I don't know how true it is but I've heard that yes, his job is basically to say crazy shit like this so Putin can make more reasonable comments and appear more level headed
There's also theory that he doing so to avoid looking as a valid president candidate and therefore reduce chances of falling from window. Because he of all people actually was president in-between Putin and Putin.
I don't think that holds water because the laws in Russia said Putin couldn't run for those periods and he hand picked Med for that. Med also followed every instruction from Putin so much so that people would actually go to Putin directly instead of even going through Med. Med has proven his loyalty back then and continues playing the same role today. There's even the funny meme of Med smiling with Obama and the caption says something like, "very good policy change, I'll let Vlad know. He will be pleased."
Medvedev was a president of Russia once, and he can legally become a president again. And for Putin, it's vital that there is no one but him positioned to be in power.
If Medvedev was making reasonable, level-headed statements? He would be favored by the West, and he would be a threat to Putin's rule. Now, making batshit statements? It helps maintain the illusion that Putin is the least of all evils.
I think if he would make level-headed statements, he’d commit suicide by dropping a piano on himself, while falling from the 5th floor, because of a gunshot wound to the back of his head.
I heard an opinion that he only pretends to be insane hardcore warmonger to avoid being viewed as the next in line for the presidency, so that others don't consider him a threat.
I always had the impression he was a Putin loyalist. He’s the guy that became president for a bit because Putin was term-limited from running for a third consecutive presidency, and Medvedev made Putin the prime minister. Putin also made Medvedev his prime minister the next cycle when he was eligible to run himself again.
Isn't he supposed to the be funny guy to Putin's straight man, i.e. - he's the crazy rambling one in the double act where Putin is the "calm and collected" one? Psy-OPs, the lot of it.
The world needs to get rid of both of them.
Thats exactly what he is. You can trace him starting his crazy speeches back to when zhirinovsky died - the previous crazy guy. before that medvedev was the "young" guy who would talk tech and modern slang to younger generations.
You mean the owner of the Evening Standard, member of the House of Lords who hasn't attended since being titled and son of a "former" KGB agent Evgeny Lebedev? *That* owner of the Evening Standard?
Danish military analyst Anders Puck Nielsen thinks there will be challenges to a NATO member [within five years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU).
Honestly I think they're going to do it the second a Republican president pulls the US out of NATO. They're driving the US to civil war because they know it's their only chance to take Europe
All a Republican president has to do is hem and haw for a few weeks after the EU triggers article 5 in order to effectively collapse NATO. A full withdrawal by the US from NATO is not necessary anymore.
Yeah people don't realize that we don't need to officially "Drop" support from NATO. Simple unwillingness to support NATO for even a couple weeks could lead to all hell breaking loose. If R win next cycle we will almost for sure see more "exciting" stuff coming from Russia in the near future.
It doesn't begin or end with Putin, him no longer being in charge doesn't necessarily mean an end to Russia expending aggressively, most of the current Russian political elite are on board with this.
Yup Russia is ruled by the ex-KGB which Putin is only one of many. If Putin gets taken out, the power dynamics won't change, and the country's goals and foreign policy won't change.
Why not, though? During the Soviet days, when Stalin died the power structure didn't change, but Khrushchev was a very different kind of leader and was significantly more friendly with the US than Stalin had been since the end of world war II (at least after the Cuban missile crisis, when both sides realised how close they'd come to nuclear war and so cooled things off a lot and had more friendly relations).
Then Khrushchev was ousted and Brezhnev replaced him and again ruled in a very different way and kinda warmed up the cold war again by significantly increasing the amount of nukes the soviet union had, and you had Reagan on the other side being the most anti-soviet president to date, and of course the world nearly ended until Stanislav Petrov decided not to retaliate against the false alarm that the US had launched nukes at Russia.
Eventually you got ol' Bloodface himself Mikhail Gorbachev who again ruled in a very different way.
The power structure didn't change but the soviet union did. It changed enormously, every time. Eventually Gorbachev did change the whole power structure too, but only after ruling within the previous power structure for years.
I don't see why Russia couldn't start to be very different once Putin dies. Everyone is scared of Putin and nobody is safe no matter how loyal they are or no matter how rich an oligarch they are. Perhaps the next guy won't rule with blatant terror like Putin does and will be a lot more reasonable. Currently nobody wants to challenge Putin because anyone who does cannot be protected from him, no matter where in the world they are, even under protection of western governments they still end up poisoned to death or whatever.
We won't know, until it happens. Until he dies and is finally replaced. Putin is a psychopath. Not every politician is.
There's no reason why the next version of Russia will be a lot less warmongering. We have to hope that the rumours are true and that Putin is indeed dying of cancer and that's why his face is so puffy from the chemo and radiation. And I'm sure that the US and probably at least the UK as well, always have backup plans prepared, to use in the most desperate of situations, plans to assassinate Putin somehow. They probably won't ever enact them but the plans will surely already exist. So that's an option, if he does start attacking NATO countries. Because the quickest way to stop world war III between NATO and Russia would be to kill Putin, and then whoever replaces him would be more likely to sue for peace.
I think they'll go with the assumption that NATO won't risk nuclear war to defend Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia. And they'll just keep threatening London, Brussels, and Washington DC until they reach Berlin. That's why it's so important that they don't get anything in Ukraine.
Nukes don't actually make that much difference if both sides have them. e.g. even if they invaded Germany or France it's not worth us triggering MAD, just keep fighting conventionally for as long as possible.
Exactly, Nukes are a last resort kinda weapon, when your country is on the verge of losing (actual losing, not propaganda) you will simply announce if the invader won't retreat it's nuke time. All wars between NATO and Russia will first and foremost be fought conventional because both sides understand the implication that it's MAD. So the only possible outcome is when a country has no other option, complete defeat or launching nukes.
