Bitcoin Forum

During World War II the world's major powers were bombed back to the stone age. With the exception of two nations. Russia and the united states. This set the stage for america and russia to emerge as the world's dominant superpowers leading into the cold war, korean war and vietnam war which followed.

Both the USSR and USA enjoyed the luxury of surviving World War II with their territories and economies largely intact. Profiting handsomely by loaning capital to other nations to rebuild. While the rest of the world toiled under debt and reconstruction efforts.

Looking at the current era a similar trend could emerge. America, the european union and china all carry large ratios of debt to GDP close to 100%. Russia's debt to GDP ratio is by far the smallest of any major power at around 20%. If a major recession hit global markets a case could be made for russia's government and economy being best structured to weather it. Russia is one of the most self sufficient nations in terms of raw materials, food and energy production. Russia also has many other world powers reliant and dependent on them for natural gas and other resources.

Long story short russia has many advantages over the USA, EU and china if an economic crisis hits.

If global markets are devastated by a crisis, russia is (in my opinion) the number #1 prospect to emerge as the next dominant superpower.

To avoid this, I think the united states would do well to keep its economy strong. As a hedge against russian encroachment. There isn't much alternative deterrent.

While russia's invasion of ukraine has stalled. Russia isn't trying very hard. They don't have to. They simply have to wait for the next big economic crisis when free money and support thrown at ukraine can no longer be funded. Then resistance may well crumble.

The best deterrent against invasion and war may be a strong economy with enough liquidity to make invasion too high priced too consider. Our current era with high deficits and weak economies could be interpreted as an open invitation for ambitious regimes like russia to invade us.

On the plus side if russia is the next dominant superpower they may be bitcoin friendly. At least that would be one positive thing we might look forward to in the horror show that could be the future.

It is not clear to me. On the one hand, as you say, it has little debt and plenty of resources, especially fossil fuels, and it does not have suicidal energy policies. Here I see a clear advantage over the EU. It happens as with China. If it is about to surpass the USA in GDP is largely because of its energy policies.

But for it to emerge as a superpower it would need another part of the equation, which is greater efficiency in the production of goods and services, and a better market economy. It is not enough just to have the resources, which is important, yes, but you have to exploit them well. Let's look at Venezuela for example, where having a lot of resources is of little or no use, because of the garbage policies of the government.

What is considered a superpower is what it looks like, a superpower is a country that has great influence in world affairs.
and the state must be strong in military terms, especially in the economy and foreign policy and so on.
and Russia is by no means a part of it, its economy is weak and its foreign influence is not very strong and only the military aspect stands out.
a superpower that can project its influence globally, and currently, the US, China are catching up fast, and the EU stumbles in third.

Russians pay around 50% of the income tax that EU citizens pay. I think the median income tax in russia is around 16%. That could translate to efficiency gains and a more deregulated environment in markets and business. The united states proposed a 30% global income tax awhile ago. Which is roughly double the income tax that russian citizens pay.

I am thinking high deficit and debt could have a crippling effect on the US, EU and china if (or when) economic crisis hits. The united states would no longer be able to hand ukraine $40 billion in free cash. Nor would we be able to mobilize our armed forces in the case of an emergency.

Any nation russia invaded would have to fend for themselves without much support from the united states or NATO.

The united states may seem to have no credit limit at the moment with the way we're spending capital. Eventually we will hit a wall and no longer be able to spend with hyperinflating the us dollar. Which could have catastrophic effects on american wealth, job markets and the economy. We won't be able to do much to help ukraine, or anyone else then. Could that be what russia is waiting for to commit to a stronger attempt at invasion?

Those are my thoughts anyway. It seems like basic 2 + 2 = 4. I would be happy if someone came along with a better illustration of the future.

Russia may not become super power. They are just super giant mass of land and aggressive genetics built in over the time. The problem is, leader isn’t very calm and his commanding is not in the right direction. This will crumble Russia tactics themselves.

Funding won’t stop from the other nations because as of now Ukraine stands as protecting wall to the neighbouring countries. They have long lasting fear that Russia has another plans and may go aggressively further to the EU region.

This is why USA and NATO will not back out from Ukraine.

On the other hand soon after Sanctions imposed on Russian country will start corroding Russian economy. This will be a slow process but eventually it will weaken Russia and they will be in higher debts. The debts won’t be because of taking loans, but because of higher inflation and underlying import of crude oils, rations etc.


If they become dominant then they will immediately switch to fiat friendly. They care about bitcoin right now because they have international sanction, ceased money overseas and only way to trade outside Russia swiftly is bitcoin with unlimited accessibility.

This will definitely change after Russia becomes dominant super power which is however highly unlikely.

It depends on whether we are going to see a World War or not. If we do, it is not possible to predict because humanity may extinct!
Otherwise if we don't see a World War then there won't be a single dominant superpower because the world has been moving towards multiple superpowers in each region where the world is split into small territories and a strong country forms alliances and dominates that territories while having relations with some of the other powerhouses, some friendly and some not.

One of the main reasons why the West is not really helping Ukraine is because they want to prolong the war as much as they can to increase the cost on Russia and weaken at least one of these powerhouses.

There are too many points to respond to. In general, however, I don't think Russia is heading toward the direction of becoming the next dominant superpower. Judging by its current actions, it is actually heading toward the opposite direction. It is fast becoming a hermit country than one which dominates the globe. And I don't think a country which effectively isolates itself from the rest of the world has a potential of becoming the world's dominant superpower. In these times, alliances and partnerships matter a lot.

In terms of self-sufficiency, Russia is generally not self-sufficient. Although, of course, not in terms of energy and gas. And although the country has only a very small portion of arable land, food imports have indeed decreased significantly and exports increased. Outside of these, however, Russia is highly dependent on other countries. As a matter of fact, extracting the country's topmost resources needs imported materials and technologies.

And I don't agree that Russia is not trying very hard to invade Ukraine as quickly and as easily as possible. They simply failed. And this is another factor. A dominant superpower should have a strong military. Ukraine, with the help of western allies, has so far proved that Russia's military is not as mighty as it is paraded.

Forget about Bitcoin. It has a very minor role to play, and any country could take a full U-turn in favor of it very quickly.

Russia is already a super power but its still not as huge as US since they don't have military bases every country in the world. But they proved to be economically prepared than the US economic sanction has put together.

I would however turn to China being the dominant super power since they have already made lots of countries on their side through their Belt and Road Initiative project and as of now, they have BRICS. This alliance had invited poor countries in South America which could turn to military alliance actually like Venezuela. Today, they've cemented the Solomon Island to be an ally which Australia had been very angry since its pretty much a security breach for them.

You are terribly wrong about this. The western part of the USSR was occupied by nazi Germany and most of the industrial facilities of the USSR  were located in the west (Ukraine and Belarus) before the war. Those territories suffered from a lot of destruction and millions of people in the USSR died during the war (around 20 million). Saying that the USSR "enjoyed the luxury of surviving WWII" is simply stupid and ignorant.
The USSR didn't "enjoy" anything.

Russia can't beat USA and China in terms of GDP, demographics, technologies and military power. A global economic crisis won't change this.
Unfortunately Russia will remain as a threat for the global peace and security.

Are you seriously? The West has robbed Russia by freezing its money and is now trying to find justifications to confiscate it. As Otto von Bismarck said:

You stepped on the wrong guy's foot, you'll have to pay for it. I'm Russian, I'll take all your Nutella and make you eat shit. This is my plan, try to stop me if you can.  ;D

Russian, NATO and US would not be stronger after this war. The world economy was just recovering from Covid-19 pandemic before this invasion began.  IMF  (https://blogs.imf.org/2022/04/22/war-in-ukraine-is-serious-setback-to-europes-economic-recovery/) recently cut growth projection in advanced economies by 1 percentage point to 3 percent in 2022 from January projections. While Russian economy is predicted to  shrink by 8.5 percent, and in Ukraine by 35 percent.The point is that this war is very expensive to both parties and the sanctions is also affecting the economies of the two warring groups. Insinuating that that NATO and US will stop financing or supporting Ukraine because of lack of funds is far from the truth. Aids to Ukraine is a combined or coordinated efforts of countries with the most vibrant economies and you cannot compare these economies with a single Russian economy. In fact Russia would soon retreat because they never believed that the war will last this long and their budget for this war is really depreciating. Reconstruction would also affect both parties. Russia would have to rebuild some regions that will be ceded to it (this is one of the price to pay for peace) and NATO and her allies would spend so much on rebuilding Ukraine because that is one of the ways of encouraging refugees to return. China would be the next dominant super power because it is building its economy while others are spending in Ukraine.    

You don't understand anything about economics. Armed conflict on foreign territory is the best way to solve economic problems. Russia earns a billion euros a day on the export of hydrocarbons to Europe and loads its military-industrial complex with work, disposing of old weapons and ammunition with an expiring date in Ukraine for free. It's better than drug dealing. Then Russia will once again earn on this, restoring what it destroyed in Ukraine. The ideal business, ask the US - they regularly do this, fomenting armed conflicts around the world.

If Russia is making more money from the war and have enough to fight why are they using food blockage to armtwist NATO to review the sanctions imposed on them?
Also, openly boasting that Russia is using Ukraine to dump it's out of use arms and ammunition without considering the  lack of precision of these equipment is inhumane. Many civilians would die because these warheads would not hit it's target precisely.

Russia continued to construct enormous quantities of tanks late into World War II.

Russia's factories, infrastructure and residential sectors had not been hit as hard as other countries. Which allowed their wartime production to thrive.

Comparing the devastation of nagasaki, hiroshima or UK cities bombed consecutively over long periods of time. Russia and the USA got off easy in comparison.

Russia and the united states were also in the best position to assimilate technology from nazi germany which was the reason behind those two nations being the main players in the space race.

Supercountry?! Russia !?? You have a very subtle sense of humor! Let's look at this position Eritrea for example? Well, why not? If your question is a little expanded, then it will sound like this - can a technologically, economically backward state - an outcast and a terrorist who preaches lawlessness, become a world leader? The answer suggests itself - NO. But Eritrea, when compared with Russia, has clearly more chances :)

Let me reply with another question, why no Canada or Australia?

Advantages:
- growing population, Russia has lost population from the start of the century even if we add Crimea, Canada has added 8 million, Australia 6, both of them have enormous GDP per capita compared to Russia, Cnada having a higher overall GPD despite being 3 times smaller rin population and Australia almost matching Russia, they both have huge agricultural capacities and production, being net staple food exporters, huge mineral and energy resources, just one neighbor in Canadian case and the ocean when it comes to Australia, no conflict, no territorial disputes.
- slight cons, a bit higher debt to GDP ratio at around 40% compared to 20%, no nukes

So, who's the winner?

And now another thing
Russia has the same advantages as the USSR but on a lower scale, with less land, less population, the soviet union had more people than the USA now the gap has grown to two times and a half in USA's favor, and the GDP difference has grown from 1:3 in the early '90s to 1:15, it has lost tons of resources with the loss of Kazahstan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and others and it has lost all its partners from the Warsaw pact that are nwo on the other side of the fence.
So if in 3 times more favorable conditions the USSR has failed, why would Russia manage?




Isn't 1 billion a day something like 6 dollars per capita per day, or according to videos from Russia, 2 kilos of apples or 4 kilos of cheapest potatoes?
https://i.imgur.com/ldHnzRm.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/bePbaby.jpeg

Wow, such growth, much power, moon economics!

What definition of a superpower you are considering by providing this kind of analysis? This is a pure economic assumption which can be deleted instantly when world war ignites. In able for a country to become a superpower needs to have a good influence on most of the country just like what US doing. US diplomacy has almost reached the whole world while Russia has only a few connections. The nearest country that can rival the US in terms of superpower is China since they are expanding their diplomacy in a different country just like what the US doing right now.

Maybe Russia can withstand recession if it's really hit but to become a superpower takes more than that since US has already experienced recession before but still hold its superpower status now.

Well, Russia is already leading the World militarily and will gradually expand that power globally in space of two to three years before US will regain control. This is not because Russia has those advantages you claim she has but due to the Will of the CREATOR. A tiny nation nation with little advantage could be used to rule the world in similar manner. So, i don't believe it's a good idea to run conclusions based on those indices.

She is actually a silent super power that is yet to fully explore her potential. The others have become empty drums with the loudest noise.... The noise is part of what is making Russia to be cautious. If she hit the drums with little blows they will all fall apart and flee backward

Quite a few of the facts are wrong and quite a few of the conclusions:

- UK was not bombed to the stone age in any manner. Only Germany, Japan, part of Russia... not even France as the defeat was quick and swift.
- US profited from lending, the USSR simply kept the territories occupied against their will.

Russia's GDP is negligible. Seriously, is even lower than Italy's. The strategy from Russia is to pump and hype: great army, great technology, great resources, nuclear power... yet when they are faced with an obstacle all that fades away:

- Technology is reliant on western supplies and intellectual property.
- The army is mostly from the 90's and unsuited for modern operations.
- Their new status as invaders and a threat to any border country will damage their exporting capability.
- Their status as sanctioned country will prevent investment in CAPEX, critical to maintain production in the mid term.
- Re "Russia not trying hard" is wrong. It is trying to the limit of the resources that can spare. Russia has managed to make enemies of everyone around (even China is more afraid than friendly) and have to keep their best shots for self defence and to keep their puppets status - thus they have sent to Ukraine everything else.
- Russia's GDP is set to severely shrink. What you call and advantage is actually despotism: keeping the population silent about the economic impact. Russia is looking half good due to sky-high prices of commodities, but that is cyclical not permanent.

I do agree that US has to make sure this war does not pay, but Russia is gone as a superpower and may even not preserve the regional power status for more than a couple of decades as they are unable to sustain the technologic advances.


Not in any manner. The facts on the ground show poor leadership, corruption and very limited applied technology. Russia is applying Sun Tzu's Art of War - "when you are weak, appear strong". All the hype about missiles, ridiculous vehicles like the "Terminator" and other smoke screens do not change the fact that they just cannot advance  without getting killed by the thousands or loosing their best ships the moment they get close to Ukrainian territory.

I have little to say about your interpretation of the will of your imaginary friends.

Russia the next dominant superpower,what kind of joke is this?Saying that the sanctions have not hit Russian economy is a blatant lie,Russian themselves have asked that they can let the Black Sea ports open in Ukraine to ship the grains in order for the food crisis to stop but Western powers must lift their sanctions.As much as a food crisis may come Western powers will not fall prey of any Russian blackmail and rest assured just after a couple of months or maximum until the end of this year and Russia will be a completely isolated state.

Saying that they are self sufficient is also completely wrong as people from USSR,people who lived at that era told on international news that on Sundays if they eat bread and butter was like a holiday or some major event to them,that is how self sufficient Russia is.

Russia being the next superpower is undoubtedly an unrealistic expectation happen. One fact, I was thinking they would crush Ukraine as soon as they invaded the country but today , Russia is losing men and their fighting gadgets in numbers.

Have we thought of China ? Currently China is not a push over in military strength we all know this and by ranking they are third in the world after India (that is 4th) and before Russia that is 2nd to USA. China has built neighbours and aligns that can support her during any incursion and she has huge population herself with 2,185,000 active personal by estimation, 4,750 tanks, 3,260 aircraft, 777 warships. Recently, they have not had major war fare to prosecute so properly they could have more weapon than is in public eyes. Russia isn't taking over as number superpower IMO.

Russia is trying to make the whole world remove the sanctions by preventing them from getting any food supplies from Ukraine as a whole and apparently according to the news the world only has 10 weeks to save themselves of hunger. This has created a gap in not just Europe but other nearby places as well, Slovakia is also asking help in advance because they think they might be the next to get attacked.

The Russia ruble is somehow doing good in the market but at the same time they have made enemy of each and every country that there is except the ones which are benefiting from this war. Therefore sooner or later they are going to loose this power that they think they have and other countries might also try and stop them so them being a superpower is not an option.

From my point of view, as long as Joe Biden was president of the US, it was not as scary as when the US was led by Donald Trump. You know Trump will challenge China and Russia even more if he dares to play around. The politics of the three great world powers: the US, Russia, and China, are relentless, but the victims are those who do not want war at all.

The world economy, we all know that the greater supply of needs is dominated by China, as evidenced by some goods around us that we often encounter and all of them are almost labeled from China. The economic principle that the US has not been able to do until now is copying expensive goods. That's because the US strengthens originality in exporting an item.

Russia, the country that currently poses the most fearsome threat of war, has an alliance with North Korea as if the formation of its power would certainly make the US think twice. China is fine with Russia and agrees that if the US dares to pose a dangerous threat, the two countries will stand taller.

I don't think the U.S. is in a position to keep its economy strong, but neither is China. Russia won't enter the mix unless they increase their GDP. Their nuclear weapons count is the only reason that they remain a player on the global stage.

On that note, the economic crisis looming within China and the U.S. will cause Russia's economy to suffer too. The sanctions will look like nothing in comparison. The likelihood of the U.S. and China recovering their economy quicker than any other country seems like the most probable.

If we are talking about military power, USA has the biggest one and they do not have any competition in that regard, china or Russia or even both of them together do not get even close to it. We need to realize that they are spending about 800 billion a year on military, that is bigger than next 25 nations combined.

This is why I believe that we should not be considering any military threat to be too real, look at Ukraine situation, USA didn't even participated, they just gave them billions in help, and gadgets and that alone was enough to push Russia back by Ukrainians. Superpower doesn't happen that easily, whoever has the biggest budget, and liked by the world, is the one that will be superpower.

Here is a map illustrating 32,000 air raids the UK sustained during World War II.

https://i.ibb.co/SBvHDsr/uk-wwii-bombings.jpg

Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/SBvHDsr/uk-wwii-bombings.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/SBvHDsr/uk-wwii-bombings.jpg)

Source:  http://www.warstateandsociety.com/Bombing-Britain (http:// http://www.warstateandsociety.com/Bombing-Britain)




China and its allies carry large amounts of debt which could take years or even decades to resolve.





Canada and australia are generally regressive and anti progress.

Example, australia's internet infrastructure was ranked 46th in the world in 2012:

In some ways australia's tech infrastructure, science and engineering sectors are languishing behind 3rd world nations. The same can be said of canada.

While australia's debt situation isn't too bad, canada's debt to GDP ratio is greater than 100%, which is not great.





The USSR could not develop cutting edge technology without stealing it from an outside source.

Russia today being able to develop cutting edge tech like hypersonic missiles is a huge advantage over what the USSR enjoyed.

The main deficiency of russia in the modern era is it lacks the powerful allies and financial backers the USSR had to make it relevant.

Population and similar metrics don't really factor in IMO.

It will be positive, possibly for a while. A government will always be Bitcoin-friendly only if it's necessary. But if its own people within the country start using Bitcoin for their own purposes that also require censorship-resistance/self-sovereignty, I believe the "friendliness" will turn into hostility towards Bitcoin.

There's also another example of this kind "friendliness". United States government to ease energy sanctions on Venezela. Why? Because it's necessary. Hahaha.

I don't really see how Russia could rise to become the dominate superpower any time soon. The Russia Ukraine war has negative effects on the whole world and in particular on Russia. It's just a matter of time for the sanctions from the West to hit the Russian economy. Global trade is important for any nation, and being left out will have negative implications. One big aspect is the missing access to technologies. Russia will struggle to get access again to all the technologies Western countries use. Another issue is the reduction of energy imports from Russia. It's just a matter of time for European countries to use alternative energy sources. All this will hurt Russia and they will fall behind China and the West in terms of economic growth.

They could try, they have been pretty powerful for many decades now, at least around 70 years if not more. So I am pretty sure that they would still be good, the world war two was in 1940's and thats 80 years ago and they were quite important on beating Nazis, much bigger impact that USA that came in very late when Nazis already started to fall back from Russia. All in all, Russia could stay as a powerful nation, disliked and hated because of how terrible they treat the whole world, including themselves as well, and wished upon to be a better nation without Putin but whoever they find usually ends up like him anyway.

Let me ask a very simple question. But first, a little introduction. What is a superpower? The largest in area? Hardly. Maybe a country with a large population? Also no. Or maybe this is the country that has the most, for example, deposits of granite or peat or coal? Definitely not... Hmm... But what makes a country a SUPERPOWER!?
I will give my opinion. A superpower is a set of characteristics that includes:
1. The economic strength of the country. In relation to other market players. The dependence of other countries on the economy of this country. Financial dependency. The ability of the country to solve its financial problems or to continue its full existence even in a difficult economic situation caused by third-party stressful situations.
2. Political world "weight". The ability to influence global and local processes (inside and outside the country). The respect or compulsion of other countries to comply with the political requests of this country.
3. Definitely - technological maturity. In the largest possible areas - military, medical, agricultural, banking, and many others.
4. Army. Quality, equipment, technology, modern weapons, motivation of soldiers, the ability of the military-industrial complex to work in difficult conditions and the ability to meet the demand of the army in the event of a global military conflict, a system of defense measures and decisions, training of the civilian population, ....
5. Education
6. Medicine
7. ....
Here you can add many more criteria, maybe I missed something from the most important ones.

And the actual question, or rather 2:
1. Do you agree with such a selection of criteria (I repeat once again - most likely not all are listed here, but the most significant, in my opinion), to assess compliance with the status of a "superpower"

If yes:
2. "What side" can Russia get here?
If not:
2. Describe your criteria that correspond to the status of "superpower"?

Too soon to say this, I think this act of Russia will obviously shake and challenge the overall dominance of the US as a superpower for once but will it immediately make Russia the new superpower is too quick to say this. I believe this might start a new cold war just in the same way as it did back after world war 2 the concept won't be capitalism or socialism this time but the opponents might be the same, US and NATO on one side while Russia, China on the other side. Then this war might go on for pretty long in a undercover manner.

Russia currently occupies that position as the next or should i say second World power ayer US although not officially accorded but, one could be left to think that. Using therr previous state of affairs to speculate if they could press on to being dominant as world power after US, that is hard to say now due to what the on going going war is taking out of them. Of course, the war got them testing there guts and the pretty much have the answer as to how the are feared by most nations, even the US inclusive. That's the more reason why the US and NATO although not directly involved in the war, looks towards what strings they could pull to weaken Russia in all ramifications. Hence, being wolrd power after the war would take such a longer time or perhaps, it would be a spot just reserved for America.

because of this war, i am now not thinking that russia as the next dominant superpower. if they are, they should have conquered ukraine much earlier. but they couldn't. it is now taking months and it seems russia is now losing grip. so next superpower? that i doubt. if russia is taking this long just to get ukraine, a small country with very limited resources, how much more if they will invade other progressive countries? we are now seeing the real capability of russia because of this war, and it is far from being superpower, that's my opinion though.

Even before the war, Russia was losing it's population at a rate of 1 million per year (this could have been even worse if there was no mass immigration of Muslims from Central Asia and Azerbaijan to Russia). A country where the population is declining at such a massive rate can never be a super power. A lot is being discussed about the population decline in Japan. But even in Japan, the population loss is in the range of 500,000 per year (despite a more elderly age structure compared to Russia). And both the countries have similar population size.

I was thinking like I am the only one thinking like that but glad others think the same too. When Russia invaded Ukraine I and almost everyone on the news and internet was making it look like a 1 vs 100 type of war and it was more of a beating than a fight. Now months have passed and it's looking like an ongoing war instead of a beating and like you mentioned, Russia is losing men!

I don't see Russia becoming a dominant superpower although as mentioned in OP that if that does happen, it would be an overall positive for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency since they are very friendly towards crypto. I am not against Russia nor support what they are doing but I hope they don't become a superpower because it may do more harm than good.

That map proves very little. Yes, the UK sustained air raids, but not, its industrial production and infrastructure largely survived intact. This is what you should be looking at:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/azSk3.png

As you can see, there is nothing in there like "bombed into stone age" in the UK graph - it is much more clear when you look at how Germany WAS actually bombed into stone-age.

China's debt is no different from other countries. Japan is above 200% GPD for example, Italy, Spain, Greece, France... all have debt for decades.

Japan, italy, spain, greece and france. Are all too far into debt to donate funds to ukraine.

Eventually the united states will be as well.

What happens then? When russia still has low debt and can afford to mobilize.

The united states spent more than $12 trillion dollars on military operations in the middle east. Eventually that money runs out and nations cannot defend themselves (or ukraine) without bankrupting their budget.

There is this news coming out lately on the cancer illness on the president of the country and the prediction of less than 2 years till the death of the team member, Is a very difficult news to prepare for or keep. Russia does not provide platform to produce news. THe present war cant help

Well... this is one of the advantages in having your national currency as the reserve and trade currency of the world. The US can just print another $10 trillion in USD banknotes and use all that money to invade another half a dozen third world nations. Other countries will be footing the bill, as the USD is the reserve currency. Even countries such as China are having most of their forex reserves in the form of the US Dollar. Even Russia had a large part of their forex reserves in the form of USD, and all that got frozen a few months back.

If Russia succeeds in breaking petrodollar deal. and they start selling the fuel in Ruble. Then surly
I have read in other forums that Russian president has asked counties to pay in Ruble. If that is a successful deal then surely they will be dominant superpower.

You conveniently skip over the fact that this economic juggernaut that you describe had an economy on the scale of Italy before this war began and had a population of twice the size. Russia is a cesspit that has been hobbled by it's leaders for decades, if not centuries and the average person their has been unable to change it in all that time. The last major source of income to Russia, what has been propping it up for so long thanks to its huge land mass and little care for the environment, is the oil & gas it's able to extract (thanks to technology from other countries). Europe, the customer willing to pay far higher prices than anyone else, is working to cut those supplies to zero as soon as possible and considering the war in Ukraine (which can be fought for many years) is depleting $1 billion from Russia per day - it will soon be unable to continue funding it and everything else will collapse. Hopefully then Putin will be finished and a new opportunity for freedom can arise.

This looks like a funny tale. Put which president are you talking about? Of course before two years things between Ukraine and Russia would have been settled. But this is a rumour you can provide link that it will be read. However Russia will not emerge as the superpower, perhaps US has seen this possiblity and working against the Russian hegemony on Soviet Union.

This is a big question that we need to understand it before we think of answer it because it involves a lots of understanding about what is meant by world power and what Russia has that can made them a super world power. We need to know that the nato is expanding and growing day and day which is increasing there dominance to the world. More countries are still planning to join nato which is going and is making the United States the world power.

Actually all those countries have already donated military material to Ukraine and all agree on an oil embargo. Debt becomes secondary when survival is a problem.

The US has implemented a 40 Billion plan. (https://www.vox.com/23125706/ukraine-aid-russia-invasion-us-40-billion) The help line, huge for Ukraine and Russia means just an minimal part of the US budget. Again, it is a question of sizes:


And this year, US GDP will be largely untouched and growing. Russia's will not.

Russia's economy will contract for sure. But this is going to be temporary. As long as they have the capability to export their natural resources, Russia will be able to make a comeback. And ordinary Russians have the ability to deal with hardships. And now coming to the United States, the inflation rate is inching towards the 10% level. Federal debt is ballooning and already there is a lot of controversy related to the baby formula shortage. The US economy won't remain "untouched" for too long. Very soon it will start contracting.

This is if Russia can continue to use the gas, I think they will dominate just by this advantage. They are however not the super dominant in Asia, there is always China that has higher advantage over them. China also have the gas supply of their own, not as big as Russia but China has the technology. If the two will start a quarrel I think the unity of both can change. As for now, Its Russia who will win against the West due to the gas dependency of EU.

US economy is crashing and the government are still in the denial stage of it. But the manifestation in people's frustration is showing already when they see prices of products.

It is typical US foreign policy to try to quarrel with neighboring countries in order to stir up tensions in the region. Why should Russia quarrel with China if it is possible to live as neighbors and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation? This is our common continent, along with India, Europe and the Middle East. The US has spread its toxic influence around the world and it will soon come to an end. We can live in peace and act together when the US and Western Europe give up their unfounded claims to exclusivity and superiority over other peoples. Russia can become the new guarantor of global security, it has enough power for this and enough self-control not to use this power in its own selfish interests. Because Russia is the largest and potentially the richest country in the world, with a huge abundance of natural resources. She does not need to plunder other nations in order to prosper.

Really?

Like this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400804.0

What do you base your claims on?

You forget a few things......

Russia made most of their money from Oil and Gas sales....and a lot of countries are now moving away from being dependent on Russia for Oil and Gas. (So they are losing money now)

They are spending lots of money to replace weapons like rockets & Tanks that were lost in the Ukraine war. (Expenses) and the loss in income due to the sanctions are crippling some of their companies. (A huge blow for their economy and tax revenue)

Look at countries like Zimbabwe... that was also sanctioned by the West during Robert Mugabe's rule.  ;)

The threat of an embargo has driven up oil and gas prices, so Russia is making more money even by selling less physical volume. And there is no embargo itself, Russia has simply shifted the logistical focus from Europe to Asia.

Mostly expired ammunition is consumed, which otherwise would have to be disposed of, incurring additional costs. Instead of spent weapons, new ones are being made, the Russian military-industrial complex is fully loaded with work and orders for years to come. An armed conflict on a foreign territory is a very profitable event from an economic point of view.

Russia is not Zimbabwe.

I agreed with your post except this part of it. No one country can or should have all the power ever. Take a look at US. It wasn't always this corrupt regime spreading death and destruction around in the world. The centralization of power in one place corrupted the regime and they abused the hell out of it too.
Let's not forget that Russia in Soviet era has also done a lot of shit and spread separatism in the region.

One thing that makes me happy about the emerging new world order is that no one country has all the power. Multiple powerhouses have shaped that are pursuing shared interests and those that don't fall in line are going to be left behind like Turkey that is currently too dumb to know they got stuck in a hellhole they dug for themselves in Syria simply because they refused to accept the new world order.

