WTF is up with Ukraine (no, seriously)?
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So the way I understand it, some protesters were tragically shot at a peaceful demonstration gone sour, and in the space of a year, Russia has claimed a chunk because apparently that's the only way Old Vlad can express his feelings of solidarity with the Russian-speaking people in Crimea. A small war was had. But then I kinda lost track of it all because too many seemingly different groups kept popping up pointing heavy-duty-gloved fingers at each other and occasionally engaging in a friendly chatter using the hot-as-lead IP over gunfire protocol. Since that, a) allegedly the UK has 'catastrophically misread' the situation which resulted in them doing seemingly nothing (as opposed to having gained clear insights and therefore deciding to do absolutely nothing?), b) the comically-named PiSs party wants to go to war with Russia (because of course), and c) something about apples in Poland and farmers attempting to settle debts with manure in Siberia.
Can someone please tell me what the Belgium is going on
?!
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There's only three groups, Ukraine, the rebels (citizens of Russian-sympathizing Ukrainian territories who want those territories to become part of Russia), and Russia (which is/was "secretly" arming the rebels. Secretly in scare-quotes because they were fucking terrible at keeping anything they did a secret.)
The recent cease-fire has gone nowhere because it was negotiated between Ukraine and Russia, and the rebels were not involved in any meaningful sense.
There's probably a Wiki page if you want more detail than that. It's not really that complicated, frankly.
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something about apples in Poland
Russia tried (did?) embargo our apples, so we decided to stick out a middle finger and eat them all ourselves, I think.
Welcome to our country.
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There's also the propaganda war which is either comic or tragic, depending on your mood and the people espousing it.
Some months back, I had a brunch with some colleagues which included a woman from Russia. We were talking about the renovation of our school when there was a lull in the discussion.
That's when she piped up; "We haven't talked about MH17 yet!"
... great.
During the next 15 minutes I barely managed to keep my calm. This woman proceeded to espouse the biggest conspiracy theories ("MH370 and MH 17 were the same plane!"), managed to contradict herself (She: "Well, you have to allow the [Ukrainian] secessionists free reign! Oh, and Putin was never involved in a war before!" - Me: "Um, what about Chechnya?" - She: "That was only a civil war, not a real war. And we can't very well allow Chechnya to secede now, can we?").
And then she called me naive.
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Ah yes, I vaguely remember all that apple extravaganza last time I visited.
It's been a long time.
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Eventually, the Saudis will starve the Russians out and the Ukranians can go back to whatever they did before. Getting drunk, one presumes.
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MH17
Dutch authorities were damn pussies about that at times. Some excusable (no Mr. Wilders we can't send the army there), some not (The initial conclusion of the investigation to the cause, after three or so months, was "The plane was working fine, until it wasn't working at all".
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Dutch authorities were damn pussies about that at times.
No kidding. After that insane negigence you guys should have taken back Malaysia.
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Well, I don't know a whole lot about the thing, but it might be helpful to take a broader look at the situation. The basic facts as I understand them are:
- at the start of 1991 Crimea was part of Soviet Ukraine. It became an Autonomount Soviet Socialist Republic in January.
- In August 1991, Ukraine's parliament declared independence
- In December 1991, a referendum was held to confirm that declaration
- Overall, 92% of Ukrainians voted in favor
- 54% of Crimeans voted in favor
- 55% of ethnic Russians in Ukraine voted in favor
- In 1992, Crimea got its own constitution
- In 1995, the parliament of Ukraine repealed the Crimean constitution
- By 1999, Crimea managed to get a much weaker constitution accepted by the Ukrainian parliament
- A bunch of other shit went down, whatever, I'm bored of this now. I just wish I could find the wiki article I'm sure I read once that made it seem like a reasonably simple case of: Crimea wants more autonomy, Ukraine won't let it have any, so Crimea would rather be a part of the more loosely-federated Russia.
- Here's a random onebox:
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+We have a daily limit on how many times that action can be taken. Please wait 17 hours before trying again.
But yeah, the situation is about as complicated now as it's ever been, as far as I can tell.
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embargo our apples
we should just have traded them for the pears we got stuck with.
Bonus points for Vlad: by banning EU products and the EU reacting, he actually succeeded at slowing down Russian economy.
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at the start of 1991
Obviously since right before the entire thing was either USSR or USSR dominated.
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Ah Russia, the country with the PIB of Italy and with a chunk of land in the middle of Europe.
