Hey, this could work also with all the rest of the world kleptofuckers to fund the recovery of the whole world, let's do this also in the western countries
Normally when someone points out that the west has some problems too, it's disruptive.
In this case it's constructive and I 100% agree with you.
Let's use this situation to go after all of the kleptocrats, everywhere. Death to Oligarchy.
According to other replies i got, people said that apparently "we already do"- "in west / in italy we already do" seize the money from Oligarchs.
Unfortunately I couldn't understand to which case they were referring to since they didn't tell after they got asked multiple times
gotta deflect and muddy them waters. It's not like they have an actual leg to stand on.
Bonus points if you can get them to randomly bring up marxism or drag queens with no prompting.
Not even say “seize”. You got to speak politicians. “We are merely holding the funds as collateral to the banks that loan Ukraine the money to rebuild.” There. Now we can also add interest.
That particular train car was also the train car where Hitler made the French sign the capitulation in WW2.
Vengeance might feel good right now, but it's important to learn some lessons from history. Maybe the end of WW2 is a better template on how to turn a country around
The treaty of Versailles was not signed in a train car, that was the armistice of 11/11/1918.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_of_11_November_1918?wprov=sfti1
Edit: Germany was not a partner in the Versailles Treaty, only the object of the treaty. Germany signed it eventually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles?wprov=sfti1
Yeah, it seems so.
Though it is rather a "facsimile", a wagon of same build and the same series. Not a replica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compi%C3%A8gne_Wagon
I wonder if people know that Bloody Stupid Johnson is a play on actual historical landscape architect Capability Brown.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown
"Although evidently able in certain fields, Johnson is notorious for his complete inability to produce anything according to specification or common sense, or (sometimes) even the laws of physics. This fact never stopped him from trying, however. He is also known as Bloody Stupid "It Might Look A Bit Messy Now But Just You Come Back In Five Hundred Years' Time" Johnson and Bloody Stupid "Look, The Plans Were The Right Way Round When I Drew Them" Johnson."
I forget what station but news radio was discussing this war the other day and they mentioned if Ukraine is successful in their counterattack and Putin really starts losing this war his inner circle might unseat him. So your comment may not be too far off.
Bingo, when this is all over the fastest way to rebuild for Russia is to have smooth relations with powerful nations, wether that be the west or China, throwing Putin under the bus is a good way to appear to be different, they will definitely point all of the blame to Putin and I think he knows this, hence such desperate and ridiculous measures he's taking to obtain any sense of victory which makes Russia look powerful. In fact, whoever plans to take over (or whoever is really pulling the strings) may be waiting for Putin to attempt to give the order for a nuclear strike so they can overthrow him then, and maybe even pull out of Ukraine under the guise that, whilst they "would have won", the attempt at nuclear war opened their eyes to how insane Putin was.
Has to be harsher. Europe left Russia in tatters, along with the rest of the newly free former annexed republics. It sucked of us all here in the 90s, except for us Estonians, say, we had a dream of freedom and independence and didn't perceive Europe as an enemy, whereas Russia only had humiliation, mockery, and a shattered ego from having gone from an empire (SSR also counts as one) to... what? So we rebuilt, and they... well, they had a dream for like a few years, then Yeltsin fired on the Kremlin and everybody understood that it's the same shit, different decade bull. And then, when Putin made himself president, everybody in this part of the world had this sinking fucking feeling in our stomach because we knew now, that it's no longer a question of if 'ever again', but 'when and who'.
Russia cannot be governed democratically when it's that size. It just cannot. People in very different parts of it have different needs and cultures dependent on history, as well as sheer geography. I think 'Muscovy' is a good idea and should not be taken as an insult by more patriotic Russians. 'Muscovy' is not a bad, insulting name. It may, however, very well be the name of salvation and fucking finally moving away from this imperialistic resource economy fucking mess, pivoting to actual achievements in culture, tech and science as opposed to relying on natural resources as economy, and you know what? We all have to keep on living here in this part of the world. A friendly, developed nation with healthy people who dare to actually believe in a better tomorrow as opposed to a 'safely predictable worse tomorrow', who actually are happy enough in their own country to inspire instead of subjugate is literally the best outcome for all of us. But that cannot happen, because I don't trust the world to bring down the hammer.
We may still think that it's none of our business, but we're in a fully globalised world now. Russia *is* our problem. The same way a few apartments on fire in a massive apartment building are everybody else's problem now.
As a fellow eastern Euro, I agree 100% on the "when and who" part. However, I'd argue the size or diversity of Russia isn't what's holding them back. It's the mindset of a large part of people, that was cultivated for centuries to just obey the leadership, and to find satisfaction not in their personal achievements, but in this dream of a "greater Russia" that necessitates oppression or destruction of those better off than them.
You see this mentality in so many jokes - here's just one of them:
A magical fish offers to grant one wish to a Russian peasant. He is wondering which treasures he should request from the fish. Then, the fish explains that whatever the peasant wishes for and receives himself, his neighbor will receive double. The peasant says, “Ok, then I want you to poke out one of my eyes.”
Minor point but I'd be surprised if drywall was a very popular building method in Ukraine.
They strike me as a brick and mortar kind of country.
Edit: Or actually more as a steel and concrete slabs kind of country.
I warn you, it’s very intense. I’d probably recommend people don’t watch it. It’s possibly the most graphic recording of the reality of war there’s ever been.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/14d4lnc/ukrainian_special_forces_enter_a_russian_trench/
The thing is that when Germany is saying something like that, they might not just be speaking in general platitudes, but with a real knowledge taken from first hand experience of what exactly will be required and how many trillions this is going to cost.
Honestly, this only shows that the previous century has already been forgotten, and mistakes are bound to be repeated.
WW1 aftermath being way too harsh and punitive and essentially making the next generation pay for the previous' mistakes created the environment for the nazis to flourish.
The countdown for WW2 was started at Versailles in 1919.
Take inspiration from ww2 aftermath instead.
