, and a sadness that cannot merely be cured by a night of heavy drinking and beating up homosexuals.

So its engaged in an increasingly hot proxy war, quite transparently for the purpose of grabbing as much land as possible before its former break basket/leader generator/starvation simulator/puppet state joined the single currency adventure that is the E.U.

But the funny thing with Hyper-nationalism is you don't just turn it off. A Russia that is just boxed in can't flex its muscles to impress its people on the top of a horse anymore. So its a fair bet they'll keep trying. Given the play book is to basically scream that fascist are going to genocide your former colonial population. It's pretty obvious what the next target might be, good Old Kazakhstan. Maybe f**k with the baltics states as well a little bit.

Now of course because they still have a bunch of highly inaccurate nuclear weapons launch systems (the nukes only last about 8 years you know, so at least some of them have to be freshish), just kerb stomping them is not an option.

but surely, good people of the forum, do we now all agree its time to once and for all stop this silly nonsense that is russian imperialism?

[exploited]

What do you propose?

[DiscoCicero]

[The Comrade]

the EU is apparently gearing up to strip them of the world cup and start sanctions on the oil industry.

if banning certain banking procedures, freezing some accounts, and stopping the import of apples has done as much as it has to the russian economy i can only imagine what major sanctions on their largest industry will do.

caveat, though. russia is f**k delusional. majorly so, in fact. any huge hit to the economy will do nothing but make putin more popular as he'll blame the west and everyone in russia will lap it up. people always suggest that if the oligarchs get pissed off putin is in trouble but it couldn't be further from the truth. i believe it was the owner of gazprom who was arrested for being critical of putin not so long ago. This might just push russia into more expansion as the need to shore up popular support at home increases.

[DiscoCicero]

[exploited]

I have the same concerns that Comrade pointed out. I agree that harsher sanctions are appropriate, but I think we need to be careful.

[The Comrade]

they aren't going to sanction the import of gas, they're going to sanction the export of heavy machinery and materials needed to run oil fields. russia is 100% worse at making equipment than they were during the USSR and without the ability to import machinery and the like they can't run their commodities industry.

[exploited]

Haha that is such a diplomatic kidney shot. I approve just because it's so funny.

[Kane]

[The Comrade]

it's kind of sad really because the only entities that matter that want anything to do with the EEU are kazakhstan and they've said they'll pull out if russia starts stepping on their toes. what's left? the other stans? i read today that there are upcoming talks for kyrgyzstan integration. that's quite the lemon to absorb and will be a net loss to russia economically.

people are quick to dismiss you when you say someone might be crazy but i don't think it was far off when merkel said putin is an egomaniac living in his own 1960s bubble.