Oh well, neither Ukraine nor 200 citizens are enough to start yet another war with them.
Anyway, if you want to understand the war on Ukraine I've got a single word for you: maskirovka.
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Everything I know about Crimea came from this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G5rfPISIwo
Wrong century though, by a couple centuries actually.
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Particle In a Box?
And you don't know if it's a goat or a car until you open the box?
Filed under:
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Until you open the box, it's in a quantum superposition of goat and car
filed under
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+1, because a like is not enough
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Crimea being the Russian speaking red chunk hanging off ukraine's ass.
Sounds (har) like the same problem as French Canadians have except with worse accents and more war.
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:sigh: GDP
World GDP Ranking 2022 | GDP by Country | Data and Charts - knoema.com
The list of countries by GDP showed on this page is based on the latest data from the World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund. 192 countries from around the world are ranked by GDP measured in US dollars and PPPs from 1980 to 2020. Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the...
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Don't you sigh at me young man. Google was no help
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Russia, the country with the PIB of Italy
The Italian Goths moved to Russia?
Russia, the country with the PIB of Italy
Why would the PIB be in either Russia or Italy instead of, you know, Portland?
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The initial conclusion of the investigation to the cause, after three or so months, was "The plane was working fine, until it wasn't working at all".
The preliminary conclusion of the investigation was exactly that. It stated all known facts at the time, and contained no further speculation.
It was an investigation report, not the political statement that lots of people seemed to expect.
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It all seems to boil down to Old Vlad trying to prevent neighbouring countries from forming any closer relations to NATO or EU. Repeating the scenario they already (successfully) tried in Transnistria (in Moldova) and Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Georgia¹).
Protests started in Ukraine towards end of 2013 because the then president (corrupted by Russians) turned around and refused to sign association treaty with EU that was already negotiated. After some month trying to suppress them with force it ended by the then president fleeing and announcement of new elections.
Putin seized the opportunity and incited revolts first in Crimea and then in Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol by spreading FUD that the new government will be against the Russian speaking minority (before they could get their act together and counter it in any meaningful way) and possibly direct support to some radical groups.
As for Crimea, I've heard nobody fought for it primarily because it is actually a huge money sink.
In Mariupol the riot was stopped early when local oligarch did probably the most reasonable thing at the time and told his workers to go beat the rioters (who were just a small group by then) up if they want to keep jobs and peace to work and they went and burnt down the office where the rioters barricaded in and that ended the riot, because even Putin couldn't claim people want to separate when it was local people who stopped it.
In Donetsk and Luhansk nobody opposed the riot and Russia supplied them weapons and trained soldiers and they now lead regular war with Ukrainian army. And now EU and USA want to stop Russia, but don't want to sacrifice any resources to it and hope the embargo will work, which it somewhat is, but not enough.
'catastrophically misread'
There are many political analysts saying Putin won't stop until we put up sufficient force to oppose him, because it's simply working for him so far. He's gaining ground and boasting with it to hide economic trouble and boost his popularity and he's currently very popular. But the politicians are clearly unwilling to commit any resources.
PiSs party wants to go to war with Russia
Poland has really bad historical experience with Russia and can feel strong enough to suggest something like that.
¹ I suppose there are intelligent people who realize which Georgia I mean, but has anybody tried mentioning that Russia occupies part of Georgia to average people in America? I always thought it might be fun.
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has anybody tried mentioning that Russia occupies part of Georgia to average people in America? I always thought it might be fun.
They're welcome to occupy parts of Atlanta, especially the airport. ;-)
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I suppose there are intelligent people who realize which Georgia I mean, but has anybody tried mentioning that Russia occupies part of Georgia to average people in America?
How stupid do you think we are?
... actually I did see a thing where someone got the two confused. Maybe it was this:
That site's full of trolls so who even knows.
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Summary: Russians are freaking out NATO has reached their boarders and are pushing back. The west is trying to use the same tactics as when disciplining small countries and they are freaking out that it's not working. Poor Ukrainians are freaking out because they got caught in the middle.
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How stupid do you think we are?
Every time there is some trouble with Chechnya we get reports of somebody confusing Czechia and Chechnya. Of course I don't know how common such kind of mistake actually is.
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I've never confused Czechia with Chechnya, because I've literally only just this minute heard of Czechia...
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Me: "Um, what about Chechnya?" - She: "That was only a civil war, not a real war. And we can't very well allow Chechnya to secede now, can we?").
I learned two things here.
- So.... the way the Russians claim non-involvement is to "observe a sectarian war"?