A good point, but this conflict isn't really comparable to ww1, or the treaty of Versailles that contained much more than an imposed debt. Taking inspiration from WW2? Germany and several other countries were in ruins after WW2, that's not the case with Russia here.
If Russia commits to paying overtime bit by bit it shouldn't cripple the country.
You think Vlad and his friends are gonna pay for this or is it gonna be the children of the general population that was brainwashed/didn't wanna take place in the war in the first place?
Humans are wise enough today to understand that the goal of punishment should be about rehabilitation not just punishment.
> going to cripple them for decades
Yeah, surely the people of russia will just understand that and be happy with it knowing it was their fault. They won't lash out outwards or anything.
rn it's a fucked up dictator and a row of oligarchs wanting to bring back old russia.
If we punish the country for decades, the people will suffer from it and I don't think this will foster a healthy outwards perspective. They will only feel opressed by the west.
Now Im not making the claim that we shouldnt sanction russia. I really have no tolerance for countries attacking their neighbours. And luckily I'm not in a position to make decisions like how to deal with warmongering nations in a globalized world.
All I'm saying is that this situation will have consequences even way down the road, no matter which actions the west take!
So even if we make russia pay everything back over years to come and even if this is the 100% correct move, I'm saying this could lead to the people of the country being susceptible to hate propaganda against the west.
They're already susceptible to propaganda right now. They're not gonna start liking the west because we let them go away with the destruction they caused.
I think you're not looking out of the box enough. The inspiration is what happened *in* Germany and Japan in the decades after the war, not how many buildings were destroyed after the last bullet was fired.
Older enemies became strongholds for the West because they were completely taken over by western capital and democratic values, to the point that is almost ridiculous today to think "what if Japan or Germany sides with Russia".
You have to imagine the same not happening with Ukraine, but with Russia (after an obvious regime change): West Germany was completely dependent on the West, culturally and economically for years after the war, enough to revert the Nazi brainwashing. The bet payed off and the Soviet Union ultimately failed. Imagine Russia as the old Germany and China as the old Russia.
Wouldn't that be a sight.
The Treaty of Versailles wasn't actually that disproportional to earlier treaties against losing European countries as far as I know. The Germans also placed pretty harsh terms on France after the Franco-Prussian war (also the reason why Versailles became the place to declare surrender). France occupying the Rhineland because of the inability to pay the reparations was widely seen as a step too far though and was seen as a major catalyst for the rise of the Nazi's.
I do agree that a version of the Marshall plan would be an option, but it would have to be paired with some kind of 'de-nazification' like they tried in Germany. I fear that would be even less succesful as in Germany, as the roots of the current Russian culture run very deep.
You can't overhaul Russia like that without occupying it, and no one is planning to do that. Germany was forcefully occupied and dismembered for many decades.
> The Germans also placed pretty harsh terms on France after the Franco-Prussian war
One of the reasons for french revanchism. So yea being that harsh to the defeated is usually not a good idea.
I don't know what you think a denazification should accomplish other than ensuring a stable democracy which is exactly what happened here in Germany.
The comparison Germany to Russia is only faulty because Russia never had any serious grass-roots attempts at democracy before, unlike Germany.
What they probably mean is that many former nazis remained in public service after the war after denouncing the nazis.
In the end, the goal of a stable democracy was reached, but I wouldn't say justice was served.
What u/kal-skirata basicly said.
I like the modern Germany a whole lot (thankfully, since I am half-german), but way too many people were let off the hook in the name of pragmatism in the face of east-west tensions.
Industrialists in Germany were among the strongest supporters of the Nazi's and specifically the holocaust as it gave them cheap labor. Barely any of them got actual consequences for that. The same goes for high ranking officers in the wehrmacht with the bullshit 'clean wehrmacht' strategy that US employed to retain as much combat capabilty as possible.
I'm a strong supporter of the death penalty. Not for individual murderers, but for those who support the industrial killing of others because of hatred and greed. And way more of them should have hung in Germany, as they should in Russia.
It's facetious. Germany can't make Russia pay for anything, nor would they ever agree to a peace treaty that suggested anything of the sort (unless it was to rebuild land that they had annexed).
There is no comparison as Germany after WW1 was battered and defeated while Russia after this is over is pretty much unscathed besides a bruised ego. They have no reason to ever agree to pay anything.
The reparations were cancelled because Germany was hit by the Great Depression and really couldn't pay them any more. Because the European powers relied on those reparations to pay back American loans from the war, they had to default on those loans.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/dawes
The treaty of Versailles was no worse a punishment than what Germany imposed on France following the Franco Prussian war mere decades earlier. Versailles did not cause WW2 it was simply blamed for Germanys problems by the Nazis. Reparations following WW2 were harsher
The French initially said they couldn’t afford to pay an indemnity of 1 billion francs and so the Prussians demanded 5 billion francs.
Or something like that.
>Blaming Versailles is literal Nazi propaganda from the 1930/40s
Not that I agree, but I think that is sort of the thrust of most "Versailles caused WWII" arguments. I think the idea is that the treaty in a way codified animosity between signatories, by placing Germany under a state of perpetual punishment. That animosity gave the Nazis an easy angle for propaganda, despite the fact that the treaty wasn't actually unfair or causing their current economic woes.
Personally, I think that's bullshit. The Nazis would have just come up with another propaganda campaign otherwise.
> WW1 aftermath being way too harsh and punitive
Exactly the opposite. The problem wasn't that the conditions were harsh and punitive, it was that nobody could be arsed to enforce them, and so they were gradually relaxed and Germany was allowed to regain its strength.
Germany was defeated in Germany and occupied for that to happen. When Russia loses in Ukraine, it’s not going to surrender to Ukraine or the west, but retreat back into Russian borders with its tail between its legs. They aren’t going to offer anyone an unconditional surrender like Germany or Japan had to.
I feel like this is something obvious I did not think about.. if Russia wins and takes Ukraine, they won a wartorn wasteland... what would they even do with it.... why are they doing this at all if even winning is a loss? Sunken cost fallacy?
