Aye, @Bishops Finger, the west interfered in Russian internal affairs from 1917 onward. Imperial Germany sending (traitor?) Lenin in, then all of us trying to crush what he started. I dare say if we hadn't have, the Red Terror wouldn't have been much less. We exhausted the Soviets and let them descend in to worse capitalism than ours. We didn't lift a finger. Well George Soros, of all people, did. And we did nothing in Belarus and Ukraine. We could barely get our act together to deal with Serbia. As for Chechnya, my God. And Georgia. No carrot. No stick. And we are reaping his bitter twisted narrative. If we let Ukraine launch our weapons on Russia, he has to escalate. On Ukrainian launch sites, airfields, command and control. There's only one way he can do that. And then
Aye, @Bishops Finger, the west interfered in Russian internal affairs from 1917 onward. Imperial Germany sending (traitor?) Lenin in, then all of us trying to crush what he started. I dare say if we hadn't have, the Red Terror wouldn't have been much less. We exhausted the Soviets and let them descend in to worse capitalism than ours. We didn't lift a finger. Well George Soros, of all people, did. And we did nothing in Belarus and Ukraine. We could barely get our act together to deal with Serbia. As for Chechnya, my God. And Georgia. No carrot. No stick. And we are reaping his bitter twisted narrative. If we let Ukraine launch our weapons on Russia, he has to escalate. On Ukrainian launch sites, airfields, command and control. There's only one way he can do that. And then
This process started with Yelstin, who can well be said to have created and shaped the vacuum which the monster Putin has filled. By his species of negligent, incompetent robber baron capitalism, Yeltsin allowed a situation similar to the mediaeval boyars to be recreated in the form of oligarchs, mostly in control of the country's vast mineral wealth. This system was adopted eagerly by Putin, and adapted to his own more competently authoritarian ends. Yeltsin was vital to this process by allowing nearly all the useful elements of the Soviet state to wither and decay in his lengthy decade in power. On a cultural level, this triggered the Russian mania for "strong leadership", which Putin has been only too happy to seize upon and exploit. Strangely, "strong leadership" seems always to take the form of murderous tyranny. This kind of culturally validated bloodletting is a facet of Russian culture I have never understood, and which ultimately put me off living there. I decided I simply couldn't live in a country which was prone to fits of murderous authoritarianism, because as a homosexual foreigner and a member of the intelligentsia, I might well find myself dead.
The cult of the 'strong leader' goes back a long, long way though. Think Stalin. Think Ivan The Terrible.
History is full of unintended consequences. I've often wondered whether the Russian trajectory would have been different if the Byzantines had allowed Russian bishops from the get-go.
From the time of Cyril and Methodius until the 1400s, all Russian bishops came from the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean.
So we can understand a kind of nationalist backlash starting around that time and as Muscovy became a greater power in its own right. Then, with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 there was all the 'Holy Russia' and 'Third Rome' stuff. Putin and Patriarch Kyrill are riding that.
It's scary. Some of the Russians even believe that Russia is the restraining influence on the Anti-Christ mysteriously referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-12.
I think your fear @Martin54 is being shared by many...
Your final sentence breaks off suddenly, and ISWYM.
Ah, he's found a way to make Inter in to Intra in ICBM, and swap the 'aitch bombs for 36 sub-munitions (hazel nuts?*), as we saw in Dnipro, that he's about to drop on Kyiv.
*The new improved intermediate missile Russian name is Oreshnik: Hazel tree.
Comments
I take it that that's what @Martin54 means, but I may be wrong (it has been known).
YMMV.
Your final sentence breaks off suddenly, and ISWYM.
I hadn't thought of that.
Curses...
This process started with Yelstin, who can well be said to have created and shaped the vacuum which the monster Putin has filled. By his species of negligent, incompetent robber baron capitalism, Yeltsin allowed a situation similar to the mediaeval boyars to be recreated in the form of oligarchs, mostly in control of the country's vast mineral wealth. This system was adopted eagerly by Putin, and adapted to his own more competently authoritarian ends. Yeltsin was vital to this process by allowing nearly all the useful elements of the Soviet state to wither and decay in his lengthy decade in power. On a cultural level, this triggered the Russian mania for "strong leadership", which Putin has been only too happy to seize upon and exploit. Strangely, "strong leadership" seems always to take the form of murderous tyranny. This kind of culturally validated bloodletting is a facet of Russian culture I have never understood, and which ultimately put me off living there. I decided I simply couldn't live in a country which was prone to fits of murderous authoritarianism, because as a homosexual foreigner and a member of the intelligentsia, I might well find myself dead.
LOL! Nah, we all go together when we go.
@Thunderbunk. Nods.
...suffused with an incandescent glow...
Brilliant.
I've never thought of glows as brilliant - much more gentle than that.
No credit to me - the great Tom Lehrer.
Indeed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
Just sing out a Te Deum
When you see that ICBM...
There is for your honesty and I can hear him singing it now.
The cult of the 'strong leader' goes back a long, long way though. Think Stalin. Think Ivan The Terrible.
History is full of unintended consequences. I've often wondered whether the Russian trajectory would have been different if the Byzantines had allowed Russian bishops from the get-go.
From the time of Cyril and Methodius until the 1400s, all Russian bishops came from the Greek-speaking Eastern Mediterranean.
So we can understand a kind of nationalist backlash starting around that time and as Muscovy became a greater power in its own right. Then, with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 there was all the 'Holy Russia' and 'Third Rome' stuff. Putin and Patriarch Kyrill are riding that.
It's scary. Some of the Russians even believe that Russia is the restraining influence on the Anti-Christ mysteriously referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-12.
My link - posted at the same time as @Martin54's latest! - proves that Great Minds truly do Think Alike...
Ah, he's found a way to make Inter in to Intra in ICBM, and swap the 'aitch bombs for 36 sub-munitions (hazel nuts?*), as we saw in Dnipro, that he's about to drop on Kyiv.
*The new improved intermediate missile Russian name is Oreshnik: Hazel tree.