this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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Russia's diplomats were once a key part of President Putin's foreign policy strategy. But that has all changed.

In the years leading up to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomats lost their authority, their role reduced to echoing the Kremlin's aggressive rhetoric.

BBC Russian asks former diplomats, as well as ex-Kremlin and White House insiders, how Russian diplomacy broke down.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's actually hilarious how millennials are refusing to shit themselves in fear over hollow threats of nuclear apocalypse like the boomers did for decades.

Like, I'm going to die a slow death from microplastic poisoning. My kids will slowly cook to death as the earth warms. Instant death by fireball sounds pretty nice.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The young scions of our age find themselves in a curious juxtaposition to their forbearers, who once trembled at the thought of world-ending calamities unleashed by the fiery engines of the Autarch's weaponry. These newer souls scoff at such fears, deeming them hollow echoes of a past era, perhaps because they have been raised in the shadow of subtler, yet equally inexorable, dooms. To them, the threat of slow ruin wrought by the invisible maladies that pollute our waters and air, or the gradual inferno that the Sun's ever-increasing wrath promises to our world, hold more tangible dread. For these youths, the prospect of instantaneous annihilation in a blaze of cosmic fire seems almost a reprieve, a quick severance of life's Gordian knot, sparing them the prolonged suffering promised by the ills that plague our slowly deteriorating Urth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Pretty good

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Your sentiment is not, in fact, new. It existed back then as well.

millennials are refusing to shit themselves in fear

Started good...

Like, I’m going to die a slow death from microplastic poisoning. My kids will slowly cook to death as the earth warms. Instant death by fireball sounds pretty nice.

...And then you wrote this. I see contradiction.

I'm really sorry to piss on your little eco-statement here, but climate change fears are relevant for decadent rich societies only. Most of the actual humanity is still more concerned with poverty, illiteracy, hunger, epidemics and genocide.

But I agree that those threats are hollow now, because people who'd never actually fulfill them are voicing them. Mostly thieves from the Russian "elite".

In 1984 the threat would be voiced by bureaucratic leaders of a block occupying large part of the globe which was more or less designed from the ground up for playing "Global Thermonuclear War", you can see than even in the way Soviet military in its every component was being developed starting from the 50s. Those leaders were not even that corrupt, usually (well, such famous Politburo members as Boris Yeltsin and Heydar Aliyev obviously were, but still), what they owned officially and unofficially is upper middle class level, in Western terms.

So maybe boomers were not so cowardly, yes?

[–] Weslee 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was it ever alive to begin with?

[–] severien 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Soviet diplomacy was actually pretty strong.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It was at least less cringe

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It might be hard to imagine now, but Mr Putin himself told the BBC back in 2000 that "Russia is ready to co-operate with Nato... right up to joining the alliance".

"I cannot imagine my country isolated from Europe," he added.

Back then, early in his presidency, Mr Putin was eager to build ties with the West, a former senior Kremlin official told the BBC.

Gotta wonder how Russia never ended up being able to NATO despite this.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s simple, they never actually asked to join.

[–] severien 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Russia / Putin didn't want to follow standard procedure, feeling entitled for a special treatment.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Like when the US illegally invades Iraq and murders millions of civilians against UN orders

[–] severien 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Lol, what a fine example of whataboutism. We're talking about a procedure to enter NATO and you whatabout Iraq. How about we talk about the crimes of Ivan the Terrible instead?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I’m starting to think there are Russian shills ITT.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Declassified (by the US) documents mention that Putin wanted to join without waiting in queue with "insignificant countries" (in early 2000s, who would that be? Baltic countries?), and as late as 2012 there was a contract for usage Russian airport as transit hub to Afghanistan (https://m.gazeta.ru/politics/2012/06/29_a_4650373.shtml, was looking specifically for pro-Russian media as a source)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Russian diplomats were a key part of Mr Putin's team, helping resolve territorial disputes with China and Norway, leading talks on deeper co-operation with European countries, and ensuring a peaceful transition after a revolution in Georgia.

But as Mr Putin became more powerful and experienced, he became increasingly convinced he had all the answers and that diplomats were unnecessary, says Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who is living in exile in Berlin.

A year later, when Russia invaded Georgia, Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly swore at his UK counterpart, David Miliband, asking: "Who are you to lecture me?"

In 2009, Mr Lavrov and the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed a giant red "reset button" in relations, and the two countries seemed to be building co-operation - especially on security issues.

But it soon became obvious to US officials that their Russian counterparts were simply parroting Mr Putin's growing anti-Western views, says Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to former US President Barack Obama.

Mr Bondarev, who used to work for Moscow's mission to the UN in Geneva, recalls one meeting where Russia blocked all proposed initiatives, prompting colleagues from Switzerland to complain.


The original article contains 1,612 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 88%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What? Did someone put polonium in its tee?

[–] Fades 1 points 1 year ago

did someone put polonium in its tee?

No but that’s how Putin kept trump in line, polonium laced tees ready at a moments notice for his many impromptu golf trips. Must be what Kishner used that secret Russian channel for