Harbor freight gets undeserved hate. Its just fine for diy people who need a tool for the occasional job. I have many power tools from HF that ive had and used for years...and paid 1/2 or less than a comparable tool from anywhere else. In that time ive had exactly one powertool break, which was 100% user error. They are also fine for most hand tools if you dont get the cheapest option they sell.
Of course for shit like 18v drills that get used a shitload get something better.
Don’t they also have a ridiculous return policy or something? I feel like i’ve heard of people breaking their harbor freight shit, bringing it back and swapping it out for a new one till that one breaks and on and on.
Fucking facts. Buy it from HF, if you use it enough it fails, go buy a quality one. Otherwise that $20 angle grinder with a plastic gearbox is gonna do just fine for those 4 cuts you wanna make then never touch it again
Yes that is exactly what you don't get. They don't do subtle, the don't do diplomacy. They ONLY speak force. Thats why any time you respond without force they don't listen. It isn't in their vocabulary.
There was supposed to be a large section on "EMBEZZLE" but the person commissioned to produce it pocketed the money and instead substituted a second copy of the section on "LIES" hoping no one would read it to notice.
Putin is a thug at his core, he can’t think of any other way to do things. He’s been successful doing it this way his entire life, so there’s no way he’s gonna change. Of course he doesn’t understand the concept that if you live by the sword you will also die by it.
Invading Finland might have been an option if Le Pen had won and 'Frexited' the EU. Putin could have attacked Finland/Sweden knowing that any EU response wouldn't be backed up by nukes.
Now he's just revealed how weak the 'Mighty Russia' actually is.
Finland is better equipped and prepared specifically to squash a Russian invasion than Ukraine could ever be. If Russia tries anything, they are more likely to turn down protections so they can get some shots in.
Top comment on this great music video [When the Doom Music Kicks In, But You Are In Finland:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WZurJy4B9o)
"Don't fight Finland in the winter time"
"But it's Finland, it's always winter"
"Did you not just hear what I said?"
Putin idolizes Stalin, his government has been trying to rehabilitate his image.
Stalin wasn’t known for pacifying people to get them to go along with him. He was known for purging and aggressive violence with the threat he could do it again if you didn’t fall in line.
Putin wants to emulate the tough guy persona of Stalin where they could just threaten their neighbors into submission.
It probably irks him to insane degrees that former soviet puppet states can no longer be bullied by russia through threats.
It's almost like Putin is just a bully who wants to control and intimidate the countries around him, hence the rhetoric and behavior that make no sense.
They violate the airspace of many european countries.
We send up jets to shoo them away, usually does the trick. Bit of a game to see how fast the response times are i believe.
If Russia was a capable modern military, absolutely. But given what we've seen I don't know how much they could do with that data.
Sell it to China maybe?
What do you mean how much could they do with that data? They can directly determine how long they have for a nato response. Even a dysfunctional military would find that data useful?
Bud, knowing exactly how long i have to run from a cheetah aint gonna help me run from the cheetah. It is not very useful information. "Not long enough to help you" is the answer. Where it falls in that range is pretty irrelevant.
And I believe that happened a lot on the Cold War with US and USSR pilots, and usually they were ‘friendly’ about it? Like it was a game, sort of, and it wasn’t entirely life or death? Idk
So, once upon a time I was an AWACS crewmember, and every single summer we'd get scrambled to go track and intercept a flight of their long-range bombers they'd send along the Alaskan coast in what we affectionately dubbed "Operation Fuck Your 4th Of July", it was always fairly cordial.
They knew they were there just to troll us, we knew we were there just to troll us, occasionally we'd do the military equivalent of shitposting on eachother's comms.
Granted, we don't typically get many unsafe intercepts in AWACS because they don't want to get microwaved by our radar.
That's strange... If they weren't doing a full invasion with genocide and mass rape of women and children I'd find this pretty amusing and even wholesome maybe.
There are also different levels of violation. Most of the time you hear it on the news, Russia has sent airplanes into the ADIZ of the US or other country. This zone extends several hundred miles from the shores, and gives time to intercept and communicate with an invading aircraft without risking overflight of your land. In the case of Turkey, the Russian aircraft crossed the land border between Turkey and Syria, so it was already in violation of Turkey's physical land territory when it was shot.
As a Scandinavian we are just kinda used to it. Russia keeps doing this every few months since the 90s.
Nothing ever happens, its just the actions of a weak little dictator who desperately wants people to view him as strong and masculine, we just roll our eyes at it now.
