"The ironic part of this statement is that Vladimir Putin rose to power by saving an economy."

The real Putin cut taxes and introduced a flat tax. I doubt our forum Putin supports that.

"Putin so dominant"

He's dominant because he helped improve Russians' standard of living.

"There's no genocide being committed in Donbass, not in any sense of the term"

Tell that to the residents of Slavyansk, Lugansk, Semenovka, Kramatorsk that were indiscriminately bombed and shelled, who were attacked with anti-personnel weapons prohibited by international law. Tell that to the pensioners of Donbass to had their pensions cut off. Tell that to the people who had no heating in the middle of winter. Tell that to the people of Donbass being equated with bugs that need to be exterminated, indeed the Ukrainian media ran ads which called for their extermination. The rhetoric coming out of Kiev is similar to that of the Hutu power campaign in Rwanda. Timoshenko (that poor political prisoner) said Ukraine needed to kill the goddamned katsaps and exterminate them with atomic weapons. Thomas Theiner made similar statements. The Svoboda party openly cheered when the Odessa massacre occurred.

But yeah bombing civilian infrastructure and residential neighborhoods indiscriminately, calling for extermination, starving the elderly and freezing people to death isn't genocide...

You mean like Russian warplanes in Syria bombing hospitals?

@leon:
The standard of living in Russia has declined dramatically since Putin came to power. It is one of the lowest in the developed world

@mscott:
The point is it was WAY worse in 90-s.

"Again, you completely failed to respond to my comments and instead launches into another pathetic diatribe about how I love bombing babies in Vietnam. "

What comments? All you've said is for me to go to Russia, the usual America love-or-leave-it bullshit. You've done nothing but engage in ad hominem attacks. You want me to respond to what? You don't reply with anything of substance. You hypocritically accuse me of absolutism and denigrating language when your version of the world is America is good but makes mistakes, but everybody that America hates is evil, a gangster, a thug, a criminal, a strongman, a dictator. Intentions for America are always benign, intentions for their targets are always sinister. You bring up Putin's tenure in office but don't want me to bring up longer presidential tenures in self-described democratic countries like Finland. Because heaven forbid anybody bring up counter examples that undermine your stupid 'argument'.

"A) to eliminate or reduce potential military threats (USSR, China)
B) reduce the influence of said potential military threats (Vietnam, Korea)"

A nice euphemism for slaughtering millions of people who daring to have a government that didn't kowtow to America. What of the "potential" threats of Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and all the other poor defenseless countries that America decided they needed to destroy for some "benign" motive you ascribe to it. If it were any other country who behaved this way you'd say want want to dominate the world and who had no respect for international law, human rights, or democracy. But America is just a country that means well makes errors in judgment, right?

"But at least they can hope for two, four or six years down the road when they have another opportunity to vote in their favored policy makers."

Vote in another set of warmongers from a different party you mean? Tell me what did voting Republican do for Americans who opposed LBJ's war in Vietnam? What would have voting for Bob Dole done about the war in Yugoslavia? What would voting John McCain done about the wars Obama is currently conducting?

"Ukranians in Crimea"

You mean the Russians in Crimea who voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia and thanks to Russian protection, aren't getting the shit kicked out of them by Kiev? Yeah I'm sure they're real devastated about their president.

"the people being gassed by Bashar Assad"

Real bad timing to trot out that lie when ISIS and al Nusra just used chlorine and mustard gas, buddy.

"Muslims in Russia,"

Which Muslims? They do comprise 20% of the population you know, and Russia has good relations with Central Asian Muslim countries. If you're referring to your heroic Chechen Islamists who started attacking people because the Chechen people didn't vote for independence, they're the ones who started both wars.

"anyone who wants to see an increase in standard of living and life expectancy in Russia, etc."

Yes let's please compare the standard of living in the glorious 1990s when your friends weren't complaining at all about Russia to now.

"What is so sickening about your positions is that they are absolutist: YOU ARE BAD, WE ARE GOOD. "

Oh spare me the talk of nuance, hypocrite. You denigrate the Russian and Syrian governments but claim America is only guilty of well intentioned errors. I'm not taking lectures about seeing the world in shades of grey from the likes of you.

"You mean like Russian warplanes in Syria bombing hospitals?"

I think you're confusing Russian warplanes with American ones that bombed the MSF hospital in Afghanistan and claimed it was run by the Taliban. Or your Saudi friends who repeatedly do the same thing in Yemen. Keep the propaganda coming. Keep attacking the airforce that liberated Syria from Daesh and saved Palmyra from being destroyed.

"The standard of living in Russia has declined dramatically since Putin came to power."

Liar.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-per-capita

Read that correctly, Russia's GDP (PPP) per capita was *at an all time low* in 1998, and was an *all time high* in 2013 (prior to the economic sanctions). Scott couldn't be more wrong if he tried.

I was going to say Putin is in power because he knew how to solve Yeltsin's economic crisis, but it seems the response has been pretty clear.

"A token opposition is hardly an opposition. After taking his seat as the figurehead of United Russia, the party managed to be so ambiguous and Putin so dominant that the political system became swamped under his thumb."

I think the CPRF and Just Russia would be scandalized at the notion that they are "token". There are four political parties in the Duma so I hardly think the 7% threshold is out of line with other countries. In the last election the opposition parties gained a lot of seats on United Russia, this despite the fact that Putin himself is overwhelmingly popular.

Countries tend to unify when they're under siege. The US had token opposition after 9-11. Russia is under unprecedented pressure right now, and all patriotic Russians, whatever their misgivings are of Putin's domestic policy, are firmly behind him when it comes to standing up to these attacks.