I dont believe that Russia will become a dominant superpower. By looking on history, every 10-20 years something bad happens to Russia, like wars, financial crisis and etc. 2022 - Ukraine, 2014 - devaluation of ruble, 2008/2009 great recession, 1998 - another devaluation of ruble, 1991 - USSR collapse, 80` - deficit of everything.

Now the world will face consequences of Ukraine-Russia war. Hope that it will end soon and things will start to improve and get back to normal. And expect something bad in +2030. With such continuous and endless improvement of bad times of past, it is hard for Russia to become a dominant superpower. Some people say that Russia faith is to suffer always. Just look at the list of wars involving Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia). Fighting all the time, never had time to rest.

Again, you are mixing concepts. The volatility of the rouble is based on the competitiveness of the currency in the global market, not on the GDP. On top of that and if you are speaking of debt in particular, you should look at the interest rates. You cannot keep the rate that the RF central bank has set without damaging growth.

https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fd6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net%2Fprod%2F79d118d0-9868-11ec-af10-c1616c3a0c83-standard.png?dpr=1&fit=scale-down&quality=highest&source=next&width=700

I am afraid that I am going to explain some very basic economic concepts here:

Just so that even  those with little understanding of what this means: US finances it's debt at 0.75% interest. Russia has to pay 17% (as of today) for people to hold roubles - along with breaching contracts and demanding payment in roubles. Now you got the full picture and why debt at .75% is not really an issue.

What happens when people can get a 17% just by lending the money? Very simple: they do not invest and they may choose not to buy beyond the strictly necessary. This situation cannot hold - it is temporary and the valuation of the rouble, in my view, will be permanently damaged with the new diplomatic stance of the RF.

Lack of investment has a side consequence on countries that are heavy exporters of commodities - production requires CAPEX. High interest rates make CAPEX projects and productive investment less attractive as just by holding you get 17%.

Just to put an example: If you have 1000 USD and you leave them during 5 years at 17% you would get 1873 USD ("risk free"). That is a "trash bond" and the RF has become exactly that: a trash debtor.

At this point on the discussion and to make it fair, I would ask you on what do you base your claim that a country with 1/15th of the GDP of the US and subject to sanctions is going to be the "next superpower".

OCDE data to 2060 paints a very different picture (unfortunately I cannot link a picture, so just select Russia, US, OCDE and China). The next superpower will not write Latin or Cyrillic characters.

https://data.oecd.org/gdp/real-gdp-long-term-forecast.htm  (https://data.oecd.org/gdp/real-gdp-long-term-forecast.htm)

Why don’t you say in your reasoning that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation has already lowered the rate twice, most recently by 3%, and now the key rate in Russia is 11% with a tendency to further decrease? Why don't you also say that Russia, unlike Western countries, has a very small debt burden and the issue of debt refinancing is not too acute?

Sure... 11%... just around 10 times more than US and several times EU, UK, etc... rates, makes no difference to the argument whatsoever.

We can now talk about the recent European oil embargo approved today. THAT will make a difference.

The NATO bloc has already announced 6 rounds of sanctions and the Russian economy seems to be more or less intact. When the first round of sanctions were announced, everyone was expecting Russian to collapse and the Ruble to nosedive to exchange rates similar to what Zimbabwean dollar had in 2009. But the economy is doing quite well, and the Ruble has actually gained against the US Dollar. And it looks as if they will do good, as long as the revenues from oil, gas, coal and potash fertilizer continue to flow in to their coffers.

Not only the key rate figure is important here, but the fact that Russia is now in the phase of reducing the key rate, trying to weaken the ruble from excessive strengthening, and the West is in the phase of raising the key rate, trying to cope with rising inflation. And this is a great tactical advantage for Russia, because lowering the rate is easy and pleasant, but raising the rate is painful - given the large debt load of Western countries and inflated bubbles in the stock markets.

EU oil embargo? Besides Hungary and pipeline oil? An attempt by the European Union to put a good face on a bad game, so as not to lose face. Russia will sell less oil for the West and get more money for it - that's what the oil embargo is in its current form. ;D

What Russia did with an invasion to Ukranina certainly had conducted a deep study, the USA was experiencing a crisis of economic inflation and a lot of losses from the war that had been carried out, China continued to grow and stronger the economy and the military so that if there was a world war then China would help Russia Many analysts believe that if the invasion of Ukraine is successful, the country around the country such as Slovenia, Georgia, Latvia and so on will be the next target.

You are right it will make a difference but for importers such as EU not exporters such as Russia.

It's pretty simple, it's a matter of supply and demand and the fact that neither of them have changed.
Just because EU doesn't [supposedly] import Russian oil it doesn't mean they don't need oil anymore. Instead it means EU is going to buy it from elsewhere. But since the production has not increased anywhere else (ie. OPEC) that means if EU is importing oil from lets say Saudis they have to replace one of Saudi customers like China (just an example) but that also doesn't mean China won't need oil; instead that means that now Russian oil is going to Saudi customers that were replaced by EU (China in this hypothetical example).
In simple terms this means if Russia was exporting for example 1 million barrels of oil, they are still exporting 1 million barrens of oil but to different customers.

So why is it screwing EU while helping Russia?
That is pretty simple too. EU is now buying oil at a much higher price (almost $120) compared to before ($40-$60) so EU is spending a lot more money while the increased prices also cause inflation in those countries.
On the other hand Russia is selling the same amount of oil for a much higher price which means their revenue is almost doubled after the "embargo". ;D

On top of that, China (the biggest economy in the world), is going to receive a small discount on the same oil which would put their economy further ahead. Their products will be cheaper than what is produced in EU so they would take over more of world's economy while replacing EU customers. This would shrink EU's GDP...

P.S. Any comment on Germany gas being cut off and how they were predicting a $240 billion hit and a "deep recession" in Germany as Reuters put it a couple of months ago?

Sure, that would be an excellent strategy if the US hadn't already cocked things up with all the quantitative easing, stimulus checks, and who knows what else that's resulting in serious inflation right now.  I look at the price of gas every day, and it only seems to be going up and up, much worse than over a decade ago when it was above $4/gallon.

Meanwhile, I'm not even sure what's happening in Russia and their conflict with Ukraine.  It's almost as if that news story has lived out its life cycle--which is bizarre to me, because I would have thought they'd have owned Ukraine within the first two days of an invasion.  These days I'm never quite sure what to believe when I see it on the news.

A new package of sanctions, and Russia is getting closer to the status of a "superpower" :) The forecast, even of the state Central Bank, is a drop in GDP to 12% (with a forecast of growth of 2% before the start of a terrorist attack on Ukraine), exports will fall to a historical minimum, "stable recession" with a forecast for 2022-2023 to become stronger than it was in 1998, when "great Russia" was begging for chicken legs, bread and sausage all over the world :)
Oh yes ! I almost forgot - sanctions and embargoes! Now we started with oil, then there will be land deliveries of oil (now this applies to tanker deliveries). Then gas. Just perfect conditions to become a superpower! As I understand it, is it an honor for Russia to be the first among the world's economic losers? :)

This was what I thought also when the war broke out. If Russia is the superpower that they think of, they should have conquered Ukraine in the first week of invasion, but they couldn't. And now, it is taking months and with the help of other countries, Ukraine seemed to stand their ground. So if Russia is the superpower here, they can easily take this small country with very limited resources. I am also not following anymore what are the details and updates on this war. I just want it to stop so people won't suffer anymore. But thinking of Russia as the next dominant superpower, I don't think so. This war event clearly shows they are not.

Russia a superpower? This is a superpower that is putting chips from dishwashers into their tanks because they're out of military grade stuff.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-says-russia-using-chips-from-dishwashers-in-tanks-sanctions-2022-5?IR=T

Russia used to be a superpower because it had nuclear weapons and that's what the world was afraid of. They were also flexing a lot and showing off their warships and jets, but we can see now what these are worth if a fleet flagship equipped with 3 types of anti missile weapons cannot even detect an incoming missile and gets sunk, soldiers abandon tanks because they have no fuel and they're found eating military rations that expired 5 years ago.

What people do not understand is that in order to be a superpower, people do not need to like you, but they need to be like you. For example, you may dislike the usa, but you would want to live there or at least be like them, we all know this, not the whole world of course there are people who hate them, I am pretty sure most Iraqis do not like them for example but at least majority of the world do. Russia is not like that, neither is China, these two could be looking powerful either economically or even militarily (which they are not even that) but everyone aside from themselves hates these two nations, hence they could never be superpowers because they lack conviction.

Depends on where you are living in. Here in India, people in general have a favorable opinion about Russia and the trade between the two nations are increasing at an astounding pace. Crude oil imports from India have gone up by 15x during the last three months. Although it is true that Russia is not being viewed as a superpower similar to the case with the US, a lot of people in India view that country as a powerful friend. Regarding China, the opinion is largely negative due to the ongoing border dispute (we had a border skirmish last year, in which dozens of soldiers died on both sides).

Its what they do. China vs India were tried too which they flamed it too much in the borders which there was a time they were actually shooting incident. But then India and Russia are favorable to Chinese projects in their region so they are more inclined to make friends, every country from east going to Africa I think will benefit when they make friends with China.

However Russia may not be a guarantor of global security. China has a diplomatic way of doing things which could led to serious path. These two are in tandem but many would truly see its China that is more advance.

War is not a computer game to have an easy outcome.
US invaded Afghanistan more than 20 years ago and spent $7 trillion and couldn't achieve anything at all there. They were fighting cavemen (literally) who had no airforce, no radar, no missiles, no tanks, so support from any other country, not even half decent weapons.
In comparison Ukraine has a military, has airforce, radars, tanks, missiles, and receives billions of dollars of support.

The goal was never to occupy entire Ukraine. The goal was to annex east and south of Ukraine that are strategically important to Russia and leave the rest. Half of Ukraine doesn't want Russia while the other half does. They can never rule over that first half, so they would remove Zelensky with someone who that other half can accept but is at the very least anti-NATO if not pro-Russia. The first part of the plan is already over.
Funny enough, this is similar to what US tried to do in Afghanistan and failed because unlike Ukraine, nobody wanted US in Afghanistan so they were kicked out in defeat.

Well explained. No matter how much the Western media want to twist the fact, the reality is that a majority of the people in Eastern Ukraine are not happy with the Zelensky regime. The only way a polarized nation such as Ukraine can exist is by electing someone who is acceptable to both the sides. And this is not something they have done ever since Yanukovych was ousted from power. With each passing year, the Western Ukrainian politicians were imposing more and more of their views and policies on the Easterners.

Even if the targets are attacked and they are destroyed, even if Russia starts to just kill everyone who is against them, I can guarantee you that eventually they will fail. How I know this? Because, no nation in the history of the world kept on attacking all the time and never lost and had to stop.

All nations that attacked somewhere else, eventually found resistance one day and they had to stop. Russia will be stopped, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe 10 years from now, but eventually they will be stopped. That is why I believe that we should be going the route of making the defence as dense as possible and make sure that they can't keep this going forever.

Question from a citizen of Ukraine, who has worked in the eastern regions for almost 10 years.
Well, for starters, let's discard the forcibly implanted narrative that in the east they don't want to be part of Ukraine, but they want to be in Russia, or against the Ukrainian language, or someone banned the Russian language. It's all 100% false! If you want, I'll tell you separately what reality looks like on these issues.
So. the eastern and southern regions do not want to go to Russia. They want to live peacefully and develop in Ukraine. And in order for you to understand the real situation, you need to remember one historical fact! From the 30s to the 70s of the last century, the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine were essentially subjected to genocide, and a significant part of the Ukrainian population was either destroyed or evicted to the far east of the Republic of the RSFSR (now it is Russia), and they were settled in their place ... Guess who? That's right - immigrants from the territory of Russia! That is why there are a noticeable number of pro-Russian (specifically pro-Russian) separatists in these areas. But they are by no means the majority! It was a small digression into history.

Regarding NATO - I will say this, NATO, as an international organization, showed itself in a critical situation ... NO WAY! More precisely, not at all as a defense alliance, against any aggressor or global terrorist! And I'm not sure that now Ukraine will strive to join this union, because. NATO, with its formality, will tie us hand and foot, and we will not be able, in the future, to immediately respond to risks from Russia (if it remains after losing the war to Ukraine). And this means that the factor dividing Ukrainians, in your opinion, is likely to disappear. Also, after the victory over the Russian terrorists, most of the separatists will disappear from the territory of Ukraine. This means that there will be no separating factors in Ukraine, or their influence will be minimal.

Well, about the goals of Russia. Well, let's assume you're right. They need the eastern and southern regions. The question is - why are they now just totally destroying EVERYTHING? If they needed industrial infrastructure, Russian terrorists destroyed it themselves. If they needed a loyal population, they destroyed it, and crippled the lives of those who remained alive. It turns out they need bare land with ruins and mass graves? Well, it's stupid really. And I'll tell you, the answer to the question of what Russia needs, in Putin's feverish delirium, is his "my path", which he recently announced - the restoration of the USSR-2, the restoration of "greatness", right up to the borders of the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact is an adversary of NATO, the majority of whose participants are now praying that only the "Russian world" will not return to them. It included the USSR, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Albania (I don't seem to have forgotten anyone). This nonsense of Putin is their goal! More precisely, Putin! And he realizes all this with the lives of Russians worthless for him. And any totalitarian-terrorist-kleptomaniac regime always "devours itself".

My country PM was on the trip to Russia - when the Russian attacked Ukraine.
And the whole country is in trouble - because of USA pressure and we are suffering so much loose in economy. What did Russia do to the world - they are not friends with anyone, they think of themselves only

The Pakistan PM (at that time Imran Khan) was in Russia at the time when the latter invaded Ukraine. The Americans were angry because Imran put up a few tweets supporting the invasion. He later claimed that the CIA organized the rebellion within his party which saw him losing the post of Prime Minister. According to Imran, the reason was that he continued with crude oil and wheat purchases from Russia. But then, the new government also continued with the same policy. A few days back, it was decided to import 2 million tonnes of wheat from Russia.

NATO is a European organization that includes US, not an international one.

Since you've been using this term regularly I wonder what your views are on the US led coalition that illegally invaded Iraq and killed more than a million innocent people. Your country, Ukraine was part of this coalition and supplied the third largest number of troops for this massacre.

You don't confuse anything? Well, at least in the chronology of what is happening? Dissatisfaction with Kyiv, among some, pro-Russian (I focus on this group of attention) part of the population of the eastern regions of Ukraine, arose after we drove away the thief and the Kremlin prostitute - Yanukovych. Who tried to arrange a totalitarian regime here, and violate the constitution! And some of the pro-Russian forces, at first, raised a tantrum due to the fact that they "expelled our president." After that, even before the active phase of separatism, Russia annexed Crimea. And Zelensky was elected in Ukraine only in 2019, when the war had already been going on for 5 years... Since 2014, Ukraine has been confronting both local separatists and Russian terrorists.
Tell me - isn't India fighting its separatists? Have you created a Sikh state in your territory? Or let Kashmir go to Pakistan? Well, why should we make concessions to the separatists?

Like him or not, he wasn't the person who attacked another nation, that is the situation. Just because half of the nation doesn't like Zelensky doesn't mean that Putin is welcomed to attack and kill and destroy half of the nation and get those lands, there is no logic there at all. We have a president that half of us hate as well, does that mean our neighbor nations should attack us and "save us from him" type of situation? Of course not, that would be the most stupidest thing ever.

I am sure that killing innocent people NEVER has a good reason and that means whatever we see on this war, all done by Putin and because of him and he is the real criminal that should be dethroned.

So many things are happening which we don't even have idea on. The Russian soldiers that was send to Ukraine to fight war was never equiped to enough ammunition, food and fuel. Maybe Putin thought to invade Ukraine would not take more than a week but now, it looks impossible to overtake Ukraine without speeding more and losing the live of the Russian soldiers.

The Russian economy may looks like it is still strong and unshakable buy the truth had to be told here. The sanctions on the Russian economy had weaken Putin to reduce it wings of exercising more muscles.

1. Tell me - did you get an education?  No, no offense? Now I will show why such a question.
NATO is a military-political bloc that unites most of the countries of Europe, the United States of America and Canada. It was founded on April 4, 1949 in the USA with the aim of opposing the USSR / Warsaw Pact.

International - means relating to communications, relations between peoples, countries. NATO is an alliance that forms interaction between many countries and peoples - Europe, the USA, Canada. If it were a union within the EU, and the EU for your understanding is 27 different countries, it would still be international :)

2. The story of Iraq is the price of a mistake. A very costly mistake. The stuffing of misinformation was done deliberately or not, or it was the personal interests of someone from the tops in the White House, I find it difficult to say. But I think the main reason - in terms of the quality of information, is unacceptable. It also seems to me that the way of isolating the government of Iraq (S. Hussein and his henchmen), sanctions and embargoes would be more acceptable. By the way, after this, I will say this word again, international dubious operation, the practice of monopoly supply of intelligence information from the CIA ceased in the United States. Now this structure includes, if I am not mistaken, about 10 unrelated and independent intelligence structures from which information is collected for the US administration. In a word, I have a negative attitude towards such a decision, as well as any one built on a lie.
About the participation of Ukraine. Yes, Ukrainian servicemen participated, but
- after the end of the US military operation in Iraq
- in a peacekeeping mission. Those. did not take part in the fighting. This is all in open sources, I recommend that you read it. The tasks were set solely to maintain order, patrol, etc. actions. These tasks were carried out by the 5th separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 19th separate Ukrainian battalion of radiation, chemical and bacteriological protection.

I just don’t understand what the United States and the international coalition have to do with it, if we are talking about TERRORISM in Ukraine, which was staged by Russia? The parallels are very weak, or you do not quite know what is happening in Ukraine now "thanks" to Russia ...

In my opinion, Russia has no chance of becoming a new superpower. 

The main problem is a very bad demographic situation. 

Russia is a state with a constantly decreasing titular nation.  Russians in Russia will gradually be replaced by residents of Central Asia, but even immigration is not able to solve the demographic issue. 

Russia is not the USSR.  The USSR is Russia plus 14 more union republics (including Ukraine) plus the countries of the Union for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), including the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and others. 

Modern Russia is a regional country with very bad governance and big problems.

The point is that the double standards you clearly pointed out in your comment are the reason why Ukraine is currently in this situation. Iraq and Ukraine as two sides of the same coin. Bloodthirsty aggressors are different* but the result is the same, innocent civilians are harmed in both cases.
The same world with the same double standards and same mechanisms and same useless organizations has led to this. Like useless United Nations that has had US vetoing every resolution against their actions and actions of the apartheid regimes they support is now being abused by Russia to veto the resolutions against their actions!

* Ukraine was part of it whether the propaganda you believe tells you or not. I don't have to read some propaganda piece you call "open sources" to know the crimes that were committed there, I have first hand information from people who lived through those days.

You are wrong my friend, it was not a mistake it was a decade long plan.
For starters the project to invade Iraq didn't start in 2003, it started in 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait and the same double standards I talked about showed themselves as he was condemned by the same countries (that included your NATO) that were helping him in his invasion of Iran. And when I say help I'm talking about billions of dollars worth of weapons including chemical bombs made in US and Germany. He was an ally from 1980 to 1988 but as soon as he was defeated the tables turned and he suddenly became a dictator overnight and condemned when he invaded another country 2 years later.
Besides US attacked Iraq more than a hundred times prior to 2003 always targeting Iraq's defending capabilities alongside the project called "Iraq disarmament" orchestrated by UN between 1990 to 2003. You don't need access to some classified information to know what the plan was!!!

Russia occupies an unusual position on the world stage. Under President Vladimir Putin, Moscow has repeatedly demonstrated that it has the capacity to destabilize the international order, most recently with its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Currently, only the United States fulfills the criteria to be considered a superpower.

However, the United States is no longer the only uncontested foremost superpower and the world’s sole hyperpower to dominate in every domain (i.e. military, culture, economy, technology, diplomatic). Russia, the world’s largest nation, is home to over 30% of the world’s natural resources according to some sources. So, given the statistics, they can definitely emerge. The current holders of the position need to exhibit strong solidarity, otherwise, Russia can always emerge.

The story that was posted for being the reason why the Russian government did all those things they did to Ukraine might entirely be different from the main reason why whatever transpired did. But, whatever reason it was doesn’t justify the action the Russians took against a fellow nation  they’ve shared things in common.

Given the actions they took, it’s only right that the consequences be that they fail to dominate because they might do something that would shock the world.

I think while we are seeing the outer limits of what Vladimir Putin and his army are capable of, we still need to consider whether or not further provocations are even helpful or just add more death and chaos. Unless everything until now that we saw was just Russia throwing their unneeded arsenal, leftovers from the old age.

Either way, we need more diplomacy instead of more war. Americans prefer fighting to the last Ukrainian in order to weaken Russia.

If we look on the current world from finances point of view, Russia is now spending a lot on something that wont give any financial profit in future, while countries like China are getting more rich. More possibly China would become a next superpower than Russia. They have more money now, population is greater, they are better at trading and producing stuff, in case they dont have anything, they can buy it, take apart and make a copy.

This point here rules out the fact that Russia can become the next dominant superpower in the world.
As we see that the USA is one country that tries as much to avoid wars and conflicts which they are well aware can lead to economic depreciation. While Russia on the other hand seems not to care what goes on and what doesn't in their economic status.

This statement here can be backed by this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401915.msg60320712#msg60320712) as we see here that the opposing movement of the Russian rubble has caused alarm to the American Economists hence the post.

After this war, which Russia unleashed in Ukraine, if the Russian Federation does not fall apart as a state, then it will definitely have to forget about the status of a superpower for a long time. Russia is now clearly playing the role of an aggressor that attacked a neighboring peaceful country, inventing and repeatedly changing the reasons for attacking it on the go. Therefore, almost the entire civilized world now supports Ukraine and provides it with military, financial and humanitarian assistance. The genocide of the Ukrainian people that the Russians perpetrated in Ukraine will cost them dearly. If, as planned, the frozen Russian assets are transferred to Ukraine as compensation for the damage caused to it, and international sanctions continue to apply, Russia will be set back in its development for many decades and will be a pariah country, like North Korea is now.

Russia has a power that can be a super power replacing the USA, a thing that can prevent Russia from becoming a super power because the USA has allies scattered almost all over the world so it will be difficult to defeat the USA, a realistic thing to do is to be a counterweight for the world so that the world becomes safer.

Conspiracy theories, ten-year plans, the fifth column... All this is very familiar to those who lived in a rotten scoop :) Instead of actually doing something and changing for the better, they only had the mind and strength to throw mud at those who are better and invent fantastic stories to justify their problems...
Go on, it's nice to read you as a comedian ... As I understand it - a glorious continuation, the Zadornov school? He also weaved the same from the stage :)

I am not sure what are other people belief but to me Russia will emerge as next Dominant Superpower.
See how they have taken the stand against the whole world to have their wish fulfilled. They are absolutely not afraid of anything. They did what they wanted.
We will see many things unpredictable in coming days.

Replacing USA is not just about money or resources. USA could have literally zero resources left, and they could print more money and buy those resources and still be the superpower. USA doesn't really provide that much to the world if you think about it, what are they really giving back to the world?

As an "item" most of them are tech stuff, what is it apple? tesla? amazon? These all can move in a single day, the wheat or oil or gas Russia has can't. Even with that, USA is still number one because everyone would love to get paid in dollars instead of ruble. That is the power of USA and that cannot be replaced, you need to convince every person in the world for that.

But I assume - Russia has already taken a stand and stood an eye to eye to USA.
A part for Russia - Afghanistan also did not give up against USA. And they gave them tough time for almost 20 years. If USA believe they are super power then there is a dire to think what Russia and Afghanistan has done with USA.

I'm sure this is not a good idea, the economic and military strength of the USA and Europe is still stronger than Russia, the best thing done by Russia is certainly looking for security and support from many countries before embargo to the USA, because without the support of other countries it is certainly very difficult for Russia to be the next superpower.

Russia has oil and fuel and USA will never dare to attack Russia. Russia is not weak like Afghanistan. Even Afghanistan survived the war for 20 years and kicked USA out after 20 years. They were so determined that they did not give up and finally USA had to leave in hurry. USA should learn from their mistake but they are making the same mistake -they just want to rule the world.

Like you, I always ask ONE simple question - and on the basis of what arguments did you decide that the United States has a desire to attack Russia? Why do they need it? What are the goals of such an action, in your opinion?
I beg you - just do not say "seize our resources" - this is really very funny! :)
And so, please answer this extremely simple question - what is the main goal of the US attack on Russia?

I believe Russia as a country has to face many obstacles before turning into a superpower, economically.
Granted, the Klemlin may suffer economically because the sanctions imposed upon them, however, in the long term Russia could adapt itselft and her economy to be more independient of USA and Europe, a small example of this is the way they have already replaced the old Macdonalds local with a new franchise, that may be welcomed by the Russian people.

Personally, a key part of the future of Russia is her allies and potential clients for the energy: China, North Korea, India...

For now, I'd say that Russia is not in the way to turn into a superpower, they must be trying to find ways to become less affected by the western politics against them.

US is already attacking Russia but through a proxy called Ukraine. The reason is also pretty simple, competition. To put simply Russia was growing stronger while US was growing weaker so they needed to create an Afghanistan 2.0 for Russia so that they get caught for a long time like US did for 20 years and spent $7 trillion. Ukraine was a very good Afghanistan 2.0.

It's also to destabilize the region, increase the energy cost (US is also selling its very expensive-to-extract oil at a higher price), mess up Europe economy and force them to increase their military budget (something Trump couldn't do despite all his pressure), possibly move even further east (Finland and Sweden joining NATO), distract Russia from Syria so that US can revive ISIS again (which failed miserably), ...

If you say that the US is responsible for all that mess, that they use Ukraine as a proxy to weaken military and financial position of Russia, then why the US is also suffering from inflation, high prices on everything, and as I remember, they declined sending lots of weapons to support Ukraine, as well as allocate millions or billions of their budget on that war. Sort of a US attacking Russia and in the same make bad for themselves? That does not look logical to me.

Russia stopped being main US competition some time ago. And its not like Russia doesn't have a long history of invading neighbouring countries, from Poland and Finland to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. I like how people somehow think that Russia is not like all those other imperialist countries, while being the biggest country in the world. They obviously got all that area peacefully and not by conquering numerous small nations.

I don't say that United States are completely innocent in all his because they aren't, but in the end Putin was the one who decided to send the tanks to Ukraine because they don't know anything about soft power and instead extending their influence to other countries by culture and economy, all they can do is to send tanks, which is a shame.

---

To answer OP; no, Russia won't become the next dominant superpower and instead it will probably end like USSR if they continue like this.

I don't think I've ever thought or said that :P
In fact whenever you guys think of Nazis when WWII is mentioned we do too but we mainly remember Soviets and Brits who invaded our neutral country and murdered 4 million people (more than entire German casualties during WWII!).
None of it means I don't see the real reasons for this conflict though.

Basically US provided Russia with only 2 options:
1. To accept an ever increasing security threat at their western borders and in black sea while US kept building terrorist bases in Ukraine and manufactured WMDs there including biological ones
2. Invade Ukraine to neutralize the threat once and for all but be caught up there with their pants down like US did in Afghanistan for 20 years.
They chose option number 2 because they couldn't create an option number 3 for themselves.

Russia will not become a superpower until it begins to process its resources within its own country. While all resources go abroad in their raw form, the benefit goes only to officials in their pockets, so you first need to deal with this moment, and then think about world domination.

You didn't, but you still claim that it's all US fault and that Russia didn't have any other choice while I just wanted to show that its their standard practice. Eastern Europe and Baltic countries rushed into NATO for a good reason after fall of SSSR, knowing how it is to live under Russian boot, but were naive enough to give their nuclear weapons and now they are paying the price.



Haha good one. Russian claims that Ukraine has US funded WMD labs is as believable as US claims that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that there was no other way other than invading Iraq.And we all know how that ended up.

Obviously both sides are spreading a lot of propaganda so you would be right to say it is hard to decide who to believe but lets check the facts.
1. During first days of invasion we clearly saw footage of unknown personnel in front of a facility that Russia later seized and claimed was US bioweapons lab.
2. Different US diplomats including of State Department have expressed concerns that their intelligence from such labs and their weapons are now in the hands of Russians!!! What are they so concerned about if they didn't have anything there :D
3. US has many more of such labs in other countries that can operate well under the radar. Mostly in Africa but in others like the one in South Korea that their government has complained about the bioweapons lab posing a risk to their people many times. Or the one in our north western country Azerbaijan which is clearly a US terrorist base working on biological WMDs.
4. US also has a filthy record when it comes to such weapons, they have admitted to having them and even using them on many occasions including on their own soil https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-admits-bio-weapons-tests/

So this all leads me to have more confidence in such US terrorist bases existing in Ukraine.

Honestly this war would be long ago over if usa don't poke nose in other countries business. Itz ukarine fault that why they poked Russia on orders of usa and EU. USA after 2nd World War didn't started any war on its soil rather it have its war on other countries soils. Usa itself is completely safe for its inhabitants while rest of the world is facing destruction as part of usa peace process in the world.

Stop stop stop! Putinzhe officially declared - this is a special operation against Ukraine blablabla. You do not trust Putin? Are you saying that he is a cheap star? Why is he lying so stupidly and primitively to everyone? Do you want to say that he is afraid of the USA, since he hides information that he is at war with the USA? ;D

And once again the question is - what resources, and from whom, in your opinion, do these insidious states want to take away?

Putin is uncontrollable - Russia is powerful and they will keep invading Ukraine till they get what they want.
But the war in this time is horrible although Ukraine didn't turn out to be a weak country but they were asking for ceasefire - Russia should have a soft corner for the other people as well.

There will never truly be peace in that region after the invasion. The U.S., U.K., Germany, and the rest of NATO will keep sending weapons to Ukraine and the other territories around that region. Why? Because they know they have lost, but what they can do is destabilize the region and make it harder for Russia to truly conquer, and get control.