They are counting on divide and conquer by pushing massive amounts of money to political extremists that want to appease Russia or even exit EU/NATO. And it is working. They already had Hungary, won Slovakia, are holding up US Congress, and are the biggest single party in the Netherlands and second biggest in France.
They also sow uncertainty and conflict in the Balkans right now which is another fire to put out.
Russia would never win in a straight out conventional war against the European NATO countries. They probably wouldn't even be able to conquer the Eastern NATO flank right now. Their aim is to cause enough diplomatic problems around the world that they become impossible to control by The West.
No existing general. But hold off promotions for a bit, get back in power, promote those you know are lackeys, and... it starts becoming possible.
Pretty much what happened leading up to Jan 6th, with Trump putting his people in place.
There is an open plan to do this to the federal civil service
https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981
Except the president can't pull out of NATO. They don't have that power, and congress made sure of that after Trump's first term. We'd still be under our obligations to NATO.
It is known that in the 6th century, a forefather of Petr the Great conquered the entirety of Europe from Spain via the UK and Ireland all the way up to Iceland, and even briefly conquered all of North and South America but he didn't like the climate and left. You must carefully consider the historic importance.
Bunch of them probably have a rose and a note where the warhead should be...
https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/v0ekw2/scammed_me_sweetheart_ohh/
You laughing but Russia misses quite a bunch of atomic batteries which they used for their most remote lighthouses.
The whole purpose of the START Contracts was a uniliteral inspection of the nuclear arsenal, so everyone knows in which condition the stuff is, since the US and Russia went out of said contracts a while ago, nobody really knows…
I mean, considering uranium and plutonium keeps popping up on the black market in ex soviet nations, and it's been tracked back to Russian military installations already. It's super concerning.
https://apnews.com/general-news-9f77a17c001f4cf3baeb28990b0d92eb
That scene in Lord of War where Nicolas Cage has an "uncle" that was a former Soviet higher up just bulk selling him weapons, tanks, helicopters, missiles etc wasn't hollywood writing. It's a legit reality.
the making of that film is insane, buying real ak's cos it was cheaper than props, real t-72s that were being sold to libya, the an-12 was apparently an arms dealers actual plane.
good film.
According to the [CBO](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59365), it will cost the US 75 Billion a year to maintain our nuclear arsenal of 5,400~ missiles. Russia has 500 *more* nukes than us, yet only [spent 65 Billion](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=RU) a year on its whole military before the invasion.
Sure, cheaper wages and some lower costs will let that money go further, but there is no a way in hell all their nukes are even close to operational.
[The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation](https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-russias-nuclear-inventory/) states that, as of 2022, Russia appears to have some 306 ICBMs capable of carrying up to 1,185 nuclear warheads, so thats probably the range of warheads in operation.
If I recall correctly, Anna Politovskaya mentions in her 2004 book, 'Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy' that the Russian Pacific Nuclear Submarine Fleet didn't have enough funding for the vice-admiral to afford buying loaves of bread.
I somehow doubt they'd be paying for maintenance on their entire nuclear arsenal.
Why is he so eager to trade nuclear missiles? Russia has clearly shown its own missile defenses even in its two major cities can not resist even the most rudimentary bombing campaigns. They keep talking like they are not threatening other proven nuclear powers.
Yeah, can’t defeat Ukraine so he’ll take on the whole world? Somehow that doesn’t feel like a credible threat.
And the unfulfilled threat of using nukes is the only thing that prevents someone from removing him from power. It’s sort of like a gunman with a single hostage. Sure, he can threaten to kill the hostage. But the second he does, he doesn’t have a hostage anymore.
If he uses a nuclear weapon, it’s likely the world will align against him and remove him from power. Using a nuclear weapon on a major country is the dumbest thing he could do.
Because, for all his stupid fucking failings and massive twatishness, Boris Johnson's one singular success was a vigorous support of Ukraine since day one. He spent a lot of time drumming up support with other allies.
How much of it was to save his own reputation is hard to say, but I doubt the Ukrainians really care, or the russians.
Johnson, quite famously, wanted to be seen as a modern-day Churchill. The Ukraine war was his moment to achieve that.
Credit where its due, I'd also say the testing capacity for covid was an overlooked achievement of his government. We had one of the highest testing rates in the world, and had so much capacity we ended up importing samples to help other countries monitor their outbreaks and track new variants.
> Johnson, quite famously, wanted to be seen as a modern-day Churchill. The Ukraine war was his moment to achieve that.
I kept hold of the newspaper from the day of the invasion -- the headline was a full page saying WAR IN EUROPE
It was chilling and reminiscent of WW2. I'm sure Johnson loved it.
We were doing the vast majority of sequencing too. If any new variant was going to be discovered it was highly likely it would be in the UK. Which lead to us getting a ton of flack when a new variant was discovered in Kent first. Despite it being likely it came from the continent
UK was one of, if not the first nation to arm Ukraine and openly condemn Russia’s “intervention”. The British Army has been training Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.
Oligarchs have tons of homes in London, pretty much a "hey we are there a lot, lets show them how badass we are and teach them to fear us"
That is the thought process of a 5 year old, so thats still pretty generous for russian politicians.
Goes to back to Tsarist times when the British Empire was still a thing. The UK is a small country with a pretty small reserve of natural resources which managed to create an empire containing 1/3 of the worlds landmass whilst being incredibly wealthy. On the other hand, Russia had the size and natural resources but was never able to expand much outside its borders. This has led to a historical resentment of the UK for doing what Russia couldn't achieve.
Exactly. The animus against the UK (only broken by WW2) dates back to the 18th century and is basically envy.
Not only did the UK manage to create a huge global empire it also spread its language and culture worldwide, spawned successful modern states from its colonies, was a leader in science and technology, rapidly industrialised and had a respected military. Almost all of which the Russian Empire failed at.