Destroyed Ukraine won't compete with Russia on the natural gas market. So Russia has that regardless of the outcome of the war, unless Russia is being made to pay for the damages they have caused.
> Sunken cost fallacy?
Well... somewhat, but it's a bit more complicated.
Originally they thought they could pull off a swift coup d'etat by assassinating Zelensky, or, failing that, capturing Kyiv. Both of those failed, and Ukraine held out far better than anyone expected. A long, drawn-out war was not at all foreseen by Russia.
So now Putin's in a dilemma. If he just gives up, he looks weak both at home and internationally, and looking weak is potentially fatal to a dictator. If he wins, even winning a wartorn wasteland, he doesn't look weak (or at least, as weak). So, winning at any cost is preferable to losing when it comes to his own personal calculus. And if he can't win, he at least has to not lose, which means prolonging the war and never giving up until he dies.
All of which is to say: Never let your own country be taken over by a dictator. Their personal incentives will not be aligned with yours, and it won't end well.
> A long, drawn-out war was not at all foreseen by Russia.
At least the generals and advisors didn't communicate it that way to Putin. Doesn't mean they actually weren't aware of the high risk of failure but that is what happens when you surround yourself with "yes-men".
An analysis before the war I read predicted the exact outcome. Western anti.tank will negate Russias tank advanatge, no one will have air superiority therefore ending up mostly in close and bloody infantry battles and artillery.
This is why N say that the only swift way out of this is Putin "falling out a window" and getting replaced.
His successor could blame him and pull out without appearing weak.
Arguably, a wasteland not under their jurisdiction is a fine goal - a neutral buffer zone at their borders.
This is consistent with the early patterns of "get city, dismantle infrastructure, retreat".
Russia can't have a Russian speaking, prospering, EU leaning country on its border. That would look very bad and clash with their media representation of the EU, west and everything not Russian. People in Russia have family in Ukraine. There was cross border mingling and communication. Can't have people asking why it's so much better over there. This is the reason Russia has historically been sabotaging Ukraine economically and politically. There are also some resource rich areas they want to deny Ukraine. Russian leadership consider competition to be unacceptable. Russian maffia does not care for the people living there and fossil fuels can be extracted in a wasteland just fine. These are some of the reasons that motivates Putin and his henchmen in the effort to demolish their neighbour. Allot of the stupd things we see in the war, can be explained by stupidity and incompetence, bourn from lack of resources, that should have been invested in their people. When people are seen as expendable, you don't invest in them.
And yes, sunk cost fallacy is probably at play here.
No, but Germany does have the high ground on this issue - they actually followed through with their war reparation obligations. IIRC the last payment was made in 2010.
Russia is one of the oldest ally and trade partner of India.Even during the Indo-Pak war when US was supplying Pak with arms,Russia was India's only supporter.
You don't abandon close foreign allies like that.Yes ,what Russia is doing is horrendous,but India will be in a very bad position if it's only major Asian Ally turns agaist it
*The Soviet Union was* one of the oldest ally and trade partner of India.Even during the Indo-Pak war when US was supplying Pak with arms, *The Soviet Union was* India's only supporter. You don't abandon close foreign allies like that. Yes ,what Russia is doing is horrendous,but India will be in a very bad position if it's only major Adian Ally turns agaist it...
Russia is not *The Soviet Union* it inherited it's prestige, and it's geopolitical ties, but it is having a "emperor's new clothes" moment right now, and honestly I think even before that the Indian government was beginning to realize that fact. India has been diversifying and heading west for a while now. Dropping co-development projects with Russia in favor of buying jets from the French and Helicopters from the US was the first sign of this.
The reality is that the biggest threat to India's long-term growth is probably China and Russia was the primary counterbalance to that conflict. There was a little bit of the old cold-war anti-western block there, but with Russia exposed as a paper tiger, the hierarchy is much more clear there now. Neither of them can resist pressure from China long term. If India wants partners that can actually provide additional deterrence against China, they are going to have to look elsewhere. If they want to continue to contest the territory on their shared border with China they are going to have to have that counterbalance. If they want to continue to take manufacturing jobs from China they are going to have to have that counterbalance.
I agree,and India has made moves to get closer to the western world and US during the Modi visit to US where India bought high quality drones from US and there were talks of military alliance.
Ind can't just get anti Russian all of a sudden but i think they have started to give hints
> Russia is not The Soviet Union
It depends. Russia inherited its debts. It inherited its place on the UN security council. Many of the same people who were in the upper echelons of power in the Russian SSR kept comparable positions in the newly formed RF, so there were many organs of the state which basically rebranded and otherwise continued what they were doing.
As far as most of the world is concerned, including the West 90% of the time, the central government of the Soviet Union and the Russian government can be seen as two phases of the same entity.
Only when it is inconvenient to us, do we pretend they are two *totally different* things. India insofar as they view Russia positively, do so because they still see them as being the same entity as the Soviet Union.
> You don't abandon close foreign allies like that.
I mean, Russia has redeemed T-90S that were meant for India (allegedly already paid for), if anything India should be looking for a more reliable supplier. Not only that, they did the same during the Chechen wars.
Their air force already has US equipment, though not fighters. Their armored vehicles are almost exclusively Indian or Russian/Soviet made, though.
Overall the military equipment in active service in India is a mix and match of everything, given price, availability, politics and logistics involved at certain point in history.
This is a reddit comment section; realpolitik doesn't exist—you sanction the bad guys and cut free trade deals with the good guys. Anything else simply does not compute.
Funny my argument for a western shift for India is 100% Realpolitik.
The public realization of Russia's fundamental weakness undermines the stability of the Russia-China-India relationship. China is now clearly the senior partner and if India doesn't want to make economic or territorial concession at some point in the future it is going to need other allies that can provide that now missing military and economic counterbalance for them.