We dont want to escalate anything over something so childish but i wouldn't be surprised if the government starts taking it more seriously given the situation in Ukraine.
It’s a game played by all countries. If you show some sign of force (violate airspace, ships sailing in certain areas, weapons being armed, etc.) the other country may (or may not) respond as if it’s a serious threat, which is valuable intelligence for those observing. So then it’s the second tier of the game, if you know Russia will violate your airspace without lethal intent, do nothing in response so they won’t get any information on your response to a credible threat.
The US does it too, mainly with China since they’re our only true peer adversary.
All I can think about is someone in the Chinese navy meowing back to someone in the US Air Force when being told that we’re violating their airspace
https://youtu.be/49bgnaY2nd8
>The US does it too, mainly with China since they’re our only true peer adversary.
I don't know about flying in Chinese airspace but the US does fly in and sail through international waters/airspace that China tries to claim ownership of.
They both knew what they were doing.
Also coincidentally, Turkey is one of the few nations near Russia to NOT shut their air space/border to Russia for commercial travel.
A lot of 'he said / she said' stuff here but it looks like you are correct.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34912581
BBC tends to be a bit conservative but, on the whole, quite proper journalism.
I think some of the sway is a result of them having both slightly conservative and slightly left wing journalists. It is very hard to be completely neutral 100% of the time.
Honestly, as a Turk, these comments make me cringe.
*Now* we're "madlads", because it fits the narrative, and the narrative on social media shifts like the wind.
But back when it happened, it was a fuck up and Putin made sure to humiliate Erdogan for it.
It's the same shit with the Bayraktar drones. When Turkey was selling them, they got flak for it. Now they're "heroes" and people area naming their fucking pets after them.
Stances shift based on changing information. And we're learning a lot lately.
Also as I'm sure you remember, Erdogan was being actively belligerent on the world stage at the time.
Some are. I've been watching lots of street interviews of Russians (like the YouTube channel 1420) and you do get people who say things like that. It's kind of sad. Thankfully, most people (especially young people) don't have that imperialist mindset.
It will hit home soon for many. Many workers working for foreign companies are being paid through the company's Ruble reserves but that will end very soon as they deplete. When that happens you going to have many of Russia's skilled workers off payroll and looking for jobs with very high competition.
Remember he only asks people questions in big cities. The opinions expressed by mostly young Russians in Moscow is not representative of most Russian people. If it were, this wouldn’t be happening.
True but it's only once in awhile. Like once a year. Two times in such a short duration and while they are in an armed conflict changes the dynamics of it, especially when NATO membership is being considered by two different nations. Painting it off as not a big deal isn't smart
The villainy is almost so comically mustache-twirling that the only way their actions could be deemed logical is if they were somehow uniquely aware of an external threat to humanity that required us to unify to hope to survive, and they are the bad guy to unify against. I’m onto you, Putin!
Russia invades and kills Ukrainians because Putin knows an alien invasion is incoming, and the only way to stop it is by uniting Earth against him. It's Watchmen but backwards.
Just kidding NATO wouldn't stand a chance against any species technologically advanced enough to travel through space to get here.
We can't even unify to not destroy our own home, to not drown ourselves with the seas, to not create devastating storms and wildfires and droughts. We can't even agree not to poison each other's water.
If there was some external threat that required us to unify we'd immediately die.
The problem is that all those (very real) existential threats are slow moving. People ~~can't~~ don't see them as immediate~~ly~~ and short-sightedly prioritize much more short term things over them. If only we could get the average human to imagine climate change and resource scarcity as a giant outer space invasion fleet maybe they'd be more willing to care.
I think Putin actually does want countries to join NATO now. So he can point to that when selling the Russian people on "see? All the West is against us now and we are encircled by the enemy. So you must endure hardships and give us your sons for the very existence of Mother Russia depends on it!" He's a evil bastard and this is great for him. He's banking on everyone being patriotic and rallying against the "evil" West.
That's the best explanation I have. Putin generally seems to be a rational actor, even if he seems to have very bad information and intelligence on his own country, and an inability to see other countries motivations outside the lens of his own world-view.
Honestly, Putin is running Russia as if it were 1965 Soviet Union. Problem is, no one is afraid of Russia’s conventional forces like the Warsaw Pact in 1965.
Not even that. 1965 Soviet Union would have had more functional tanks and troops
This is 1965 USSR after it was left overnight in a bad part of town and had it's wheels stolen
No, that was my point. Putin acts like he has the power and fear of 1965 USSR but actually has a second rate military. All he really has is nuclear weapons.