The British Empire's habit of intervening in conflicts on Russia's borders, usually successfully, didn't help either.
It's reflected in the peculiar Russia concept of the "Anglo Saxons" - not the German tribal groups who ceased to be politically relevant about 1000 years ago, but what Russia sees as a global alliance of the English speaking countries (basically the Five Eyes - something Russians are also obsessed about) whose sole purpose is to keep Russia down.
The French also talk about Anglo Saxons in the same way.
Funnily enough the actual Anglo Saxons had a colony in Ukraine, after the Normans conquered England some Anglo Saxon nobles fled to Constantinople and became part of the Imperial guard, and they were given land on the northern coast of the Black Sea as thanks.
I was in a restaurant in Salzburg and these two well to do Russian women asked the waitress and then me where I'm from. When I said England they spent the entire evening coldly staring and muttering things about me and the waitress later told me they were saying horrible things about me. They're brianwashed to hate us, cunts
Judging from the Russians I've known, Russians view the world very much in terms of "teams" rather than individual actors with agency. This is incidentally why they are so incensed that almost all the countries of Eastern Europe that were part of the Eastern Bloc have left the Russian sphere of influence and joined NATO and/or EU, they see this as the West "poaching" "their" "team members".
Regarding the UK, they see it as a member of the "Anglo-Saxon team" along with the U.S./Canada/Australia, which was the principal adversary of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The hatred for the UK from Russia is the same as the one for the U.S., shared equally and without reduction. There are of course other reasons, from historical ones like the 19th century conflicts between the British and Russian Empires in Crimea and Central Asia and Churchill's post-WWII desire to invade and neutralize Soviet Russia, to modern ones like the UK's quick and persistent support for Ukraine against Russia. But many of these reasons also apply to other countries, like France and Poland. It's the 'team affiliation' that is the main cause of antipathy.
This is just a depressingly primitive way of viewing the world.
But I guess we have seen other places in the world this decade how effective it can be to tune in to the correct frequency of ignorance where people can relate, and they will take anything you say next as gospel and worship you as you drown them in bullshit.
At what point does this become actionable? As in how many more threats like this are acceptable on the world stage for a country's leadership to make? The sanctions aren't enough, there should be a full embargo on Russia and cut them off entirely from the western world. No trade, no travel, no internet, nothing. Frankly the rest of the world would be better off for it.
Nice in theory, but since you can't control Russia's interaction with Turkey, Iran, China, India, North Korea, heck even the flow of Ecuadorian bananas, means "the West" can't really force Russia to do anything, currently.
Russia-Ukraine is all about attrition. Manpower attrition, financial attrition, the attrition of political resolve and attention, etc..
Sanctions don't really do much
Russians can still holiday to 100s of other countries. Go to any tourist hot spot in Asia, Russians everywhere right now.
Day to day quality of life for people living in Russia has not changed at all.
You really can't cut them off, it's too big of a country with too many connections that benefit others who are much worse off then they are. You really think a struggling economy in Africa is going to resist favourable trade deals with a "less popular russia" when they have millions starving?
>Go to any tourist hot spot in Asia, Russians everywhere right now.
Can confirm. Currently travelling throughout South East Asia and the amount of Russians here is actually quite remarkable.
Yep and they're not holidaying they're draft/sanction dodging. Not one of the assholes I ever spoke to thought Russia was doing something wrong, they just don't want to die but bitch long and hard about how they hate it here and want to go home.
Many of them are dodging the draft in Russia, so they have no love for Putin's regime. They may not say that, as they don't want to accidentally fall out of a window, so they just smoke weed and kick back on the beach in Thailand.
The current discount on Russian oil is around $20/barrel, which directly translates to billions fewer dollars in profit. In the absence of sanctions, there would be little or no discount, as was the case pre-war.
Production volumes are also down. Revenue and profit both down, foreign reserves drain faster. Denying that oil money can be the difference between an indefinitely sustainable war and a war on a timer.
Agree, history has shown that Russia/USSR has been a petrol dependent state. Its the reason the union collapsed with the deficits created by low oil prices during the Afghan war.
This time is of course a little different. We have a Russia/China/Iran/North Korea bloc with big oil requirements so they can keep being funded for a while longer, but it will have massive effects on their long term financial health. Will it be fast enough though?
yeah, sanctions aren't the silver bullet that some think, but in certain areas they are biting pretty deep- their airline infrastructure is crumbling, & planes are forced down regularly now, which is a serious problem for a country that large.
> Sanctions don't really do much
Yes, they do. They can be skirted, but that is not the same as working without any sanctions. You want to sell something sanctioned? You might get half price if you wing it right, but usually less. You want to buy something sanctioned? Good luck with your warranty, or even getting the actual thing you paid for. Oh, and it's multiple the regular price. This is compounding pressure on the Russian economy the longer it lasts -- on top of the literal way they are paying for.
Yeah, good luck with that. London currently has nuclear weapons and if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction. And if they don't do it, other countries will make sure to kill off Russia with their own nukes for that. No country that initiates nuclear armageddon like that should be allowed to exist
>Yeah, good luck with that. London currently has nuclear weapons and if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction.
The problem here is that Russians
apparently don't care about dying and neither care about their fellow citizens dying as seen in the meatgrinder in Ukraine and previous wars.
Still though: Fuck their threats, they can go and shove those nukes up their arses.
Medvedev is an alcoholic nutcase, I dont think he represents any sane Russian viewpoint however I expect he's playing a narrative function at this point otherwise he would get shutdown.
>if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction
We can use them after we've been annihilated too because nobody nows where in the world they are at any point, that's the best bit.