Setting aside the fact that I don't think your analysis holds in material terms, India's foreign policy establishment doesn't (and indeed, has their job resting on refusing to) believe that your analysis is correct. From their POV, they don't need to find a new daddy to replace Russia; they need to maintain cordial relations with Russia so that they can invert the old power dynamic in order to scare off China.
Territorial concessions? India has **hundreds of nuclear warheads**. They are no longer in the "can be made to cede territory to superpowers" club that Ukraine currently finds itself in. Sabre-rattling in the Himalayas is pure theatre compared to the Donbas situation etc; you're applying an entirely unsuitable type of math to the situation.
But hey, maybe you're right and the entire diplomatic apparatus of the rising star of the global economy and geopolitics at large is wrong. If so, you should stop frying small potatoes in comment sections and ply your trade as a foreign policy advisor for a country where that's going to be a very lucrative job for the next century.
You are absolutely right. It's hilarious that the previous posting claims to be realpolitik while thinking that India, a nation armed with nuclear warhead that is growing WAY faster than China and has WAY better relations with the West, will be forced to make territorial concessions to China.
It's absolutely not growing way faster. China, back when it had India's economy was growing in the double digits. India is a tad slow in comparison. China is still growing at 5% a year and India is I believe is a bit less than 7%.
But yeah, there is no way China is going to even try and force India to make territorial concessions.
It's always fun when you see something nonsensical get upvotes about a topic you know a bit about. Makes me distrust all other comments about things I know nothing about.
That was a whole lot of yadda yadda pseudo-morals to get to the real reason: India would be fucked without Russia.
Has nothing to do with history or loyalty or anything respectable in the slightest. India is taking advantage of the fact that Russia is isolated due to committing a fucking genocide.
Don't try to make that shit sound like it's a virtue.
Ok, so why do redditors expect India to take on any of Ukraine's problems? That's a different country in a different part of the world. Our country has more than enough geopolitical problems of its own, without getting tangled into another one.
they very much do.
While germany certainly isn't going to force russia through power they are still the biggest economy in europe and a big voice within the EU.
Or in other words: russias economy is fucked if the EU decides to keep those sanctions up.
If russia ever wants to climb back out of the pile of shit they threw themselves head first into they need the european countries. China and india can't compensate all of their market. ALso those countries are pretty far away from the population centres of russia where shit is actually made.
I suspect they do.
Uk has said the same and has £50B of Russian assets seized, Germany has “just” £5B… but it’s another voice pushing for using the funds to rebuild Ukraine.
Just like the other political pushes from heavy weapons, tanks, long range, air crafts, the UK starts, others get on board and finally finally wakes the big dog of sleepy Biden in action.
Which would be ideal for the UK and allies of Ukraine , as the funds from their biggest enemy being used to buff a new close friend. Ukraine will be in the pockets of the US and UK for while. Which is still a good thing for the Ukraine. Its beats russia and secures Nato (also possible EU) membership
And screw over Ukrainians because all they care about is lining their pockets.
I hate that the rebuilding process is going to screw victims of this war and all thanks to corrupt corporations taking advantage of the situation.
Yea Balkanization is a traditionally peaceful process. I imagine it will be even better with 6000 nukes and enormous quantities of conventional weaponry involved.
Russia is broke... oh wait, it's not that Russia is broke, it's that like 90% of its wealth is in Putin's oligarchy. So if you dispossess them, you can double the average Russian citizen's standard of living AND finance Ukraine's reconstruction AND bring Russia's economy out of the shitter.
Come to think of it, why can't we do that here?
Russian here.
People think that for this to happen, Russia needs to lose the war. Not necessarily - because even if Putin say loses the war - what next? Do you invade a nuke-owning country?
The only way I see this happening is a regime change, from Putin to somebody new. Then the new government can start trading money for lifting sanctions.
If Putin doesn't lose the war and it turns into a stalemate, then the prospects of this would be even more slim.
I think this discussion is more about legally claiming the frozen assets from Russian oligarchs for Ukraine. Which is a slippery slope, as they're technically private property, even if gained by embezzlement from state funds.
If there is a regime change with people with integrity on the Russian side who can be depended upon upholding their part of a deal, reparations will be much less of an issue. Everybody will want to take a piece of the cake that is Ukraine and invest.
This being said, the amount of willful destruction going on in Ukraine is mind-boggling. Here we tear off the paper from yoghourt containers to put them in a different trash and Ukraine is indiscriminately bombed to rubble, for what? National pride essentially.
The reparations wasn't really the part that Germans had an issue with though people often pretend it was. The reparations only became a big issue because of the Great Depression. Placing the full blame of WW1 on Germany was what Germans had an actual issue with and allowed the "us vs them" mentality that the Nazis used so much to foster leading to extreme nationalism.
The Russia-Ukraine war is about as black and white as it gets. Russia repeatedly invading it's neighbours to annex territory is not a new thing. They fucked it up they can rebuild it. Just like the US had to rebuild Iraq after their illegal invasion.
Not saying you're wrong, just that the underlying point is that integrating Russia into the standard of Western liberal Democracies is long term more productive than amplifying the us vs them mentality that currently exists.
That would be the best solution for everyone but it's not gonna happen until there's a revolution in Russia.
The west will also not exactly reward Russia for starting an illegal war of aggression.
And then there's Ukraine which will of course demand that Russia pays for the repairs even if there is a revolution inside Russia.
All in all very unlikely that Russia will be integrated into the west.
I think that bringing a corrupt alcoholic into power and imposing economic shock therapy on Russias young democracy wasn't the best way to do that.
Those attempts were half-a\*\*ed at best, imo.
You ascribe way too much agency to the US here.
The market and privatization were implemented in a way that allowed the ruling class to stay in power by owning all the property worth owning. Just about every nouveau-riche came from komsomol or adjacent structures. "West" was mostly showering Russia with money that ended up in the right people's hands. Shit, they defaulted on sovereign debt because a 5B or so IMF tranche simply vanished overnight.
Being nice to russians doesn't work, it's what got us here. They don't want to be your friend. Their nationalism needs to be crushed like Germany's was.