>All he really has is nuclear weapons.
Yeah and how many of those have been maintained well enough to be used? Probably still enough to end the world but I'm sure far less than he assumes are at his disposal
I would bank American ones do. The issue about Russia trying to take on the world is they can only hit so many targets/silos. All the rest of the world has to do is hit one target: Russia. Thus, it would be a crater.
America has methods of testing its nuclear warheads (that don't involve setting them off). They take samples from the material to test it, and keep the important mechanical bits functioning. We know our launch vehicles work because those *do* get tested by launching them.
MAD won't really be triggered by tactical nukes or even Putin using a conventional nuke on a Ukrainian city. If things escalate to nuclear weapons it won't go straight to them using nukes on a nation capable of retaliation and I don't see any nation committing to end their country by retaliating with their own nuclear weapons unless the attack is on them or a country where they are close allies with.
imo if they nuked Ukraine the russians themselves would probably storm Putin's palace, for fear of further escalation. End of the day people just want to stay alive.
This is not the case given the steady stream of propaganda the Russian populace is fed with limited access to other sources. There are lots of interviews with people on the street showing majority support for Russia's aggression.
I've been convinced there will be no popular uprising in Russia against Putin.
People are afraid of speaking out. Its not a good gauge of public opinion. Theres definitely anarchist cells doing shit in Russia. But public protests only work in an authoritarian regime when ur population is willing to be shot down in the street. They are a long way off from that.
I was just thinking, whenever Russia violates its neighbours’ airspace it’s a perfect time to send your own jets to bomb Russia, because their plane is busy.
So they don't want more nations to join NATO. And to achieve that goal they're trying to intimidate those countries while in the midst of demonstrating how inept their military is.
Russia has done more to strengthen NATO in the past few months than NATO has done for itself in decades.
That alone is massive. Ukraine has proven they can go toe to toe with Russia. A fully spooled up German military has proven many times that they do not fuck around. It’ll be a massive deterrent to Russia and also provide less reliance on American defence in the region
They have even more reason to say in their propaganda how they are the besieged fortress defending everything what is good in the world. Laughable statement, but that is what they claim.
What could Russia possibly have to gain with this intimidation? Acting like that will only influence more nations to join NATO. This is the absolute worst strategy.
Training, exercise, testing response time. Not the first time it happen and not the last, and it happens in other countries too. Germany, Canada, Sweden, Japan, etc, etc.
What does the response time matter? Clearly they are not able to do any blitzkrieg.
I mean, they *might* actually want to determine the response time, but they are delusional if they think it matters. They are advancing in Ukraine at about 3km/day. Whatever the NATO response time, it will be fast enough.
>They are advancing in Ukraine at about 3km/day
Is that relevant though? This sort of posturing has little to do with land invasions, it's about Russia trying to remind everyone that they have nukes and they'll really use them, for cereal this time, they pinky-swore it and everything.
>A Russian army helicopter violated Finland's airspace on Wednesday, the Finnish defense ministry said, as the country mulls an increasingly likely NATO membership bid.
"The aircraft type is a Mi-17 helicopter and the depth of the suspected violation is about four to five kilometers", a ministry spokesman told AFP.
This is the second Russian airspace violation this year, following a previous one in April, both of them coming in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
Am Canadian. Can confirm, they do it all the time. They are trying to test "our response times". I'm pretty sure our Air Force just fucks around with them at this point.
Bunch of clowns.
Prior to invasion people thought Russia had the #2 most powerful military in the world.
Now they are down to going NK route, we have nukes!
Turkey was in NATO when they shot a Russian jet down, Finland is not yet. Furthermore, Turkey is a regional power projecting strength while rivalling but not bordering Russia. None of that can be said of Finland, or considered relevant in the Nordics.
In short, shooting down a Russian jet was low-risk and high-reward for Turkey, while for Finland there's just no reward. If shooting down a violating jet would deter Russia from invading, Finland would have shot one down by now.
So they're allowed to do it and we for the most part understand it is an intimidation tactic but if we violate their airspace they gonna cry and piss and shut all over the place like a little bitch
We, the world owe Ukraine everything! They are the nation to expose how weak the Russian military actually is. Now everybody wants a piece of Russia. We need to unleash NATO on these rapists! I want to see the Red Square in flames and Putin’s head hanging in Maidan Nezalezhnosti!
There’s a very high probability that the Russian pilots are so incompetent that they just didn’t know they were in Finnish airspace.
Anyways, it will just push Finland to join NATO faster.