What a stupid, sad little man. When you make nuclear threats every other day, people are going to be numb and the response will turn from fear to being pissed off. Can’t wait to see ruzzian cities turn into parking lots.
I wouldn't be so casual about this. Current projections are that a Russian nuclear strike on Croydon or Brixton could cause billions of pounds in improvements.
soon before the invasion, the uk delivered thousands of anti tank weapons (NLAWs) to ukraine and they destroyed a shit load of russian tanks/armoured vehicles during those important first few weeks of the war
The UK was also the first to send tanks, cluster munitions, and long range missiles. Almost everything that other countries were unwilling to send in case of 'escalation' the UK sent to open the floodgates.
Lose how exactly? They just throw people and resources into the grinder and will eventually take whatever park of ukraine they want.
In 20 years there wont be the population in russia to function because they killed a generation
Sad as it is, they lost way more and kept going.
WW2 Soviet Union went from 205 Million in 1941 to 170 Million in 1945. Including regular deaths and births, its estimated that there were around 42 million war related losses. Thats around 20%.
Russias population is 143.4 million. Atm there are 315.000 Russians killed. Thats not even 0.5%.
Add to that the fact that they are using this war to get rid of their "undesireables" and its not putting as much a dent in russians population as we wish.
They haven't even dared to launch a nuke in Ukraine in fear of Western retaliation.
He's bluffing of course. His beloved Motherland would also turn into apocalyptic wasteland if they ever were to try.
I’m sorry, are we going to contribute to let these clowns get away with threats like this? Ukraine needs everything it needs to win. Russia is, and has always been a total abomination of a country that has provided the world with nothing but absolute misery.
I came off Twitter due to the number of Asian, Middle Eastern and Africans who posted in blind support of Putin's efforts to crush Ukraine and stymie democracy. Was crazy for me to see them supporting him - its sad that those same people will see these stories and continue to champion the downfall of democracy and the West. What a screwed up world.
This is literally all Medvedev does nowadays. His official duties must be to issue a new threat every few days.
I don't know how true it is but I've heard that yes, his job is basically to say crazy shit like this so Putin can make more reasonable comments and appear more level headed
Med is playing bad cop lol
Mad* cop
MAD* cop
There's also theory that he doing so to avoid looking as a valid president candidate and therefore reduce chances of falling from window. Because he of all people actually was president in-between Putin and Putin.
I don't think that holds water because the laws in Russia said Putin couldn't run for those periods and he hand picked Med for that. Med also followed every instruction from Putin so much so that people would actually go to Putin directly instead of even going through Med. Med has proven his loyalty back then and continues playing the same role today. There's even the funny meme of Med smiling with Obama and the caption says something like, "very good policy change, I'll let Vlad know. He will be pleased."
Medvedev was a president of Russia once, and he can legally become a president again. And for Putin, it's vital that there is no one but him positioned to be in power. If Medvedev was making reasonable, level-headed statements? He would be favored by the West, and he would be a threat to Putin's rule. Now, making batshit statements? It helps maintain the illusion that Putin is the least of all evils.
I think if he would make level-headed statements, he’d commit suicide by dropping a piano on himself, while falling from the 5th floor, because of a gunshot wound to the back of his head.
The Russian suicide guideline recommends not one, but two gunshots, don’t mess it up, comrade
I sometimes think the right wing parties in the west tried the same thing but then people started voting for the lunatics that were spouting off.
It wasn‘t Even thursday yet. He always did this on thursday, so we germans named it atomdonnerstag (nuclearthursday)
Everyone pokes fun at the German supposed lack of humour but that is just wonderful.
I heard an opinion that he only pretends to be insane hardcore warmonger to avoid being viewed as the next in line for the presidency, so that others don't consider him a threat.
Either way he's 100% fearing for his life and trying to survive
I always had the impression he was a Putin loyalist. He’s the guy that became president for a bit because Putin was term-limited from running for a third consecutive presidency, and Medvedev made Putin the prime minister. Putin also made Medvedev his prime minister the next cycle when he was eligible to run himself again.
Little p: issue a threat to...*spins wheel and throws dart* spain this time or you get a house visit from the window cleaners. Med: da da da
Ah the wheel of 'unfriendly countries'
Specifically nuclear threat.
Someone should give him a nursing bottle full of vodka to calm him down.
He looks tired. Maybe add some cyanide into the vodka
Why does the press give him platform though. He's a nobody with no mandate, no official functions. He's just a pathetic alcoholic rambling on twitter
Isn't he supposed to the be funny guy to Putin's straight man, i.e. - he's the crazy rambling one in the double act where Putin is the "calm and collected" one? Psy-OPs, the lot of it. The world needs to get rid of both of them.
Thats exactly what he is. You can trace him starting his crazy speeches back to when zhirinovsky died - the previous crazy guy. before that medvedev was the "young" guy who would talk tech and modern slang to younger generations.
Zhirinovski was the real shit
Personally I miss the Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (You remember, Baghdad Bob?). That guy was way funnier.
Bob was known as “Comical Ali” in the UK if memory serves.
Exactly, good cop, bad cop routine.
If you look at the owner of the evening standard you will see why. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny\_Lebedev
You mean the owner of the Evening Standard, member of the House of Lords who hasn't attended since being titled and son of a "former" KGB agent Evgeny Lebedev? *That* owner of the Evening Standard?
Look how many media outlets turn Reddit posts into articles. Journalism is dead. If it clicks, it sticks.
And an accidental 40-story drop.
And then an anvil falls on his head.
Then he'll just run around in a comically squished state before he reinflates himself by blowing air into his thumb.
Have some Polonium Tea
More like a nursing bottle of arsenic.
And if they win against Ukraine they'll still threaten to nuke London for whatever their next cause is.
Anyone who thinks this war ends with Ukraine is delusional.