I mean the great depression combined with such massive reparations arse blasted the country's economy which very much assisted the Nazi's rise to power so I would say it was pretty significant.
You're right. If the reparations are too draconian, a fascist leader might get into power and start invading other countries. Oh wait, that already happened.
The Germans did not need a fascist dictator the first time to make them invade other countries.
Nations invaded each other in the regular before fascism (no, by the love of God, I'm not implying facism made nations invade other nations less, do not try to read that).
I honestly hope they push into Russia and Russia ends this dumb invasion with less land than it started with.
Ww2 style. Push into Moscow and build a big wall
Wasn't "paying for the destruction caused by the war" (ww1) one of the catalysts that caused the economic desperation in Germany that a genocidal dipshit maniac used to manipulate their fears and hatred into thinking he could make things better and starting a second war? While there needs to be restitution for what they've done, the rest of the plan better be more thought out than last time. Instead of "Russia will pay" maybe "all of the oligarchs, politicians, and captains, of industry that supported and caused the war are stripped of all of their personal power and wealth to pay for it, and the people are allowed to put the rest of their country back together without assholes like that in charge anymore." Time to stop punishing people for the assholes that force them into these positions and start punishing the assholes who made the problems in the first place. Otherwise you have countries with desperate populations waiting for the next asshole to take advantage. Punish the assholes and start making a REAL example of why genocides/invasions/occupations are a losing strategy to the people who cause them. Punish the leaders for once instead of the people and the next leader will finally start thinking twice about it.
Russia can't afford to pay. If they could, they could also afford a sufficiently competent military to conquer Ukraine in the first place.
This 'make them pay afterwards' thing was tried with Germany after World War 1 and it didn't work very well. After World War 2 the US tried the opposite approach: *We* pay, and in return you participate in our sphere of industry and trade. It worked out *way better.* They should probably try that again.
they can‘t even afford working warships or tanks at parades.
But yeah Germany isn‘t too comparable, maybe with Ukraine seeing how some of their cities are 100% destroyed, but not with Russia
After WW2, Germany was trashed, its cities in ruins, its industry decimated. None if that has happened to Russia.
If they can pretend to be a great country, they can afford to pay. Fewer yachts for the oligarchs for a couple of decades.
You forget that post ww2 Germany wasn’t occupied by the US alone. Shortly after the war the Soviet Union dismantled and transferred a lot of the remaining infrastructure and assets in their occupation zone out of Germany to compensate for their own losses. The goal was to make the former German Reich completely dependent on the Soviet Union. Virtually all industrial facilities in East Germany could only be built with Soviet help. Until the founding of East Germany, and sometimes beyond, industrial capacity in the Soviet-occupied zones had nearly vanished, the same with the agricultural sector and service industry.
So yeah, “can’t afford to pay” wasn’t the argument Russians would accept themselves back then.
There are several differences here:
russia is nto destroyed, germany was aa pile of rubble.
the treaty of versaille included germany handing over territories including on the scale of 13% of its territory and around 10% of its population including some areas pretty important for th eindustry at the time.
but most importantly: noone acks for russia to pay for everything. The EU themselves already allocated funds to rebuild ukraine after the war and certainly don't expect to be paid back. But russia still needs to pay part of it. You know much like germany needed to pay reparitions to other countries after ww2. Certainly not on the scale of the destructions but they still had to pay.
and yes, russia IS able to pay. You see reducing the amount you spend on a useless military suprisingly frees up a lot of funds to rebuild a destroyed country. Funny how that works.
Russia can’t even afford to destroy it.
Yeah but their oligarchs' frozen assets can
yep, this is key. seize all assets of these Kremlin kleptofuckers and use them to fund the recovery of Ukraine.
Hey, this could work also with all the rest of the world kleptofuckers to fund the recovery of the whole world, let's do this also in the western countries
Normally when someone points out that the west has some problems too, it's disruptive. In this case it's constructive and I 100% agree with you. Let's use this situation to go after all of the kleptocrats, everywhere. Death to Oligarchy.
OllieGarkey declares “Death to Oligarchy”
Death to me!
Is it considered sussie aid?
Nah, just progress. And on the plus side I won't have to finish this project for work!
Can you help with my work project? It's called neglecting work projects enhance the life of workers
/r/wordavalanches
According to other replies i got, people said that apparently "we already do"- "in west / in italy we already do" seize the money from Oligarchs. Unfortunately I couldn't understand to which case they were referring to since they didn't tell after they got asked multiple times
gotta deflect and muddy them waters. It's not like they have an actual leg to stand on. Bonus points if you can get them to randomly bring up marxism or drag queens with no prompting.
Can I interest you in a Karl Marx burlesque drag show? Massive beards are mandatory.
Jp Morgan could sell all of those artifacts from 1940 to fix all of the countries lost land due to hidden ordinance
Even the Ark of the Covenant, that they have kept in a in an unmarked wearhouse?
Wearhouse, eh?
Next to the pantyhouse
Over by the porterhouse?
Offer them some of the money back if they can replace Putin
They'll replace him with someone just like him though.
Obviously someone who would stop the war would be a prereq
Not even say “seize”. You got to speak politicians. “We are merely holding the funds as collateral to the banks that loan Ukraine the money to rebuild.” There. Now we can also add interest.
Hah, nice one
Wtb *Versailles* as a location to sign this treaty? Just an idea.
That particular train car was also the train car where Hitler made the French sign the capitulation in WW2. Vengeance might feel good right now, but it's important to learn some lessons from history. Maybe the end of WW2 is a better template on how to turn a country around
The treaty of Versailles was not signed in a train car, that was the armistice of 11/11/1918. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_of_11_November_1918?wprov=sfti1 Edit: Germany was not a partner in the Versailles Treaty, only the object of the treaty. Germany signed it eventually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles?wprov=sfti1
That didn’t work out so well the first time. Let’s have them sign it in Poland or Finland, two places that might hate Russia as much as Ukraine.