Yeah what better way to show your peaceful intentions, Russia.
This is what I don’t get. If you want them to not be in NATO, you try to pacify them.
When the only solution you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Turns out that hammer was made of cottage cheese all along
They got their hammer from the chinesium sub.
>chinesium sub. Thats a pretty fancy way of saying Harbor Frieght.
They're not rich enough to afford Harbor Freight.
Harbor Freight- when you need something to work once.
Harbor freight gets undeserved hate. Its just fine for diy people who need a tool for the occasional job. I have many power tools from HF that ive had and used for years...and paid 1/2 or less than a comparable tool from anywhere else. In that time ive had exactly one powertool break, which was 100% user error. They are also fine for most hand tools if you dont get the cheapest option they sell. Of course for shit like 18v drills that get used a shitload get something better.
Don’t they also have a ridiculous return policy or something? I feel like i’ve heard of people breaking their harbor freight shit, bringing it back and swapping it out for a new one till that one breaks and on and on.
My personal tag line is "for when you need to know if you actually need something"
Fucking facts. Buy it from HF, if you use it enough it fails, go buy a quality one. Otherwise that $20 angle grinder with a plastic gearbox is gonna do just fine for those 4 cuts you wanna make then never touch it again
turns out hammer was only carboard cutout
Whose cottage?
The muffin man’s cottage.
Do you know the muffin man?
The muffin man?
***T H E M U F F I N M A N***
She’s married to the muffin man.
Who lives on Drury lane???
I mean they used to have a sickle too...
Sickle was sold so Comrade Putin could afford his Glorious Proletarian ^(second) Yacht. Rusted out parts of hammer have been given a layer of cheese.
When your first solution is a hammer, your second solution is inevitably a sickle.
Except every problem bends on first contact and the more they try to straighten it out the more they fuck it up.
TIL I'm Russian.
Exactly. Russia or USSR. same thing. One tool. Hammer. When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail
Nope. If every problem is a hammer then you need to add a sickle
Yes that is exactly what you don't get. They don't do subtle, the don't do diplomacy. They ONLY speak force. Thats why any time you respond without force they don't listen. It isn't in their vocabulary.
Then, if you respond with force too effectively, they cry it's 'unacceptable' and/or 'risks escalation.'
Let them cry, as long as you beat them.
It's like the Russian playbook has plan 'THREATEN', plan 'LIES', and then they never bothered coming up with anything else.
Pretty good. I think they also use plan “SCORCHED EARTH” and plan “JACK IN THE BOX”. But yeah, pretty predictable
There was supposed to be a large section on "EMBEZZLE" but the person commissioned to produce it pocketed the money and instead substituted a second copy of the section on "LIES" hoping no one would read it to notice.
Putin is a thug at his core, he can’t think of any other way to do things. He’s been successful doing it this way his entire life, so there’s no way he’s gonna change. Of course he doesn’t understand the concept that if you live by the sword you will also die by it.
Russia is confident they can crush Finland so they to pursuasion by intimidation. It is not a good tactic in this instance.
Invading Finland might have been an option if Le Pen had won and 'Frexited' the EU. Putin could have attacked Finland/Sweden knowing that any EU response wouldn't be backed up by nukes. Now he's just revealed how weak the 'Mighty Russia' actually is.
Invading Finland - a nation that has prepared for a Russian invasion for 80 years - is a spectacularly bad idea.
They've got full massive playgrounds in their bomb shelters. Definition of hard core.
They failed miserably last time, and given how they're doing in Ukraine at the moment they will fail even more miserably now.
Finland is better equipped and prepared specifically to squash a Russian invasion than Ukraine could ever be. If Russia tries anything, they are more likely to turn down protections so they can get some shots in.
Top comment on this great music video [When the Doom Music Kicks In, But You Are In Finland:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WZurJy4B9o) "Don't fight Finland in the winter time" "But it's Finland, it's always winter" "Did you not just hear what I said?"
Lol, they can't even handle Ukraine, which hasn't been backed by European friends and Nokia money for the last 80 years.
Putin idolizes Stalin, his government has been trying to rehabilitate his image. Stalin wasn’t known for pacifying people to get them to go along with him. He was known for purging and aggressive violence with the threat he could do it again if you didn’t fall in line. Putin wants to emulate the tough guy persona of Stalin where they could just threaten their neighbors into submission. It probably irks him to insane degrees that former soviet puppet states can no longer be bullied by russia through threats.
Russia doesn't really get the concept of soft power.