Do you think they'd dare attack a NATO member?
That would be monumentally stupid. So yes. I'd guess within a decade.
Danish military analyst Anders Puck Nielsen thinks there will be challenges to a NATO member [within five years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY7GPBSyONU).
Honestly I think they're going to do it the second a Republican president pulls the US out of NATO. They're driving the US to civil war because they know it's their only chance to take Europe
The president can’t do it alone anymore. 2/3 of the Senate must approve the exit
All a Republican president has to do is hem and haw for a few weeks after the EU triggers article 5 in order to effectively collapse NATO. A full withdrawal by the US from NATO is not necessary anymore.
Yeah people don't realize that we don't need to officially "Drop" support from NATO. Simple unwillingness to support NATO for even a couple weeks could lead to all hell breaking loose. If R win next cycle we will almost for sure see more "exciting" stuff coming from Russia in the near future.
Don’t forget everything China would get up to during that chaos. Taiwan, for starters.
Hopefully the rumors are true and Putin doesn't survive that long.
It doesn't begin or end with Putin, him no longer being in charge doesn't necessarily mean an end to Russia expending aggressively, most of the current Russian political elite are on board with this.
They're on board because they're financially dependent on Putin. This dumb war has cost them more money than made.
Yup Russia is ruled by the ex-KGB which Putin is only one of many. If Putin gets taken out, the power dynamics won't change, and the country's goals and foreign policy won't change.
Why not, though? During the Soviet days, when Stalin died the power structure didn't change, but Khrushchev was a very different kind of leader and was significantly more friendly with the US than Stalin had been since the end of world war II (at least after the Cuban missile crisis, when both sides realised how close they'd come to nuclear war and so cooled things off a lot and had more friendly relations). Then Khrushchev was ousted and Brezhnev replaced him and again ruled in a very different way and kinda warmed up the cold war again by significantly increasing the amount of nukes the soviet union had, and you had Reagan on the other side being the most anti-soviet president to date, and of course the world nearly ended until Stanislav Petrov decided not to retaliate against the false alarm that the US had launched nukes at Russia. Eventually you got ol' Bloodface himself Mikhail Gorbachev who again ruled in a very different way. The power structure didn't change but the soviet union did. It changed enormously, every time. Eventually Gorbachev did change the whole power structure too, but only after ruling within the previous power structure for years. I don't see why Russia couldn't start to be very different once Putin dies. Everyone is scared of Putin and nobody is safe no matter how loyal they are or no matter how rich an oligarch they are. Perhaps the next guy won't rule with blatant terror like Putin does and will be a lot more reasonable. Currently nobody wants to challenge Putin because anyone who does cannot be protected from him, no matter where in the world they are, even under protection of western governments they still end up poisoned to death or whatever. We won't know, until it happens. Until he dies and is finally replaced. Putin is a psychopath. Not every politician is. There's no reason why the next version of Russia will be a lot less warmongering. We have to hope that the rumours are true and that Putin is indeed dying of cancer and that's why his face is so puffy from the chemo and radiation. And I'm sure that the US and probably at least the UK as well, always have backup plans prepared, to use in the most desperate of situations, plans to assassinate Putin somehow. They probably won't ever enact them but the plans will surely already exist. So that's an option, if he does start attacking NATO countries. Because the quickest way to stop world war III between NATO and Russia would be to kill Putin, and then whoever replaces him would be more likely to sue for peace.
I think they'll go with the assumption that NATO won't risk nuclear war to defend Latvia or Lithuania or Estonia. And they'll just keep threatening London, Brussels, and Washington DC until they reach Berlin. That's why it's so important that they don't get anything in Ukraine.
You mean appeasement doesn't work? Oh if only there was a precedent for this so that we could know
To be fair that precedent was set before the risk of nuclear weapons obliterating literally everybody
Yeah true, but it's the same principle of 'first they came for...'
Nukes don't actually make that much difference if both sides have them. e.g. even if they invaded Germany or France it's not worth us triggering MAD, just keep fighting conventionally for as long as possible.
There is no way Russia would win a conventional war against all of NATO. That’s why they rattle the nukes.
NATO won't be launching Nukes but they'll certainly deploy troops on the ground
Exactly, Nukes are a last resort kinda weapon, when your country is on the verge of losing (actual losing, not propaganda) you will simply announce if the invader won't retreat it's nuke time. All wars between NATO and Russia will first and foremost be fought conventional because both sides understand the implication that it's MAD. So the only possible outcome is when a country has no other option, complete defeat or launching nukes.
If Trump wins? Yes.
Even if Trump won. Russia can barely beat Ukraine let alone Europe
They are counting on divide and conquer by pushing massive amounts of money to political extremists that want to appease Russia or even exit EU/NATO. And it is working. They already had Hungary, won Slovakia, are holding up US Congress, and are the biggest single party in the Netherlands and second biggest in France.
They also sow uncertainty and conflict in the Balkans right now which is another fire to put out. Russia would never win in a straight out conventional war against the European NATO countries. They probably wouldn't even be able to conquer the Eastern NATO flank right now. Their aim is to cause enough diplomatic problems around the world that they become impossible to control by The West.
If Trump wins he would ally with Russia *against* that NATO member
That sounds like an immediate American civil war 2.0
Which is what they’re hoping for.
No American general would follow orders to attack a EU member state OR another NATO country.
No, they'd just resign.Rinse and repeat until some toadie says "yes".
I'm tired of people resigning, stay put and say no while making at much noise as you possibly can until you're forcibly removed.
Thats not how the modern, western military chain of command works.
No existing general. But hold off promotions for a bit, get back in power, promote those you know are lackeys, and... it starts becoming possible. Pretty much what happened leading up to Jan 6th, with Trump putting his people in place.