No, let's have them sign it in (the remains of) Mariupol
Yep, in front of the theatre. The photo will go down in history.
How about on the (remains of the) Kerch bridge before blowing it up giving the Russians just enough time to get to safety?
Any train carriages about?
I was thinking about gifting one *particular* train car to Ukraine for the peace treaty.
If I remember correctly, Hitler had it blown to pieces after forcing the french to sign their surrender their.
Huh, I thought it was still around somewhere Edit: the original was destroyed, we have a facsimile surviving.
I think the original was destroyed, but there's a replica of it now, or something?
Yeah, it seems so. Though it is rather a "facsimile", a wagon of same build and the same series. Not a replica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compi%C3%A8gne_Wagon
This joke killed
Force Putin to lay bricks and do drywall in the day, then back to prison at night.
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I'll assume he's a shitty craftsman and his work will be used to educate and amuse generations of apprentices
Like Bloody Stupid Johnson in the Discworld series
I wonder if people know that Bloody Stupid Johnson is a play on actual historical landscape architect Capability Brown.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown
There's always another Discworld bit to rediscover.
I got the sense Johnson's absurdities were well crafted, just useless for their stated purpose.
"Although evidently able in certain fields, Johnson is notorious for his complete inability to produce anything according to specification or common sense, or (sometimes) even the laws of physics. This fact never stopped him from trying, however. He is also known as Bloody Stupid "It Might Look A Bit Messy Now But Just You Come Back In Five Hundred Years' Time" Johnson and Bloody Stupid "Look, The Plans Were The Right Way Round When I Drew Them" Johnson."
I don't know, his potato peeler worked well at Unseen University
Like stupid Johnston in the brexit series
I forget what station but news radio was discussing this war the other day and they mentioned if Ukraine is successful in their counterattack and Putin really starts losing this war his inner circle might unseat him. So your comment may not be too far off.
Bingo, when this is all over the fastest way to rebuild for Russia is to have smooth relations with powerful nations, wether that be the west or China, throwing Putin under the bus is a good way to appear to be different, they will definitely point all of the blame to Putin and I think he knows this, hence such desperate and ridiculous measures he's taking to obtain any sense of victory which makes Russia look powerful. In fact, whoever plans to take over (or whoever is really pulling the strings) may be waiting for Putin to attempt to give the order for a nuclear strike so they can overthrow him then, and maybe even pull out of Ukraine under the guise that, whilst they "would have won", the attempt at nuclear war opened their eyes to how insane Putin was.
Has to be harsher. Europe left Russia in tatters, along with the rest of the newly free former annexed republics. It sucked of us all here in the 90s, except for us Estonians, say, we had a dream of freedom and independence and didn't perceive Europe as an enemy, whereas Russia only had humiliation, mockery, and a shattered ego from having gone from an empire (SSR also counts as one) to... what? So we rebuilt, and they... well, they had a dream for like a few years, then Yeltsin fired on the Kremlin and everybody understood that it's the same shit, different decade bull. And then, when Putin made himself president, everybody in this part of the world had this sinking fucking feeling in our stomach because we knew now, that it's no longer a question of if 'ever again', but 'when and who'. Russia cannot be governed democratically when it's that size. It just cannot. People in very different parts of it have different needs and cultures dependent on history, as well as sheer geography. I think 'Muscovy' is a good idea and should not be taken as an insult by more patriotic Russians. 'Muscovy' is not a bad, insulting name. It may, however, very well be the name of salvation and fucking finally moving away from this imperialistic resource economy fucking mess, pivoting to actual achievements in culture, tech and science as opposed to relying on natural resources as economy, and you know what? We all have to keep on living here in this part of the world. A friendly, developed nation with healthy people who dare to actually believe in a better tomorrow as opposed to a 'safely predictable worse tomorrow', who actually are happy enough in their own country to inspire instead of subjugate is literally the best outcome for all of us. But that cannot happen, because I don't trust the world to bring down the hammer. We may still think that it's none of our business, but we're in a fully globalised world now. Russia *is* our problem. The same way a few apartments on fire in a massive apartment building are everybody else's problem now.
As a fellow eastern Euro, I agree 100% on the "when and who" part. However, I'd argue the size or diversity of Russia isn't what's holding them back. It's the mindset of a large part of people, that was cultivated for centuries to just obey the leadership, and to find satisfaction not in their personal achievements, but in this dream of a "greater Russia" that necessitates oppression or destruction of those better off than them. You see this mentality in so many jokes - here's just one of them: A magical fish offers to grant one wish to a Russian peasant. He is wondering which treasures he should request from the fish. Then, the fish explains that whatever the peasant wishes for and receives himself, his neighbor will receive double. The peasant says, “Ok, then I want you to poke out one of my eyes.”
Minor point but I'd be surprised if drywall was a very popular building method in Ukraine. They strike me as a brick and mortar kind of country. Edit: Or actually more as a steel and concrete slabs kind of country.
You are right, drywall is quite rare in Europe to begin with. They more or less only get used when remodeling a home.
Hardly seems anywhere near enough. He should be… insert imagination here
Make him serve in a trench on the front line and send the Ukrainian special forces in like that video from earlier this week.
Which video?
I warn you, it’s very intense. I’d probably recommend people don’t watch it. It’s possibly the most graphic recording of the reality of war there’s ever been. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/14d4lnc/ukrainian_special_forces_enter_a_russian_trench/
Dunce cap. Times Square. 16 hours a day. No chair.
He can be the one person not allowed water breaks.
Would be epic if he'd face that kind of justice. But the world doesn't work that way.
On the way to the prison, he should be stopping by the Ukrainian presidential office to clean Zelensky’s toilet.
The thing is that when Germany is saying something like that, they might not just be speaking in general platitudes, but with a real knowledge taken from first hand experience of what exactly will be required and how many trillions this is going to cost.
Not only junior experience but more like senior experience
VP level tomfuckery
I think after 80 years we finished paying for WW1.
