this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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[–] Buffalox 137 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Go Ukraine, fuck Russia.
A not very wealthy country of about only 120 million people wanted to play superpower.
They were offered peace, cooperation and prosperity, but instead they chose corruption and confrontation.
Russia could very possibly have been the biggest economy in Europe by now, if they had chosen cooperation. That would have made them more powerful and influential than all the bullshit they've pulled to undermine the west and their neighbors.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I totally agree.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were handed everything they wanted on a silver plate.

They could have been Poland on steroids.

But they chose to reject it, so stupid.

[–] Rakonat 47 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Russians have been brainwashed for centuries by their elites to thinking corruption is the natural order of things.

They can't believe that western nations can have shows of wealth and quality of life standards they do, because that means the way they and their ancestors have lived for decades isn't how people are supposed to live.

Their elites steal everything, ensure education standards are low as possible so their workers can just barely manage to operate in a factory, on a farm or in a mine, and then encourage them to stay drunk as possible during their waking hours.

And then they wonder why Russians who manage to emigrate west never go home and sooner or later cut all contact with their backwards motherland.

Frankly if it hadn't been for the advent of Nuclear Weapons, and Soviets stealing designs for them from America, Russia never would have been a Superpower at all and probably collapse in on itself in the 60s.

[–] LibreHans 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Their elites steal everything

You think the western elites don't? It's just slower..

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 months ago

The trick is not to steal faster than the economy can produce. It's like organic, fair trade, sustainable kleptocracy.

[–] Rakonat 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Western elites do steal, true. But to no where near the same extent. We'd have trillionaires in the west if they stole as much as Russian oligarchs do.

[–] LibreHans -2 points 3 months ago

We will have them

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago

wanted to play superpower

As someone who is from that region, it's not even that. A whole lot of countries want to play superpower, and they are only mildly hated for it. The US, the French, even the Chinese are an abstract economic threat. The Russians want to play 18th century superpower and that makes them a concrete military threat.

The stupid thing is, just by looking at the state of the world right now, they totally would have won the long game if they went soft power only. Putin is a failure that way as well I guess.