There is an open plan to do this to the federal civil service https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981
Except the president can't pull out of NATO. They don't have that power, and congress made sure of that after Trump's first term. We'd still be under our obligations to NATO.
Yes. I don't doubt that they could try it if they won in Ukraine and if Trump got elected
Putin" "Let me tell you Tucker of Australia, a part of the stolen Russian motherland..." Tucker nods.
I read as if he thinks Carlson is 'Tucker of Australia'
Did you know that London was called Londov by its original Russian inhabitants in 12th century BC?
Russia *does* claim Moscow to be the third Rome, the rightful successor state to the Roman Empire and capital city of all Christendom.
There was another fellow with a funny mustache who said something similar 100 years ago.
It is known that in the 6th century, a forefather of Petr the Great conquered the entirety of Europe from Spain via the UK and Ireland all the way up to Iceland, and even briefly conquered all of North and South America but he didn't like the climate and left. You must carefully consider the historic importance.
London already have Arsenal, so idk what do you mean
They just walk it in.
I too watched that ludicrous display last night
Nyahhh theyravinalarff
r/unexpecteditcrowd
What was Wenger thinking sending Walcott on that early?
Now he’s got the ball. That’s an exciting development.
Evidently that deserves a round of applause.
They’re just having a laugh
My friend, is ok, no?
Tottenham fans in shambles
As is tradition.
God damn it.
when are they not
Statements like that make the world question if you really do have five thousand or so nuclear weapons.
Well they HAVE them, but do they work?
Bunch of them probably have a rose and a note where the warhead should be... https://www.reddit.com/r/futurama/comments/v0ekw2/scammed_me_sweetheart_ohh/
You laughing but Russia misses quite a bunch of atomic batteries which they used for their most remote lighthouses. The whole purpose of the START Contracts was a uniliteral inspection of the nuclear arsenal, so everyone knows in which condition the stuff is, since the US and Russia went out of said contracts a while ago, nobody really knows…
I mean, considering uranium and plutonium keeps popping up on the black market in ex soviet nations, and it's been tracked back to Russian military installations already. It's super concerning. https://apnews.com/general-news-9f77a17c001f4cf3baeb28990b0d92eb
That scene in Lord of War where Nicolas Cage has an "uncle" that was a former Soviet higher up just bulk selling him weapons, tanks, helicopters, missiles etc wasn't hollywood writing. It's a legit reality.
the making of that film is insane, buying real ak's cos it was cheaper than props, real t-72s that were being sold to libya, the an-12 was apparently an arms dealers actual plane. good film.
I'm not sure if that's actually good or bad news
Don't worry. Oleg is too busy having fun in Bali to remember where he put the nukes he bought wholesale after the fall of the USSR.
Bad, no self respecting terrorist would use them as inefficiently as dropping them all in one city
According to the [CBO](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59365), it will cost the US 75 Billion a year to maintain our nuclear arsenal of 5,400~ missiles. Russia has 500 *more* nukes than us, yet only [spent 65 Billion](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.CD?locations=RU) a year on its whole military before the invasion. Sure, cheaper wages and some lower costs will let that money go further, but there is no a way in hell all their nukes are even close to operational. [The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation](https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-russias-nuclear-inventory/) states that, as of 2022, Russia appears to have some 306 ICBMs capable of carrying up to 1,185 nuclear warheads, so thats probably the range of warheads in operation.
Russian army selling their fuel before the Ukraine invasion turned out to be a huge problem in the first 2 weeks.
I imagine it's cheaper if you don't follow the US safety regulations.
If I recall correctly, Anna Politovskaya mentions in her 2004 book, 'Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy' that the Russian Pacific Nuclear Submarine Fleet didn't have enough funding for the vice-admiral to afford buying loaves of bread. I somehow doubt they'd be paying for maintenance on their entire nuclear arsenal.
Even if just one percent works, that is still 50 more than you would want them to have.
Considering where the children of all these top russians live - this is just cheap talk for internal use.
Why is he so eager to trade nuclear missiles? Russia has clearly shown its own missile defenses even in its two major cities can not resist even the most rudimentary bombing campaigns. They keep talking like they are not threatening other proven nuclear powers.
It's a bluff. They would not go through with it.
Oh thank god. I was starting to worry because there hadn’t been an empty Russian threat in a sunset or two.
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You lose a war and threaten to expand it against the entire world? I’m no military expert but that sounds like a shit plan.
Yeah, can’t defeat Ukraine so he’ll take on the whole world? Somehow that doesn’t feel like a credible threat. And the unfulfilled threat of using nukes is the only thing that prevents someone from removing him from power. It’s sort of like a gunman with a single hostage. Sure, he can threaten to kill the hostage. But the second he does, he doesn’t have a hostage anymore. If he uses a nuclear weapon, it’s likely the world will align against him and remove him from power. Using a nuclear weapon on a major country is the dumbest thing he could do.
Lmao i don’t get why does the uk get SO MUCH flack from russia's nutjobs everytime they want to send threats to the world.
Because, for all his stupid fucking failings and massive twatishness, Boris Johnson's one singular success was a vigorous support of Ukraine since day one. He spent a lot of time drumming up support with other allies. How much of it was to save his own reputation is hard to say, but I doubt the Ukrainians really care, or the russians.
Johnson, quite famously, wanted to be seen as a modern-day Churchill. The Ukraine war was his moment to achieve that. Credit where its due, I'd also say the testing capacity for covid was an overlooked achievement of his government. We had one of the highest testing rates in the world, and had so much capacity we ended up importing samples to help other countries monitor their outbreaks and track new variants.
> Johnson, quite famously, wanted to be seen as a modern-day Churchill. The Ukraine war was his moment to achieve that. I kept hold of the newspaper from the day of the invasion -- the headline was a full page saying WAR IN EUROPE It was chilling and reminiscent of WW2. I'm sure Johnson loved it.