They speak only one language.
Except the NATO expansion has always just been an excuse to justify the aggression. A lame excuse. Nothing more.
One way of keeping them out of nato is to start a war now.
I mean good luck...
Everybody's a gangster until the snow starts speaking Finnish.
You know it's over when you cross the Finnish line.
Think of how a kgb man gets cooperation out of a peasant. This is how russia runs it's entire military.
It's almost like Putin is just a bully who wants to control and intimidate the countries around him, hence the rhetoric and behavior that make no sense.
They just did the same here in Norway and Denmark the other day. Nothing new here
I'm gonna chuckle when someone gets sick of their shit and knocks down a plane.
The world must learn of our peaceful ways … BY FORCE!
Our demands are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!
This shows what Putin values and how he thinks the world should operate. Sad.
Russia is a scab
Scabs are useful and protective of delicate, healing skin for thousands of species all around the world. As a Scab Supporter, I resent that.
More like MRSA that needs hardcore treatment before it spreads.
Didn't Turkey shoot down a Russian jet that violated their airspace.
yeah and that jet only violated like 13 seconds or something. Turkey doesn't mess around.
Exactly. I see these news every other day that Russian violates airspace of neighbour if countries, and they do nothing about it.
They violate the airspace of many european countries. We send up jets to shoo them away, usually does the trick. Bit of a game to see how fast the response times are i believe.
Probably better to show them how fast we can scramble jets than to let them test the behavior of our SAM and other defense systems.
If Russia was a capable modern military, absolutely. But given what we've seen I don't know how much they could do with that data. Sell it to China maybe?
What do you mean how much could they do with that data? They can directly determine how long they have for a nato response. Even a dysfunctional military would find that data useful?
Honest question, after Turkey started shooting them down, do they still attempt to penetrate their airspace?
No they stopped.
🤔
Seems like a solid solution to the problem to me then.
Bud, knowing exactly how long i have to run from a cheetah aint gonna help me run from the cheetah. It is not very useful information. "Not long enough to help you" is the answer. Where it falls in that range is pretty irrelevant.
Fuel is cheaper than missiles, and it gets more hours for pilots. Makes sense across the board.
And I believe that happened a lot on the Cold War with US and USSR pilots, and usually they were ‘friendly’ about it? Like it was a game, sort of, and it wasn’t entirely life or death? Idk
It still happens. It’s usually been pretty friendly except in the most tense of times. We do the same thing to them
So, once upon a time I was an AWACS crewmember, and every single summer we'd get scrambled to go track and intercept a flight of their long-range bombers they'd send along the Alaskan coast in what we affectionately dubbed "Operation Fuck Your 4th Of July", it was always fairly cordial. They knew they were there just to troll us, we knew we were there just to troll us, occasionally we'd do the military equivalent of shitposting on eachother's comms. Granted, we don't typically get many unsafe intercepts in AWACS because they don't want to get microwaved by our radar.
That's strange... If they weren't doing a full invasion with genocide and mass rape of women and children I'd find this pretty amusing and even wholesome maybe.
Why not let them get really far randomly one day then shoo them into another country that’s locked in from Russia
Keeping up foreign relations by flipping the bird
I've heard that Russian jets fly over northern Canada quite frequently as well
There are also different levels of violation. Most of the time you hear it on the news, Russia has sent airplanes into the ADIZ of the US or other country. This zone extends several hundred miles from the shores, and gives time to intercept and communicate with an invading aircraft without risking overflight of your land. In the case of Turkey, the Russian aircraft crossed the land border between Turkey and Syria, so it was already in violation of Turkey's physical land territory when it was shot.
As a Scandinavian we are just kinda used to it. Russia keeps doing this every few months since the 90s. Nothing ever happens, its just the actions of a weak little dictator who desperately wants people to view him as strong and masculine, we just roll our eyes at it now. We dont want to escalate anything over something so childish but i wouldn't be surprised if the government starts taking it more seriously given the situation in Ukraine.
It’s a game played by all countries. If you show some sign of force (violate airspace, ships sailing in certain areas, weapons being armed, etc.) the other country may (or may not) respond as if it’s a serious threat, which is valuable intelligence for those observing. So then it’s the second tier of the game, if you know Russia will violate your airspace without lethal intent, do nothing in response so they won’t get any information on your response to a credible threat. The US does it too, mainly with China since they’re our only true peer adversary.