Bumping this to check if views have changed over the last two months.

When I made this thread I thought I was saying: water is wet.

One possible outcome for russia may have been obvious given general economic and political conditions across the world.

Some digressed. Perhaps now we have a clearer picture.

Everything is described very nicely. You only missed 1 small but critically important nuance. A technologically backward, totalitarian, country built on lies, theft and aggression - cannot, in a normal world, be a leader!
Can, in your opinion, a person - socially degraded, eternally drunk, stealing everything he sees, offending the weak, squealing and urinating in his pants, when he deserves to be punched in the face by a strong one, become the leader of the state? EVEN let it be separate ... well, let it be a university? Sociums where educated, cultured, law and order-respecting citizens live? NO ! If he can become a "leader" - then only among the same downgraded and degraded personalities. Total: Russia can become a leader among North Korea, and such sewers as the DNR/LNR/Abkhazia/PMR. Although no .. North Korea is not such an idiot country :)

The cynicism of your reasoning here just rolls over. Are you saying that the war in Ukraine would have ended long ago if the United States had not provided military and other assistance to Ukraine? Yes, Ukraine in this case, perhaps, would have been captured by Russia and destroyed as a state, and Ukrainians as a nation. At the same time, the leadership of Ukraine would have been shot or tortured along with a significant part of the civilian population, as the Russians did in the suburbs of Kyiv, when they believed that the war would soon end in victory for them. After the liberation of this territory, more than one and a half thousand civilian corpses, including women and children, were found in the Kyiv region alone, with signs of torture and violent death. Are you talking about such a desired result on this forum?
I just did not understand what is the fault of Ukraine here. The fact that she began to defend herself against aggression and defend her freedom and independence? And the Ukrainian army is now defending itself very effectively. The wolf ridge of Russia has already been broken practically in Ukraine.

We don't really have the truth with us since all of them have propaganda to spread. But you just have to analyze the truth for yourself like the shelling of nuclear power plant. Why Russia would try to destroy the nuclear power plant is likely untrue as they have controlled the region itself, and there is no need for them to bomb the surrounding of the nuclear powerplant.

Like many dead civilians, I guess Russians are shooting where they are. But the propaganda as well is that Ukrainians are storing weapons in kindergartens buildings or Civilian buildings. Things like these happen in every war zone.

These two statements are contradictory.

If you're wasting your resources in a war, then you are running out of money and have to borrow more from other countries, which means you lose your superpower status <Russia>.

And wasting resources in wars is exactly what America did for the last two decades. The only reason why they are still a superpower is because the dollar is the world reserve currency. Take that away and what do you have? Everything crumbles away to a third country, perhaps China.

I can answer your question about the situation around the Zaporozhye NPP.

Putin and his entourage have already understood that the war in Ukraine is lost for them and are trying to blackmail the inhabitants of the planet with the nuclear threat they themselves created. They need this in order to quickly end the unsuccessfully launched war on more or less acceptable terms for themselves. Having seized the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine, they interfere in the technological processes, placed artillery and multiple launch rocket systems on its territory and fire them at other settlements in Ukraine, hoping that they will not be fired at in response. Recently, they have mined the nuclear power plant and spread the word that if they have to withdraw, they will blow it up. In this case, the scale of the accident will exceed the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by about ten times. In addition, they themselves began to fire at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and say that the Ukrainians are doing it. Why do they need it?

Now, on the right bank of the Dnieper in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, the most combat-ready units of the two Russian armies, totaling approximately 20,000 people, are practically surrounded. Four bridges, through which the Russians could supply these troops with equipment and ammunition, are now damaged by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and it is no longer possible to transport anything over them. In addition, these bridges are under the full fire control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are capable of striking them at any time. Russia can no longer do anything about this, since Russia already has problems with "live meat", and every day the Armed Forces of Ukraine methodically deliver precision strikes against ammunition depots, command posts and concentrations of Russian troops. Under such conditions, Putin's entourage is looking for ways to end the war, or at least withdraw troops from the region without looking like a defeat. So they create tension around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in order to explain the need to demilitarize this territory and explain the reason for the withdrawal of their troops from it. Although it will be very difficult to withdraw. Russian troops pressed against the Dnieper will have to abandon their unfinished military equipment and cross the wide Dnieper by swimming or using improvised means. In the near future we will see how further events will unfold.

The people who are in full support of Russia and Putin will always come out and say "Ukraine war wouldn't happen if USA and EU didn't cause it" because in their mind it means "Ukraine would have been in under Russian control" and nothing more. They are basically saying that Ukraine should have been left powerless to start a war or defend one.

We all know that the first action was taken by Russia, Ukraine did nothing but just responded them and that’s it, there is nothing that Ukraine started, if Russia leaves all Ukrainian lands tomorrow, Ukraine won't attack them. Hence, it shows that Russia only wants west to get out in order to take whole of Ukraine and nothing more.

Absolutely right. In Russia, the goals and reasons for the attack on Ukraine are periodically changed, and this testifies to the constant and continuous lies that now permeate the entire domestic and foreign policy of this state. Russia needs Ukraine, its territory, its hardworking and intelligent people, it needs its history to appropriate it for itself, but it does not need an independent state itself and does not need a freedom-loving nation next to this authoritarian country.
Ukraine posed no threat to Russia, whether it was in NATO or not. But Ukraine in NATO would be inaccessible to Russian attack, and therefore they rushed to try to capture it. Thus, Russia made a fatal mistake for itself.

This is not true, the goals of the special operation have remained unchanged since February 2022 - the protection and liberation of Donbas, the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. The geography of the operation has slightly changed, since the authorities in Kyiv turned out to be incapable of negotiating and refuse to negotiate, the original terms of the peace agreement are now irrelevant. This is Putin's usual way of negotiating - his first offer is the best, and then the conditions get worse. Now Ukraine will at least lose the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as well as Kharkov, Nikolaev and Odessa.

I think soon IAEA inspectors and UN commissioners will arrive at the nuclear power plant and determine who is shelling it. So far, Russia has strengthened the air defense system and managed to intercept all of today's shells that continue to fly to the nuclear power plant from the territory of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv.

@be.open. You say that the goal of Russia's "special operation" in Ukraine in February was the protection and liberation of Donbass, the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. I wonder how, in your understanding, a special operation in this case differs from a war, if you use this term?

Protecting the population of Donbass must first of all include physical protection. What we observed in the Donbass can hardly be called protection. Not being able to break through the defenses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian invaders chose the traditional tactics of a barrage of fire. This is when a certain territory is shelled with artillery and other various types of weapons, after which the Russians go almost to scorched earth. The percentage of civilians in Donbass with such tactics of "liberation" remains very small. In this case, the Russians do not conquer cities and other settlements, but practically only ruins, mostly destroying its civilians. I understand that this is what you call the protection and liberation of the inhabitants of Donbass.

If the term "demilitarization" can mean the destruction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then what does "denazification" mean in your understanding? Even in Russia itself, this is still not understood. Should this be understood as the destruction of Ukraine as a nation?
But if we look at how the events unfolded, then from February 24, the Russians wanted to quickly seize the entire territory of Ukraine from three sides at once. Having lost a huge number of troops and equipment, they were forced to leave the northern and central parts of Ukraine in order to avoid complete defeat. And then the plans of the invaders changed: realizing that they could not capture the whole of Ukraine, they focused only on the capture of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and southern Ukraine. And how, the "special operation" has been going according to plan for the sixth month already? The next gesture of "goodwill" will most likely be the retreat from the right bank of the Ukraine from the Dnieper of that approximately 20,000-strong grouping, which actually fell into an encirclement. It is still possible for the Russians to escape on foot across the dilapidated bridges. Next, you just have to swim.

Sometimes people confuse analyzing an ongoing situation with a different view compared to what the propaganda media is telling you with supporting Russia. The truth is that any aggression against another sovereign nation is the same but that doesn't change the fact about the reasons for this invasion.

I'm certain that 90% of those who are condemning this war and this war alone can not show me another post of theirs that have condemned other wars that US, EU and specifically Ukraine have been involved in as the aggressor. Like invasion and destruction of Iraq where Ukraine supplied the third most number of troops and some of you still claim it was a "peace keeping mission"!!!

Kremlin is tumbling under pressure. Russian economy is in its weakest phase after cold war and people seem not in a good mood to let Putin continue. I see we might see a big change in Russia in future, who knows Russia might take democratic way in future. Let's hope for best and lest hope war ends

From the point of view of Ukraine, this is a war. From Russia's point of view, this is a special military operation. The key difference is that Russia is conducting this operation with a peacetime army, without mass mobilization. Simply put, Ukraine has deployed 100% of its military potential and attracted significant Western military assistance in this conflict, while Russia has deployed a maximum of 15% of its military potential.

Russia is using barrage-of-fire tactics to break into the fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that Ukraine has built in Donbas during its eight years of aggression against the Russian-speaking population. There have been no civilians in Avdiivka for a long time, so only soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffer from massive shelling. Where there are civilians, Russia uses precision-guided strikes.

In Russia, we are well aware of what denazification is, and no, this does not mean the destruction of Ukraine as a nation. It's just that next year in January in Kyiv there will be no traditional torchlight procession in honor of Bandera - that's what denazification is. And before the end of the summer, a tribunal will begin in the Donbas against the militants of Azov with swastikas on tattoos - this is also denazification. Denazification is not directed against the Ukrainian nation, but against the ultra-right Ukrainian nationalists, who turned out to be so widespread in Ukraine that the national battalions are part of the cadre of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Yep. Russia has a flexible strategy, in general, the special operation is going according to plan. Putin is a great strategist, he made even the weather and time work for him. Ukraine did not have and does not have a single chance in this confrontation, and the prolongation of the conflict only worsens the position of Ukraine. The enemy of Ukraine now is not Putin, but Zelensky - because of his stupid persistence in the delusion that Ukraine can defeat Russia. This drug addict clown came to power on promises to end the war in Donbas, and he dragged the whole country into the war and brought it to default. Although it was possible simply not to sabotage the Minsk agreements.

Just because Russia has started war against Ukraine, Russian can become a dominant superpower? If we imagine, that Russian wins in this war and add Ukraine territory to its, it will turn Russia into dominant superpower? Ukraine is not the bigger country on the globe. Victory or defeat in this war wont change world powers balance. To become a superpower, one country must control the major part of the globe. But the bigger country is, the harder it is to control and counter every flash of aggression on your land. Imho, Russia dont have enough resources to react on every attack on their current territory. Russia is only able to become as a country that is involved into endless war.

Russia is now very exhausted from the war in Ukraine and from the economic sanctions imposed against it. According to various estimates, Russia has already lost from 70,000 to 120,000 killed and wounded, 1,876 tanks, 4,141 armored vehicles, 233 aircraft, 195 helicopters, 985 artillery systems, 261 MLRS, 136 air defense systems, 3,044 automotive support equipment, 787 UAVs, 15 ships and boats and other military equipment. Now Putin is already looking for weapons in other countries: he is exporting and using the arsenal of Belarus, asking for weapons from China, it seems that he has already agreed on the supply of Iranian drones. All this will need to be restored over time. More and more material resources are being spent on the war. This should also include the very high promised salary to those who agree to fight in Ukraine under a contract. And these are not only additional contract soldiers from all over Russia, but also about 13,000 Belarusian contract soldiers, mercenaries from Syria and other regions. And also very large payments to the wounded and relatives of the killed servicemen.

 But very much now Russia is beginning to suffer from the imposed sanctions, the effect of which will only intensify over time. The sanctions will set Russia back in economic development by several decades. Which one is a superpower? It will still be good for her if the Russian Federation remains within its former borders, since in the oppressed regions they have already felt the weakness of the central government and soon there will be a mass separation of many republics. Russia, after all, in words for the free expression of the will of individual nationalities and regions? Chechnya has already tried twice to secede from Russia and intends to continue to defend its independence. There are dozens of such applicants. And the tanks in Russia are already running out ...

^^^ LOL.. 120,000 killed and wounded. OK.. even if we take this wild claim, assuming that there is a 1:4 ratio for dead:wounded, we will arrive at around 24,000 deaths. Number of Russian deaths reported by BBC News Russian and Mediazona amount to 5,507. DPR/LPR deaths amount to ~4,000. Another 1,000 or so deaths can be attributed to PMC Wagner and other non-formal organizations. After taking in to account all the undercount, the most liberal estimate may be around 15,000 and out of which 1/3rd maybe Ukrainian citizens from DPR/LPR.

Russian official statistics and its propaganda are false through and through, as well as its current domestic and foreign policy. First of all, this concerns the course of the war and losses in manpower and equipment. Even the word "war" is banned there. On February 24, eight Russian armies with all armored vehicles invaded Ukraine from three sides at once and have been conducting a “special operation” for the sixth month already. It turns out that Russia is not at all waging war in Ukraine. Therefore, losses in the "special operation" should be small. What kind of special operation is this if there are tens of thousands of dead and wounded? Therefore, they do not want to take the dead from the battlefield, the corpses are brought to Russia secretly and in small batches, they are also given to relatives in small batches, they are not allowed to bury the military compactly in one place so as not to attract attention. But you can't hide an awl in a bag anyway. The truth in Russia about the losses will be announced later and not by the Putin regime. Internal staff reports of Russian losses are recorded in a timely manner, but they are classified to the public.

Your problem is thinking only things coming out of Russia are propaganda and anything the other side says is god's honest truth. There is a war going on and both sides are filling the media with a lot of propaganda ever second of every day.

@be.open. Do you think that the key difference between a war and a special operation is that Russia conducts this operation with a peacetime army, without mass mobilization. We open Wikipedia and read: "War is a conflict between political entities (states, tribes, political groups, and so on), occurring on the basis of various claims, in the form of armed confrontation, military (combat) actions between their armed forces."
As you can see, humanity considers any hostilities between the armed forces of different countries to be a war. In Russia, there may be a dissenting opinion about the name of the military seizure of the territory of another state, but this does not change anything for other states.

Are you saying that in Russia they perfectly understand what denazification is?
The Russian anonymous Telegram channel "General SVR" reported that on Monday, August 15, very unpleasant data was put on the table for the dictator of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. We are talking about the results of a sociological survey of Russians about the situation in the country. Thus, among Russians, only 16% "are sure they understand" ... the goals and objectives of the "special operation" (SVO). 41% support the implementation of SVO, 48% do not support it, the remaining 11% do not have a clear opinion. 37% positively assess the president's actions regarding the "special operation",

Media propaganda is important part of Fifth-generation warfare (5GW), in media propaganda you have to portray your mistake as success and enemy success as your victory. Big media House like BBC, cnn, fox news are in hands of usa and west so that broadcast the real news of this conflict rather what suits usa and west.
I still wonder what Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his country get from this conflict? They are the one who provoked Russia for this war.

I quoted BBC News Russian and Mediazona, two sources with a clear anti-Russian bias. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have released casualty numbers from the war so far. However recently the Ukrainian officials (Oleksiy Arestovich, Mykhailo Podolyak.etc) have claimed that they are suffering around 100-200 deaths per day. The war is in to its 6th month, and therefore we can assume the Ukrainian deaths at a minimum of 20,000 to 40,000 (Russia is claiming much more). Now compared to this, the casualty numbers on the Russian side looks much lower.

Linking to Wikipedia is a weak argument. Strictly speaking, war is not considered declared until the corresponding note is delivered through the diplomatic line. And the war ends with the signing of a peace treaty. And in this aspect, Russia is not at war with Ukraine, just as Ukraine is not at war with Russia (and Russia is at war with Japan). Naftogaz recently successfully accepted another payment from Gazprom for gas transit - what kind of war is this if the parties to the conflict conduct commercial activities among themselves?

Russia is conducting a special operation in Ukraine. Type of anti-terrorist, only in an expanded composition, with the support of the army and navy. Ukrainian nationalists actively use terrorist methods in their practice, and Nazism is deeply rooted in Ukrainian society. Therefore, a sufficiently large-scale purge was needed to protect ourselves and save Europe from the resurgent neo-Nazi contagion.

The problem with anonymous telegram channels is that they all lie. ;D

I was reading on DW News that there is additional burden of Billion of EUROS on people living in Germany due to current conflict of ukarine and Russia.
German govt has announced new rates of energy surcharge due to expected shortage of energy in coming days. 2.5 cents per kilowatt hours will be new energy surcharge.
Its now very clear that EU is heavily dependent on Russian gas and Russia testing EU by threatening them to cut down gas supply.  While EU saying they will impose more sanctions on Russia if gas supply was affected.
Clearly EU is in more trouble then Russia.

News source DW News (https://www.dw.com/ur/%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%DB%8C-%DB%8C%D9%88%DA%A9%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%AC%D9%86%DA%AF-%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%85%D9%86-%DA%AF%DA%BE%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%88%DA%BA-%D9%BE%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%88%DA%BA-%DB%8C%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88-%DA%A9%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%A7%D9%81%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%AC%DA%BE/a-62811147)

I just want to post one more statistic, which exposes the double speak from the Western nations:

https://www.tbsnews.net/sites/default/files/styles/infograph/public/images/2022/08/16/which-countries-are-still-buying-russian-fossil-fuel_0.jpg?itok=TGDP37mm

These are the numbers from 24th Feb to 9th August (i.e after the war started). As you can see, the EU nations have contributed to more than half of Russia's revenues, in terms of oil, gas and coal imports. Even the war mongers and Russophobes such as Poland are there in the list. And at the same time, these shameless people are continuously blaming India for importing a small amount of crude oil from Russia. Can there be any limit to this hypocrisy? And I don't expect much from the Ukrainian users who are active in this thread. They don't have an issue in EU spending $60 billion on Russian fuel. They have issues only with India spending 1/10th of that amount on Russian crude.

It seems that you fundamentally choose analysts who give the lowest death rates for terrorists who attacked Ukraine, this is bad - you still can’t get away from reality :)
For example, British intelligence says that now, after the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received a lot of new weapons over the past 2 months, the death rate of rashists is up to 500 carcasses daily ... Plus, you can’t imagine how many corpses of terrorists are lying around the fields and forests where they are "for 2 weeks took all of Ukraine" :)
Plus, after a successful Jevelin or NLAV in an armored personnel carrier / BRDM / TANK, there is essentially nothing left of the crew. I personally saw an armored personnel carrier and a tank after such a hit - there are fragments of charred flesh and nothing more. Well, the most important thing is propaganda and cowardice of the Russian government! It's cowardly to hide your losses - it's just a national trait of the Russians! And it goes without saying to attribute the fabulous successes of your "second army of the world", the truth of the third world :)
So - self-deception can give a little positive, but it does not cease to be a deception :)

The Ukrainian sources have stated recently that they are outnumbered and outgunned in the Donbass region. A few days back, I was watching an interview with an Ukrainian commander, who was saying that Russians fire 50,000 to 60,000 artillery pieces per day, while the Ukrainians can fire only around 5,000 per day. Given the fact that most of the deaths in this war has resulted from shelling, I don't think that it will be logical to assume that Russians suffered more casualties despite firing 10x shells. Western weapons maybe more accurate, but still that won't cover the 10x numerical advantage.

Also, most of the casualties on the Ukrainian side consists of Ukrainian citizens (up to 5% maybe from foreign volunteers). On the other hand, at least half of the Russian casualties are from non-citizens of Russia (mostly rebels from DPR/LPR).

The war is now not only about tanks, bombers or missile systems but also about social media. Who controls the media has a certain dominance because of the misinformation propagated around the world.
That's why I never believed everything from the Western press about the war, there was always a multi-faceted view and overall we were really able to grasp the situation. Don't let the media lead by the nose us with lies.

I will skip all the propaganda nonsense you love so much, I will only respond to this phrase :)
What distinguishes Russia from the normal world? In a normal world - anonymous channels, it is possible that they are lying. Not everyone and not the fact that they lie.
But in Russia - everything is much cooler and better! In Russia, totally, 24 * 7, all state, official, channels lie :)

Well, for example, tell everyone here, the truth - who smokes so much in the temporarily occupied Crimea, and even at almost all air bases and ammunition depots? :)

Kindly - a link to the original of this resource, and we will all figure it out together here what was meant there, how did you understand it, and what really?
You have a comfortable position. If the truth does not fit, it is enough to state that "a certain resource said" and add whatever your heart desires! :)


I'll tell you - many media in Russia, including some generals of the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, officially confirmed that more than 120,000 Russian Nazis were killed, all Russian aviation was destroyed, well, a couple of planes remained, and Putin, out of habit, pissed himself in his bunker, out of fear. This is true ! Or how ? Or is this "not the case"?
Let's do it this way - there is no link to the source - it means it's a lie! In my honest and fair. It’s a pity only supporters of rashist propaganda are guaranteed to refuse :)))


So:
1. Link to Ukrainian RESOURCE. Where is the verified information. Otherwise, to your nickname, through a hyphen, add the prefix "unpretentious liar" :)
2. A link to some "some resource" is considered a deliberate lie in advance? :)

Not a chance in hell Russia could be the next superpower. For all comparisons the US is still ahead of Russia in that department. Russia has neither the economic, military or cultural power to do so. China would be the likely candidate for the next dominant superpower and the best thing Russia can hope for is to piggyback of Chinas push for supremacy.

I have not seen that representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have ever stated that in Donbass they have a numerical advantage in manpower. In terms of the number of artillery shots, they really indicated a multiple superiority, ten times or more. However, this is not along the entire eastern front, but on the main sectors of the Russian offensive. As is known, the losses of the advancing troops in relation to the defenders average three to one. And in the Donbass, the invaders are advancing on well-equipped positions over the past eight years. Therefore, it is likely that in this scenario, the losses of the Russians will still be higher.
In addition, the actual length of the front in Ukraine is about two and a half thousand kilometers. In other directions, the Russians do not have such a multiple advantage everywhere. In addition, the Ukrainians are fighting the invaders not with numbers, but with skill. Therefore, in general, the losses of Russians are several times higher than those of Ukrainians. We will be able to find out the final figures after the war.

We can't doubt if America is the most powerful country right now in the world, the power and influence they have can make other countries afraid if they disturb America at this time, I personally totally agree, if China looks like it deserves to be the next superpower compared to Russia, in addition to their country starting to strengthen economically, the number of troops and also the complete weaponry they have has begun to threaten American power today.

Just a stupid move by Ukraine to fight with such a mighty power i.e. Russia. There is rear chance that ukarine win this war, they are just playing on behalf of USA and EU who just wanna down Russia without getting involved in the conflict directly. Its better in interest of Ukraine to negotiate with Russia and end this conflict. 

The centers of power in the world have changed in nature, and international alliances (as opposed to regional alliances) have become the dominant force. In other words, it is no longer correct to say that a particular country is the most powerful and dominant. The countries of the world need each other to meet the growing needs of each of them, and the successful force today is an economic alliance between powerful economies.
Russia cannot be an important part of the world scene without its allies China, India and even Iran.
America can only be strong under the cover of NATO, but unfortunately it is a military front rather than an economic one, so it is not able to face many challenges.

yes thats very much true. Role of USA and EU in ongoing conflict between Ukarine and Russia is very disappointing. Even NATO the military alliance is not able to help Ukarine to get rid of Russian invasion. Just supplying arms and placing ban on Russia (while EU begging for GAS to meet energy crisis) wont be able to defeat Russia.

I disagree. I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would underestimate USA even after they have proved again and again why they are the most dominant superpower in the world in the long-term.

Russia and pathetic Putin are being criticised for the Ukraine war and their economy is suffering because of all the sanctions, COVID etc. This doesn't imply dominance in any manner whatsoever. Think!

From what I have seen, the Russian economy is doing just fine. Their trade surplus is at all time high and they are benefitting immensely from the sky high fuel prices. The West tried to boycott Russian commodities and the latter just rerouted the exports to Asian countries such as India and China. Now nations such as Pakistan and Myanmar are lining up to purchase Russian hydrocarbons.

And they are not using USD anymore for these transactions.
More countries joining the new order but I doubt Russia comes to dominate when China is the leader of CBDC. Its China that will be dominating due to its nation building projects thru their Belt and Road as its their global interest.

The world leaders are courting Africa as it joins the revolution, Xi Jinping is about to visit Africa for the first time in years without traveling.

I'm one of those people who don't like the US government one bit, but there's no denying that they are superpowers and they will continue to be the hegemon of the world for many years to come. Russia or China are still not strong enough to surpass them both economically or militarily.

But the balance of power in the world is becoming more and more balanced with the emergence of the BRICS bloc, a direct counterpart of the EU. This will make the world more balanced and will not depend so much on the US and the EU.

Could you show us some of those "proofs" too maybe we can also believe it. Over the past couple of decades the only thing US has been experiencing was a downtrend of their economy, society and military strength. US hasn't had any military victory ever since WWII. They have attacked a lot of defenseless countries though.

For example they sanctioned and disarmed Iraq for 10 years while bombing their defenses and airfields. Then after a decade they invaded the defenseless country and lost the final war.
They also invaded the defenseless country called Afghanistan that was controlled by cavemen (and I'm being literal) spent trillions of dollars and were defeated and had to donate $100 billion to the same cavemen to buy their safe passage while they escaped Afghanistan in the worse way possible.
Every day their bases in Middle East are being attacked and they can't do anything about it. 3 days ago for example one of the biggest bases in occupied Syria was bombed hard, all they did was to send back more body bags.
$7 trillion dollar and tens of thousands of dead US troops later they are fleeing the conflict they started.

I don't know who in their right minds considers this a super power.

If your country are the ones that will be attacked, won't you fight back? Maybe yes because you are coward but Ukraine isn't like that and even if they know that Russia is an aggressive country, they didn't think twice but they just do what they can to stop them.

Other countries are proud of the bravely showed there by Ukraine, and that is why they send help not only in terms of financial but they also send their own armies to help Ukraine fight with Russia. At the end, even if Ukraine fails to win the war, that was fine. They will still look good in the eyes of the many because at least they have tried their best and they didn't do nothing while Russia are attaching them.

How did people imagine Russia not being a superpower already is beyond me. hey have always been a super power and they will continue o be a super power for many more years as well. Do not mistake the fact that they have been hated by other nations (mostly western like us) doesn't mean that they are not a superpower. Are they the most powerful?

I do not think so, if we count nuclear weapons then we do not know who would win in a war because everyone would destroy each other anyway, there won't be life on earth. But, if we just look at non-nuclear regular old style fighting, USA and west would destroy Russia and China very very easily hence why I believe they are not the "biggest" but they are big.

Nit only Russia is suffering currently, all countries of the world are suffering due to the covid that hit the world without any information for us to get prepared. I still don't know why we keep agitating on dominant superpower because the world is meant to be peace and everybody living a healthy lifestyle. I am not in to argue on what country or region a tend to be more super power in the next decade or currently. Since the war in Ukraine started, I knew that something is going wrong and if we are not careful with the current conditions, this might lead to third world war that could destroyed the world.

Russia is a super power and they're powerful. Being powerful can be connected with different things. Based on what is being found good in bitcoin, I state this to be powerful. To keep few countries under its control is different, and Russia wasn't able to be a superpower on such occasions, because countries give respect for what is being done.

The countries of the European Union participating in the sanctions against Russia are the most affected by this war. And perhaps with the worst estimates, Ukraine will be the least harmful of all European countries, even if Russia makes it a colony entirely to it.
The American plan to isolate Russia cost it to sacrifice its European allies, including Ukraine.
The latest news indicates that European countries have begun to gradually abandon the sanctions they imposed on Russia, without this being reported in the media. They will not be able to hold out more than a few months, as winter is coming.

A little about the "great Russia". Just facts :)

A small introduction - to describe the current situation in Russia, the phrase is ideal (I hope I can convey the meaning in English), which sounds like this: "... things in the country were going badly. That is, not so bad, one could even say - good, but every year it gets worse and worse. :)

- The Russian invasion of Ukraine set the Russian economy back four years in just one quarter after the attack (Bloomberg)

- The forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development in the base case for a fall in GDP in 2022 by 7.8% turned out to be more positive than the expectations of the Central Bank (a decline of 8-10%).

- The Bank of Russia forecasts a 7% GDP contraction in Q3 and even more in Q4 2022. The Bank of Russia estimates that the economy shrank by 4.3% in the second quarter. (Bank of Russia). Ministry of Economic Development - predicts (optimistic forecast) - a fall of 7.8% in 2022, but the reality is clearly worse

- Oil and gas production has declined. The allegedly high price on the world market, and, accordingly, the proceeds from the sale, are offset by the dumping price of the sale of "unnecessary" oil and gas to China and India. And it has not yet launched a program to reduce gas consumption in the EU, and has not yet entered the ban on the purchase of Russian oil by the EU.

- The forecast for a decline in oil production in the Russian Federation after the EU embargo is minus 20% right away!

- Gas. Gas has already begun to primitively BURN, just to avoid the conservation of wells. The conservation of wells, for technologically backward Russia, is equal to the closure of wells forever.

- Russian agriculture is not lagging behind in "successes": Vladimir Putin's ambitious plan to export 50 million tons of grain, which the Russian president flaunted at SPIEF, promising to rid the world of the threat of hunger, was in jeopardy. The Ministry of Agriculture sees risks for the collection of 130 million tons of grain planned for this year, head of the department Dmitry Patrushev said on Friday. It is being torn down by the weather and sanctions...

.... you can continue to state the facts about the "greatness" of Russia for a long time, but what greatness can a backward, third world country with a resource economy have? :)

And then there is the approach of losing the war, and global degradation for many decades

Russia is a super power, but it's activities of war and other crimes serve as a big setback. For this reason no country recognise it as a superpower. Russia doesn't need anyone's recognition, and no country stand in favour of them other than few neighbouring countries. Oil Wealth is a big source of Russia, and it always find ways to make others fear of them and keep the surrounding countries under its control. This isn't gonna work now.