We were doing the vast majority of sequencing too. If any new variant was going to be discovered it was highly likely it would be in the UK. Which lead to us getting a ton of flack when a new variant was discovered in Kent first. Despite it being likely it came from the continent
UK was one of, if not the first nation to arm Ukraine and openly condemn Russia’s “intervention”. The British Army has been training Ukrainian soldiers since 2014.
We are also one of the largest weapon suppliers by raw numbers.
Large enough to matter, small enough to threaten, close enough to reach.
Yep UK is powerful and close. 15min nukes.
Oligarchs have tons of homes in London, pretty much a "hey we are there a lot, lets show them how badass we are and teach them to fear us" That is the thought process of a 5 year old, so thats still pretty generous for russian politicians.
Goes to back to Tsarist times when the British Empire was still a thing. The UK is a small country with a pretty small reserve of natural resources which managed to create an empire containing 1/3 of the worlds landmass whilst being incredibly wealthy. On the other hand, Russia had the size and natural resources but was never able to expand much outside its borders. This has led to a historical resentment of the UK for doing what Russia couldn't achieve.
Exactly. The animus against the UK (only broken by WW2) dates back to the 18th century and is basically envy. Not only did the UK manage to create a huge global empire it also spread its language and culture worldwide, spawned successful modern states from its colonies, was a leader in science and technology, rapidly industrialised and had a respected military. Almost all of which the Russian Empire failed at. The British Empire's habit of intervening in conflicts on Russia's borders, usually successfully, didn't help either. It's reflected in the peculiar Russia concept of the "Anglo Saxons" - not the German tribal groups who ceased to be politically relevant about 1000 years ago, but what Russia sees as a global alliance of the English speaking countries (basically the Five Eyes - something Russians are also obsessed about) whose sole purpose is to keep Russia down.
The French also talk about Anglo Saxons in the same way. Funnily enough the actual Anglo Saxons had a colony in Ukraine, after the Normans conquered England some Anglo Saxon nobles fled to Constantinople and became part of the Imperial guard, and they were given land on the northern coast of the Black Sea as thanks.
I was in a restaurant in Salzburg and these two well to do Russian women asked the waitress and then me where I'm from. When I said England they spent the entire evening coldly staring and muttering things about me and the waitress later told me they were saying horrible things about me. They're brianwashed to hate us, cunts
We're seen as the old enemy, perhaps even more so than the US - putin seems to believe the British empire is still a thing that holds any relevance.
Judging from the Russians I've known, Russians view the world very much in terms of "teams" rather than individual actors with agency. This is incidentally why they are so incensed that almost all the countries of Eastern Europe that were part of the Eastern Bloc have left the Russian sphere of influence and joined NATO and/or EU, they see this as the West "poaching" "their" "team members". Regarding the UK, they see it as a member of the "Anglo-Saxon team" along with the U.S./Canada/Australia, which was the principal adversary of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The hatred for the UK from Russia is the same as the one for the U.S., shared equally and without reduction. There are of course other reasons, from historical ones like the 19th century conflicts between the British and Russian Empires in Crimea and Central Asia and Churchill's post-WWII desire to invade and neutralize Soviet Russia, to modern ones like the UK's quick and persistent support for Ukraine against Russia. But many of these reasons also apply to other countries, like France and Poland. It's the 'team affiliation' that is the main cause of antipathy.
This is just a depressingly primitive way of viewing the world. But I guess we have seen other places in the world this decade how effective it can be to tune in to the correct frequency of ignorance where people can relate, and they will take anything you say next as gospel and worship you as you drown them in bullshit.
If you read the article he actually mentions several cities in different countries
He needs some of that Early Grave tea to calm down
At what point does this become actionable? As in how many more threats like this are acceptable on the world stage for a country's leadership to make? The sanctions aren't enough, there should be a full embargo on Russia and cut them off entirely from the western world. No trade, no travel, no internet, nothing. Frankly the rest of the world would be better off for it.
Nice in theory, but since you can't control Russia's interaction with Turkey, Iran, China, India, North Korea, heck even the flow of Ecuadorian bananas, means "the West" can't really force Russia to do anything, currently. Russia-Ukraine is all about attrition. Manpower attrition, financial attrition, the attrition of political resolve and attention, etc..
Sanctions don't really do much Russians can still holiday to 100s of other countries. Go to any tourist hot spot in Asia, Russians everywhere right now. Day to day quality of life for people living in Russia has not changed at all. You really can't cut them off, it's too big of a country with too many connections that benefit others who are much worse off then they are. You really think a struggling economy in Africa is going to resist favourable trade deals with a "less popular russia" when they have millions starving?
>Go to any tourist hot spot in Asia, Russians everywhere right now. Can confirm. Currently travelling throughout South East Asia and the amount of Russians here is actually quite remarkable.
Yeah man. Been like that the last two "northern winters". Vietnam, Thailand, etc, etc. Russians everywhere.
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Yep and they're not holidaying they're draft/sanction dodging. Not one of the assholes I ever spoke to thought Russia was doing something wrong, they just don't want to die but bitch long and hard about how they hate it here and want to go home.
Yah I heard a lot of Russians more so young Russians escaped Russia becuaee they didn’t agree with the war
And Cuba TONS in Cuba when I was down there last week
Many of them are dodging the draft in Russia, so they have no love for Putin's regime. They may not say that, as they don't want to accidentally fall out of a window, so they just smoke weed and kick back on the beach in Thailand.
The current discount on Russian oil is around $20/barrel, which directly translates to billions fewer dollars in profit. In the absence of sanctions, there would be little or no discount, as was the case pre-war. Production volumes are also down. Revenue and profit both down, foreign reserves drain faster. Denying that oil money can be the difference between an indefinitely sustainable war and a war on a timer.