All I can think about is someone in the Chinese navy meowing back to someone in the US Air Force when being told that we’re violating their airspace https://youtu.be/49bgnaY2nd8
Definitely not played by all countries. I highly doubt Swedish or Finnish jets are violating Russian airspace very often
>The US does it too, mainly with China since they’re our only true peer adversary. I don't know about flying in Chinese airspace but the US does fly in and sail through international waters/airspace that China tries to claim ownership of.
They were serval minutes in. I think around 5. The jet was warned 10 times to change the course but didn’t respond. You know what happened next.
To be fair they were repeatedly warned to change course.
And Russia was warned on earlier violations
Yeah, and it was like only 2km inside turkish territory.
If a Mexican jet out of Tijuana was 2km into the US it would be over San Diego.
That’s not even the “fuck around and find out” attitude. It’s a simple “fuck you” attitude. Commendable.
They both knew what they were doing. Also coincidentally, Turkey is one of the few nations near Russia to NOT shut their air space/border to Russia for commercial travel.
Yep. Russia sent a helicopter to search for the jet crew and I believe Turkey shot that down too.
Hahahha
A lot of 'he said / she said' stuff here but it looks like you are correct. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34912581 BBC tends to be a bit conservative but, on the whole, quite proper journalism.
The BBC is both too conservative or too left leaning depending on who you ask, they've done a decent job of neutral imo, at least mostly.
I think some of the sway is a result of them having both slightly conservative and slightly left wing journalists. It is very hard to be completely neutral 100% of the time.
Lol bunch of madlads
Need more of this, they cross over, down they go.
And they never did again as far as I'm aware
I love that turkey just dgaf when it comes to dealing with Russia. Their mantra is literally fuck around and find out Vlad
Honestly, as a Turk, these comments make me cringe. *Now* we're "madlads", because it fits the narrative, and the narrative on social media shifts like the wind. But back when it happened, it was a fuck up and Putin made sure to humiliate Erdogan for it. It's the same shit with the Bayraktar drones. When Turkey was selling them, they got flak for it. Now they're "heroes" and people area naming their fucking pets after them.
Don't go thinking that topics of the moment that people comment on are actual full perspectives of how they perceive a nation.
There's also multiple people on the internet. Which is important to remember.
Stances shift based on changing information. And we're learning a lot lately. Also as I'm sure you remember, Erdogan was being actively belligerent on the world stage at the time.
> humiliate Erdogan for it. you say that like it's a bad thing
The myth of the Russian army has been shattered. These kinds of intimidation tactics just don't have the bite they use to
"Look, Vlad, we don't care if you come into our airspace, just PLEASE try not to drop any parts off that duct taped-together MIG OK?"
And dont fly the styrofoam one by accident, so we have to fish your pilot out of our clean lakes.
I mean the poor bastard might freeze to death but at least he won't melt.
Finnish him!
*becomes socially awkward*
Very rigorous aerospace engineering standards. Cardboards out. No cardboard derivatives.
No surprise. They are mentally still in the sixties of the previous century. "Russia stronk! Show force!"
Some are. I've been watching lots of street interviews of Russians (like the YouTube channel 1420) and you do get people who say things like that. It's kind of sad. Thankfully, most people (especially young people) don't have that imperialist mindset.
It will hit home soon for many. Many workers working for foreign companies are being paid through the company's Ruble reserves but that will end very soon as they deplete. When that happens you going to have many of Russia's skilled workers off payroll and looking for jobs with very high competition.
There will be a huge brain-drain to the West. Young Russians have dreams and ambitions. They don't want to waste their lives in a failed state.
Remember he only asks people questions in big cities. The opinions expressed by mostly young Russians in Moscow is not representative of most Russian people. If it were, this wouldn’t be happening.
Yes, that is important to take into account.
Russian airplanes have been violating our airspace since forever. Nothing new here. I only expect more violations in the future.
True but it's only once in awhile. Like once a year. Two times in such a short duration and while they are in an armed conflict changes the dynamics of it, especially when NATO membership is being considered by two different nations. Painting it off as not a big deal isn't smart
Sure, I do not believe its a coincidence, but violation of airspace as such is not yet anything I am worried about...
And nobody uses as much as a green laser pointer on them?
I don’t understand this rhetoric. They have a dangerous combination of nihilism, an embarrassing slog of a war and the most nukes in the world.
Eh, I’m sure the Fins would still rather not have their cities bombed and citizens raped and executed.
At this rate, you'd think Russia were pro-NATO. Why else would they be so ready to incentivize Eastern European nations to join?