When I saw recently from a report that the Russian ruble is becoming stronger and stronger, I began to imagine that maybe the US and EU is underestimating the economy of Russia. This is because there have been many speculations and predictions that the ruble would soon nosedive. Yet the Russian currency has gained almost 40% against the dollar becoming the highest performing currency. There are different reason that political-economics have attributed to this which includes the high price of oil and gas, restrictions on import and capital freight and forcing investors or clients to make payment in rubles. I am quite amazed at the economic prowess of Russia because I thought by now they would have been on their knees begging for a review of sanctions.

Ruble is strong because the fuel prices are at all time high and Russia is earning around $25 billion per month in profits from the sales of oil, gas and coal. Wheat is also at very high levels, along with potash fertilizer. If the West want to destroy Russia, they can do that very easily. They just need to increase oil production so that the crude oil prices crash to $40 per barrel. But they are not ready to do that, since they don't want to antagonize Saudi Arabia. So in the foreseeable future, Russian economy will be able to survive the sanctions and embargoes.

Do you even have the slightest idea of ​​Putin's plans for Ukraine when he decided to bring his eight combined arms and armored armies into Ukraine on February 24? What to negotiate with Putin? That he does not capture the whole of Ukraine and does not kill half of its population, but only some of its smaller part?

Recently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on an open day in his office that Russian dictator Putin had told him before attacking Ukraine that Ukraine and Belarus "should not be separate states."
Russia wanted to physically destroy the political and military leadership of Ukraine, kill or otherwise destroy all those who disagree with the established regime of the occupiers, and effectively turn the rest into silent slaves. Did you have to agree to this?
Absolutely all the leaders of the states were of the same opinion that Ukraine would not last more than a few days, and therefore they did not give it serious weapons for their defense. Therefore, they are still shocked by what the Ukrainians have done. In fact, they have already defeated the "second army of the world" and will soon drive the occupiers out of their territory.

The United States can help the people of some country in the struggle for their independence, but they are not obliged to fight for them and will not. For twenty years the Americans have helped the people of Afghanistan with everything they could and even fought for them against the Taliban. But this cannot continue indefinitely. They trained the Afghan army and armed dozens of times more than the US has now provided military assistance to Ukraine. If the people of Afghanistan would give a worthy rebuff to the enemy, the help would continue. But they cowardly gave almost all the US equipment to the Taliban and surrendered en masse. Therefore, we have what we have. And there is no US fault here.
In contrast to this situation, the Ukrainians showed complete unity and mass heroism and professionalism in the fight against the Russian invaders. This causes a well-deserved respect and desire  to help defend their country and their nation.

You see contrast only because of your point of view.
You see Ukraine from the PoV of a Ukrainian (the victim) but
You see Afghanistan from the PoV of America (the attacker).

If you change your PoV and stop having double standards you see that the situation in Afghanistan was exactly the same as it is in Ukraine.

This is from the PoV of the attackers. Similarly from the PoV of Russia they are sending their peacekeepers to Ukraine in order to help them since Ukrainians just like Afghanistanis are struggling for their "independence"!!!

You are too naive or brainwashed if you really think that. Do you know how many Taliban leaders has US killed over 20 years? The answer is ZERO. The extremists in control of the country today are the same exact ones from 20 years ago!
If US was really fighting against Taliban then why the hell were they negotiating with them at the same time? And why the hell did they donate $100 billion worth of weapons to them when they were escaping Afghanistan?

In this case, Russians are more justified. Before the war, around 80% of Ukraine used Russian as the home language. The Kiev regime was discriminating against the Russian speakers and that resulted in the civil war of 2014.


LOL.. the funny thing is that Taliban was created by the Americans themselves in the early 1980s. Their aim was to fight the Soviets. Taliban leaders and cadre were taken to the CIA-controlled training centers in Pakistan and provided tactical as well as equipment training. The Americans also provided them with the latest defense technology, including Stinger anti-air missiles.

Russia is already a superpower. They have the political influence, foreign presence and nuclear weapons cache much bigger than USA. I don't think that they will be an economic superpower though, Ruble exchange is pretty bad that even though my country has a weak purchasing power with dollars, I could probably live comfortably there because the exchange rate is much better.

For this moment, I think it will take time for either Russia or any other country to emerge as the next dominant superpower. We know the United States has won the title for a very long time but the predictions of the birth of a new power are starting to emerge and that is what we will continue to see in the next decade or so as new superpowers emerge.

For Bitcoin itself may be part of this new world order. Not now possible but may eventually be adopted by some countries. It all depends on how well they can make it visible and how much the public will accept it. For the final outcome of this situation is just predictions and predictions only.

The strength of the United States lies within it's currency. The USD remains as the trade and reserve currency of the world. And this enables the US to loan trillions of USD from the creditors every year, at near-zero interest rate. And this is also one of the reasons behind the inflated military budget of the United States (~$600 billion per year?). Other countries don't have this luxury. So they are forced to tone down their budget. Now I don't think that this situation is going to change sometime in the near future, especially as currencies such as EUR are sliding down steeply against the Dollar.

The strength will vary on military strength as well. But given the fact of what happened Afghanistan,  this made the conclusion that the military strength of the US had declined. In many aspects actually because in the race to Space, China had won already and in the case of military weapons, China had the hypersonic as well.

We have not really seen Dongfeng17 in use and hope to not see it because warheads flying all the way across the world are not going to make us survive even if we are a hundred miles away from the target. This is why they do have the chance of winning in a military confrontation especially if they can hit the Whitehouse while they are not in the Mexican gulf.

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan is a purely political move, and has nothing to do with "loss of power."
In this trend, it would be more logical to discuss the "strength of ruZZia" - the biggest fake of the 21st century the first days, the heroic ruZZian army destroyed the armed forces, aviation and combat-ready formations ":) Losses in the terrorist army of ruZZia, in some areas, amount to up to 50% of the entire "strength". The prospects are purely negative, the Kremlin's bald scum is hysterically looking for the option of at least some kind of negotiations, since soon there will be nothing to protect his old rotten ass from his own "grateful population", brought to a bestial state by this war ....

PS By the way, it is American weapons, of the 80s of the last century, that bring "the second army of the world, armed with the most modern means of warfare, and having no analogue in the world" to hysteria and pissed pants :) And the manpower of the ruZZian army is destroyed by US weapons, like sheep at the slaughterhouse - quickly and massively. For which many thanks to our friends from the US, the EU and other countries who help us fight the terrorist bastard regime of ruZZia

Many of the overhyped American defense innovations have failed in actual use scenario. One perfect example is that of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet. The Americans spent around $1.7 trillion on the development of this jet, and in the end they got a product that is much inferior to the Russian Sukhoi Su-57 (which was developed at a cost of around $60 billion). And the most comic part is that a part of the cost was borne by the European allies such as France and Germany. The unit cost is also much lower. Su-57 costs $35 per piece, while F-35 costs $110 million.

Oh, and tell us how the Russian military-industrial complex showed itself? :)
Interested in - the effectiveness of C300 / C400 :)
Interested in the reliability and efficiency of armored vehicles that are not afraid of javelins, is it the T-84VM, T-90, BTR-82, Tigr, Akhmat armored vehicles?
Where is the "unparalleled" tank T-14 "Armata"?
Why don’t the “invincible” MiG-29, MiG-21 and Su-30, the Su-25 attack aircraft fly into the territory of Ukraine, except for the temporarily occupied ones, and where are the “invincible fortresses” of the Ka-52 reconnaissance and attack helicopter hiding? :)
Where did almost 2000 Russian tanks go? 230 "world's best and most reliable" aircraft? 200 "unparalleled" helicopters? 15 ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, which "can turn any US aircraft carrier group into ashes and wipe the whole country off the face of the earth"? :)
Why "unparalleled, and for many decades ahead of the best examples of Western missiles" do not fall into military facilities in Ukraine - but through schools, children's gardens, residential buildings, shopping centers, and 75 simply do not reach being shot down by air defense "which the second army world, destroyed in the first days of the special operation in Ukraine"? :)
And why do Russian soldiers, after the word "HIMARS is not far away", immediately take a stool and urine test, but all in their pants? :)

PS and about su57 - when you tell fairy tales, make a note "according to the Kremlin propaganda" :) Do you know why? Because there are only 10 of them, 2 of them are ground test models, and the rest have old engines, because. "unparalleled Russian designers", told fairy tales, but the engine for the SU57 has not been made for 10 years, and for the next 5 years it will not be created as a serial product :)

And please remind everyone - why did India abandon Russian military helicopters, and why did they close the project to create a new multi-role fighter based on that very fabulous SU57? Enjoy the truth!  ;D

With the way that it's going, Russia emerge the next dominant superpower, in as much as Putin stays in power for a long period of time, its now obvious that United States and other top European countries are now afraid of Russia, Putin is a man of his word he dare them and non of them dare to trespass in his lane, the nuclear war heads and other ammunitions Russia posses says it all

Putin has a very firm leadership trait that until now makes everyone think to fight the country. it's absolutely true that if putin still leads it would make things dubious to play with russia or mess it up. I don't imagine if Putin gets angry and launches their nukes.

And from where does this Hydrogen comes from?

They burn natural gas and generate electricity. And then this electricity is being used to produce Hydrogen. And the most ironic part is that the energy produced from this Hydrogen is less than what is needed to manufacture it. Hydrogen-run train is just another eco-scam, which is used to siphon off government funds and to fool the citizens. And it is not surprising that the German Green Party is behind all this. Their supporters have the lowest IQ for any political party in mainland Europe.

I agree that one country will be more dominant. However, I think that it could be China. The country has not been affected too much. Moreover, they have a diversity food supply while EU nations are meeting the lack of food.

China has everything to become the Next Super Power, whatever happens to the world economy has no effect, especially since China is increasingly aggressive by giving loans to many countries so that they can become the Next Super Power.

Russia was one of the superpowers in times of Soviet Era and lost its little supremacy status after the dissolution of the soviet union, but still Russia is counted among the superpowers in the 21st century and you must have seen that China is now becoming an emerging superpower, its GDP is second highest after USA. It seems that China will cross USA in coming decades.

Yep, perfect setting.
- bank failure
- an over-credited market that has all the signs of a bubble
- huge internal tension in the economy (by the way, one of the "accepted" solutions is to start some kind of war to divert attention and justify problems in the economy)
- The total dependence of economics on external buyers, and primarily the United States
- "Exodus" of high-tech industries previously located there in the same United States, and transferring them back to the United States, which will greatly help the United States and further destroy the Chinese economy

Just tomorrow to become a world leader :)))

I am not supporting government corruption but no country is devoid of corrupt politicians and stealing from military budget, is the easiest. Government try to hide investments in military equipment to prevent probation of the high amount. All countries brag about their product and find ways to spy into other countries inventions, which could be reason for the disappointmect in the stronger ammunition discovery of Russia.

I'll dip you into reality for a bit. A little about the "world leader of Russia and its true friends" :)

I read about the "greatness of Russia" and "bald miserable helmsman of Russia" every time I laugh heartily :)
So:
China "took hostage" $ 100 billion of Russia's reserves
Having invested 17% of its gold and foreign exchange reserves in the yuan, the Russian authorities admitted that it was simply impossible to withdraw funds from Chinese assets.

The sale of yuan, in which more than $100 billion of gold reserves were invested as of January 1, requires a separate agreement with China. This is stated in the presentation of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, prepared for a meeting with members of the government on the future of the reserves and plans to fill them with "friendly" currencies.

According to a document cited by Bloomberg, the authorities are discussing the possibility of buying yuan and other “soft” currencies for $70 billion. At the same time, the Central Bank admits that after the imposition of sanctions and a ban on transactions with dollars and euros, it is not easy to find assets for gold reserves.

The choice comes down to a few "friendly" countries. But the Turkish lira cannot get out of the “corkscrew” of chronic devaluation and has lost 90% of its value in 10 years. The UAE dirham, according to the presentation, is subject to “political risks”: US officials have frequented the emirates, demanding that Dubai not be turned into a hub to circumvent sanctions.

Only the yuan remains, but there are problems with it: it is relatively easy to invest in Chinese assets, but not to withdraw it back. This requires the permission of the Chinese authorities, and “it will be very difficult to get it in a crisis,” writes the Central Bank (quotes from Bloomberg).

In the Chinese "trap" were the last non-frozen reserves of Russia. Of the $640 billion that the Central Bank had before the start of the war, about half fell under the first wave of Western sanctions. These are dollars, euros, Japanese yen, British pounds, as well as Australian and Canadian dollars.

Central Bank gold - 2.3 thousand tons, which is the fifth largest gold reserve in the world - fell under separate US sanctions in April. And although the bars are stored in Russia and cannot be arrested, it is hardly possible to sell them abroad “secretly”: Russian gold has characteristic impurities that will unambiguously show the country of origin of the metal.

Before the start of the war, the Central Bank, according to its annual report (.pdf), held $105 billion in yuan. It began buying Chinese currency in 2018, when the United States imposed sanctions against Rusal and discussed measures against the Russian public debt. In 2021, the Ministry of Finance joined the central bank, which converted the dollar part of the National Wealth Fund into yuan.

The Central Bank purchased the largest "portion" of yuan ($44 billion) in the spring of 2018, when the Chinese currency fluctuated between 6.2-6.4 yuan per dollar. The Ministry of Finance invested in the yuan at a rate of 6.4 per dollar ($17 billion). Now the Chinese currency is trading at about 6.9 yuan per dollar and has fallen by 7% since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. This “cut off” $7 billion from Russian gold reserves in the form of foreign exchange losses.

Despite all the difficulties, according to Bloomberg sources, the central bank and the government have agreed on a strategic decision to bring investments in yuan to $180 billion.

https://www.moscowtimes.eu/2022/09/04/kitai-vzyal-v-zalozhniki-100-milliardov-rezervov-rossii-a23884

Your opinion is very important to us! :)

Like Putin, I can talk a lot about what is not clear and draw conclusions about nothing :) I am more interested in the essence of the event and a brief summary. Here is an example, from a large volume in detail, I will post a short summary of what is happening:

- Russia failed to agree with China on the placement of public debt in yuan. China has not given its permission! :)
Russia runs to Beijing for permits, and sends Russia with a smirk. Under the Kremlin terrorist, Russia's sovereignty is gone, and the word "greatness" causes nothing but laughter :)

- Just mega funny news: Russians will be forced to pay a new gas fee after cutting off supplies to Europe :)
In Russia, the population can be called a "scapegoat"

... Is this indicative or did it have to be written in many words? :)

International relations have gained new dimensions with various concepts in each period. I think we will hear more frequently in the coming years the concepts in which regional power actors come to the fore. In this context, I think the era of global hegemonies is over. After that, we may not see another country like the USA that can be the dominant power alone. We are now entering a new political era in which regional actors come to the fore, and we must admit that Russia is a very powerful regional actor. Countries such as Russia, China, India, Türkiye and Iran act with the desire to be playmakers for their own interests. Polyphony can make noise, and it can also create wealth. My only wish is to enter a period where cooperation is preferred over conflict, but for now we cannot say that things are going very well...

Russia and America have always been two superpowers. In the past, military power was more prominent, but for now, military power seems to be a support, and economic power can be a real war today. we see that Russia is currently at war with western countries, but they still look strong, because they hold the key to oil and gas natural resources, which of course are much needed by western countries. actually there are more countries that are the mecca of economic might, namely China, where this country has production costs that are very competitive with any other country.

Russia is not a debt-based economy. On the other hand, countries such as the United States and some of the EU nations are built on top of debt. Russia is a net exporter of natural resources, while others consume more than what they produce. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Russian economy is still resilient despite the sanctions. Remove the oligarchs and corrupt cronies of Putin, and Russians will have one of the highest living standards in the world. But that is never going to happen, unfortunately.

I think Russia has always been a superpower. It’s unique
dominance in certain aspects has constantly been
questionable throughout the years even after the cold war.
It is a rich, strong and resilient nation, they have abundant
natural resources that is sought after with today’s industry
and needs. It’s arguably in question since there are other
countries that have emerged in recent years that are
considered super powers, but still it is unwise to
underestimate what this nation is entirely capable of.
Todays soaring fuel prices and energy crisis is simply
testament enough in itself.

Judging on the development of the situation in the east and south of Ukraine - the shameful flight of the Russian army, the total destruction of "elite formations of the Russian army", and the complete demoralization of those fleeing, and the central headquarters, the question of any future of Russia can be removed! Why? It seems that soon this totally fake subject will simply cease to exist :)
And a lover of alternative fairy-tale reality - yes, you can continue to discuss the "greatness and power of Russia" that never existed :)




Dear Sithara007 - don't waste your time! Your real purpose is to write the funniest, most fantastic, short stories and fairy tales! You will be hard to beat as fiction! I appreciate your talent in this area!  ;D ;D ;D ;D

Do you know how your answer sounds to me? In simple understandable examples? I will explain "Homeless and alcoholic Rus, does not have attracted funds, such as the HP company, and the HP company constantly takes loans for business development. The HP company is losers, being a homeless person and an alcoholic is an indicator of stability!":)

I just read news about the Ukranian advances today and this makes me wonder if Ukranie would try to recover Crimea as fast as possible in case they manage to clear the rest of their territory of Russian soldiers.
I am not sure whether it is true or not but I have read Crimea has become a stronghold for the separatist cells and there must be an important number of Russian Units there to protect those "Autonomous Republics" the Klemlin proclaimed not long ago.

Another potential but unlikely escenario would be Ukraine trying to return the favor to Russia and annex some land, hopefully not that would definitely scale the conflict, imo.

Russia as a great superpower is coming to an end. Its large-scale military invasion of Ukraine was a strategic mistake that will lead Russia to decline and, most likely, collapse into separate independent states. Now Putin's Russia is suffering a military defeat in Ukraine and is looking for additional weapons and mercenaries around the world, since its "second army of the world" has already been largely defeated in Ukraine. Therefore, the myth of Russia's invincibility has been debunked, and it is rapidly losing credibility even among the former Soviet republics. A landmark event was Russia's refusal of military assistance to Armenia after its military conflict with Azerbaijan and the shelling of the positions of Russian "peacekeepers" in this country. In Russia, there is already a corny lack of military power. Kazakhstan is already directly moving away from the influence of Russia, and among the numerous "subjects of the Russian Federation" riots and the struggle for their independence are brewing. All this should happen by the spring of next year.

They are self sustaining country so even if they imposed sanction on that country Russia will still survive. The problem hits with EU because since Russia cut down the oil supply there then for sure they suffer for more expensive gas price, for this actions made by Putin for sure EU will suffer from huge inflation together with other countries who rely on Russia before.

There was never any need to send any forces there since the situation was and still is under control. Not to mention that Russia is technically closer to the fake country they've created not so long ago called Azerbaijan not Armenia.

Russia could handle and deal with the possible sanctions that might throw at them and they seem to prepare for this war. The whole world is also suffering because of the lack of oil supply and the situation could get worse if there will be no other big countries that will replace Russia in supplying the global oil. Russia doesn't want to intervene in the war between their neighboring countriess.

But whatever is happening with this war with Ukraine, it is showing that Russia is not the superpower that they want to be.
Because if they are, this war should have ended a long time ago. I believe Russia's resources are already depleting from this war.
They may have secret cards to play with because of their oil but sooner or later, these countries relying from them will find other alternatives.
I am certain, if this war ends, it will take a heavy toll also on Russia, not only on Ukraine. This is why, there's no winner in wars.

In the end, it is money that matters. Armenia has hardly any natural resources. Azerbaijan is awash with oil and gas and is very close to Turkey. Russia, under current circumstances can't pick up a war with Turkey, no matter whatever provocations that are coming from the other side. And in the end, Armenia becomes a scapegoat. A part of the blame should go to the Armenian president as well (Nikol Pashinyan). When Serzh Sargsyan was the president, he was careful not to offend the Russians. But Pashinyan tried to cozy up to the Americans and tried to play on both sides. And the Americans as usual refused to help when Azeris invaded.

In the current market dynamics , Russia is far behind in terms of industrialization and in term of production of goods or in terms of service. Fossil fuel can not remain backbone of any superpower. Recently Russia is facing serious problem in term of defence production, because of shortage of microchips, supply from usa. So you can see their dependence on their arch rival for their needs. No such country can ever become super power

The thesis about fake states was recently invented by Putin in order to ultimately justify the military invasion and seizure of the territory of these states. So, a few months before Putin sent his troops to Ukraine, he declared that Ukraine was an artificially created state that Lenin created after the 1917 revolution. However, Ukraine, under the name of Kievan Rus, was one of the most powerful states in Europe back in the ninth century. Its territory even covered Moscow, which in 1147 is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years as the village of Mokva, which belonged to one of the Kyiv princes, Yuri Dolgoruky. The other day, Moscow was just celebrating the creation of Russia, which dates back precisely to 1147. By the way, this is one of the reasons why Putin wanted to take over Ukraine. He wanted to appropriate the history of Kievan Rus as the history of today's Russia, where even the current name of Russia with the root "Rus" is not her own. Russia began to be called as such by the decrees of Tsar Peter the Great from 1721. Until that time, this state was called the Moscow kingdom or Muscovy.
Any statement about false states is simply a desire to redefine the boundaries of historically established states and justify wars of conquest in the 21st century.

I have never researched history of Ukraine so I'm gonna take your word for it but you obviously don't have any information about Azerbaijan history. It is indeed a fake country created by Soviets during wars between Iran and Soviet Union where they annexed part of Iran and called it the fake country of Azerbaijan.

If I want to put it in terms you understand, Azerbaijan to Iran is like the parts that Russia annexed between 2014 and 2022 (from Crimean to Donetsk, Donbas, Kharkiv, Kherson, ...). If they declare independence and name themselves a country (Donetsk republic?) that makes them a fake country.

The formation of Azerbaijan as a state took place a very long time ago, and in any case, it was before any actions by the Soviet Union.
The history of the formation of the statehood of Azerbaijan dates back to the III millennium BC. In the III century AD. Azerbaijan was occupied by the Iranian Sassanid Empire, and in the 7th century by the Arab Caliphate. The invaders resettled into the country a large population of Iranian and Arab origin. In the 15th - early 16th centuries, the outstanding statesman Shah Ismail Khatai (1501-1524) managed to unite all the northern and southern lands of Azerbaijan under his rule. A single centralized Azerbaijani state arose - the state of the Safavids with its capital in Tabriz. The Azerbaijani language, along with Persian, became the state language on the territory of a vast empire. As a result of successful reforms, domestic and foreign policy carried out by Shah Ismail, Shah Tahmasib, Shah Abbas and other Safavid sovereigns, the Safavid state turned into one of the most powerful empires in the Near and Middle East. However, after the death of the Azerbaijani commander Nadir Shah (1736-1747), the vast empire he ruled collapsed. And in the second half of the 18th century, Azerbaijan split into small states - khanates and sultanates.

At the end of the 18th century, the Azerbaijani Turkic Qajar dynasty (1796-1925) came to power in Iran. The Qajars began to pursue a policy aimed at subordinating to the central authority all the territories that were once under the rule of their ancestors Karakoyunlu, Akkoyunlu, Safavids and, finally, Nadir Shah, including the Azerbaijani khanates. Thus began the era of long-term wars between the Qajars and the Russian Empire, which was striving to seize the South Caucasus.

Thus, Azerbaijan turned into an arena of bloody wars between two great powers.

According to the Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828) treaties, Azerbaijan was divided between two empires: Northern Azerbaijan was annexed to Russia, and Southern to Iran.

Thus, in the subsequent history of Azerbaijan, new concepts appeared: "Northern (or Russian) Azerbaijan" and "Southern (or Iranian) Azerbaijan".

In order to create a support and a Christian stronghold in the South Caucasus, Russia began to massively resettle the Armenian population from neighboring regions to the occupied Azerbaijani lands, in particular, the mountainous regions of Karabakh, the territories of the Erivan and Nakhichevan khanates. General Pashkevich even gave specific instructions on exactly where they should be relocated. In March 1828, the Iravan and Nakhichevan khanates of Azerbaijan were liquidated, and the so-called “Armenian region” was created on their territory for the resettled Armenians. Thus, the foundation of the future Armenian state on the lands of Azerbaijan was laid.

Here we can already see the current history of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and, as always, the negative role of Russia in this. And Azerbaijan is definitely not a fake or artificially created state.

As far as I know, this part was annexed by Russia during the time of Russian Empire. The USSR hardly expanded territorially, and rather they lost important territories such as Finland, Xinjiang and Mongolia. Northern part of current Azerbaijan was conquered by Russia during the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813, while the remainder (Erivan, Talysh and Naxçıvan) was annexed during the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. So we can say that these territories are not with Iran for the last two centuries or so.

There was no need to post the "history" from a Baku sponsored website here. You are basically approving that after 1600-1700 years the Russians (I was wrong in calling it Soviets) annexed part of Iran and created that fake country which they slowly lost control over too. Not to mention 2500 years ago those regions were also part of Persia (500 years Before Christ).

Everything about it is fake too. Starting from calling them "Turks" since they are not Turks, they are Azaris which are ancient Persians with one of the oldest languages that had some similarity to Turkish (which is changed today) and is spoken in more than just the North West of current Iran. Even the name is Persian. It's a combination of "آذر" meaning Fire, a scared symbol in ancient Persia and "آبادگان" meaning location in ancient Persian.

I am not denying these facts. I was just pointing out the fact that for two centuries North Azerbaijan is controlled by Russians and that period lasted until 1992 (when Turkey started replacing Russia as the dominant power). Until the end of 19th century, Russia was constantly expanding in the direction of Asia (adding new territories), while losing their provinces in Eastern and Central Europe. But Azeris are very close to Iranians and other neighboring peoples such as Daghestanis. And somewhere I read that more Azeris reside in Iran, when compared to the Republic of Azerbaijan.

BTW, important news coming in. Partial mobilization announced in Russia. I was expecting since their complete collapse near Kharkov. In the first phase some 300,000 reservists with past military experience will be called in.

Yeah, things are happening too fast some days that I fall behind the news. I'm still in the shock of that severed head of that women carried around by that Azerbaijani soldier in the recent clash!
In any case with this mobilization I wonder if Russians are fearing to lose Kherson like Kharkiv even though the counter offensives there don't seem to be as mad or as effective. The aggression is definitely increasing on both sides anyway.

Well there are two or three things that determine who will become world power. Technology, military strength and economy, if a country have the above mentioned then the country can emerged as world power. But remember if though one country becomes world power the other nations can come together and bring that country down.

If Russia can provide everything for herself when economic crisis break out, that will be nice for her. But scholars of Sociology said, nobody can live alone. Therefore, Russia will still need the association of others. When we come raw material in the world Nigeria is one of the countries that has Abundant raw materials but the world order (globalization) make her stagnant in one place that she can not do any technological invention. And when other countries combine force (raw materials) together, Russia will not... By the way I don't see any world power as of now but I only see oppression from USA and other world powers. If they are not oppressing others then they should allow other nations to produce what they want.

Russia will be a superpower by 2030, according to 43% of respondents to a study conducted between November and December of 2020 (https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/over-40-people-globally-say-russia-could-bec-1174573.html). But 56% thought the US would be, and 59% thought China would. We are just 8 years away from 2030, and with the current turn of events Russia isn't getting there anytime soon. In my estimation, Russia would have to rely more on exporting manufactured products, such as automobiles, aircraft, smartphones, drugs, chips, etc., and less on exporting gas, oil, and weaponry. This would be effective in building the economy. Being a superpower is much more than having nukes.

Retaking Kherson won't be easy for the Ukrainians. The terrain is much less wooded and very flat. And given the asymmetrical resources in manpower, at some point Ukraine will run out of able-bodied men to wage the war. The longer the war lasts, the more difficult it will get for Ukraine. If this goes on for another 6 months, I don't expect the NATO allies to support Ukraine the way they are doing now. Winter is coming and the EU is facing popular unrest due to gas shortage. The burden of funding Ukraine will fall mostly on the United States, but there also the situation can change after the midterm elections of November 2022.

It seems that the Kremlin has already come to terms with the loss of not only Kherson, but the entire right-bank part of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Approximately 20-25 thousand of the most combat-ready Russian troops are surrounded there and pressed against the Dnieper. Russia cannot replenish this territory with either troops, equipment, or ammunition. Four bridges of probable supply were damaged by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are under constant fire control. As soon as the Russians build pontoon crossings there or try to supply their encircled troops with the help of barges, they are destroyed. With regard to the liberation of this territory in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a completely different tactic than a swift counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region. Here, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are methodically hitting accumulations of manpower and equipment, ammunition depots, and command posts. Those Russians who survive will either surrender, or swim across the Dnieper, or die during the cleansing of the territory.

Mobilization in Russia was introduced precisely because the regular Russian army has already been largely destroyed in Ukraine. Russia has already lost more than 150,000 of its troops in the wounded and killed in Ukraine. The same applies to armored vehicles and artillery. They are already running out in Russia, because they have turned into scrap metal on the territory of Ukraine or have been captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are already firing at Russians. The mobilization of the proclaimed 300,000 Russians from the reserve will not change the situation at the front, since they are not prepared for the war in Ukraine and have virtually no combat experience.

LOL

Today began a referendum on the accession of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to Russia. And of course you are aware of this, so it's hard to say that you are wrong - you are just deliberately lying.

The riots in Iran follow the patterns from the manual "how to make a color revolution".

O.T.:
That's more like another day in a 50+ year old cold war. Not to mention that color revolutions don't work in post-revolution I.R.I. People have already put aside what they were angry about 5 days ago and are protesting against the rioters (and the real enemy) in the million people march held today all around Iran.

They don't work anywhere. ;D

But there is simply no other manual for supporters to bring the light of democracy to countries with the wrong authoritarian regime.