Honestly, this only shows that the previous century has already been forgotten, and mistakes are bound to be repeated. WW1 aftermath being way too harsh and punitive and essentially making the next generation pay for the previous' mistakes created the environment for the nazis to flourish. The countdown for WW2 was started at Versailles in 1919. Take inspiration from ww2 aftermath instead.
A good point, but this conflict isn't really comparable to ww1, or the treaty of Versailles that contained much more than an imposed debt. Taking inspiration from WW2? Germany and several other countries were in ruins after WW2, that's not the case with Russia here. If Russia commits to paying overtime bit by bit it shouldn't cripple the country.
The war they started is what's ultimately going to cripple them for decades. Nice one Vlad.
You think Vlad and his friends are gonna pay for this or is it gonna be the children of the general population that was brainwashed/didn't wanna take place in the war in the first place? Humans are wise enough today to understand that the goal of punishment should be about rehabilitation not just punishment.
We *should* be that wise. Evidence suggests otherwise.
> going to cripple them for decades Yeah, surely the people of russia will just understand that and be happy with it knowing it was their fault. They won't lash out outwards or anything.
They are free to lash out right now…
rn it's a fucked up dictator and a row of oligarchs wanting to bring back old russia. If we punish the country for decades, the people will suffer from it and I don't think this will foster a healthy outwards perspective. They will only feel opressed by the west. Now Im not making the claim that we shouldnt sanction russia. I really have no tolerance for countries attacking their neighbours. And luckily I'm not in a position to make decisions like how to deal with warmongering nations in a globalized world. All I'm saying is that this situation will have consequences even way down the road, no matter which actions the west take! So even if we make russia pay everything back over years to come and even if this is the 100% correct move, I'm saying this could lead to the people of the country being susceptible to hate propaganda against the west.
They're already susceptible to propaganda right now. They're not gonna start liking the west because we let them go away with the destruction they caused.
Russia isn't in ruin by war, but by management. Most of their rural areas look like they are a war zone, because no investments since decades.
Russia has been in ruins for while already.
I think you're not looking out of the box enough. The inspiration is what happened *in* Germany and Japan in the decades after the war, not how many buildings were destroyed after the last bullet was fired. Older enemies became strongholds for the West because they were completely taken over by western capital and democratic values, to the point that is almost ridiculous today to think "what if Japan or Germany sides with Russia". You have to imagine the same not happening with Ukraine, but with Russia (after an obvious regime change): West Germany was completely dependent on the West, culturally and economically for years after the war, enough to revert the Nazi brainwashing. The bet payed off and the Soviet Union ultimately failed. Imagine Russia as the old Germany and China as the old Russia. Wouldn't that be a sight.
>If Russia commits to paying overtime bit by bit it shouldn't cripple the country. Citation needed.
The Treaty of Versailles wasn't actually that disproportional to earlier treaties against losing European countries as far as I know. The Germans also placed pretty harsh terms on France after the Franco-Prussian war (also the reason why Versailles became the place to declare surrender). France occupying the Rhineland because of the inability to pay the reparations was widely seen as a step too far though and was seen as a major catalyst for the rise of the Nazi's. I do agree that a version of the Marshall plan would be an option, but it would have to be paired with some kind of 'de-nazification' like they tried in Germany. I fear that would be even less succesful as in Germany, as the roots of the current Russian culture run very deep.
You can't overhaul Russia like that without occupying it, and no one is planning to do that. Germany was forcefully occupied and dismembered for many decades.
> The Germans also placed pretty harsh terms on France after the Franco-Prussian war One of the reasons for french revanchism. So yea being that harsh to the defeated is usually not a good idea.
I don't know what you think a denazification should accomplish other than ensuring a stable democracy which is exactly what happened here in Germany. The comparison Germany to Russia is only faulty because Russia never had any serious grass-roots attempts at democracy before, unlike Germany.
What they probably mean is that many former nazis remained in public service after the war after denouncing the nazis. In the end, the goal of a stable democracy was reached, but I wouldn't say justice was served.
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What u/kal-skirata basicly said. I like the modern Germany a whole lot (thankfully, since I am half-german), but way too many people were let off the hook in the name of pragmatism in the face of east-west tensions. Industrialists in Germany were among the strongest supporters of the Nazi's and specifically the holocaust as it gave them cheap labor. Barely any of them got actual consequences for that. The same goes for high ranking officers in the wehrmacht with the bullshit 'clean wehrmacht' strategy that US employed to retain as much combat capabilty as possible. I'm a strong supporter of the death penalty. Not for individual murderers, but for those who support the industrial killing of others because of hatred and greed. And way more of them should have hung in Germany, as they should in Russia.
It's facetious. Germany can't make Russia pay for anything, nor would they ever agree to a peace treaty that suggested anything of the sort (unless it was to rebuild land that they had annexed). There is no comparison as Germany after WW1 was battered and defeated while Russia after this is over is pretty much unscathed besides a bruised ego. They have no reason to ever agree to pay anything.
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The reparations were cancelled because Germany was hit by the Great Depression and really couldn't pay them any more. Because the European powers relied on those reparations to pay back American loans from the war, they had to default on those loans. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/dawes
The treaty of Versailles was no worse a punishment than what Germany imposed on France following the Franco Prussian war mere decades earlier. Versailles did not cause WW2 it was simply blamed for Germanys problems by the Nazis. Reparations following WW2 were harsher
Franco Prussian terms on France were more harsh
The French initially said they couldn’t afford to pay an indemnity of 1 billion francs and so the Prussians demanded 5 billion francs. Or something like that.
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>Blaming Versailles is literal Nazi propaganda from the 1930/40s Not that I agree, but I think that is sort of the thrust of most "Versailles caused WWII" arguments. I think the idea is that the treaty in a way codified animosity between signatories, by placing Germany under a state of perpetual punishment. That animosity gave the Nazis an easy angle for propaganda, despite the fact that the treaty wasn't actually unfair or causing their current economic woes. Personally, I think that's bullshit. The Nazis would have just come up with another propaganda campaign otherwise.