- And, it seems the Russians lay-citizens are actually ok with Putin's plan to recreate the Soviet Union?
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The get it the fuck over with.
We're having to lay off people over here, and it sucks balls.
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And, it seems the Russians are actually ok with Putin's plan to recreate the Soviet Union?
Eh, why not try to recapture the lost glory of the Cosmonauts et al. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
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I think most people would laugh at that out of the ignorance that war on American soil could happen.
Than out of ignorance of geographical knowledge.
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In English, we generally say "Czech Republic", but honestly I don't know which term is "more" correct. I suppose it's possible for someone to confuse Czech Republic with Chechnya Republic? I've never heard of it though.
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I've seen the Georgias become confused when someone was talking about where someone was from. It's quite natural in America, when you hear someone say, "He's from Georgia," to assume the state in the US, not the country.
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It's easy to keep them straight. In one Georgia, they talk funny. In the other, they write სასაცილო and talk even funnier (but not by much).
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Well, yeah, but not when someone just says, "He's originally from Georgia." But all the "ili"s in the name are usually a clue.
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I've literally only just this minute heard of Czechia...
That's not surprising. As far as I know, being from
Czechiathe Czech Republic myself, other than some crazy linguists nobody really cares for it.
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I suppose it makes sense, but it does make me wonder why we don't have formations like The Syr Republic, or The Austr Republic, or (wait for it) The Californ Republic...
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I think it's more to do with the fact that the said linguists are butt-hurt over our eastern neighbor: the Slovak Republic, aka Slovakia.
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Don't get me started on linguists... they are currently in the process of breaking probably every word we use to refer to a member of a nation.
As an example, the word we're now supposed to use for a German (person) is the same one that can be used to describe a mute person.
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I've seen the Georgias become confused when someone was talking about where someone was from. It's quite natural in America, when you hear someone say, "He's from Georgia," to assume the state in the US, not the country.
There's a Mexico, Missouri as well as a Lebanon, Missouri. In college, students from those places had a lot of fun telling where they were from.
And a Peru, Nebraska not too far from where I grew up, but it was such a tiny town I never met anyone who was from there.
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Ever met anyone from Hell?
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the word we're now supposed to use for a German (person) is the same one that can be used to describe a mute person.
If only... :P
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can feel strong enough to suggest something like that
Or stupid enough. For reference that's the PiS leader. He's still distraught about this whole Katyń thing, is unbanked and a crazy cat person. He was prime minister for a while.
linguists are butt-hurt
They need to be more cunning then.
I'll get my coat
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I think it's more to do with the fact that the said linguists are butt-hurt over our eastern neighbor: the Slovak Republic, aka Slovakia.
It has most to do with the fact that in all those years nobody in the ministry of foreign affairs was able to choose some variant and declare it official.
As an example, the word we're now supposed to use for a German (person) is the same one that can be used to describe a mute person.
Which language is that? Here the word for German is derived from the word for mute, but the exact same form would not be used.
He's still distraught about this whole Katyń thing
Indeed, Russians are not to blame for everything ;-).
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Which language is that? Here the word for German is derived from the word for mute, but the exact same form would not be used.
Croatian.
Germany = Njemačka.
Up until now it was German = NjemacBut within last year or two I see Nijemac all over the place (extra
i). At first I thought it was just illiterate journalists (and terrible editors), but nope, that's apparently the standard now.So yeah, I'd say it's derived from the same root as well, but still, the "new" form was always something you'd get corrected for, usually by someone saying "They are from Germany, they are not mute" up until a year or two ago. No idea who thought that was a good idea.
They also pulled some weird form of the word (which makes no sense to me) for Serbian people at about the same time. I buttumed that was political bollocks though. Who knows. I gave up on knowing my own language well at this point with the amount of fuckery on display.
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¹ I suppose there are intelligent people who realize which Georgia I mean, but has anybody tried mentioning that Russia occupies part of Georgia to average people in America? I always thought it might be fun.
Put a poll on Facebook, open to the public. Should be humorous.
The Californ Republic
You mean the sovereign state of Mexifornia (lots of various stuff on that when you Google search)?
There's a Mexico, Missouri as well as a Lebanon, Missouri. In college, students from those places had a lot of fun telling where they were from.
And a Peru, Nebraska not too far from where I grew up, but it was such a tiny town I never met anyone who was from there.
Then there's Cairo, IL and Normal, IL...
2014 Crimean status referendum - Wikipedia