A month ago, you generally said that Ukraine is losing, that a terrorist country is easily and naturally seizing new territories, and so on. from Russian propaganda :) Today, in a matter of weeks, the Armed Forces of Ukraine defeated and destroyed the largest Russian grouping in the Kharkov region. For example, the "second army of the world" took Severodonetsk for 2 months, with huge losses. Someone threw fakes that Bakhmut had already been taken :) As a result, in 2 WEEKS, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated a huge territory, the army of terrorists suffered indescribable losses in both manpower and equipment. At the same time, Russia launched its Lend-Lease - and "transferred" to the Armed Forces of Ukraine more than a hundred pieces of heavy equipment, thousands of tons of ammunition :)
Kherson is a matter of time, but it will be freed from the "brown plague" of rashiZm.
You probably know that the bald Kremlin ass, in hysterics, announced mobilization for the "victorious army of Russia" :) The task is, according to the classic Russian habit, to try to "throw the enemy with meat" of their citizens. To contain the APU in some areas. Most likely in areas where clown "referendums" are held. But that won't help. The result will be the same - just an increase in the production of plastic bags for packing mobilized Russians to send home for the New Year :)

Russia is getting pushed back right now in Ukraine, there is no way that Russia can still conquer the whole of Ukraine. The chance to win the war outright is over, Western countries send too many weapons into Ukraine. At the moment it looks like a stalemate, Ukraine can't liberate all the teritority, and Russia can't conquer all. Eventually the two countries will have to start with peace negotiations. And Russia can't be the world dominant superpower if they are struggling in Ukraine so much. The only two superpowers in the near future will be USA and China. The dilemma Russia faces is that their equipment is much older than the one Ukraine is using. The average Ukrainian soldier is better equipped than its Russian counterpart and the new mobilisation is not going to help with that. On top of that are the sanctions from Western countries that hinders Russia to use state of the art technology. I don't think it's realistic to look at Russia as the next dominant super power.

 ;D ;D ;D

Ukraine over the past month has liberated vast territories from Nazi terrorists. Solats of the Russian army die in huge numbers or cowardly run away from their positions, throwing weapons, ammunition, some even lose their anal plugs :))) The latter is not a joke, there are very cool photos from one base organized by Russian troops who left it in a hurry, google , understand what I mean!

Well, to visualize reality - below is an interactive map of military operations, with the ability to watch the situation at the front in dynamics. Updated data is updated every day. Look at the dynamics of the liberation, and it will become clear to you why a huge number of future corpses have begun to be mobilized in Russia now :)

https://deepstatemap.live/#6/49.438/32.053

The fact that the so-called "referendums" on the possibility of joining Russia began in the occupied territories of Ukraine does not mean that Moscow has not come to terms with the future loss of the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. In Russia, they always said one thing, thought another, and did a third. The military leadership of Russia, given the critical situation of the occupiers in these areas, suggested that Putin leave Kherson in an organized manner in order to preserve personnel and military equipment. Putin refused to do so. How - such a commander cannot give the order to retreat. And it will also be difficult to call it another gesture of goodwill. Instead, the State Duma increased the criminal punishment for surrender to ten years in prison, since in the encircled regions of the Kherson region, entire Russian units began to contact the Armed Forces of Ukraine via mobile communications and negotiate the terms of surrender. Therefore, Putmn left the 20,000th Russian grouping only to die ingloriously on the territory of Ukraine.

I remember that you claimed that Russia is conducting a "special operation" on the territory of Ukraine, because it does not mobilize the population and only the regular army is fighting. Now the regular army on the territory of Ukraine is already ending, therefore, from September 21, the mobilization of reservists has been officially announced in Russia. Martial law is introduced in many regions of Russia. So maybe Russia is already waging a war against Ukraine, and not a "special operation"?

And the last. Do you consider as a referendum the order in which the so-called commissions, accompanied by armed military men, go around residential buildings, threaten to break down the doors if they do not open them and force them at gunpoint, without any observers and without secrecy of voting, to put a "tick" in the required box on the form who reproduced with the help of a photocopier without any signs of strict accountability and without tear-off coupons? And if there are no family members, then they are forced to vote for them? Moreover, the presence of a passport is not necessary, because "we already know you"? They even show on TV how Pushilin votes among some garages in the rain and without any ballot boxes? Here, everything that could be violated is defiantly violated. But Russia doesn't care about that either. They already have ready figures in excess of 90 percent that the population has voted in the right direction.

In a way they already shoved democracy down our throats in day one of the revolution which is why Iran is a "Republic" instead of a full Theocracy/Monarchy which is the source of majority of our problems.

Anyway the aftermath has been pretty funny in the past couple of days. If you read the US media it gives you the feeling that there is a civil war going on in Iran. I even read an article last night on NewYorkTimes that was saying the cities have fallen ROFL.
The riots lasted 2 days (they ended on Wednesday, ie. 3 days before the NYT article), I even called my friend living in one of those "fallen cities" and he laughed his ass off about it.

They've gotten too desperate which is pretty funny. On social media they've been posting videos that are not even from Iran, in one of them if you paid attention they were speaking English which I think was from protests in Canada in January.

Speaking of propaganda here is the tip of the iceberg Stanford University in California found about the biggest propaganda campaign that the United States regime has been running:
https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:nj914nx9540/unheard-voice-tt.pdf

Shower thought. The United States of America is letting Russia spend itself to failure, like they did to the U.S.S.R during the cold war. The U.S. will not engage in an open war against Russia because there would simply be no need for it.

A simple example would be, advanced parts for Russian military equipment like tanks will be hard to find with them sanctioned by the West. If they import them from China, it will be "Made in China", and it will never be as good as their European and American counterparts, placing them in a disadvantage.

In fact, holding such fake referendums by Russia only plays into the hands of Ukraine. And other countries, such as China. Russia has created a precedent that everyone will now refer to when acting on the territories of Russia. For example, Ukraine thus "legally" in relation to Russia can regain the Kuban, Taganrog and other Ukrainian regions stolen by Russia in the 20th century. China - the primordially Chinese fastened regions of the Trans-Urals ... Then it will be useless for the Russians to squeal, the answer will be simple - come on, it's honest, you YOURSELF ACKNOWLEDGED IT :)

The precedent was in Kosovo. Then Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Within a week, I think the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions will also become part of Russia. Your fantasies about the Kuban and Taganrog are empty and groundless.

Yes ?  ;D
And tell me - Kosovo became part of the United States? Germany? Here are all the Russians - a lie as the meaning of life, to lie primitively and always, to replace the essence and LIE. Let me remind you once again - it works among Russians, but not among adequate people :)
Kosovo left Yugoslavia and became an independent state. But it did not enter the territory of Serbia and by military means, violating the law, it was captured! Montenegro, for example, did not enter Kosovo either and did not capture it, introducing it into its composition with an illegitimate fake pseudo-referendum. Do you feel the difference? I'm sure - you know, but you are habitually lying, habitually trying to justify the crimes of rashism. Nothing, it won't last long :)

I think that form of sympathy has been there since the beginning where when the war happened,
Currently, inflation is indeed a global issue because almost the whole world is experiencing inflation.
this is not easy and hopefully we can all get through this

More people there actually prefers to be part of Russia.
But anyway as fake as you may say. The referendum is for these region to be part of Russia. It doesn't matter if Ukraine or anyone else will not recognize them as long as Russia recognize it. Thus attacking these regions once again by Ukrainians using the weapons supplied by Germans or US will make it an attack to Russia.

And with that, they have every right to respond.

As a result of the referendum, Kosovo gained independence, using the right of the nation to self-determination, which is one of the clauses of the UN Charter.

In the same UN Charter there is another clause aimed at protecting the territorial integrity of any state. These two points at times and places directly contradict each other. Life, too, is sometimes contradictory, as is this legal conflict.

After the announcement in Russia of mobilization for the war in Ukraine, almost everyone was outraged by this decision. Because the war from the TV screen began to enter the homes of every Russian. The peoples and nationalities of the Caucasus and the Far East are especially outraged by this, where the coffins from Ukraine came most of all. The tactics of the Russians are becoming obvious - to send more to the war and exterminate the indigenous peoples that are part of the Russian Federation, so that later it would be easy to suppress discontent there. Therefore, mass protests and disobedience are already taking place in Degestan, and Yakutia is rising behind it. I am sure that this will also happen in most other nationalities of the Russian Federation, who will demand independence.
How, in this case, will Russia recognize their right to self-determination, or will it only recognize this in neighboring states, in its own will it pour blood on the dissatisfied?

I'll be honest - you have a strange logic. What is the fault of the crisis, the EU and the US? And even more so Ukraine?
Tell me - if you put your hand in a pot of bubbling boiling water - will they be guilty: suppliers of water, electricity / gas, doctors who will save your scalded hand? According to your logic, it is. The objective reality is that RUSSIA unleashed a terrorist war against Ukraine, before that it did economic terrorist attacks against the EU (gas shutdowns the winter before last - forgot?). And only Russia, the country of a terrorist, you can "thank" for what followed after the war she started in Europe.

For be.open, and all the people who are currently living inside Russia.


Is the protests against the Russian government's decision for mobilisation true? Is it growing in support? Or is it merely another form of propaganda for the people outside of Russia to believe that something "important" is actually happening?

I can see just one person in the picture, with any protests in the background. Plus she looks "too beautiful" with make up?

Obviously when such massive number of people are being mobilized (reports range from 300,000 to 1,000,000 reserve soldiers being called up), there will be widespread protests. But they are not at a level where the authorities will be concerned. In general, it looks as if a majority of those who are called up are reporting to the enlistment centers. And this is the reason why the Russian government is not making any attempts to stop people from fleeing across the border to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Finland and Turkey.

Kuban will become Ukrainian territory in no more than 3 years.
It would be foolish and naive to doubt it. ;D

Yeah.. sure.. Ukrainian population has decreased from approx. 52 million in 1992 to around 35 million as of now. They have already lost more than 20% of the territory from the pre-1992 borders till now and are on course to lose even more. And still dreaming about conquering the Kuban region. Forget about Kuban becoming Ukrainian territory in 3 years. It will be "foolish and naïve" to think that Ukraine will even exist by 2025. Winter warfare will obviously give an advantage to Russia, but I don't want to predict much at this point.

Are you from, or living in Russia? I truly want to know how "widespread" the protests against the mobilisation are, and if there's truly an anti-war "feeling" among ordinary people and plebs like you and me. It's also important to know if it's growing, or if it's just propaganda spreading in the internet.

There are no mass protests in my small town in the Urals. Every day a new bus leaves the city with mobilized 10-15 people. Based on the dynamics of mobilization, I can assume that much more will be mobilized than the 300 thousand people announced by Putin.

Unsuccessful attempt at manipulation mixed with lies :)

1. There was an INTERNAL conflict in Yugoslavia, despite the fact that Yugoslavia was indeed a federal republic, and consisted of several independent but united subjects. The Constitution of Yugoslavia did not restrict, although it did not approve, the process of secession from the Federation.
2. Based on the results, the Independent Subject of the Federation became fully independent.
3. In Ukraine, the conflict in the Crimea and in the eastern regions was the result of the invasion of Russian terrorist troops, which was confirmed even by Putin himself. Before that, it’s true, out of habit, he lied for a long time, but this is Russia! :)
4. Ukraine is a UNITARY state.
5. The ongoing fake elections in the occupied cities of Ukraine, by Russian invaders, are contrary to any norms.


By the way, I posted a video about how the "counting of votes" takes place in these fake elections, check out the comments in 3 languages ​​:)

https://youtu.be/aR7Uaw4Gq5I

What about in the big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, and what about in the news, and what's mood of the news? Plus I will not ask what's your personal opinion about the mobilisation, but what are your neighbors' or your friends' opinions on the mobilisation? Are they in a "patriotic mood" and support the possbility of an expansion of the war, or are they cycnical and in doubt?

OR, if majority of the people are in protest, will it matter?

Regardless of what basically every human being wants peace in his heart,
so I don't think all Russians want war and maybe this is purely the wish of their president,
anyway still need more information about it

Two of my friend's acquaintances emigrated after the announcement of mobilization - one to Georgia, the other to Kazakhstan. I think this is the only reasonable protest option for the people of Russia, voting with their feet.

Basically, the protests are not against the fact of mobilization, but against the mess in its implementation, which is also enough. By the way, these protests are quite effective, if it turns out that the mobilized is more useful in the rear, they leave him alone. The mobilized themselves, I think, are not happy. Adults are pulled out of normal life and sent to the war zone, where they may have to spend the winter in the field. Basically, people buy themselves a first-aid kit and warm clothes, not really relying on army supplies.

You hear, you are a stupid fascist, Ukraine will be, do not doubt it, and the Kuban will be Ukrainian territory, but you will no longer be, you are on the black list. ;D

Youtube, twitter and google help you!
As reality has shown, the population in Russia is divided into 3 camps:
1. "Heroic" cowards, who yelled "kill Ukrainians" in front of the TV, cowardly flee to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkey. By the way - if you have acquaintances in Turkey - specify how many "Russian heroes" are hiding in their hotels now? A friend works in the hotel business, she says it arrived in a week as a good one for the whole season. Patrites, heroes in Russian :)

2. Sheep. These are the ones who, having received a summons, went to buy their own ammunition, pads, tampons, electrical tape, and went to be slaughtered, as Putin ordered. Their relatives see them off, applauding, sending them to the slaughter. Also sheep. Apparently, there is nothing valuable in their life, since they go to their death so easily, at 20-30-40-50 years old ...

3. Normal people - residents of Ichkeria, Dagestan and several other republics where human life is the most precious thing! Also, they do not want to be involved in terrorism for the sake of implementing Putin's complexes. In Ichkeria and Dagestan, mobilization has already been officially canceled - they are protected, and only residents of central Russia go to die - they are not sorry :)

LOL.. I should be really frightened now since I am on the blacklist.  ;D

I asked some legitimate questions and you resorted to name calling, since you don't have any valid answer. How is conquering Kuban any different from Russia's current invasion of Ukraine? And at least in Russia's case they can claim that the vast majority of the population in regions they have annexed till now are Russian-speaking. The same is not true with Kuban. Less than 0.1% of the population there speak Ukrainian. And obviously everyone will be a fascist if they disagree with what you are saying. ROFL.

That's how Russia might lose in my opinion. Plus if an open conflict/war starts across Europe, Russia will have problems getting advanced parts for their miltiary equipment, as I have already posted. Will China help them, and risk sanctions too? We will never know, but knowing China, it will just watch the battle between two great armies and wait for their own opportunity after their exhaustion.

I mean that most of the mobilized people prefer to buy themselves a couple of sets of thermal underwear, earplugs and diarrhea pills, as well as comfortable winter shoes, not relying too much on regular army uniforms. Of course, each motorized rifleman will be given a helmet, bulletproof vest and a Kalashnikov assault rifle, as well as the statutory camouflage uniform and shoes. But there are things that make staying in the field more comfortable, and each mobilized person usually takes care of this himself, if it is important for him. Someone even takes tactical glasses, active headphones, a thermal imager and a quadcopter with them, but these are already the most stubborn survivalists. On average, the minimum set of uniforms costs each mobilized 500-1000 dollars.

Any idea on the total number that will be mobilized? I have heard about conflicting numbers, ranging from 300,000 to one million. Given that there are around 200,000 on the frontline right now (including militia from DNR/LNR and PMC Wagner), the lower range will raise the total number of Russian soldiers to 500,000. This still gives the Ukrainians a numerical superiority of 2 to 1. If one million reservists are drafted, then Russia will have the numerical advantage. Given that the frontline is around 1,000 km long the lower range would give a soldier for every 4 meters (given that 50% will actually be deployed in the front).

This is a tricky question, given that officials in Russia have dismissed all rumors about the extent of the partial mobilization. Personally, my opinion is that the current stage of mobilization is a trial one in order to check in practice the state of the mobilization system in Russia. And I think that the matter will not be limited to 300 thousand reservists, there will be at least 1-2 more waves of mobilization. In theory, you need to call a million people under arms in order to confidently deprive Ukraine of its only advantage in manpower.

ps Another thing is that tomorrow four new regions may join Russia based on the results of referendums. And generally speaking, this will untie the hands of Putin to use the soldiers who are serving in the Russian Army in these territories. Therefore, additional mobilization may not be necessary.

OK, I understand.

I'm curious about something, and this was posted/asked in the forum by someone before. Do you, or the Russian people in general, consider China to be a "good ally", or is China a "dangerous ally"? Because for Great Britain, they know that the United States is their "good ally"/almost brothers as history illustrates, they fought together during World War I and World War II. I believe their alliance won't change if there's World War III.

My opinion is that China is a dangerous ally. The Chinese practically do not assimilate with the local population (just one day a Chinatown appears in your city) and China has quite definite views on the dominant role of the Celestial Empire in the world. Plus, for historical reasons, China considers the Russian Far East its territory (it passed to Russia for helping China during the opium wars). China is a very dangerous ally. And at the same time, his danger and strength make him a good ally for Russia (because what is the use of a weak ally at all?). Now Russia and China do not look at each other, but rather stand back to back.

China (and Russia for that matter) is a bad ally. It's just that for the past couple of years such alliances are based on "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of situation. Besides, these alliances (unlike the alliances in the west) are based on mutual benefits not unilateral ones.

These days things like this remind me of a famous quote from Kissinger:
"To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal."

As Alexander III seems to have said, Russia has only two allies - its army and navy. All strategic and tactical foreign policy alliances with Russia are possible only if the cooperation is mutually beneficial.

There is an agreement on the border between China and Russia, which was signed back in 1999. As per the agreement, China has recognized these territories as part of Russia. China may be a tough negotiator, but I don't think that they are someone who can be considered as untrustworthy. At least when compared to Turkey, China seems to be a good ally. Turkey on the other hand has handed over military equipment to Ukraine and invaded Nagorno Karabakh, despite benefitting from cheap Russian pipeline gas.

Hahaha! That's a funny quote. But I'm only speaking out of what I've read from history books. Perhaps in times of peace, being of friend of the the United Stares is fatal, but in times of war, it's a friend that you truly need. Those countries have always helped each other during times of war, and I don't believe that will change.

You stupid hindu, the Kuban was the territory of Ukraine, and there for a long time, until the russians eradicated it, they spoke Ukrainian and wore embroidered shirts, such a national shirt.
The film "Cтpяпyxa", the 60s, it all is shown there. https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/44014/

That's even more true in times of war. Take World War 2 for example, the Americans didn't even get involved in it for the first 3 years, and only came in until the Axis showed both capability and will to attack US mainland.
Even during these days where 3 wars are going on (energy, food and the armed conflict in Ukraine) US is seeking its own benefits and is using EU (the "friends") instead of helping them. They sometimes even use them as cannon fodder like Australia and Taiwan against China, South Korean against North Korea, etc.

I think it is too early to say who will emerge as the dominant superpower. The future is a broad concept, so we'll have to see if this actually happens or not. What is important now?? is how to get out of the current economic and financial crisis.

I agree and it's better to think about getting out of the current economic crisis first,
that's much more important and surely it's also not something easy,
I hope that the economic conditions will improve in the near future even though it is actually difficult

When in Russia, due to a military defeat in Ukraine, everything becomes very bad and the country will fall apart into separate "republics", in the Kuban they may remember that they are the descendants of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, who moved to the Kuban after the Zaporozhian Sich on the orders of Catherine II was defeated by the troops of Suvorov, who was returning from the Italian campaign. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Kuban itself will ask to become part of Ukraine and for this they will remember the Ukrainian language, otherwise Ukraine simply will not take them. Believe that after that the majority in Kuban will speak Ukrainian.

Two countries partnering up right now to bring the war in Us soil just near Alaska. Its China and Russia where their ships are already very close to US, doing military exercises. Why do you think they are challenging US right now?

US had always been creating conflict and wars to countries far away from them, so the two wanna find out what US would do if the war happens on their soil. You can tell us whether China and Russia are not dominant superpower with what they are doing.

China already declared war on US as a retaliation for Opium Wars that ruined their country many years ago in form of a new Opium War where US is the target this time.
The amount of fentanyl China is shipping towards United States to be used by drug cartels has increased significantly while the drug-abuse crisis in US is getting worse.

It is easy to say so, but it is impossible to achieve such thing. As you have noticed, countries around the world are not identical. Neither their natural resources are either. Everything is imbalanced and some countries are in better positions than others. This causes unions (trading and political) between countries to appear. And from that we all have obligations towards others and a must "to worry about other people".

It's probably because the United States of America was also worried about another "Empire" from the East, Japan, which was also having its own expansion of its war in Asia which also included China. We can't point fingers why they were late  in entering World War II, but the probability is high that the war would have taken longer than 6 or 7 years without the Americans. Or it might also have given the Axis Forces a better probability to win.

Ukraine has declared that it will retake all territories occupied by Russia, including the Crimean peninsula. In September, the Armed Forces of Ukraine almost completely liberated the Kharkiv region, which is approximately 9,000 square kilometers. There are great successes on the eastern front. Since the end of September, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have also counterattacked the Russians in the south, where the most combat-ready part of the Russian army, numbering approximately 25,000, was pressed against the Dnieper River. These are practically the remnants of the regular Russian army that invaded Ukraine in February. Russia already has neither the strength nor the ability to help this encircled grouping, and they are methodically destroyed by precise strikes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on command posts, warehouses, accumulations of manpower and equipment. Because of this, mobilization has been announced in Russia, but Russia cannot even clothe and provide the mobilized with everything necessary.
So over time, Crimea will definitely be Ukrainian again.

I understand that Ukraine has achieved some major victories in the Kharkov and Kherson region. But don't forget that 4 of the Ukrainian oblasts are still partly or fully controlled by Russia (in addition to Crimea). First show that these regions can be reconquered, and after that we can talk about the Kuban region. 300,000 fresh troops are being redirected to the Ukrainian front after partial mobilization. It needs to be seen whether the Ukrainian armed forces can fully withstand this huge force, once they are fully deployed.

Ukraine is not yet going to win back some parts of the territory of Russia. She has enough of her territories. I mentioned the Kuban only in the sense that when national liberation movements begin in Russia itself and entire regions secede from the Russian Federation as separate republics, the territories of present-day Russia that adjoin or are located close to Ukraine may themselves want to join Ukraine. Of course, for such events to mature in Russia, it takes a certain amount of time.

As for the "partially mobilized" Russians, in Ukraine they expect that there may not be 300 thousand, but up to about 1.2 million people. But such a mobilization is likely to create more problems for Russia itself than for Ukraine. So far, such mobilized people complain that they have to buy clothes and equipment themselves and big problems in everything else. Russia tried through Turkey in third countries to buy 200,000 body armor and 500,000 sets of winter uniforms for its mobilized, but was refused. More than 2,000 of these mobilized have already applied for special telephones in Ukraine in order to surrender to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The mobilized have no desire to die for Putin's imperial ambitions in Ukraine.

At this point, Russia and it's allies have only around 160,000 soldiers in Ukraine. The new additions will increase that amount by 3x, and partially eradicate the manpower advantage that Ukraine had on the ground. As per reliable sources, around 700,000 Ukrainian troops are right now on the frontline. Combined with the airpower and artillery advantage, this will create issues for Ukraine during the winter war. And regarding the surrenders, far more Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered to the Russians, than vice versa.

The only reason why the NATO hasn't bombed Russia till now is because the latter has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. That is the difference between Russia, Iran and DPRK on one side, and Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya on the other side. If they had agreed to denuclearize when USSR disintegrated in 1992, then there would be no country called Russia now.

The only reason is that NATO is too weak for any real confrontation with any actual military force despite the fake front they show from themselves. This is exactly why they are involved in so many proxy wars. Besides if they could bomb anyone, they would have bombed Iran in 2020 when Iran conducted what Pentagon refers to as "the largest ballistic missile attack on America in history" that left US with over 900 casualties (140 dead).

The main reason why the NATO countries have not yet attacked Russia after its attack on Ukraine is that they see that Ukraine can  defeat Russia militarily with timely help with weapons and financial support. Now the last remnants of the regular Russian army are being successfully destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on all fronts. Of particular interest in this regard is the most combat-ready part of the Russian army in the Kherson region, numbering about 25,000 people, which is surrounded on three sides, and on the fourth side is pressed against the Dnieper River with four broken bridges that the invaders used for supplies.

Today, at about six o'clock in the morning, the Kerch bridge was blown up, which the Russians built to connect the occupied Crimean peninsula with the territory of Russia. Two spans of the automobile part of the bridge fell into the water from the explosion, and the third moved. The explosion set fire to seven fuel tanks, which at that time "accidentally" drove along the railway part of this bridge. Now the invaders cannot supply the occupied south of Ukraine with manpower and equipment. The Russians boasted that this bridge was impregnable for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Now there is panic.

russia's economy has collapsed, sanctions have begun to operate in full force, oil prices are falling, mobilization has failed, the front has been torn in many places, russia is undergoing a total defeat.
but you believe the putler that everything is fine, the reality is completely different.


russia actually lost this war, but you are so stupid that you completely believe putin's propaganda and don't want to see obvious things...
you are a stupid zombie fascist and you have to live with it...

I hope that if a crisis occurs, then we can't feel it, so that we can still enjoy Bitcoin as it is today. Lol
I'm just worried that if the global economic crisis continues, there will be a world war. Powerful countries like America, China and Russia will invade small countries.
If we look at the current conditions, America has lost compared to Russia. We know America's involvement in Russia's war with Ukraine is obvious. But the Ukrainian forces were unable to make the Russian troops retreat.

This means that Russia's capabilities in the context of war are currently above average. The thing that I dislike the most in every war is, the superpowers are always looking for fields in small countries to test their abilities. The involvement of America and Nato in Russia's war with Ukraine made Ukraine's condition worse.

Russia is now suffering defeat on all fronts of Ukraine and is retreating under the onslaught of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Failing to achieve success at the front, the Russians launch missile strikes and actively use attack drones to destroy critical infrastructure and densely populated cities.

So, yesterday, on October 10, Russia launched a massive attack on 18 peaceful cities of Ukraine, launching more than a hundred cruise missiles. 43 of them were shot down by Ukrainian air defense. According to Forbes, Moscow spent about $400-700 million on strikes on Ukraine in half a day. The missiles hit a thermal power plant, a playground, asphalt on the roadway, cars with people, museums, hospitals, residential buildings.
The Kremlin acknowledged these strikes, and the Russian Defense Ministry stated that the purpose of the strikes had been achieved, all designated targets had been hit.

From a military point of view, these strikes do not matter. Due to the fact that the Russians are unable to detect and neutralize Ukrainian mobile air defenses, out of impotence, they are using their usual tactics of intimidating the civilian population.

seems that they are desperate now on how to defeat ukraine. however, from the looks of it, ukraine is indeed not backing down with this battle. remember, russia is a big country and yet, they can't defeat this small country. translating the notion that russia is not the superpower country that it portrays it to be. if they do have more than enough weapon and other resources, this war should have been ended a long time ago. so i don't think russia will be the next dominant superpower, because this war alone, they couldn't show it.

Well.. it is not a simple Russia vs Ukraine battle. Now it has grown to Russia vs NATO battle. With every passing day, more and more modern weaponry from the NATO ends up in Ukraine. And a large part of the Ukrainian soldiers are now being trained in NATO nations. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of foreign volunteers fighting on the Ukrainian side. On the other hand, the Russian side is fighting on their own. Despite numerous rumors, they haven't received any inflow of foreign weapons or volunteers.

A little about the "greatest army of Russia", with which she "single-handedly fights NATO" :)
1. Today, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, using fairly simple weapons such as Jevelins and NLOVs, have destroyed a significant part of the WORKING equipment of Russia. Without the involvement of weapons such as HYMARS and the like.
2. Russia is forced to actually attract thousands and tens of thousands of mercenaries from other countries. It's fixed, it's a fact.
3. In Ukraine at the moment, there are foreign combatants, but firstly they officially serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and secondly there are only hundreds of them.
4. A month ago, "great advanced Russia", barely begged for a UAV from .. IRAN :)
5. Failed to beg for shells and missiles from ... NORTH KOREA :)

And you can continue to amuse yourself with a NEW fairy tale from the losing, fake army of Russia, as well as fake Russia itself :)

But, Russia was supposed to trash NATO even in an open battle, not they are running away just because the US has sent 5% of their missile launchers, 0% of their tanks, 0% of their aircraft, 0% of their aircraft carries,0% of their submarines and 0% of their troops in battle?
 
How's that 50% getting conquered by April, then 25% then 20% ?
Right now Russia holds 68k km2 conquered from February 24, that's 11% and even if we include Crimea and the DPR/LNR is still below 18%.

Meanwhile, speaking of a superpower, the super profits that some experts were talking about are, guess what...melting away!
I can remember the stupid cheering on how Russia is making billions in profits, how they have trillions in budget surplus how they can afford quadrillions while Europe sinks in poverty, well, as usual, reality kicks in after the last glass of vodka.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-12/russia-s-budget-surplus-is-nearly-erased-as-ukraine-war-drags-on


Superpower, why can't some understand that with just gas and oil the only superpower level you're able to achieve is that of Bartovia?
Seriously rather than sending those conscripts into battles they would be better of investing money into bitcoins and trying to sell their tanks as NFTs, far better than having them blown off.


Overdose of hopium and copium detected, as your doctor should have prescribed, take 20mg of ukrainianum in case you still see red flying midgets around you.

In the new official status, "terrorist country" - of course, it groans as a leader! Among losers, scum and world outcasts :)
True, the world was hesitant for a long time, shy, and some were afraid to admit this fact. But now the situation is changing dramatically. Even many yesterday's supporters of the terrorists with the "second army in the world" voted against the recognition of the fake "referenda" and the temporary occupation and annexation of the territories of Ukraine. Of course, Russia will not become "Great North Korea" tomorrow, but in a very close time. As the people say, "The kid went to success, it didn't work out, it didn't fartanulo*" :)

* - slang word, from the slang of persons serving a sentence

Given that russia has been under threat from SWIFT sanctions. Part and component sanctions for many years. I'm surprised they haven't been able to do more to kickstart their own native and domestic sources of manufacturing and supply.

