Quote:
Originally Posted by Badhobz
This is likely unpopular, but i think NATO and to a large extent, the US, pushed Russia into this wacko ass position.
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Couldn't disagree with this more. Read up on the history of NATO, the fall of the USSR, and the rise of Putin and their concurrent timelines.
NATO was formed post WWII as a result of the fuckwit Soviet Communists not relinquishing the territory it 'liberated' from the Nazi's. When the USSR and Warsaw Pact fell in '91 NATO drew down forces in Europe dramatically closing many many bases and sending hundreds of thousands of foreign troops home, Canadians included. I was born on a Cold War Canadian posting in Germany.
A LCol with the KGB in East Germany, Putin went on to head the FSB under Yeltzin and was then appointed PM when he stepped down. Putin has effectively been the head of state of Russia since '99 and in that time he has crushed and murdered political dissenters and rivals, prevented free elections, prevented free press, and prevented an open society and economy. His reign has been rife with corruption and human rights abuses so that he can enrich himself, he doesn't care about the Russian people. His continued build up of arms and bullshit rhetoric is what started bringing NATO forces back up, the organization exists solely to counter his aggression. His illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 is what prompted NATO to start training and supplying the Ukrainian military.
Putin is a senile egomaniac of failing health that's living in the past and he's taking his whole country down with him in the name of that ego. Russia has an ageing population and a negative birthrate, and Putin has already gotten almost 50,000 young Russian men killed in a matter of months. Now he's calling up reserves and more conscripts to throw in to the meat grinder. Many of the Russian training battalions were already sent to the front and destroyed. This has the potential to be another Stalingrad where untrained, barely equipped, and barely supplied men are ordered forward or face prison and/or execution by their own country. Except the Russian role is reversed this time and tens of thousands more young men will be killed for a politicians ego.
Honestly this could end Russia as we know it. The social consequences are one thing but the economic are another. If full blown war is declared Europe will suffer greatly with energy issues but it will survive, Russia however will lose it's primary economic driver and crash entirely. '91 all over again. Fuck Vladimir Putin, this is 100% on him.