The other problem is Putin tried handing the baton off to Medvedev, but he proved himself to be an abject failure, letting NATO off the hook with the Libya resolution. There isn't anybody else ready to take up the presidency who is proven that he could be a worthy successor yet. I don't blame most Russians for not wanting to take the risk.

What is the point of your Cold War revanchism Putin? Get it through your head: all heads of state are assholes, there are no exceptions.

No sorry, Thucy. When Daesh throatcutters blow up and smash ancient history right before our eyes while the West and their allies help them, the game of false equivalency doesn't work. It never has worked but it especially doesn't work right now. It's easy to be morally pure and say everybody is terrible but that only emboldens the bullies knowing full well that nobody is going to stand on the side of their victims.

@mscott "Arguing with you appears to be like arguing with a stump.".

I am impressed by your energy attempting to do so. :)

I gave up fast responding to the garbage and now I don't find time reading it either. But still it pops up when other people comment it.

The problem with it is that this big pile of shit overwhelms the sane discussion the other sane people is trying to have. And that I find very disturbing.

peterlund, you are so pathetic, it's incredible.

also: do you really think that putin33 is paid to post on a site with a forum where little more than a hundred people regularily post? you really are paranoid.

I also find it disturbing that you spend your time discussing this individual instead of something of some importance. Who is the pathetic person here? Me or you?

peterlund, why do you keep posting in this thread if you don't want to discuss? you came here to discuss crimea/russia/ukraine et al, yet all you do is explaining that you won't do that because putin's points are ridiculous. you don't engage in discussion. you're pathetic.

kasimax, why do you keep posting in this thread if you don't want to discuss anything of some importance? So far I am willing to discuss with if you have anything interesting to say. In a free country everyone is free to choose who you engage in discussions with and on what issues. Don't you agree?

peterlund, it's quite telling that you can't tell the difference. i never claimed that i want to discuss russia/ukraine. you did, yet you don't.

Kasimax you are silly. Why should I waste my time discussing with someone I have no respect for and why should I bother to answer all of his silly arguments. Engaging in a discussion with someone is to show that person and his arguments respect and I have none.

that's perfectly fine. no one demands you answer his arguments. however, you keep claiming his arguments are "silly" and not worth of your time (at least six times in this thread alone) without actually explaining why you think they are, which makes you look rather, as i said before, pathetic, and suggests that you don't engange in discussion not because you don't like his arguments, but because you don't like him, which is even more pathetic.

@peterlund (and @Maks-s15)

I don't know if w.p. is a reliable source or not. The other day I had a disccusion here with leon and ns around one w.p. article that seemed to me very manipulating against moveon.org. Anyway, I wouldn't discredit the article based only on that. I'm aware that even if a medium has a tendency, not necessarily every writer works under the same contract, or political pressures.

Also I would not discredit Melnikova automatically for having inflated data (how much?) years ago in a very different context. Anyway, I'd really like to have more info about her, and where is she taking her estimations from.
There are two things I find particularly manipulating in this article however:

1.the fact they rely in an ukrainian intelligence source, for their images selection

2. the fact there's nowhere mention of the quantity of the deaths Sergei Krivenko is talking about, but the article (yes, not explicitelly, but the subtlety here most be noted) seems to take as fact that they were 100 (and there can be other reasons why a skirmish does not brake immediately in the news).

When the article talks about graves of russian paratroopers, theres again no way to know if those paratroopers are really russian soldiers or volunteers...

But I have to thank you for the link, and adknowledge that it has certeinly increased my doubts, and I'd certainly like to know the opinion of Maks-s15, and not only on this particular subject, but also others that have been commented here.

Below I post the article again for quick reference.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/29/what-does-russia-tell-the-mothers-of-soldiers-killed-in-ukraine-not-much/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-russia-casualties-idUKKBN0GS20H20140828

I find this other article much better, much more to the point, containing an accusation that should be adknowledged:

"When I talk to the guys who accompanied these coffins of these contract soldiers, they tell me that the order was given orally, there were no forms of documents"

and this other interesting statement:

'Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko said on Thursday that active Russian soldiers were fighting with the rebels against Ukrainian troops but were doing so while on vacation'

???

well, I'm not the one to put my hands on fire to defend russian position anyway.

Yeah, I was just lazy to comment.
If you want a reliable source of information about Russia, make sure it's not:
1) So-called "out-of-the-system" opposition, aka anti-goverment liberals outside Russian four largest political parties
2) Ukrainian media
Both of them has proven to be unreliable and don't really operate with facts.
This article references both of them.
About other subjects: some time later, I have a sudden lazyness strike %)

maks,

ok, just 2 quick qestions then:

are polyakova and krivenko on the "out-of-the-system" opposition?
why one should discard those guys anyway, do you suspect they are unfair, (yes or not)?

also, I have to point that I probably guessed the "uk" abreviation wrong, I took it as a "united kingdom" but it could well be the first 2 letters of "ukrania",

sorry for that.

UK is UK, Ukraine is UA.

I was talking about the Washington Post article, not Reuters one.
I wouldn't say Polyakova and Krivenko are out-of-the-system opposition (those are more radical), but they are literally the only sources of information in this article.

Ok, I searched some more information about this topic. I haven't found literally anything about Polyakova or Krivenko saying that over 100 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine, but I've found that "~10 (ten!) Russian soldiers died, and the cause of their death is uncertain", and that "hospitals in Rostov-on-Don is full, but this is unconfirmed".

"It's easy to be morally pure and say everybody is terrible but that only emboldens the bullies knowing full well that nobody is going to stand on the side of their victims."

Pffft, fuck you. I actively organize against the American government, because its a corrupt institution that should be dismantled. Doesn't mean I will ever go to bat for Putin. I wouldn't shed a single tear if that autocrat croaked tonight.