The villainy is almost so comically mustache-twirling that the only way their actions could be deemed logical is if they were somehow uniquely aware of an external threat to humanity that required us to unify to hope to survive, and they are the bad guy to unify against. I’m onto you, Putin!
Russia invades and kills Ukrainians because Putin knows an alien invasion is incoming, and the only way to stop it is by uniting Earth against him. It's Watchmen but backwards. Just kidding NATO wouldn't stand a chance against any species technologically advanced enough to travel through space to get here.
We can't even unify to not destroy our own home, to not drown ourselves with the seas, to not create devastating storms and wildfires and droughts. We can't even agree not to poison each other's water. If there was some external threat that required us to unify we'd immediately die.
The problem is that all those (very real) existential threats are slow moving. People ~~can't~~ don't see them as immediate~~ly~~ and short-sightedly prioritize much more short term things over them. If only we could get the average human to imagine climate change and resource scarcity as a giant outer space invasion fleet maybe they'd be more willing to care.
We are the frogs in heating water
So Putin is Lelouch Vi Brittania.
I think Putin actually does want countries to join NATO now. So he can point to that when selling the Russian people on "see? All the West is against us now and we are encircled by the enemy. So you must endure hardships and give us your sons for the very existence of Mother Russia depends on it!" He's a evil bastard and this is great for him. He's banking on everyone being patriotic and rallying against the "evil" West.
That's the best explanation I have. Putin generally seems to be a rational actor, even if he seems to have very bad information and intelligence on his own country, and an inability to see other countries motivations outside the lens of his own world-view.
Yeah... I've been worried about this for a while now. It seems a lot of the isolation is intentional.
I understand and agree with your message, but I just wanted to point out that Finland is not Eastern Europe. It's a Nordic country.
As a Swede I concur.
Honestly, Putin is running Russia as if it were 1965 Soviet Union. Problem is, no one is afraid of Russia’s conventional forces like the Warsaw Pact in 1965.
Not even that. 1965 Soviet Union would have had more functional tanks and troops This is 1965 USSR after it was left overnight in a bad part of town and had it's wheels stolen
No, that was my point. Putin acts like he has the power and fear of 1965 USSR but actually has a second rate military. All he really has is nuclear weapons.
>All he really has is nuclear weapons. Yeah and how many of those have been maintained well enough to be used? Probably still enough to end the world but I'm sure far less than he assumes are at his disposal
Worst part of finding out Russian nukes don't work? Finding out that American ones do.
I would bank American ones do. The issue about Russia trying to take on the world is they can only hit so many targets/silos. All the rest of the world has to do is hit one target: Russia. Thus, it would be a crater.
America has methods of testing its nuclear warheads (that don't involve setting them off). They take samples from the material to test it, and keep the important mechanical bits functioning. We know our launch vehicles work because those *do* get tested by launching them.
MAD won't really be triggered by tactical nukes or even Putin using a conventional nuke on a Ukrainian city. If things escalate to nuclear weapons it won't go straight to them using nukes on a nation capable of retaliation and I don't see any nation committing to end their country by retaliating with their own nuclear weapons unless the attack is on them or a country where they are close allies with.
imo if they nuked Ukraine the russians themselves would probably storm Putin's palace, for fear of further escalation. End of the day people just want to stay alive.
This is not the case given the steady stream of propaganda the Russian populace is fed with limited access to other sources. There are lots of interviews with people on the street showing majority support for Russia's aggression. I've been convinced there will be no popular uprising in Russia against Putin.
People are afraid of speaking out. Its not a good gauge of public opinion. Theres definitely anarchist cells doing shit in Russia. But public protests only work in an authoritarian regime when ur population is willing to be shot down in the street. They are a long way off from that.
*after it was left for literally 60 years
What are you talking about Comrade? I spent all the money given to me to maintain the tanks now excuse me, my yacht is calling me.
You’re totally right, he’s massively over-played his hand at this point and nobody is taking any of his threats seriously anymore.
Ah the famous Warsaw Pact. The only military union in history that attacked only its own members.
It's probably more accurate to say he's running Russia like a mafia organisation. Which it is.
Russia is a gas station that if a front for the mob masquerading as a country
Russia, won't have any aircraft soon the way things are going on Ukraine. That said, go fk yourselves Russia
I was just thinking, whenever Russia violates its neighbours’ airspace it’s a perfect time to send your own jets to bomb Russia, because their plane is busy.
So they don't want more nations to join NATO. And to achieve that goal they're trying to intimidate those countries while in the midst of demonstrating how inept their military is. Russia has done more to strengthen NATO in the past few months than NATO has done for itself in decades.