The one area russia has done well is in agriculture and food production. Russia has steadily produced higher quantities of food everywhere to alleviate economic stress from food imports being banned into the country. I assumed russia would do the same with its technology and manufacturing sectors. But it seems that they have suffered a steady string of defeat there.

While russia has been able to produce impressive technology in their fighter jets, helicopters, hypersonic missiles and missile interception systems. They have not been able to produce those items in any real quantity. It appears that they also lack many fundamental things necessary to having a basic war effort. Such as some sources claiming russian soldiers lack radio encryption. Can you imagine a modern military lacking radio encryption in the year 2022. In an era where many firefighters, police and law enforcement have radio encryption as a standard measure.

Russia was darkness, in the days of Muscovy, and the fictional "Russia", and in the form of the RSFRS, and in the form of today's terrorist country. Muscovy / USSR / Russia - has always killed, robbed, neighboring countries and entire nations. This is her story ... Study the history - you will learn a lot of new things ...
But you're also confusing cause and effect.
The sanctions were the result of the start of REGULAR aggressive, terrorist war, in violation of the mass of international obligations and treaties by that same Russia.
Threat I’ll answer in advance - no, Ukraine’s entry into NATO - this idea appeared much later than 2014, when Russia attacked Ukraine ....

They tried to isolate Russia, and attempted to destroy the Russian economy through sanctions. They failed pathetically with both the attempts. First of all, not just China, but also other countries such as India, Pakistan and Indonesia refused to follow the NATO narrative and join the sanctions brigade. And secondly, despite all the sanctions and embargoes, Russian economy is doing relatively fine. The Russian Ruble is one of the best performing currencies of 2022, and that says a lot about the effectiveness of the sanctions.

True, although Russia has always been prevented by Europe and the USA but they can survive and continue to run, Russian economic and military strength is currently very strong so they are ready if there are bad things such as world war, and also many Russian companies expand to other countries so that becomes a good bargaining value.

Did the countries of Europe and other world powers suddenly want to bring down the Russian economy for no apparent reason? No, this is a fair reaction to the aggression and aggressive wars of Russia itself. Russia has been attacking neighboring states under far-fetched pretexts for decades - Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014, where it created territorial objects of tension under its control. It seemed to her not enough. Now she has made a large-scale military invasion of Ukraine and unleashed the bloodiest war in Europe since the Second World War. It robs, kills, rapes and terrorizes the civilian population of Ukraine, deliberately destroys schools, hospitals, houses and other civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Should terrorists and murderers be punished? Of course you do.

Economic sanctions are the most humane way to punish an aggressor country. Their results are not immediate. In Russia, there are certain stocks of sanctioned goods, at first it is possible to partially bypass them. You have to wait a year or two. Where to rush to conclusions? However, their results are already being felt in the Russian Federation. Along with the failures on the fronts of Ukraine, the virtual destruction of the regular army of Russia, the big problems with the mobilization inside Russia, because the army is gone, the sanctions inevitably do their job.

Now Putin is rushing about and does not know how to get out of this war with dignity, he desperately wants to put Ukraine at the negotiating table. But Ukraine has already said that it will not negotiate with Putin the killer, it will only talk with his successor and on Ukraine's terms. By the end of October there should be good news for Ukraine on the southern front. After that, the Putin regime should crumble ...

They should but not by other "terrorists and murderers". Don't pretend that what Europe and other "world powers" are doing to Russia is because they invaded Ukraine. It is not. They don't give a crap about Ukraine any of the things you listed here, if they did and were worried about "a country invading other countries for no reasons" they should start with NATO countries and more specifically United States that has invaded, destroyed and directly or indirectly murdered millions of people all for reasons like free oil, exerting geopolitical power, etc.

I am Ukrainian and I talk about what is happening in my country. In this case, Putin and his soldiers are ordinary murderers and there is no excuse for them. And at the same time, all the citizens of Russia are accomplices, who support the war in Ukraine by more than 70 percent. As for the countries of the European Union, they realized that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, then he will go further and get to them. Therefore, they have an instinct for self-preservation. It is easier for them to provide Ukraine with weapons and weaken Russia with the hands of Ukrainians than to fight the Russians themselves later. The same is true with sanctions.

This day was foreseeable ever since the 90's where they disarmed you and you guys celebrated that event. Today Ukraine has to beg for missiles with a range higher than 300 km.

Strategist say we have 3 threats: military, political and social. When you lose all 3, all is lost.
They first disarmed you so the military threat became real that day.
Then it was the social threat where domestic disagreements among people turns into hatred and polarizes the society. That too happened in Ukraine.
Finally it was the political threat with coups, colored revolutions and finally installing a non-politician (ie. a celebrity in entertainment business) at the highest political position who is just playing the part.

They did the same to a lot of countries, like Iraq: disarmament, polarization, hatred towards the administration and finally invasion. An invasion that Ukraine was a part of by the way...

Umm did you just justify Russian invasion of Ukraine? LOL
Russia is saying the exact same thing for what they are doing: "NATO has been expanding eastward and therefor they have an "instinct for self-preservation" and had to act", as they claim.

Ukraine was not disarmed. Considering that Ukraine, being in the center of Europe, did not see the threat of a military invasion and was among friendly states (Russia was seen as a brotherly people), it was decided to abandon the third largest nuclear potential in the world and even get rid of the missiles that it transferred Russia. In exchange for this, the Budapest Memorandum secured security guarantees from the leading states, including Russia.

Russia treacherously violated this agreement, and now the missiles transferred to it by Ukraine are being fired at the territory of Ukraine. In this regard, Ukraine has the right to demand that the guarantor countries of the Budapest Memorandum provide it with weapons to protect its territory from an attack by another guarantor of its security - the Russian Federation. Of course, Ukraine will draw a conclusion in relation to its neighbor Russia and decisively break partnership relations with it for many generations. If you want to rejoice at the treachery and betrayal of Russia, rejoice. Ukraine will survive this difficult period for it. But whether the Russian Federation will survive it and whether it will retain its current territories - we'll see. As a result of this war, Russia has become very weak: Ukraine has already destroyed almost all of i professional army Russia. This will be used by the peoples living in Russia and which the Kremlin kept in obedience only by threats and force of arms.

Yesterday the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, at the request of representatives of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, recognized its independence. Dagestanis, Bashkirs, peoples of Siberia and the Far East begin to fight for their independence. Russia has always stated that it respects the people's right to self-determination. In any case, this was the case with respect to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. Let's see how it will react to similar processes in its territory. Drowning them in blood, as was the case in Chechnya, Russia is not strong enough. And if the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East separate from Russia, its current power will also disappear - the gas and oil that Russia is pumping into them, and to which crumbs are now falling. After all, in the central part of Russia there is no oil and gas of its own.

The threat from Ukraine, if it were to join NATO, is a far-fetched threat. As a result of an open military invasion of Ukraine, Russia's immediate neighbors Sweden and Finland have recently joined NATO and Russia has acquired 1,300 kilometers of direct border with NATO. And what did Russia do? Absolutely nothing. Threatened these countries and calmed down.

Isn't Ukraine at the farthest eastern part of Europe not the center?

That's what they always tell the countries they disarm.
BTW your own politicians have been saying that if they hadn't accepted that disarmament they would have never been invaded in first place.

Why would I ever rejoice in that?!!

Iraq survived the NATO invasion too but the point I was trying to make was that it could have been avoided very easily if Ukraine had a politician instead of a celebrity. All it took was not planning to join NATO and not letting US colonize Ukraine. A real politician would have received benefits from both sides threatening each with joining the other side if they didn't comply. Meanwhile kept independence and increase self reliance, specially in military field.

NATO survived after they lost a lot over the past 2 decades in all their invasions so...

NATO has been a serious security threat for a lot of countries all around the world.
Taiwan is a good example that has turned into a national security threat for China and they keep insisting on pushing them into a similar proxy war with China.
Azerbaijan is another example where NATO has turned into a very serious national security threat. Not only they are destabilizing our our north west borders with the number of terrorists they are arming there (same terrorists who were part of ISIS) but they are threatening to literary wipe out Armenia from the maps one region at a time.

They haven't joined yet, they are basically "invitees".

A little humor :)
The best picture about Russian nonsense!

A resident of Israel, Syoma, calls to his historical homeland in Ukraine, to the city of Odessa, to his friend Monet:
- Monya, what do you have there in Odessa?
- Yes, Russia is fiercely at war with NATO
- Well, how are you doing?
- Russia lost a cruiser, 65,000 soldiers, 250 planes, 2,500 tanks and some other little things.
- What about NATO?
— Oh, Syoma, you won't believe it, NATO hasn't arrived yet.

 ;D

Apart from the United States and Turkey, none of the other NATO members even have a combat ready army. And the chances of NATO sending a large number of soldiers to Ukraine are low. They will provide weapons and funds, and that too for a limited duration. Russian and Ukrainian people will continue dying (both soldiers and civilians). And BTW, if Russia has lost 65,000 on their side so far, then the losses on the other side would be at least 2x of that number. Because even now in the artillery department Russia has an advantage.

To defeat the fake "second army of the world", and in the group, which included the most combat-ready units, it was enough for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the formations of the Territorial Defense of Ukraine :) Russia? At the same time, these disposable bodies are told that they have nothing to provide, they demand to buy socks, underpants and pa-baaam, TAMPAX and WOMEN'S sanitary pads (!!!!!) Do you know what for? Don't cry! In order to close bullet wounds and bleeding  ;D

Maybe you want to say fake? I will immediately give you a link to the original entry from one military unit of "Great Russia" :)


Yeah, so you also don’t know the theory of warfare ?! And he tries to invent a "beautiful picture" on the go! :)

It's okay, I'll give you training here, I'm already used to it :)
Remember: The attacking side (aggressor, terrorist, i.e. Russia), suffer losses, in manpower and equipment at least 3 times more than the side carrying the defense. Those. For every 1 defender, there are 3 attackers.
How does this apply to combat sanitary irretrievable losses - losses that are the direct result of hostilities.
As for the wounded, it is already a little worse here: 1:4-1:5, this is again connected with the theory of warfare.

Well, the truth is, if "heroic Russia" will "heroically" and habitually shoot civilians / women, the elderly, children - then here they are "victorious heroes". The Russian army, as practice has shown, can more or less effectively fight only against the unarmed and with its noticeable quantitative superiority. This has been proven in Ukraine!

Not that simple. Russia captured around 20% of the Ukrainian land in the first few days of the offensive. Then Russia concentrated their offensive in the Donbass region, where the Ukrainians themselves admitted that Russian artillery is 10x more numerous when compared to their own. And for the last 2-3 months, Ukraine has been on the offensive, especially in the Kharkov and Kherson regions (where they have captured around 10,000 sq.km of territory). Now going by your own theory, Ukrainian losses should be 3x that of Russia.

As a resident of Ukraine, I will tell you how it really is. Since 2014, when the terrorist country attacked Ukraine, up to the peak of the seizure of Ukraine - March 2022, these vile rashists have occupied up to 25% of the territory of Ukraine. It was, I can confirm. Why this happened is another question.

But the objective reality is this - today, almost 50% of the territory of Ukraine previously occupied by international terrorists, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already returned under the control of Ukraine, having defeated the combat-ready grouping of the terrorist army. Terrorists for March-October 2022 lost:
-5200 armored vehicles (38% of the terrorists in service)
-2570 tanks (78% of the terrorists in service)
-1650 artillery systems (29% of those in service with terrorists)
-269 strike aircraft (20% of the terrorists in service)
-240 combat helicopters (25% of those in service with terrorists)

Manpower - more than 60 thousand corpses and about 200 thousand wounded ... But who will count them, as they say in Russia, "women still give birth"

Can you refute something? :)

My question was about the Ukrainian casualties. Still, I am not sure whether the 65,000 figure that you had given for Russia is close to reality. BBC Russian has given a figure of 8,000 confirmed deaths. I assume it will be much higher, because a lot of soldiers are listed as missing, and many of them were affiliated with PMC Wagner and other militia for whom the numbers will never be added to the official tally. Still 65K? Suspicious.

Ukraine on the other hand has a population of around 40 million right now and can't sustain with huge number of casualties. The Ukrainian government hasn't given any official figures for their own casualties since the start of the conflict. And now they are going on the offensive. In regions such as Kherson, where the terrain is flat, the attackers are going to face huge losses in manpower and equipment. And this is where Ukraine is concentrating their offensive.

Of course, Russia is the most likely contender for the title of "world superpower". It remains only to solve the problem with the payment of firewood for the mobilized residents of Russia :)))

Yes Yes. That's right - in the country richest in resources, with the squeals of propaganda that the EU will be heated with firewood, in Russia I "compensate" those mobilized with firewood and tickets ... to ZZOPARK! And at the same time there are still unsolvable problems :) Greatness in Russian - looks a little different than on the channels of propagandists!

"15:47 The families of those mobilized in Buryatia cannot receive the firewood promised by the authorities. This was stated by the head of the republic, Alexei Tsydenov himself.

“I talked to the guys. They had no questions regarding provision and preparation. There were questions more domestic and to ourselves. For the issuance of firewood,” Tsydenov (ER) said in his telegram channel after a meeting with the mobilized, who had already been taken to Zaporozhye. - That the rules that we adopted are not the best and many of the relatives cannot get firewood. Let's change the rules."

Regional authorities previously promised 10 cubic meters of firewood to one family and 20 "cubes" in territories equivalent to the regions of the Far North - up to 20 cubic meters. In Tuva, for the mobilized authorities, families are given a sheep, in Yakutsk they promised a set of vegetables, in Novosibirsk - free tickets to the zoo.

Link to Russian resource https://tayga.info/179504
happy reading about "superpower" :)

If all the nato members contribute 10% of their regular armed forces it will be as big as Ukraine total armed forces right now. There is a very low chance that NATO will send troops directly but there are already soldiers from NATO members country fighting in the war. What causes most of the problem for russian armed forces is the intelligence that NATO countries provided to ukraine.

I agree! Absolutely!
But! I intentionally left out one sentence yesterday :)
It sounds like this - "if the attacking side qualitatively and technologically corresponds to the enemy" T
Those. if armies of the same type are fighting against each other, the ratio is approximately the same, according to all the canons of military affairs. If the Army of the 21st century is fighting demativized, primitive, stupid soldiers, armed with weapons of the 60-70-80s of the last century, and methods of waging the Second World War, then the situation is changing, and radically! :)

If you really follow the situation and how the Ukrainian units are attacking, then you should know the following:
1. Depots of ammunition, fuel and lubricants are being destroyed
2. Logistics is destroyed (railways, roads, bridges, ..)
3. Forward headquarters and control posts of the enemy are being destroyed
4. Suppresses artillery and other concentrations of troops with long-range artillery and missile systems.
5. After that, there is already a direct attack on the territory where the unfinished terrorists remained.

Do you know why? Because in Ukraine they PROTECT and VALUE the lives of their soldiers and citizens, and Russia is still trying to throw its meat at us so that we run out of ammunition :) Just like the USSR fought in World War II.

So once again I strongly recommend not to listen to the propaganda of rashists, but to study reality :)

PS. Yes, the only thing that the Russians have so far more or less succeeded in is their "heroic terrorism" - missile attacks on peaceful cities. In terrorism, Russia is ahead of the rest! But even here the situation is changing, not in their favor.
The day before yesterday's attack on Kyiv - all missiles and kamikaze drones were destroyed!

You can believe or not believe, that's your right. But I highly recommend using logic and thinking :)
I will start a little from afar - I do not serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but I partially touch on this topic (Service in the Territorial Defense, but not on the front line), plus my specialty gives me the opportunity to be close to the front line.
I personally saw with my own eyes the fields on which dozens and hundreds of corpses of Russian soldiers were lying, whom the Russian command refuses to take. I saw railway refrigerators stuffed to capacity with the corpses of Russian soldiers, who are also refused to be taken away by the "second army in the world." I saw Russian convoys of dozens of vehicles destroyed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where among the vehicles were trucks torn to rubble, carrying terrorist manpower.
This is what I mean - they are destroyed in huge quantities.
And now about logic and thinking. I can already see that you absolutely do not even know the basic theory about the army, military operations and similar topics. I have such knowledge :) I'm telling you.
According to the canons, combat formations that have lost 50% of their personnel cease to be combat-ready and are unable to perform combat missions (this does not apply to formations such as sabotage and reconnaissance groups and similar small formations). And they urgently need a REPLENISHMENT. So - we take logic, thinking and basic arithmetic:
- The beginning of the next round of a terrorist attack on Ukraine - the Russian Federation has 300,000 troops, not counting PMCs and other terrorist mercenaries.
- after 6 months, the "invincible army" begins to flee, throwing the wounded and equipment in an amount commensurate with Land Lease, and the "most honest leader", who promised that there would be no mobilization, announces ... mobilization. The first wave of mobilization - another 300,000. Yes, I did not make a reservation - the FIRST wave. There will be 4 of them in total. In December-January there will be a second wave, remember :)
Now we collect all the information - and what conclusion do we have? What are the losses of Russian terrorists in Ukraine? 5000-10000? :) You can cite any source that is more acceptable to you, but there are FACTS that neither you nor those sources can refute. And this is quite enough for me to assert that at least 60,000 Russian terrorists were killed, at least 120,000 terrorists from Russia were wounded, and possibly more, because. from the Rostov region, Belgrod, Krasnodar, information comes in about overcrowded hospitals and hospitals precisely by wounded terrorists ... Once again - use knowledge, logic, thinking, and do not choose those sources that are "closer to your soul" :)
And please explain more - why are you trying with such perseverance to at least somehow (very often unsuccessfully) "support" the country of the world terrorist? Well, honestly, you are a citizen of Russia, not India, right, I guessed? A person from a normal country, such as India, cannot, with such persistence, try to "whitewash" and make "innocent" a country like Russia-terrorist ...

A superpower is a country that can exert a great influence on other countries globally. For now the superpowers are still held by America and China, the two countries are a barometer for other countries to catch up in terms of economy and technology. The Russian state is currently planning the will to make it a superpower with everything it has. ranging from natural resources including natural gas which supplies more than 50% of natural gas to European countries and the Russian military which is included in the top 10 countries with the strongest military in the world can be Russia's main capital to achieve its goals. With the achievement of Russia becoming the next superpower, we hope that cryptocurrencies in the future can be widely accepted in various countries.

Russia can't be termed as a superpower, either in terms of military capability or economic capability. It is true that they are among the leading exporters of natural resources, but it will not count as long as they need to import the finished products. USSR was the 2nd superpower until its disintegration in 1992. But Russia never reached that level. They still have top-notch military technology, but the lack of manpower resources is a big concern (and it is quite evident during the recent conflict in Ukraine as well). And as far as I know, their population is getting decreased by ~1 million per year.

Russia certainly has a great chance to become a super power country, the world's largest country with increasing military and economic power so that it can become a super power country, besides that citizens' loyalty is the main key to making the country more optimistic.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and collected their land which is Crimea(Ukraine's most oil-producing state). Now again in 2022 they invaded them again to take four more states again from them. People expect Ukraine to fold their hands and watch Russia take more of their land, and this time the most industrialized states.

China can be a super power, but not Russia. In the end, it all comes down to manpower. Russia has a population that is equal to around 40% of that of the United States and every year they lose around 1 million people. They are more like Japan in terms of defense capabilities. Russia has some of the best military technology, but that is of limited use when they don't have a large pool of manpower for their armed forces. And this was especially evident during the Russo-Ukrainian war, where the Russian side was very dependent on rebel militias (DNR/LNR), private mercenaries (PMC Wagner) and ethnic minorities from within the Russian Federation (Chechens, Daghestanis, Tuvinians, Kalmyks, Ossetians, Buryats.etc).

Russia will never be a superpower, if there is a country that would take that position from the US, it would be China. On the contrary, Russia has demonstrated tyranny rather than a hero, they don't also have the economic empowerment that would give them that status. Their invasion of Ukraine has even set them centuries backwards, this might not be obvious yet, but time will tell as the world are wary of them and might not regain such trust for long. Putin has caused more damage to himself and his country to the extent that he dares not travel to choice countries anymore for the fear of assassination. What a life!

Russia has difficulties and successes in the demographic problem, but I do not think that you are setting priorities correctly. The quality of the population is more important than its quantity - for any population of moderate scale. Quantity becomes a priority only for very small (because a small number directly becomes a threat to the survival of an ethnic group) and very large populations (for example, like India and China, because in a large population it is easy to select the right amount of high quality people in different areas of activity due to natural biodiversity). India and China have very large human capital, but there are problems with the shortage of raw materials and energy.

What nonsense are you talking about? Japan has no armed forces at all, only self-defense forces. Japan has a fairly strong navy, but no nuclear weapons. Russia and Japan are countries from different weight categories militarily. Based on the limited military special operation in Ukraine, it is impossible to draw conclusions about the combat effectiveness and strength of the Russian army as a whole.

Russia had no chance of becoming the dominant superpower even without a real war with Ukraine. 

This is due to the fact that Russia has only 140 million people, and this is not enough to achieve the status of a superpower.  The dominant superpower must have a population of at least 300-500 million people. 

Such a population ensures the profitability of its own production (at the expense of the domestic market) and a sufficient number of scientists, engineers and programmers for the country's technological development. 

Russia needed to pursue a very balanced and cautious foreign policy in order to remain at least a regional superpower.  It was necessary to establish normal relations with neighbors, in particular with Poland and the Baltic countries.  These countries will never become friends of Russia, but it was necessary to set a goal so that they would not perceive Russia as an enemy.  Under no circumstances should the main gas pipelines be used as a weapon in economic wars! 

And even more so, in no case was it possible to get involved in a real war (especially with Ukraine).

Until recently, they were the "leading exporters of natural resources." Yes, a country with a large area, with a resource economy, in general, an appendage of a more developed world. These are perhaps all the achievements that Russia has achieved over the past 20 years ...
But this year, Russia messed up even in this, becoming from a country of a raw material appendage, into an unsuccessful economic terrorist, and the same unsuccessful war criminal-terrorist.

PS And when you write about "first-class military equipment" - you must add before that:
- I think, but I'm not sure exactly
or
- for a third world country, and for the 20th century,

it will look realistic and not humorous :)

And a small excerpt from typical Russian news, for the consciousness of "Russian greatness" :)
About Siberia - the largest and richest region of Russia:
"Almost half of the families mobilized in the Siberian region were below the subsistence level
26 Oct 2022, 13:55
The authorities of Khakassia have compiled social portraits of the families of those who had to be mobilized by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Almost half of them were below the subsistence level.
“The analysis showed that out of the total number of families of mobilized citizens, 46% of families have an average per capita income below the subsistence level,” the Ministry of Labor of Khakassia calculated.  ;D

As predicted earlier, after the military defeat of the Russian troops in Ukraine and the announcement of mobilization in Russia, the national liberation movement of the peoples oppressed by Russia and the nationalities that are part of the Russian Federation has sharply increased. Previously, it was believed that Chechnya (the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria) and Dagestan might be the first to try to secede from the Russian Federation.

However, on October 27, the text of the declaration "On the State Independence of the Republic of Kalmykia" appeared. The Declaration of Independence of Kalmykia was drawn up and signed by members of the representative body of the Kalmyks - the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk People, Idel.Realii reports. Among the authors and signatories are the ex-director of the Center for the Development of the Kalmyk Language Arslang Sandzhiev, the leader of the regional branch of the Yabloko party Batyr Boromangnaev, ethno-linguistic and political activists Vladimir Dovdanov, Erentsen Dolyaev, Albert Sharapov and others.
The declaration of the Congress lists the main claims against the current Russian regime, which prompted the authors of the document to proclaim the beginning of the struggle for independence. Among them are “the insane centralization and militarization of the country”, “the Kremlin’s total attack on the cultures and languages ​​of the non-Russian peoples conquered by Russia”, “the commission of international crimes” and five more points referring to the authoritarian and imperialist nature of Russian politics.

The authors of the declaration separately note the ignorance of the rights of repressed citizens - victims of the deportation of Kalmyks and the problem of "illegally seized lands" - territorial disputes that arose between the Astrakhan region and Kalmykia as a result of the abolition of the latter by Stalin's decree of 1943. Earlier, one of the members of the Congress, Dolyaev, argued that the entire territory of the Astrakhan region should be part of independent Kalmykia as a historical area of ​​settlement of Kalmyks.

Expressing disagreement with the policy pursued by the Kremlin, the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk People “declares the need for the complete liberation of the Oirat-Kalmyk people from colonial dependence on Russia” and “declares its determination to seek the withdrawal of the Republic of Kalmykia from the Russian Federation, the proclamation and creation of a sovereign independent states".

The eight-year hybrid war in Ukraine and the beginning of a large-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine was justified by the need to support the LDR and the DPR in their desire to secede from Ukraine and their right to self-determination. Now the same thing will happen in Russia itself, but on a larger scale. The Russian Federation may soon break up into 26-30 independent entities. Only part of the territory up to the Urals, where there are practically no oil and gas deposits, can remain in Russia. This is a striking answer to the question of whether it will be a superpower.

In theory, the quality of population is more important than its quantity. But in practice, we have seen the other way around. Take the case of Kosovo. In defense capabilities, one Serb is equal to 10 Shqips. But then what happened? After their proportion went below a certain threshold, Serbs were driven away from Kosovo. One major reason why the US is still the undisputed military superpower is because they have a large population (330 million), which is growing at a rate of at least 1 million per year.

I can give many examples from practice that refute your thesis. For example, the population of Bangladesh is larger than the population of Russia, but this does not make Bangladesh stronger than Russia. The population of India is ten times larger than the population of Russia, but in the event of a direct confrontation, I would also probably bet on Russia. By itself, the rapid growth of the population in the modern world usually means that we are talking about a developing agrarian country with an unacceptable level of poverty.

OK.. let's take the case of a war between Bangladesh and Russia. Population is roughly equal, but the former can easily afford up to 10 million deaths. Russia on the other hand can't even afford a few tens of thousands of military deaths. So even in case Bangladesh suffers 50x casualties when compared to Russia, they will be having the upper hand in case the war goes on for a few years. Bangladesh may be a poor example, since their military tech is still from the stone age. Pakistan would be a better comparison.

It doesn't matter, even Bangladesh, even Pakistan - in direct confrontation with Russia, they have no chance. Simply because Russia has the Strategic Missile Forces. The forces of the nuclear triad in combat tone are precisely what is needed to deter any possible aggression towards Russia and maintain territorial integrity even in conditions of low population density.

When you have the biggest excavator in the world, you can even dig a hole on your own faster than a hundred people with shovels. ;D

Japan nominally has no army. But their army is called the Japan Self-Defense Force. It's the same joke as Russia called the terrorist attack on Ukraine a "Special Military Operation" :) But let's get back to Japan:
1. Japanese military policy is based on the following principles:
non-aggression
Non-use of nuclear weapons
Public control over the activities of the armed forces
Cooperation with the United States (cooperation means participation in joint exercises, the deployment of the US military contingent in Japan since 2010, the deployment of elements of the American missile defense system in Japan)
2. As of the beginning of 2011, the armed forces consisted of:
- 247,746 people
- reserve - 41.8 thousand people, not counting the coast guard and other paramilitary formations;
- mobilization resource was estimated at 29.2 million people

- ground forces: 151.6 thousand people, consisting of 5 army headquarters, 1 tank and 8 motorized infantry divisions, 15 brigades, 2 training regiments, 2 artillery groups, 4 air defense groups and a special operations group, armed with 100 tactical launchers missiles "type 88"; 850 main battle tanks (including 320 Type 90 and 517 Type 74); 70 infantry fighting vehicles; 100 combat reconnaissance vehicles; 780 armored personnel carriers; 210 self-propelled artillery guns; 470 pcs. 155 mm FH-70 howitzers; 100 MLRS; 1130 pcs. mortars of calibers 81, 107 and 120 mm; 690 ATGM launchers, 70 anti-aircraft artillery guns; 290 MANPADS; 12 LR-1 and LR-2 aircraft, as well as 430 army aviation helicopters (of which 185 are combat)

- air force: 47,123 people,
equipped with: 87 F2 aircraft; 202 F-15J and F-15DJ "Eagle"; 72 F-4EJ "Phantom-2"; 13 RF-4E and RF-4EJ; one Kawasaki EC-1; ten EC-2 "Hawkeye"; 4 Boeing-767 AWACS; 20 C-1; 10 C-130H; 11MU-2; 10 U-4; 20 U-125A; 10 U-125-800; 10T-3; 170T-4; 20 F-2B; 40T-7; 10 T-400; 10 YS-11E; 10 CH-47J helicopters; 12 KV-107 and 40 UH-60J

- naval forces: 45,518 people (of which 9.8 thousand serve in naval aviation), 16 submarines, 4 helicopter destroyers, 37 URO destroyers, 6 URO frigates, 12 landing craft, 6 landing hovercraft, 2 Uraga floating bases, 28 mine-sweeping ships, two oceanographic research vessels, 4 hydrographic vessels, 2 experimental vessels, 4 training ships, 2 training submarines, up to 60 auxiliary vessels and 20 tugs, as well as 179 aircraft and 139 naval aviation helicopters

- Coast Guard: 12,636 people, 45 large, 39 medium and 34 small patrol ships, more than 220 patrol boats, 13 hydrographic boats, 5 fire boats, 4 fire boats, up to 130 service and support vessels, 25 aircraft and 46 helicopters.

Moreover, Japan has military bases outside the country: in 2011, the first Japanese military base after the end of World War II was opened in Djibouti.