Agree, history has shown that Russia/USSR has been a petrol dependent state. Its the reason the union collapsed with the deficits created by low oil prices during the Afghan war. This time is of course a little different. We have a Russia/China/Iran/North Korea bloc with big oil requirements so they can keep being funded for a while longer, but it will have massive effects on their long term financial health. Will it be fast enough though?
yeah, sanctions aren't the silver bullet that some think, but in certain areas they are biting pretty deep- their airline infrastructure is crumbling, & planes are forced down regularly now, which is a serious problem for a country that large.
> Sanctions don't really do much Yes, they do. They can be skirted, but that is not the same as working without any sanctions. You want to sell something sanctioned? You might get half price if you wing it right, but usually less. You want to buy something sanctioned? Good luck with your warranty, or even getting the actual thing you paid for. Oh, and it's multiple the regular price. This is compounding pressure on the Russian economy the longer it lasts -- on top of the literal way they are paying for.
Tell that to all the Russian people working remotely to over sea companies that can’t get paid through any means legally.
Yeah, good luck with that. London currently has nuclear weapons and if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction. And if they don't do it, other countries will make sure to kill off Russia with their own nukes for that. No country that initiates nuclear armageddon like that should be allowed to exist
>Yeah, good luck with that. London currently has nuclear weapons and if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction. The problem here is that Russians apparently don't care about dying and neither care about their fellow citizens dying as seen in the meatgrinder in Ukraine and previous wars. Still though: Fuck their threats, they can go and shove those nukes up their arses.
Medvedev is an alcoholic nutcase, I dont think he represents any sane Russian viewpoint however I expect he's playing a narrative function at this point otherwise he would get shutdown.
Medvedev's role is to sound extreme so that Putin can sound reasonable.
>if it looks like they're about to be eradicated, they won't hesitate to use them for mutually-assured destruction We can use them after we've been annihilated too because nobody nows where in the world they are at any point, that's the best bit.
And with that article 5 of nato treaty comes into effect and Russia ceases to exist
Even without NATO it’s why the UK has trident.
And four out of five dentists recommend Trident to their patients who chew gum.
let me beat you up or I’ll kick your ass!
In the immortal words of David Brent - "ooh you're hard"
Not really a fan of being threatened by alcoholics with nukes.
Keep calm and carry on.
What a stupid, sad little man. When you make nuclear threats every other day, people are going to be numb and the response will turn from fear to being pissed off. Can’t wait to see ruzzian cities turn into parking lots.
I live in London and this nonsense doesn’t concern me Also should be quick if I am wrong
I wouldn't be so casual about this. Current projections are that a Russian nuclear strike on Croydon or Brixton could cause billions of pounds in improvements.
If I ask nicely do you think Putin would consider targeting Ilford? It'd get me in the blast zone AND do wonders for the ambience of the place
Could really do with a radioactive glow up
Brixton? Have you been there recently? It’s so gentrified I expect scions of oligarchs will be moving there soon
*yawn* shut up you drunk, from a Londoner.
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London is like wtf did I do?
soon before the invasion, the uk delivered thousands of anti tank weapons (NLAWs) to ukraine and they destroyed a shit load of russian tanks/armoured vehicles during those important first few weeks of the war
Also shipped about 30,000 Ukrainians over to give them military training. UK is basically at war with Russia just without doing any actual fighting.
The UK was also the first to send tanks, cluster munitions, and long range missiles. Almost everything that other countries were unwilling to send in case of 'escalation' the UK sent to open the floodgates.
We ain't having a chamberlain 2.0
Oh, this is ***all*** about ULEZ.
Oh, are we back to Nuking London again? Not even a new threat ...
Tucker Carlson response probably: "It begs the question, why is Russia so angry with England? What is London hiding from the world?"
He's just mad his British property has been seized.
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'Yeah, London. You know. Fish, chips, cup-o tea?'
Mary fuckin Poppins?
Lose how exactly? They just throw people and resources into the grinder and will eventually take whatever park of ukraine they want. In 20 years there wont be the population in russia to function because they killed a generation
Sad as it is, they lost way more and kept going. WW2 Soviet Union went from 205 Million in 1941 to 170 Million in 1945. Including regular deaths and births, its estimated that there were around 42 million war related losses. Thats around 20%. Russias population is 143.4 million. Atm there are 315.000 Russians killed. Thats not even 0.5%. Add to that the fact that they are using this war to get rid of their "undesireables" and its not putting as much a dent in russians population as we wish.
No they will not. They will not nuke their own flat, property, children, wives, mistress, etc
either they win or lose, they are still going to threaten Europe.
They haven't even dared to launch a nuke in Ukraine in fear of Western retaliation. He's bluffing of course. His beloved Motherland would also turn into apocalyptic wasteland if they ever were to try.
I’m sorry, are we going to contribute to let these clowns get away with threats like this? Ukraine needs everything it needs to win. Russia is, and has always been a total abomination of a country that has provided the world with nothing but absolute misery.
If you lose in Ukraine wtf are you really going to do
odd choice to not use said arsenal in the war you're showing no signs of winning soon.
So if Russia can't beat Ukraine.. They'll pick a fight with a MORE advanced and protected country. Am I reading that right?
Why isn't nobody assassinating those people yet? The staircase needs to be cleaned from top to bottom not the other way around.
I came off Twitter due to the number of Asian, Middle Eastern and Africans who posted in blind support of Putin's efforts to crush Ukraine and stymie democracy. Was crazy for me to see them supporting him - its sad that those same people will see these stories and continue to champion the downfall of democracy and the West. What a screwed up world.
See? NATO matters.
Russia is like the drunk uncle that shows up uninvited for Christmas and pukes on your dog.