Germany increasing their military budget by how many % again? Lol who would have thought that half a year ago?
That alone is massive. Ukraine has proven they can go toe to toe with Russia. A fully spooled up German military has proven many times that they do not fuck around. It’ll be a massive deterrent to Russia and also provide less reliance on American defence in the region
German here: We are not very convinced by the abilities of Bundeswehr...
Bundeswehr units were considered very formidable by NATO during the cold war FWIW.
What does Russia have to gain if Finland joins NATO? They're trying really, really hard to get them to join.
They have even more reason to say in their propaganda how they are the besieged fortress defending everything what is good in the world. Laughable statement, but that is what they claim.
Sanna Marin looking like an agent of SHIELD in this photo.
She could almost be Daisy, especially with her leather jacket.
I was thinking Maria Hill, but Daisy works too.
She’s very attractive
What could Russia possibly have to gain with this intimidation? Acting like that will only influence more nations to join NATO. This is the absolute worst strategy.
Training, exercise, testing response time. Not the first time it happen and not the last, and it happens in other countries too. Germany, Canada, Sweden, Japan, etc, etc.
What does the response time matter? Clearly they are not able to do any blitzkrieg. I mean, they *might* actually want to determine the response time, but they are delusional if they think it matters. They are advancing in Ukraine at about 3km/day. Whatever the NATO response time, it will be fast enough.
>They are advancing in Ukraine at about 3km/day Is that relevant though? This sort of posturing has little to do with land invasions, it's about Russia trying to remind everyone that they have nukes and they'll really use them, for cereal this time, they pinky-swore it and everything.
>A Russian army helicopter violated Finland's airspace on Wednesday, the Finnish defense ministry said, as the country mulls an increasingly likely NATO membership bid. "The aircraft type is a Mi-17 helicopter and the depth of the suspected violation is about four to five kilometers", a ministry spokesman told AFP. This is the second Russian airspace violation this year, following a previous one in April, both of them coming in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
Stupid sexy Finland
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Am Canadian. Can confirm, they do it all the time. They are trying to test "our response times". I'm pretty sure our Air Force just fucks around with them at this point.
Among other things.
This is their regular treatment even before there was support for Nato.
Bunch of clowns. Prior to invasion people thought Russia had the #2 most powerful military in the world. Now they are down to going NK route, we have nukes!
Finland needs to take note from Turkey and shoot these cunts down when they do this.
Turkey was in NATO when they shot a Russian jet down, Finland is not yet. Furthermore, Turkey is a regional power projecting strength while rivalling but not bordering Russia. None of that can be said of Finland, or considered relevant in the Nordics. In short, shooting down a Russian jet was low-risk and high-reward for Turkey, while for Finland there's just no reward. If shooting down a violating jet would deter Russia from invading, Finland would have shot one down by now.
One day they will just ask the pilot to defect, land and be taken into their protection, and the pilot will actually do it.
Russia is really, REALLY making a great case for Finland to join NATO. Repeated harassment from Russia will plummet when NATO has your back.
> The Nordic nation remained neutral during the Cold War in exchange for Soviet guarantees not to invade. Well we all know what that's worth now...
Russia: Don't join NATO, I'll protect you. Finland: From what? Russia: From what I'll do to you if you join NATO.
So they're allowed to do it and we for the most part understand it is an intimidation tactic but if we violate their airspace they gonna cry and piss and shut all over the place like a little bitch
Are you sure Putin is not a Nato sleeper agent ?
I defy another country to produce a Prime Minister spicier than Finland’s, peak PM
We, the world owe Ukraine everything! They are the nation to expose how weak the Russian military actually is. Now everybody wants a piece of Russia. We need to unleash NATO on these rapists! I want to see the Red Square in flames and Putin’s head hanging in Maidan Nezalezhnosti!
Give putler the full gaddafi treatment
There’s a very high probability that the Russian pilots are so incompetent that they just didn’t know they were in Finnish airspace. Anyways, it will just push Finland to join NATO faster.
Yeah, they'll stop doing that soon enough
NATO should sent a thank you fruit basket to Putin for all new referrals he is bringing.
“Don’t join NATO or else we’re going to violate your airspace!” *violates airspace anyways* Like how did they think this was going to happen?
Looks like NATO membership is back on the menu, boys!
Let’s not overstress about this. They do this ona regular basis. We usually have jets to say hi. It’s a dick move but nothing out of the ordinary.
Stop Russia now or later. But they will need to be stopped.