You can check the information in this source, in your native language :)

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8B_%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BE%D0 %B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8B_%D0%AF%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8 (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8B_%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BE%D0 %B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8B_%D0%AF%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B8)

Yep, you can go no further. Japan is a US vassal and does not have much independent weight in international politics. In general, there are now four established sovereign centers of power in the world - the United States, Russia, India and China. There used to be Brussels, but with the UK leaving the European Union and the current anti-Russian sanctions policy, Brussels has driven itself into an energy hole and lost its status as a sovereign center of power. Now it is also just a US vassal.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I love your subtle humor :)

Xi Jinping delivered his speech in which he pointed out that the world is BIPOLAR, and only two great countries - the United States and China, should ensure world order and resolve the problems that have arisen in recent times. Together, mutually beneficial.

No multipolar world, as the bald-headed Kremlin terrorist deceives himself. And not a word about Russia at all. Russia, in the reality of China, is an empty place, at best, a Chinese raw material appendage :) There is also no India in this bipolar world.
It seems that India will also become a disputed territory between Pakistan (part of India - the historical territories of Pakistan), and China - which does not need a competitor at hand.

At the same time, China expresses quite undisguised dissatisfaction with the antics of the Kremlin terrorists, which ultimately led to the rallying of the West, the strengthening of the NATO bloc, and the cessation of the policy of "persuasion" and "soft agreement" with terrorists and other "hyperactive" regimes. And now China can no longer set conditions for the West, because this scheme stopped working precisely "thanks" to Russia.

The PS "Japan is a vassal" sounds funny, especially from the country of a miserable raw material appendage of the world :)

Is it any wonder that Europe is going to cunt when a former gynecologist is at the helm? ;D
Yep, Japan is a US vassal. It abandoned the army after a crushing defeat in World War II and has numerous US military bases on its territory, occupying approximately 10% of Japan's habitable territory.

1. "Is it any wonder Europe goes crazy with a former gynecologist at the helm? Smirk"
Well, a good gynecologist is at least a person who benefits. But the notorious, embittered six, whose lot was to carry a suitcase for the OWNER, with a bunch of complexes, completely detached from reality, but imagining themselves almost a deity - this is really hilarious :)

This "macho" and "world leader" is a miserable, notorious schmuck!

https://i.ibb.co/Ld490TX/article-1341987596-35431.jpg

Now, of course, he has changed ... he has become a miserable, notorious old senile schmuck :)



2. We learn materiel, of course you have a big failure in this, but I will fix it for you :)

A vassal state is a state that is subordinate to another state, but retains its ruler. Such a state is usually deprived of the right to maintain diplomatic relations and conclude treaties, is limited in other types of external relations, but retains independent internal government with some restrictions. The ruler of a vassal state retains the status and title that he had before the conclusion of the vassal treaty.

Well, now try to superimpose a description of the situation with the USA and Japan on this - is it really stupid? :)
And this is all from a lack of knowledge. More precisely, it turns out so stupid when you zaesh a word and its meaning is not :)

By the way - this description is more suitable for Ichkeria and its vassal - the Russian Federation. Which has retained the status of its ruler, but Ichkeria indicates what to do, how to do it, and the annual tribute of Moscow to Grozny - FACT :)

Your definition accurately reflects the relationship between Japan and the United States. As well as the United States and the European Union. Even more dependent relations between the US and Ukraine.

It is possible because after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it lost its superpower status, and recently has been suggested as a strong candidate for continuing their superpower status in the 21st century.

This is not possible to come. When Soviet Union was still existing yes it happen that Russia or the union was leading the world that was because of their number, they were 15 republic countries coming together as one so now this is just Russia. They are struggling to take back Ukraine because Ukraine is another strong unit but US is not allowing for that. US has like 50 States together but not different, working as one 

It cannot be denied that Russia is one of the largest poles of power in the world. But after it began its military campaign against Ukraine, there are elements that must be taken into consideration :
First, that Russia is not as strong as we imagined, since it is losing many rounds in this war, which prompted it to call in reserve soldiers despite the strategic difference, and also its resort to creating humanitarian crises to impose More pressure.
Secondly, Russia, which we considered a global power, is facing the world by cutting off energy and food supplies to threaten a large part of the planet's population.
Russia cannot be a global power without its allies who support it only because it stands against America with the logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

There are doubts, of course, and very large ones. Putin's Russia does not prove its strength in culture, science, technology. She is trying to prove that she has brute physical strength and therefore she can neglect the established rules of behavior in society, seize neighboring states, rob and kill people there. There is something to brag about in the 21st century. But Russia is not succeeding in this either. The Russian army is now being defeated in all sectors of the front in Ukraine.

Yes, yesterday in Russia they announced that they are withdrawing from the concluded agreement on free grain supplies from the seaports of Ukraine. That is, that Russia will continue to fire on and sink civilian ships from different countries that will transport food along the Black Sea to countries that are now in dire need of it. Already today, Russia fired on the sea trade and transport routes of the Dnieper-Bug estuary, including from the Grad MLRS. Russia thus behaves like a terrorist state, a robber and a pirate.

However, you kept silent about the formal pretext that Russia used to withdraw from the "grain" agreement. And the reason was that last night and in the morning, the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, which it occupied, was attacked by drones and suffered serious losses. Presumably, three or four ships were seriously damaged and could be sunk, including the next flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the frigate Admiral Makarov. Losses will be specified, since Russia has blocked the bay and does not allow information about the incident to leak. The Russians were sure that this was the most protected place of their warships. And again they miscalculated, as with the Kerch bridge, which Ukraine also successfully attacked. So is Russia really that strong?

History keeps repeating.
This is what invaders do to another country. For example when United States invaded Iraq with the help of NATO and Ukraine, they did the same thing. One of the first things they targeted was the Iraq's civilian infrastructure from hospitals and farms to water and electrical facilities. The electrical grid over there is still pretty messed up to this day.
The same alliance did the same exact thing in Afghanistan, Libya, and a dozen other countries.

In modern Russia, there have never been 140 million people. The last census, which was noticeably falsified, about which there are many facts, was carried out in ... 2010! About 143 million people were indicated there. Well, everything seems to be fine. But there is a small problem... Arithmetic :)
In order to understand that the figure of 143 million people is false, it is enough to take, from open sources, for example, the population for 1998, take the annual population growth (natural increase and migration increase), take the natural population decline. And try to reach 143 million :) Oh, and one more thing. In order not to be deceived - we will also impose a third schedule - pension payments, which are directly proportional to the number of pensioners by age, and should be correlated with population indicators, growth and mortality. They can’t just take and appear or disappear a huge number of pensioners, right? :)
Well, and most importantly, the next census was held in .. 2022. Do you know how? Almost completely REMOTE. And how many people did they get? 146 million :)
Despite the fact that :
- since 2011, officially natural growth is positive, and migration also
- since 2014, the temporarily occupied Crimea was also counted as residents of the Russian Federation, and this added 2.3 million people.
At the same time, the death rate from covid-19, officially, in Russia amounted to 380 thousand people.

In a word - if you read Russian numbers:
- if they praise and show the successes of Russia - it is necessary to divide by 2-5 to get closer to reality
- if they talk about some losses, then you need to multiply by 2-5 to get closer to the real level :)

Judging by tax deductions, pensions and other things (and some of these indicators were classified for some reason in March-April 2022), the real population of Russia may be approximately 80-95 million people.

I am just coming across this thread, honestly speaking, Russia is indeed a powerful nation, but i dont think they can become a world power anytime soon, this is if it is even possible for them to ever ascend that throne, their economy might be one of the best, they might have the highest weapon for war and all that, but i dont think USA will ever allow them ascend the throne of becoming world power.

How about Israel? Many, including myself believe, or used to believe that Israel is the nation with the highest number of nukes in the world. does this mean ive been wrong all this years?

The point is not only and not so much in the number of nuclear charges. After the victory in the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR, the United States pretty relaxed. So much so that in the 1990s they were left without their own uranium enrichment facilities (the United States is still forced to buy enriched uranium for nuclear power plants from Russia and this industry is not under sanctions). Also, the United States has very little progress in the field of delivery vehicles - in fact, therefore, NATO is forced to expand eastward in order to offset its weakness in military rocket science. In Russia, however, work to improve the means of delivery did not stop even in the most difficult years. As a result, now Russia is already armed with hypersonic missiles, and the United States is only conducting tests in this area, lagging behind even China.

In addition, Russia has a lot of hidden aces up its sleeve, which is not customary to talk about out loud. In particular, Rosatom produces several hundred kilograms of cobalt-60 every year (when the rest of the world produces about 2.5 kg per year), mainly for disinfection and medical purposes. But it's a typical dual-use product, if you know what I mean. One ton of the radioactive isotope cobalt-60 is enough to, for example, make the entire US uninhabitable for about 200 years, without visible changes in the natural landscape. In the field of nuclear weapons, Russia has many asymmetric strong advantages even over countries from the nuclear club.

Russia might have more nukes than other nations, but it would have to do more than just that in order to be dominant superpower. Although I won't deny that their advancement is attributed to their independence and unquenchable hunger for upgrading or developing war machines or technologies since the fall of USSR.
What NATO and the rest of the world is doing right now, is ensuring that they don't overstep the boundaries of the  ongoing war between themselves and Ukraine. 

It doesn't matter simply because it is an illegitimate regime that is currently struggling for survival and to keep what they've occupied instead of being able to expand like the original plans (to overtake entire Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey and at least half of Saudi Arabia). In which case it would have mattered to have nukes.

Right now the area the occupiers have managed to still hold on to after 74 years is very tiny so it has no "strategic depth" which means for example a single missile with a non-nuclear warhead hitting their nukes depot would wipe the entire Zionist population out whether it is a single nuke stored there or a lot.

Israel certainly has nuclear weapons, but compared to Russia and the United States, they are few. 

At one time, the leader of Israel said something like this - "No, we do not have nuclear weapons. But if there is a serious threat to our state, then we will use it."  It looked like some kind of trolling. 

In my opinion, it is not nuclear weapons that make a country a superpower.  The Roman Empire was a superpower not because it constantly waged wars, but because it built bridges and water pipelines in the conquered countries. 

A superpower is a state that is the bearer and conductor of progress and civilization.

When Russia conquers Ukraine, it will immediately build bridges and water pipelines there. And restore electricity to bring progress and civilization. ;D

Yes, I know that the United States not only does not stop military and advisory support to Ukraine, but will continue and increase its volume. For which many thanks to the people of the United States for supporting our fight against the world terrorist!

Regarding the Russian "sharp mind" and "know no mercy" - you are very, VERY very mistaken.
It's very easy to prove :)
From the point of view of tactics, the army of the country of the terrorist uses approaches ... of the second world war. Now, in addition to stupid terror and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, there are only attempts to shower our army with their "meat in boots." Primitive, untrained, cowardly outcasts - this is today's real Russian army. Yes, there are many. But we have enough ammo and shells to turn them into fertilizer :)
Regarding "they know no mercy" - believe me - heroism in Russian is when you are armed, there are many of you, and you attack an unarmed grandmother, girl, old man. Russia DOES NOT KNOW how to fight against a commensurate enemy. It is enough to honor the history of the Russian army, and you will be surprised - over the past 120 years, Russia has lost a huge number of wars, and was successful only against a guaranteed, many times weaker enemy. You will not find other examples. That is why Ukraine defeated the Russian strike force in 4 months, has already liberated 50% of the territories seized by Russian terrorists after February 2022. That is why the last 2 months Sergey Lavrov has been whining and begging for negotiations with Ukraine, they are well aware that the war is lost, and very soon "loving the people of Russia" will tear both Putin and Lavrov on Red Square :)

How a terrorist country built in the sewers of the DPR / LPR :))) Ask the residents of Donetsk, which is not shelled, except by their Russian terrorists, how often they have water in their homes. Don't ask about the hot one - they will send you somewhere further away. How often do stores have normal products. How good are they with heating? What services are running? :) In 2014, in Ukraine, many "paper" services have already been replaced by digital, online services. We ordered and paid for utility bills, certificates, payment for services, food delivery, and much more from a mobile phone. Including Donetsk, and Lugansk. Now the Russian world has come there - read "Stone Age". Since I worked for a company with roots in Donetsk for some time, I still have many acquaintances there. Most of them left when the brown plague of the Russian world came. Some were forced to stay. And the last ones have been writing to me for many years how tired they are of living in the Stone Age, when paying for a communal apartment is a queue, in one window, where you have to stand for a single hour, so that they look at your payroll, give you a paper form for payment, after which you go to a new queue to pay, and then... again first of all a second time to show that you paid. Ask how the suburbs live - Gorlovka, Yenakiyevo, Yasinovataya, Makeevka - there is generally game and the Middle Ages ... Well, more precisely, like in 95% of the territory of Russia

PS and about the country, a terrorist will capture Ukraine - this is mega funny  ;D ;D ;D
Look, those who in February March "captured the whole of Ukraine in 2-3 weeks" have been feeding worms and rats in the fields of free Ukraine for half a year already :)

And you could not, not be habitually unfounded, but bring evidence and facts, destruction in Iraq, by the forces of the United States, and let it be Ukraine (let's leave it for later, I will lead you another "liquidation of historical illiteracy", and I will tell you what the real mission was limited contingent from Ukraine).
Interested in the facts of the destruction of the Civil infrastructure:
- Hospitals
- Schools
- Shopping centers
- Sleeping areas / peaceful areas (where there were no militants, warehouses, etc.)
- Elements of a civil type system - water pipelines and water treatment plants, power plants, thermal power plants, etc.


... we will keep silent about Syria for now, about carpet bombing of purely civilian cities, and the deliberate destruction of infrastructure ... Like in Ukraine a couple of years later ... By the same terrorists - RUSSIANS!

PS and a control question about Afghanistan: how many civilians in Afghanistan were destroyed by the United States and how many "philanthropic USSR"?
A hint - my father served there ... I am very ashamed and disgusting for this. But on the other hand, I have a real picture of what the USSR was doing there.


UPD ....expected answers are not present and will not be. Well, at most a link to Russian fake media, or some kind of fake Twitter account, with a photo, it’s not clear what :)

Sorry, but it's actually "IF", not "WHEN". That's the purpose of NATO. As long as NATO exists, and its member-states don't change their alliances with Russia/China, truly "conquering" Ukraine will be a big problem. I believe there wouldn't be money, or time to build bridges and water pipelines simply because of "rebels" making Russia busier in dealing with disruptions.

Plus I want to hear your opinion about Nouriel Roubini/Dr. Doom's interview, saying that World War III has "effectively begun".

I agree with Roubini's opinion that the third world war has already begun. There is a slight chance that when (if) the Republicans come to power in the United States, the focus of the United States will shift from foreign policy and fomenting conflicts around the world to the direct solution of accumulated domestic economic problems. But I try to look at things realistically and understand perfectly well that the current US course is also a kind of method for solving domestic economic problems, just not direct, but indirect (but no less, and maybe more effective). The problem is that a full-scale third world war is beneficial for the US (provided, of course, that the armed conflict takes place on the other side of the ocean, without affecting US territory itself). Wars that are not beneficial to anyone do not last long and fade quickly. The conflict in Ukraine will continue for a long time and it may spread to the territory of the Baltic States and Poland. With a decrease in the number of combat-ready population of Ukraine, the number of volunteers and mercenaries from Europe and from all over the world will grow, ready to defend "democratic Western values" with weapons in their hands for generous pay. And Russia will have to methodically kill them all, it could take years.

No, no, you don’t need to prove it to me ... I know that for Russians and the "Russian world" in the event that they find themselves in an uncomfortable position due to their stupid statements / actions, the next hag is a stupid, primitive, undisguised denial of reality. Or vice versa - a stupid statement that the white ball is a green cucumber, because only such an option will confirm your "correctness". You do it in the same primitive and stupid way :)
Take my description, break it down into components and write opposite each individual item - In Japan, this is exactly the case, and here is the proof. And write in there something from reality, in Japan. Of course it will be funny, because. you will obviously write against any point "in Japan exactly like this, everyone knows this, but if you want proof, look for them yourself"!
But. Your behavior once again proves that I'm right, and you, apart from nonsense and fantasies, have no arguments.
I will wait from you for other "pearls" about "reality" :)

I don't quite understand what more proof you need. In Japan, about 50,000 US military personnel are permanently deployed, stationed in dozens of military bases, the maintenance of which is paid by Japan itself. Japan is also forced to keep on its balance sheet the largest package of US Treasury bonds in the amount of more than a trillion dollars, although its own debt burden exceeds 250% of GDP. Even these two circumstances alone make Japan a US vassal, a non-independent state in matters of foreign policy.

The number of people killed by United States after World War II directly or indirectly using its proxies is placed at approximately 30 million. What's more surprising is that the more I research the more I keep seeing Ukraine's footprints in each of them!

So I already wrote about your problem above - you simply know the word, but don’t understand its meaning :) It happens, but it’s fixable - knowledge, training, rejection of stupid propaganda - and you will adequately perceive the meanings of words :)

Let me try to explain to you how to explain to children in kindergarten .. Not in pictures, really, but in extremely simple words? It's easy for me, and I love doing good things! Yes, I immediately warn you - you can not thank, I'm a generous person :)

So - a vassal state, this is a state that, in very simple words, depends on and / or SUBJECTS to another state! Those. does not have the right to make any significant decisions, does not have its own representation in international structures. Any step must be coordinated and carried out under the control of the "ruler". In fact, it is some kind of slavery. Here, by the way, is a wonderful example of a vassal state - the Moscow kingdom (read Russia). The Muscovite kingdom (Russia is a invented and "far-fetched" word that has nothing to do with Muscovy) was a country-slave of the Khaganate. They obeyed, they paid tribute, they carried out all orders, and in the world they themselves did not make decisions until they asked permission from their Owner :)
And now think again, and tell what signs of a vassal state, of the above, Japan has, and give examples.
PS So far, there is little hope that the first time you will be able to train, but I believe in success! :)

Calm down your mentoring tone and stop clowning around.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan is on a short leash with the United States. I think it's an exotic island variation of Stockholm Syndrome, licking the boot that kicked you.

Any country with at least one US military base is a US vassal. Moreover, there are no US military bases in Ukraine, but Ukraine is also a US vassal, its pet monkey.

Japan is a classic example where the politicians are out of touch with the civilians. Japanese public is mostly indifferent to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and want to secure their energy supplies. The government on the other hand has gone overboard, by banning Russian fuel. And the Russians returned the favor by kicking Japanese companies out of Russia. And that makes Japan as the country which has incurred maximum losses as a result of counter-sanctions by Russia (more intelligent ones such as France managed to protect their investments in Russia).

Unfortunately, recently (after February 24 and September 21) a very large number of young and educated people left Russia for neighboring countries. 

Yes, Russia has very large natural resources, but Russia has very unprofessional managers.  There is a feeling that the country has gone mad.  The most popular politician in Russia is Tsar Ivan the Terrible.  Real "guardsmen" appeared in the country.  The guardsmen are the most faithful servants of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who terrorized the local population, and their symbols were dog heads (to gnaw at the enemy) and brooms (to cover treason).  For example, the actor Ivan Okhlobystin, right on Red Square, shouts "Goida" (this is such a cry of the guardsmen), brothers and sisters!  Live the Holy War!"

It is clear that such a psychological atmosphere does not contribute to the technological development of the country and its transformation into a superpower.

It is a common curse for countries which are rich in natural resources, such as Russia, Nigeria, Angola, and Congo. In most of these countries they have the authoritarian style regimes and they plunder the natural wealth for their own benefit. And the vast majority of the people live in poverty without any access to the riches that are derived from these resources. Russia is a little better when compared to countries such as Nigeria, but a regime that is sympathetic to the common people could actually transform it to one of the economic superpowers in the world.

I believe it would be the same policy of finding conflict, but the shift would be away from Russia and more into the bigger threat of China. Haha.


THAT'S THE OTHER PURPOSE OF NATO! The European Union believes NATO exists to protect/secure them from Russia, but it actually exists to make sure that the war NEVER enters the United States.


U.S. Military Personel has entered Ukrainian soil to "inspect" military installations. I believe if any of them was killed caused by the Russian military, then that gives the U.S. military the signal to join the war.

The world needs natural resources from Russia. You always have the choice of sourcing them from elsewhere, but then the prices will be high. For example, India is currently importing around 20% to 25% of it's crude from Russia, at a price of around $70 per barrel. The no.1 supplier is Iraq (which supplies around 25% of the Indian requirement). And because Russian crude is so cheap, Iraqis have been forced to reduce their price, to stay competitive. So the import bill for India has been reduced in general. On the other hand, EU made the decision to stop the Russian imports and go for crude from Saudi Arabia and other countries. While Brent crude is trading at $95 per barrel, the Saudis are selling their crude to the EU at $100-105 per barrel.

US has always been in this war from day 0 and before that not to mention that so far in the at least a dozen US military personal have been killed inside Ukraine ever since the this war started. US simply can not get more involved than this.

It was reported that this military personnel is there to audit the military armaments because they think the weapons are sold in the black market. Seem like 7 months ago they weren't concern about these weapons about where it goes but now they are.

It's pretty sure they are not just there to inspect but find out where to position themselves. This is just escalation and giving Putin the idea to blast them all.

They are there to first lead the war with Russia through their proxy as military commanders and also to train their proxy's soldiers with the war strategies they are deploying and also to train them how to use the weapons they sell them.

As for the weapons that find their way to the black market, part of it is US goal to arm their other proxies like the terror groups in in Syria and the rest are out of US control due to the corruption in Ukraine officials who will keep on selling these weapons on black market to fill their own pockets.

The city of Volgograd has been flooded with shit for a week, 200 thousand people without water and heating.
At the same time, no one bombed the city.
The authorities can’t do anything, everything is stupidly stolen.
Is this a sign of a superpower?
It is rather an indicator of the degradation of a third world country, such trifles make up what should be called a superpower.

Although the majority of normal adequate people would like to live in a cozy country, and anyway, a super or not a super power will have a status.

Yeah people love to live in US the super power, specially in San Francisco where people are literary taking shits in the middle of sidewalks that has led to them naming it the "poop city" since the streets are filled with human feces. :D

Of course Russia has the ambition to become the next super power, and what is done by invasion to Ukraine is a test and want to see the world's reaction with the invasion, I'm sure if Ukraine is finished then the next target is European countries like Georgia, Slovakia and so on.

Yes, there are chances that such countries as Poland, Moldova, Romania, Belarus and others will be drawn into the armed conflict.

I perceive the war as an evil and insidious demon.  It exists as a virus and infects the brains of people, instilling in them the idea that want, hunger, deprivation and death are good.  You have to be very careful not to be possessed by this demon. 

Or maybe there really is an unknown virus that encourages people to war?

But there is also culture, and civilization, and technology.  It is they (and not wars) that can make a country a superpower.

And who will teach you the mind-reason if not me? Well, you are the clowning and the show with fake "facts" arranged. And I, as a cultured, educated, humane person, am trying to bring you back to the world of reality, knowledge :) I understand you get angry when you are repeatedly poked with your nose into your fakes and stupidity. But what to do ?! Isn't it me who carries such nonsense, fakes, and stupid fantasies? In short - study, do not thank, I do it out of humane motives :)

I will also add - vassals, these are those who sold their country and people, who sell resources to "their blood enemies" for a penny, but keep money in their dollar, cowardly straighten out their CITIZENSHIP for themselves, their wives, children, lovers. Who buys villas and yachts in the country "enemy number one" :) And what you have listed, I explain for fools, this is a military partnership! :)


PS "any country that has at least one US military base is a US vassal. Moreover, there are no US military bases in Ukraine, but Ukraine is also a US vassal, their favorite monkey." - well, you see what a fool you are with brains squandered by propaganda! :)

Oh, and I just thought that US personnel were just going to Ukraine to train those militaries that volunteered. I haven't really heard that there are militaries coming from the US; I only heard that they are just funding it and providing some weapons. Though I also hear some speculation that there are really US soldiers there joining the Ukrainian soldiers, it hasn't been confirmed. If ever Putin knew there were US personnel there, how would Russia react? It will be more conflict, I think, since Russia doesn't want the US to get involved in their war.

It is not like this is some super secret intelligence I revealed for Putin to not already know it :D
This is a well known fact.

US is involved in this war in different ways:
1. Sending weapons as you already know
2. Remotely training Ukrainian troops (over the internet)
3. Providing intelligence (using satellites, etc.)
4. Sending commanders to covertly lead the war against Russia and stay far away from the battlefield to avoid being harmed.
5. Deploying troops that are no longer part of US military. Basically they first "retire" those troops so they are removed from official books then deploy them in Ukraine so Russia can no longer call them "US troops" because it is a free world and "civilians" can join the war from anywhere in the world ;D

The United States is not yet going to send its troops to Ukraine to help it defend its independence and repel Russia's aggression. They have stated this many times. In Ukraine, individual US citizens, on their own initiative, volunteered and fought on the side of Ukraine. Now the NATO countries are strengthening the eastern borders of their alliance, that is, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, the Baltic countries, since Russia sometimes directly threatens these states with war. This is quite logical and expected. However, NATO countries do not rule out direct military assistance to Ukraine with their troops if Russia uses nuclear, chemical, bacterological or other weapons of mass destruction on the territory of Ukraine. So far, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, using the help of civilized states, are themselves coping with the repulse of Russian military aggression and may well force Russia to capitulate.

Not only the US but I will say no country will provide military support to Ukraine like their own army, that will be the trigger for the third world war. I think the US and Nato understand that, they are willing to spend billions of dollars to support weapons and equipment for Ukraine, but sending troops is something that never happens. This is a war of two world extremes, not only between Russia and Nato, behind Russia also has China, North Korea, and Iran.

Definitely not. There are no winners in this war. The West simply has all the reasons to not let it happen.

Were those U.S. Military personel officially supposed to be in Ukraine when they were killed? Or were those actually U.S. Military? I believe those people were merely "volunteers", and merely civilians. If it was discovered by Russia/Putin that indeed U.S. Military was sent, entered, and was fighting side by side with the Ukrainian Military, then that's a true declaration of WAR.

I agree with you mate. Russia only controls energy and with it's strong and agressive military that is why some dependent countries suffer a slight or even worse drop in it's economy due to Russias actions. You are correct about China and the US who has the right title as superpowers as they had both strong military, energy sources, ties with different countries and other important resources to run on their own and of course make them independent.

The claim from Russia is that they are CIA instructors sent to train the Ukrainian troops on the frontline. A few maybe genuine volunteers, but there is a chance that some maybe undercover operatives. Even in Mariupol, there were reports of American undercover personal. When the city was besieged by the Russians, the Kiev regime made several suicidal attempts to evacuate these people (one or two were successful, and the helicopters were shot down in the remaining instances). Will be interesting to see how Russia would retaliate for this.

I break it down in this comment here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400359.msg61241670#msg61241670) and there is also an example of US confessing to being involved ever since 2014 posted on US Department of Defense (https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3149975/training-key-to-ukrainian-advantages-in-defending-nation/) website.

Basically in the think tanks in US they came up with a threshold of how much help they can send Ukraine before things escalate out of hands. That includes weapons (eg. type and range of missiles given to Ukraine) to troops they deploy (covert, NCOs, etc.). That includes the number and type of military personnel that are being deployed in Ukraine. They do it as much as it remains hidden and doesn't escalate the situation while still be involved enough to prolong this proxy war.

The news of US troops being killed fighting in Ukraine sometimes come out in the mainstream media too like [1] and [2].

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/28/politics/american-killed-ukraine/index.html
[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/26/europe/joshua-jones-ukraine-russia-transfer-intl/index.html

I believe Sithara007's post about Putin could be the truth. It could be U.S. Military Personnel/Special Forces who are acting under the guidance of the C.I.A. to help the Ukrainian military. Those 'personnel" don't wear the American flag, nor are they considered in an official deployment/mission. If they get caught by the enemy, the U.S. government will absolutely deny everything, and they will not do anything to help the "personnel". It's "Mission Impossible". Hahaha.

To be fair, Russia cannot be considered a great power because Russia is not a country whose economy affects the world but militarily they deserve to be the country with the best army in the world. They are an important balance to balance the world order, without Russia and China, the US would have dominated the entire world. Like the US is doing with the EU, everything is manipulated by the US from economic to military.
The EU region, which includes Germany, Britain and France, was once considered giant, even larger than the US before World War II. But because they follow the American leadership, everything they do is managed by the US and completely dependent on the US.

There is a saying - if you are in a crowd of tourists and a lion suddenly attacked you, then you do not need to run faster than a lion.  

You need to run faster than the most unsportsmanlike of tourists.

Because the lion will definitely stop to catch and devour him.....

To become a superpower, it is enough for a large state simply not to make fatal mistakes.  No need to get involved in wars and other geopolitical adventures.  No need to get carried away building skyscrapers and carry out rash economic reforms.  No need to clash with the superpowers.

And this is enough to eventually become a superpower.  You just need to avoid inappropriate actions.

That can only happen in an imaginary neverland not in the real world.
The moment you start growing and gaining some strength, the existing super powers will start feeling threatened even if you don't threaten their hegemony. For example why do you think United States is so afraid of China? That's only because they are economically expanding and have been successful, like eliminating the 85% absolute poverty in China in only 4 decades. Now look at the wars US has started against China over the same period (cold/soft wars and the recent threat of proxy war with Taiwan).

Russia was previously really considered one of the strongest militarily and the export of weapons was one of the main sources of budget revenue. But that was before the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine. Now all experts agree that Russian samples are ineffective and lose to Western counterparts. Such conclusions can be drawn if we analyze the use of Russian weapons in the war and countering them with Western weapons. After this analysis, the purchase of Russian weapons can only be due to a noticeable difference in price, but the price of Russian weapons is slightly lower, and sometimes higher than similar Western designs.

In addition, due to sanctions and limited access to spare parts, technologies and materials, Russia is losing the ability to produce advanced weapons even for itself. And you can forget about selling for export in such a situation. It also calls into question even the ability of Russia to secure those contracts that were earlier and to repair military equipment that was sold earlier. This certainly does not make Russia a reliable supplier.

