Russia - threadbanned users in OP

How would you catagorise someone who celebrates a man responsible for murder and oppression? You say he's a great man, what about him do you find great?

I think we should view Putin's early years different from the present.

In the early years well, he managed to stabilise Russia after the chaos of the Yeltsin era. He unified the country and brought some control into bearing when there was none in the Yeltsin era. He also gave Russian people something to be proud of. If the West had acted differently, it could well have been part of Nato today.

Now the economy is stagnating along with Russian people's lives. Together with all the other problems on I don't think that Putin has any idea how to deal with them. I think his only strategy now is to try to convince the West that "it would be better having him in the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in". Not sure it is going to work though.

A warning to all leaders who stay in power too long - are you watching Xi?

The Russian economy is a shambles, it's entirely dependent upon oil revenue, or hacking perhaps. The only reason Russian has any relevancy on the world stage comes from their stranglehold on Europe's oil supply and their nuclear arsenal. Nothing about them is "Great" anymore. While the US has a dark history, I don't recall much in the way of state sponsored murder of Journalists, Opposition leaders or critics of late.

Russia and NATO haven't been this antagonistic towards each other since the Reagan administration. Putin has promoted instability and violent conflict throughout Eastern europe, and further afield. One only has to look at the actions of Wagner group throughout the Middle east and Africa to see that.

A Great Man altogether.

Could you point to all the journalists and politicians that the US has assassinated or jailed of late?

What points have you made? You said Putin rebuilt Russia into a power, I made the point that this isn't the case. You nicely sidestepped talking about all the horrible things Putin's reign has brought the Russian people, instead throwing out some whataboutery re: the US.

By all means, please provide something of substance to your claim of greatness. Can you define that at least?

Would it be fair to say the jist of your statement here could be catagorised as Russia being rebuilt?

Funny how nobody noticed any of this until he stole the 2016 election from poor Hillary...

The ground is being laid for war right along several borders next to Russia. This article is published by Russia Today - there is no definite information that this was the cause and the article does state that, yet they allow it to be published, to what end I ask? It does sow seeds of distrust and in the context of background events maybe laying groundwork for something more serious on multiple fronts of the Russian border.

NATO submarine caused Kursk sinking that killed 118 Russian sailors, ex-admiral claims

In Turkey there is a serious economic problem manifesting itself in the currency. Can this issue be treated in isolation or will it extend further into both Syria and the Armenia Azerbaijan war?

• Erdogan says he will keep battling interest rates, hitting lira
• Turkish lira: Why is it constantly dropping?
• Turkey Suspends Syria Operation due to Russia, U.S. Rejection
• Turkey’s Looming Debt Repayments Test Lira in High-Stakes Week

• Turkish, Azerbaijani defense ministers discuss tension at Armenia border
• Three US companies involved in projects on Azerbaijani liberated lands – ambassador
• Putin discusses Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia's Pashinyan, Kremlin says

There is much activity in Ukraine.

• NATO's flirtation with adding 2 more members runs the risk of starting a war the US can't afford to fight

There is much activity in Belarus on their Polish and Lithuanian borders. From today alone these are headlines from TASS.

• Russian radars track over 50 foreign spy planes and drones near state borders over week
• Migrants change strategy, attempt to cross into Lithuania in small groups, says Vilnius
• Minsk does not want standoff fraught with conflict on border with Poland, Lukashenko says
• Polish authorities use refugees as distraction from domestic problems, Lukashenko says
• Anti-Semitism, Russophobia running rampant in Ukraine, Baltic states, warns Lavrov
• Over 100 times in 50 years: Russian lawmaker points to extensive overseas meddling by US
• Russia alarmed by Germany and France’s refusal to uphold implementation of Minsk accords
• Belligerent rhetoric shows Kiev’s wish to send Donbass conflict into hot phase — Lavrov
• Kremlin points to rising tide of Ukraine’s provocations with NATO-supplied weapons
• Kremlin blasts West’s media crusade to portray Russia as ‘threat’ to Ukrainian settlement
• Moscow, Minsk cannot but retaliate against Western pressure — Union State secretary
• Topic of Ukraine will be touched upon at Putin-Biden meeting — Lavrov

That's quite a bit of activity on the Russian Western and Southern borders and has been since the beginning of the year. The military build-up in Eastern Ukraine early this year was countered by a massive Russian scale up on the other side, that seemed to put fright on NATO. IMHO Sergey Lavrov has probably been the best foreign minister internationally over the past number of years, managing to advance Russia's interests (whether you agree with them or not) with minimum cost while keeping all out hot war from exploding due to the Americans and Europeans (EU specifically) missteps. I see the problem in the US Biden administration currently in that there are several factions competing with each other on the foreign stage, they have no unified strategy, making them extremely untrustworthy for any medium or long term stability agreement.

Will the upcoming Putin-Biden summit defuse the situation?

I expect that should a direct military conflict in Ukraine happen, Russia would quickly annex everything east of the Dnieper river and even all the way along the Black sea coast to Odessa, most of which are dominant Russian speaking areas. The would draw Poland and Romania in to protect Western Ukraine and Moldova respectively. EU states are in no position for a protracted war as a significant portion of their energy is gas sourced from Russia. It also exposes the rot caused by years of negative interest rates (sovereign debt default) and the the more recent Covid lockdowns.

I think Ukraine would be better to follow a policy of Finlandization and deal internally with the corruption that sparked the Maidan protests. Russia will always be their major trading partner and for the most part they have a common heritage, especially in the East of that country. Looking at threats from a Russian point of view, they have had invasions from the Golden Horde, the Ottomans, the French (Napolean) and the Germans (Hitler) that have been very destructive on the population, militarily it's idea post World war II was to have a buffer zone in Eastern and central Europe against invasion. Western Russia subsidises the populations that live east of the Urals. A neutral policy by the Ukraine would mean Russia does not have to tie up so many resources protecting its borders on Western Russia and can work on containing the Chinese economic expansion into its client states like Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

The novichok incident happened in 2018, not sure which journalists were murdered before that. The Syria situation all depends on which side you take - Assad and the gang or the West/US/Israelies. Not sure you could hold it against the russians for not taking the side of the Israelis

Open to correction but everything east of Norway and Germany , putin previously stated he wanted to return to the 1917 borders of russsia