Under these conditions, Russia is not only unable to compete with Western counterparts, but is also unable to develop and create new models of modern weapons. This means that Russia is losing the race and is automatically excluded from the group of leaders selling high-tech and effective weapons. All of the above discards the Russian Federation as a supplier to the group of consumer goods and dealers in standard weapons.

The beautiful legend about Russia as a manufacturer of highly effective and high-tech weapons burst like a soap bubble, just like the myth of the "second army of the world." And this is clearly not the last debunked myth about the greatness of Russia, which we will see. Russia turned out to be a colossus with feet of clay, with missed opportunities, wasted time and a budget plundered by Putin. The fall of this colossus is now only a matter of time. And the beginning of the process itself was laid by Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Recently, Russia has focused on attacks in only one place in Ukraine - near Bakhmut, and suffered enormous losses in manpower and equipment there. Every day, Russia is now losing 400 to 900 of its troops, which is about ten times less than the losses of Ukrainian troops. Therefore, Putin and his entourage are feverishly looking for ways to end the war in Ukraine, but at least somehow preserve their reputation. It is unlikely that they will succeed.

There are so many replies so i am worried about the duplication of my words and what I am going to say may there many of the members already posted those opinions before me but let me put on my own view on it. the trend of superpower is over. Still, if you consider it then dude there are two main contenders of this race as commonly one of them is mentioned by you and the second one is China really they are the most dominant in the local market everywhere. So now the time is to end for the superpower no one is going to be the next superpower now if they even try to be then the results are going to be the stone age as there is no place for showing power now if we or they do then there is no place for us.

And this prevents China from gradually becoming a superpower? 

For China, the sanctions that were imposed against Huawei were very unpleasant.  Huawei was the leader in the production of smartphones and instantly lost this leadership.  But China's leaders are wise rulers, not flighty fools.  They did not seize Taiwan and get involved in a war with the Western world.

They understand that in order to become a superpower, you need to behave adequately. 

And as long as China's leaders behave like this, China has every chance of becoming a hegemon.

You are 100% right.

While the NATO is spending their resources in the proxy war against Russia, China is silently strengthening their economy as well as armed forces. At the same time, the west is suffering form double digit inflation as a result of this proxy war. And China hasn't antagonized the west by openly siding with Russia. They have refused to provide weapons to Russia, although they rejected western demands to stop importing energy from that country. They are carefully balancing out both sides, for their own benefit.

What is "behaving adequately" in your book? Is it to bend the knee and accept a national security threat right at their borders? Or all the destabilization that US is causing directly or through its proxies in their trade routes in the sea and on land? Maybe it is to accept another Opium War imposed by the West?

You are right that Chinese leaders are wise but because they didn't attack Taiwan but because they didn't attack when US wanted. They decided to do it on their terms and at the time they want.

I am very skeptical about statements that the most important thing in the interaction between peoples is “strength”.  

Who is strong is right.  The science of geopolitics, which I consider pseudoscience, is based on this postulate.  

Meanwhile, even if we study geopolitics based on the series Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, it becomes clear that it is the inadequacy of the actions of individual characters that leads to disastrous political consequences.

In the modern world, "the force that is always right" is elevated to an absolute.  

The question arises, why did law arise in the world at all?  Wouldn't it be easier to just growl and hit each other on the head with clubs?  

I am close to the approach of China, which, in response to sanctions against Huawei, began to develop the Honor brand.  Because the political elite of China thinks in stratagems, and not in a banal way - whoever is strong is right.  

And in addition to stratagems, there is also ethics, law, morality, reason, cooperation, the interests of humanity as a species, and much more.  And all this is important.

Where did you get this information? I've never heard of it and don't believe it either. Like everyone says, in today's world whoever holds the media is the winner, they are brainwashing us and we don't even know it. I do not support war because it causes pain not only for the countries involved in the war, but also for the whole world. But this war cannot not happen, cannot let the US government and their minions bully others or do whatever they think is right. Let's see who benefits the most in this battle and you'll understand, I won't argue who has the upper hand in the fight, let's wait until the final result.

There's probably some disinformation campaign going on by NATO, and its allies. They usually do that to demoralize the enemy, but if you look at Russia's propaganda, they will have some disinformation of their own, and say themselves that they are "winning". Real "Winning", from the people's viewpoint, is attained and reached ONLY through diplomacy and peaceful resolutions.

"Heroically", leaving the right bank of Kherson in a panic, the "second army of the world" shamefully, but expectedly, loses another battle. The battle for the region, which is a miserable breed for the leader, through clowning "introduced into Russia" :) Now they cowardly run away from there, inventing excuses for themselves. It turns out, like everything from Russia, very idiotic. Of course, this is the behavior of the best contender for the title of "future superpower."
It seems that soon the most fetid formation of the name of the Russian Federation will not remain on the map of the earth!
But, let's play in the show "Russia is a possible future world leader"  ;D ;D ;D

Russia losing 900 troops per day is not even possible. They only have around 160,000 regular troops in Ukraine and on top of that there maybe another 40,000 allied troops. Losing close to a thousand soldiers every day should force them to stop their campaign in a month or so. And only around 20% of the reserve troops who have been recently called up have reached Ukraine. The remainder (80%) are still in Russia, going through various training programs. If the Russians were that desperate, they would immediately shift these troops to Ukraine.

If we arbitrarily take the confirmed losses of Russian troops only as dead (excluding the wounded, who are several times more), then according to the official statistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they are:
     - October 29 total 70 250 per day 550,
     - 30 October          71 200               950,
     - 31 October          71 820               620,
     - 01 November      72 470               650,
     - 02 November      73 270               800,
     - 03 November      74 000               730,
     - 04 November      74 840               840,
     - 05 November      75 440               600,
     - 06 November      75 930               490,
     - 07 November      76 460               530,
     - 08 November      77 110               650,
     - 09 November      77 950               840,
     - 10 November      78 690               740,
     - 11 November      79 400               710.
These figures are approximate, but in reality the losses can be much higher. Especially now, when the Russians are chaotically retreating in the Kherson region to the left bank of the Dnieper. At first, the invaders for some reason believed that their leadership had agreed with the Armed Forces of Ukraine on an unhindered withdrawal. But after the retreating columns of the Russian Armed Forces were hit with precision weapons, the retreat turned into a stampede to the few remnants of the crossings across the Dnieper. Big traffic jams have formed there, since the Russians themselves have recently destroyed all the watercraft, fearing that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would  cross this river right after them. Now about 20,000 Russian invaders have gathered there, fighting for any opportunity to cross to the other side of the Dnieper.This is a very good goal for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They will either be killed or forced to surrender. Also, the Armed Forces of Ukraine capture a lot of captured equipment. By the way, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already captured 500 tanks in the Russian troops. Now this number will increase sharply, since the occupiers will simply not be able to transport all the equipment across the Dnieper.

There will be no mercy for them, because retreating, they mined and blew up civilian critical infrastructure, massively robbed and removed equipment from medical and other institutions, museums, as a result of which Kherson, which now includes Ukrainian troops, was left without electricity, water and gas. The invaders forcibly deported part of the population of the Kherson region, including medical workers.

Without a doubt, I am not Russian, but I support Russia. The reason I am afraid to like it is also very simple, I adore Mr. Putin, in which he lays flowers for his teacher in the rain, and is very sad, he is a tough guy, and conversely, I don't think that Ukrainian comedian is a good national leader . Besides, NATO and the United States are existences that I have always disliked. The relationship between nations is the same as between us as individuals. If Mr Putin had not considered Ukrainian civilians, the war would have been over.

I wonder what people with a brain damaged by Russian propaganda will now sing after the situation with Kherson?
Remember the next Russian idiotic fantasies "Kherson is now always in Russia"?  ;D ;D ;D
In reality, there was no surrender of the city.
In real:
1. The total defeat of the Russian terrorist group in the southern direction.
2. Losses that the Russian terrorist army has never suffered in modern history.
3. It will no longer be possible to hide that on the right bank of the Dnieper, a "forgotten" group of approximately 15,000 Russian terrorists has remained. Some of them are already feeding crayfish at the bottom of the Dnieper. Some in women's clothes are hiding in the city, some, dressed in civilian clothes, are trying to somehow get into Russia.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine and the MTR, of course, will find all the terrorists, and ... Well, let's not talk about the well-deserved punishment that the terrorists will suffer :)

And most importantly, there are 3 questions:
1. Deadline for the liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions from terrorists
2. Liberation of the occupied Crimea
3. Will the Rostov, Belgorod regions and Krasnodar Territory (Kuban) be returned to Ukraine

Well, about the payment of reparations, the question is no longer worth it - all the inhabitants of the terrorist country will pay, and more than one generation! :)


UPD And a few words about the "partners" of the country of terrorists, Belarus
Belarusian Defense Minister Khrenin ridiculed the Ukrainian military, who aggressively mine the territory on the border with Belarus:
"We have more foot soldiers than you have min. 7 times!"

You understand ?!  ;D ;D ;D

Sorry, don't take this as an insult or threat. But I, as a resident of Ukraine, who saw with my own eyes what the "Russian world" did in Bucha, Irpen, Kyiv, I want to wish you that you would know him, the "Russian world" closer. And personally! Do you love him? I hope it will come to your country too. And then you will describe your joyful experiences from meeting him. On the ruins of houses where the corpses of former friends and acquaintances.. Among the destroyed infrastructure... Among the many missing people, who will later be found in hidden mass graves, with traces of inhuman torture. Tell me how much you love Russia, looking into the eyes of a 6-year-old girl raped by 2-3 cute Russian soldiers, in front of her mother ... Whom the soldiers will then brutally kill in front of this girl ... This is exactly what the REAL Russian world looks like, it is Putin who gives orders to commit such crimes...

What Russia did in Ukraine - USA did the same in Afghanistan and PAkistan
Israel did the same in Palestine but no one ever spoke about it - I don't find any forum here talking about USA and Israel blood shed in muslim countries

Let's do it - bring evidence, facts. Namely:
- Mass cynical murder of unarmed citizens of the country
- Mass rape - from young girls to older women.
- Sexual abuse of young boys, men
- Destruction, sadistic civilians and subsequent concealment, through mass graves in hard-to-reach places
- Sadistic torture, mockery and murder of military personnel of the country subjected to aggression.
- Contradictory sadistic antics - decapitation, dismemberment, hanging the disfigured bodies of local residents for display, public executions, ...
- Total destruction of civilian infrastructure. Objects that provide normal living conditions for civilians in cities and villages.
- Intentional, sadistic destruction of pets
- Total looting.
- Destruction of state symbols, persecution on ethnic and linguistic grounds.
- Destruction and theft of historical monuments, cultural values

And I'll tell you who else did this - the USSR, namely in Afghanistan!

PS Even if we admit the delusional nature of your statement that the United States allegedly did this in Afghanistan, is this an JUSTICE for you that the world terrorist country (Russia) is doing in Ukraine ?!

In warfare, usually there will be 4-5 times injured soldiers when compared to those who are killed. If Russia lost 80,000 soldiers, then there should be 320,000 to 400,000 injured soldiers. This is not possible since they just had 160,000 on ground (200,000 if you add up DNR/LNR troops and PMC Wagner). And moreover, if they had suffered this many casualties, then it would be just impossible for them to counter the Ukrainian army across the frontline, which stretches for more than 1,000 km (Ukrainian strength as of now is more than 1 million).

What did you expect from a dictatorship that heavily censors anybody who talks about such matters! A couple of days ago Bolton was spewing some bullshit in a conference where someone in the audience stands up and simply asks him "how are we going to trust you when you lied about Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.". He was immediately attacked by armed police forces and dragged out of there in handcuffs!!!

I don't really blame @DrBeer for not knowing these things since he's grown up in this system where they brainwashed him into thinking his country (Ukraine) sending one of the largest number of troops to rape and murder women and children in Iraq was all a "peacekeeping mission".

I'm assuming you still have access to the internet and Wikipedia right? Or did the regime censor that too?
Here is from a quick google search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings
And that's just one big case they couldn't cover up successfully out of millions of cases of war crimes US coalition (that includes Ukraine) committed abroad. You can even see more cases in the "See Also" section of the Wikipedia page!

Obviously there are a lot more sources that have more details and are more reliable. You can find them if you ever bothered to do some research!

If you do not believe the data of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then let's turn to the summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The last time such a report was served on Putin's desk was on November 13. It stated that the irretrievable losses of the personnel army of Russia (killed and missing) amount to 81,542 people, the losses of PMCs - 24,723 people, the losses of the Russian Guard - 5384 people. Thus, the total number of Russian losses in the war on the territory of Ukraine as of November 13 was 111,649 people.
 The number of wounded is probably several times higher. Therefore, in order to contain the front, Russia urgently needed mobilization. The cadre army of Russia is practically destroyed in Ukraine.

That is why, in December 2022/January 2023, there will be the next stage of recruitment of 300.00 consumables in Russia. A crazy old man, he hasn’t played enough war yet, he doesn’t feel sorry for his citizens, he’s vile, notorious and vengeful. But it's not for long.

By the way, imperceptibly, all the Russians swallowed, as usual, the fact that Putin ANNOUNCED and officially signed the START of mobilization (which, however, he promised not to carry out a little earlier), and when the official deadline for CLOSE it approached, nothing happened! He mumbled something indistinct. And he didn't sign anything. He said that in words he closed it, and in general these are questions for the Ministry of Defense, but he has nothing to do with it :) It is called "turn on the idiot mode." Russians take it for granted :)

Judging by the ever-growing area, the cemetery all over Russia is indeed Putin's "short victorious war"... But this is not the end yet. 2023 will bring even more unexpected results :) Although ... by the new year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will give out a lot of gifts, expect! :)

I know this story! Yes, I do not deny it. But look. I wrote you a huge list, NOT SINGLE, but systemic crimes, for the last 8 months of this year only, committed by Russian Nazis and terrorists. And you told me with difficulty unearthed one story.
I believe that any criminal, be it a Nazi rashist, an American soldier, a soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or my brother, having committed such crimes, MUST be punished! This is my position, and for me there are no "own" or "foreign" criminals - a criminal is a criminal, and the result of a crime is an inevitable punishment.

Apart from this bottom example that I know of, do you have anything else? Where are the "millions of cases"? Links to reliable sources and not fake Russian media?

By the way - do you know how much the USSR destroyed the civilian population of Afghanistan? Officially - more than 1 million people. One... MILLION... People! They were simply killed by the Soviet bastards. Just because they wanted to live the way they wanted and were used to. Unofficially, given that the "warriors" of the USSR did their best to DESTROY the traces of crimes (burned, buried corpses, simply blew up with powerful charges so that there were no identification options left, etc.), at least 2,000,000 people.
This data can be checked, of course not exactly, but the order of the numbers is accurate.

There is no desire to remember about this?

But about the terrible crimes in Ukraine arranged by the Russians (I do not mean the nationality "Russian", but precisely belonging to the country, I'm talking about citizens of Russia) - there will be many more. The facts of massacres and tortures in Kherson have already been revealed. What happened in Mariupol - under the Russian occupiers - I'm even scared to imagine ... But for everything, retribution and punishment will come. Immediate criminals will be punished, and those who supported them will pay for this for many more generations ....

Don't want to divert the topic, but there are inaccuracies here. It is true that 1 million to 2 million Afghans died during the war (1979-1989). However, most of the casualties resulted from the war between two factions of Afghans (Communists vs Islamists). The USSR had only a few tens of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan, while the regime troops numbered at least half a million. Communists held on to power until 1992 (three years after the Soviet troop withdrawal), when Yeltsin stopped supplying them with diesel as per orders from the United States.

We are talking about more than 70 years of war and mayhem and over 35 million innocent people killed directly or indirectly. I already told you that you should start doing your research but you still want me to list them here even though I already listed half a dozen cases!

Why do you think I consider USSR, US, NATO and Ukraine to be different from each other?! They are all the same in my eyes and they've all done horrible crimes abroad, some more than others.

My point is that these days criminals are accusing other criminals of crimes they've all committed. That's the definition of hypocrisy.

Russia and China have developed a thriving partnership based in part on their shared interest in undermining the United States.

Do you want to tell me how the Soviet soldiers served there? From India ? :) Probably now I can tell the History of India and your formation, your entire family, well, I definitely "know" all this :))))
I will voice it again - to my shame, my father served there and "performed an international duty at the request of the friendly people of Afghanistan." And he told me a lot, from what became the property of the public only after many years. He is a direct participant in this crime. So no need to tell fairy tales here...
At least before you INTENTIONALLY LIE, you would at least read Soviet statistics, which are always corrected "for a beautiful presentation." So, at least more than 510 thousand military personnel fought there. Still bydo about 100 thousand different kinds of civilians.
More than 25,000 soldiers of the USSR died in 18 years (Russia, of course, is a miserable parody of the USSR - in 9 months 80 thousand were killed, and about 240 thousand disabled, after a "successful special operation by the forces of the second army of the world" :) )
Total: 26,595 dead, 28,002 missing, 28,541 deserters.

And regarding the victims - I am certainly surprised that Russian propaganda destroys the brains of people in India, but in Afghanistan, more than 1 million civilians died at the hands of the Soviet army. There is no need to lie here habitually ... Understand - you can lie in Russia - there the people always believe everything, and do not even try to double-check. Here such an approach will not work, there are smart people who have access to information :)

First study what you are planning to lie about, so as not to look SO stupid :)

For example, I did not find a single forum where it would be discussed to whom Russia has brought peace, prosperity, and development over the past 20 years. CONSPIRACY ? Or maybe for the reason that this simply does not exist and cannot be? Or under the guise of bringing "peace" is actually brought war and destruction? How, for example, when native Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, and others are destroyed under the guise of "saving Russian speakers"? When in the phrase "Russian World" - the word "peace" - this is bullying, torture, murder, violence, looting ...

PS I have been to Israel more than once. Tell me - why in Israel, probably 50% of the workers are ... Muslims, from the same Palestine? And why is Israel not killing them? Why is one of the largest immigrant groups in the US Muslims? Is it some kind of non-Muslims or people from Muslim countries? :)

good point added - since we are not allowed to travel to Israel and that is written on passport too so I only know what is in news and people's option
Many jews are very good when they are not in their host country - but they are killing many palestinians muslim.
maybe those living in the Israel are the one who are rebel and works on their instruction

In 1800s all the workers in United States were Africans. That didn't mean they were working there out of their own free will; they were slaves that were forced out of their homes and into labor just to stay alive.

P.S. It is interesting how you are trying to whitewash the crimes of the globally condemned apartheid regime.

What about China and India?
What about the other countries in BRICs like Brazil?
;D

of course - India knows how to play the game they are in good term with USA and they have made good term with Russia as well. They want to benefit their people and they know well how to play double game. This is called smart moves. And they did it very well

I will answer with the words of my acquaintances in Israel (one is a combat aviation pilot, the other is an IDF officer)
To my question "How does it happen - on the one hand you are fighting with the Palestinians, on the other hand - they work for you!?" followed by the answer:
We are not at war with the Palestinians. We are at war with terrorists and their accomplices who want to destroy us. Among the terrorists there are people of different nationalities and religions. And yes - often they are in the territory of Palestine. We have repeatedly warned Palestine that we will fire DEFENSIVELY to defeat the terrorists in response to their attacks. If Palestine considers it right to provide its territory to terrorists, that is their choice. If Palestine does not provide its territory to terrorists, if it does not support terrorists, then they will not be under attack."

This situation is similar to the question "Why are you Ukrainians killing Russian citizens since 2014?". It sounds touching, if not to say that the inhabitants of Russia, with weapons in their hands, invaded our land in 2014, began to kill our citizens, destroy our country. We HAVE the RIGHT to live, WE HAVE the right to defend ourselves, WE HAVE the RIGHT to destroy terrorists, from whatever country they may be, in this case, from the territory of Russia.

Amazing news from an alternate reality! :))))
1. China took the side of Western sanctions. Not as active as the US, the EU, but also introducing restrictions - in the banking / financial sector, limiting the supply of high-tech equipment.
2. China uses Russia as its cheap, cover, raw material appendage - the price of Russian oil and gas, China is not set by Russia, but by China :)
3. The Chinese President, in a recent meeting with the President of the United States, spoke about a bipolar world, where the poles are the United States and China. There is no place for Russia in this world for China.

what is the source of these news?
China is not set by Russia but China - what does that mean?
Does that mean China sets their own rule and go with them?

LOL... all the best for a bipolar world with the United States and China at opposite ends. In that case, China is admitting that they view the US as their number one threat. And things are not helped by needless American intervention in Taiwan (Pelosi's drama a few months back?). There is enough demand for Russian raw materials around the world. Indian importers have recently faced stiff competition for oil, gas, fertilizer and wheat from Russia, because there is so much demand from the other countries (Pakistan, Indonesia.etc).

It is interesting how you defend Russian invasion and occupation of special operation in Ukraine. They say the same exact thing that they aren't at war with Ukrainians, they are just fighting terrorists and are denazifying the region. ;)

They think they are the biggest advocate of peace while they are destorying the peace of the world in half the world  -starting from Iraq - Iran- Afghanistan - Palestine Serya and they are actually in favour of peace - I fail to understand what kind of peace they are making? But invading the weak nation.

There are a lot of sources: read Chinese resources about financial bans on working with Russian banks and their lending. Read Chinese news about the exit from the market of critical suppliers of high-tech systems (Huawei and others)

The rest I had in mind is that China sets the price for Russian gas and oil, forcing Russia to do what is beneficial to China. Because China is well aware that from 2023 Russian resources, Russia itself will be forced to sell for a penny. And this means that China will further reduce the price of gas and oil that it buys in Russia. And Russia will dutifully fulfill all the orders of China!

Well, if you decide to pretend that you don’t understand simple truths, I’ll explain to you, it’s not difficult for me, I spent a lot of time teaching the people of Russia, even such simple things :)
1. Terrorism is a deliberate, politically motivated violence committed against the civilian population or objects by federal-level subnational groups or clandestine agents and organizations, usually with the aim of influencing the public mood.

2. By the nature of the subject of terrorist activity, terrorism is divided into:

Unorganized or individual (lone terrorism) - in this case, a terrorist attack (less often, a series of terrorist attacks) is carried out by one or two people who are not behind any organization

Organized, collective - terrorist activities are planned and carried out by some organization

Terrorism is divided into:

National - pursues separatist or national liberation goals;
Religious - may be associated with the struggle of adherents of religion among themselves

Ideologically given, social - pursues the goal of radical or partial change in the economic or political system of the country, drawing public attention to any acute problem.

I hope it became clear to you that the goals voiced by the Kremlin bastard are nothing but Organized, collective, National, Ideologically given, social TERRORISM. And this means that your arguments are primitive, an attempt to JUSTIFY TERRORISM and VIOLENCE. Think. As history shows, by supporting terrorism, you yourself become a participant in lawlessness, and very often, as a result, you become a Victim of what you supported. Here in December-January - they will collect another group of weak-willed, stupid bodies, who will be sent "in one direction", and parents / wives / children will soon receive tens of thousands of bags with the postures of their children, husbands, parents .... And if you , like many Russian men, you can’t cowardly hide from mobilization - most likely in the near future your life will not cost a penny, and will be very short :)

They (Putin) are actually saying Ukraine isn't a country, and never has been, it's always belonged to Mother Russia and therefor doesn't have the right to determine it's own future.

The US is the one who has been trying to steal Ukraine from both, Ukraine and Russia. Such subtle CIA coups since 2014. Zelensky, the nothing puppet. Let him direct his affairs as he wants. He has proven he doesn't have any strength without the US.

8)

What the Russians are doing with the civilian population of Ukraine is increasingly convincing the West of the need to destroy Russia. This bloody monster from the era of lizards has no place in the modern world.

Why are you so much against Russia. Even if you say they don't have any place for them in modern - this would not change the fact that Russia is a powerful state and they have moved the world in last few months. And they will keep showing their strength like USA and China and Isreal in coming days

I think it's pretty clear that the world, including Putin, has been over estimating Russias military capabilities up until last Spring.  Nobody thought Ukraine had a chance in the first days of the war when the question was not if but how long it would take Kiev to fall.  The days of Russia military invoking images of Stalins red army are over - even though they seem to be using a lot of the same equipment.

ukraine got so much support for EU - but there is so much damage going on in Palestine and there was so much damage done in Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
The killing and power show will continue and it will last forever.

russian firing dummy missile to wear down Ukraine air defence - ukraine is bracing for more attacks
In Fact the diplomats of Ukraine are getting strange letters. they mentioned that there were parts of animals in those envelope - one mentioned there was a cow eyes in one letter and in other they mentioned there was a pig eye. What are Russians trying to give messages to the diplomats.

The satellite photo shots of Ukraine blackouts from electricity failures done by Russian missiles, are showing the US that they better get serious pretty soon. If they don't, Russia will take Ukraine back. If they (the US) do get serious, they threaten the world with WW3.

The US and Europe have pumped almost $100 billion into Ukraine, in arms and money. It makes you wonder what is really going on over there since Russia has been able to thwart this amount of money and armament.

Of course, a lot of the money was laundered back to US government people, etc. And some of Zelensky's people have bought themselves mansions in Switzerland. So, that accounts for some of it.

8)

But the life is going on - I have seen a documentary and people are going to salons and getting hair cut - although they are tired and upset but they are maintaining their lives.
Russia should stop bombing on innocent people and fight on the borders face to face with soldiers.

You don't take over a country that has a functioning military by terrorizing civilians.  You have to defeat the military.
Russia is knocking out the electricity for innocent civilians because they can't knock out the Ukrainian military and have been losing ground since the end of Summer.

You don't seem to understand that civilians actively supporting their military in times of war, have made themselves part of the war.

In the Ukraine past, the Ukraine troops hid themselves among the civilians in the hopes that Russia would avoid harming the civilians, and thereby not harm the troops. And it worked to a very great extent.

Russia is still not attacking civilians directly - sure, there are accidents that happen. But that doesn't stop the Ukraine military. Rather, they continue to fight so that Russia has to turn to new tactics. The tactics include taking out the electricity.

Does Ukraine care about its civilians? They keep right on fighting like they don't care. Make peace with Russia and live. Or, maybe the civilians don't care one way or the other, and it is only the US media trying to spin sympathy stories.

Besides, when stuff like the following is happening, we see that even the US doesn't care about Ukraine civilians...

Nigeria's President Says West-Supplied Weapons In Ukraine Are 'Filtering' Into Africa - https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nigerias-president-says-west-supplied-weapons-ukraine-are-filtering-africa

Russia Quietly Amasses 'Shadow Fleet' Of Tankers To Sidestep Western Restrictions - https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-quietly-amasses-shadow-fleet-tankers-sidestep-western-restrictions

Wake up! Even if Russia was the bad-guy, it's Zelensky who is essentially killing his own people.

8)

You don't seem to understand that it's wrong to attack civilians.  

Putin is literally just raining drones and bombs on villages hundreds of miles away from the front line hoping to knock out all of their power so that they will freeze during the winter.  He's trying to pull a Stalin on the people who's great grandparents were starved to death for the same reasons Putin is trying to kill them today.

There is no moral justification you will ever be able to come up with for that.  Doesn't matter what those people believe in, which country they support, what religion they are or what color their skin is.  It's wrong to attack civilians at all, much less make a campaign out of it.

You don't seem to understand that Russia is at war with the US. If the CIA hadn't done their election coup in 2014 and following, and then pushed Ukraine to start destroying Russian and Ukrainian civilians and their property in the Donbas area in Ukraine, Russia would never have done their police action.

There is no moral justification for the US to stick its nose into Russian and Ukrainian affairs to take over the Slavic areas of the world... which it has vowed to do in various writings, and talked about in speeches for decades.

If the US were gone, Zelensky would cave in and surrender, and the fighting would be over. But no! Let's see how many more $billions we can send into Ukraine to keep this war alive, and to make it into a World War.

So, you see that it is the US and Europe causing the deaths of Ukrainians, and using Russia to do the dirty work for them. However, Russia is being as careful as it can to avoid harming civilians who aren't fighting Russia through their civilian status.

8)

Sure there is.

Ukraine and US are allies and an agreement was made in 1991 that included US military support for Ukraine.  It's also in US best interest as more democracies and fewer autocracies are always good for American/andy western countries National Security. 

It's also in the best interest of the world to prevent a mad man from invading countries without consequence.  We learned that lesson in the 1940s after the world looked the other way in 1939 while Germany annexed Poland.  

But the US is NOT supporting Ukraine. Sure, almost $100 billion sent there, but where did it go? No accounting for it. Listen to Col. Doug Macgregor from just a few days ago.


This major offensive is obliterating Ukraine
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/F3MkvWxdJrU/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEjCPYBEIoBSFryq4qpAxUIARUAAAAAGAElAADIQj0AgKJDeAE=&rs=AOn4CLCZdXq2p0Mj3MOoTkJRHY5ab0TgTg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MkvWxdJrU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MkvWxdJrU)


8)

There are many countries which has suffered the the power imposed on them by either USA and USSR
Afghanistan is one such country - to gain land and to have an access of the hot water oceans both the countries have destroyed the land with their brutality 

The USA stick its nose in every country affair - recently there was a big protest happened and is still going on in Pakistan for US sending cyper to change Pakistani PM and that resulted in unrest in the whole region USA twenty year war has brought so much destruction in Afghanistan and the region and now they want Russia to have peace with Ukraine

The US has done some awful indefensible things in the past.  Helping Ukraine is not one of them.  If you're defending Putins actions today you might as well defend George W Bush's actions in 2001.  Criticizing the fucked up US history to defend Putin is not logical.

What? You didn't watch the video at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400359.msg61397296#msg61397296 ? How are you ever going to learn that the US IS NOT helping Ukraine. The whole thing the US is doing is trying to take over more land and countries. And they don't really care how they do it as long as they don't look too bad at the end.

8)