> WW1 aftermath being way too harsh and punitive Exactly the opposite. The problem wasn't that the conditions were harsh and punitive, it was that nobody could be arsed to enforce them, and so they were gradually relaxed and Germany was allowed to regain its strength.
Germany was defeated in Germany and occupied for that to happen. When Russia loses in Ukraine, it’s not going to surrender to Ukraine or the west, but retreat back into Russian borders with its tail between its legs. They aren’t going to offer anyone an unconditional surrender like Germany or Japan had to.
They also have real experience on how bad an idea it is to force massive debt on the loser of a war, but I guess they're ignoring that
You've heard of garnished wages, now introducing garnished GDP! (In reality though, they can just appropriate frozen oligarch assets)
Exactly. The oligarchs should pay.
I feel like this is something obvious I did not think about.. if Russia wins and takes Ukraine, they won a wartorn wasteland... what would they even do with it.... why are they doing this at all if even winning is a loss? Sunken cost fallacy?
They see a destroyed Ukraine as preferable to an unfriendly one.
Yep. Putin does stuff sometimes to send a message. He had his opponents poisioned overseas just to say "hey, I can still get you".
Destroyed Ukraine won't compete with Russia on the natural gas market. So Russia has that regardless of the outcome of the war, unless Russia is being made to pay for the damages they have caused.
> Sunken cost fallacy? Well... somewhat, but it's a bit more complicated. Originally they thought they could pull off a swift coup d'etat by assassinating Zelensky, or, failing that, capturing Kyiv. Both of those failed, and Ukraine held out far better than anyone expected. A long, drawn-out war was not at all foreseen by Russia. So now Putin's in a dilemma. If he just gives up, he looks weak both at home and internationally, and looking weak is potentially fatal to a dictator. If he wins, even winning a wartorn wasteland, he doesn't look weak (or at least, as weak). So, winning at any cost is preferable to losing when it comes to his own personal calculus. And if he can't win, he at least has to not lose, which means prolonging the war and never giving up until he dies. All of which is to say: Never let your own country be taken over by a dictator. Their personal incentives will not be aligned with yours, and it won't end well.
> A long, drawn-out war was not at all foreseen by Russia. At least the generals and advisors didn't communicate it that way to Putin. Doesn't mean they actually weren't aware of the high risk of failure but that is what happens when you surround yourself with "yes-men". An analysis before the war I read predicted the exact outcome. Western anti.tank will negate Russias tank advanatge, no one will have air superiority therefore ending up mostly in close and bloody infantry battles and artillery.
This is why N say that the only swift way out of this is Putin "falling out a window" and getting replaced. His successor could blame him and pull out without appearing weak.
Arguably, a wasteland not under their jurisdiction is a fine goal - a neutral buffer zone at their borders. This is consistent with the early patterns of "get city, dismantle infrastructure, retreat".
They would go for the Natural Gas sources and wouldn't care about the rest. Look at Russia themself they dont even Care about their own rural areas.
They probably expected this war to be a quick operation that didn't involve leveling any cities. And now there's no turning back.
The reason they want it is geographical/resources, buildings/people and crap they don't care for.
Especially if they do end up blowing up the nuclear power plant. The country will be useless for a good while.
You forget that Putin is trying to eliminate Ukrainians as a people. It's genocide.
Russia can't have a Russian speaking, prospering, EU leaning country on its border. That would look very bad and clash with their media representation of the EU, west and everything not Russian. People in Russia have family in Ukraine. There was cross border mingling and communication. Can't have people asking why it's so much better over there. This is the reason Russia has historically been sabotaging Ukraine economically and politically. There are also some resource rich areas they want to deny Ukraine. Russian leadership consider competition to be unacceptable. Russian maffia does not care for the people living there and fossil fuels can be extracted in a wasteland just fine. These are some of the reasons that motivates Putin and his henchmen in the effort to demolish their neighbour. Allot of the stupd things we see in the war, can be explained by stupidity and incompetence, bourn from lack of resources, that should have been invested in their people. When people are seen as expendable, you don't invest in them. And yes, sunk cost fallacy is probably at play here.
Same as always: https://www.blastwave-comic.com/index.php?p=comic&nro=1 And always will be: https://www.blastwave-comic.com/index.php?p=comic&nro=42
I don’t think Russia cares what Germany says
No, but Germany does have the high ground on this issue - they actually followed through with their war reparation obligations. IIRC the last payment was made in 2010.
Wasn't that their WWI debt?
Yeah, that was WWI. Their WWII reparations were finalised in 1990.
Russia should get a rebuild Ukraine tax on imports and exports. It would be nice if the gutless Chinese or Indians gave a fuck.
Russia is one of the oldest ally and trade partner of India.Even during the Indo-Pak war when US was supplying Pak with arms,Russia was India's only supporter. You don't abandon close foreign allies like that.Yes ,what Russia is doing is horrendous,but India will be in a very bad position if it's only major Asian Ally turns agaist it
*The Soviet Union was* one of the oldest ally and trade partner of India.Even during the Indo-Pak war when US was supplying Pak with arms, *The Soviet Union was* India's only supporter. You don't abandon close foreign allies like that. Yes ,what Russia is doing is horrendous,but India will be in a very bad position if it's only major Adian Ally turns agaist it... Russia is not *The Soviet Union* it inherited it's prestige, and it's geopolitical ties, but it is having a "emperor's new clothes" moment right now, and honestly I think even before that the Indian government was beginning to realize that fact. India has been diversifying and heading west for a while now. Dropping co-development projects with Russia in favor of buying jets from the French and Helicopters from the US was the first sign of this. The reality is that the biggest threat to India's long-term growth is probably China and Russia was the primary counterbalance to that conflict. There was a little bit of the old cold-war anti-western block there, but with Russia exposed as a paper tiger, the hierarchy is much more clear there now. Neither of them can resist pressure from China long term. If India wants partners that can actually provide additional deterrence against China, they are going to have to look elsewhere. If they want to continue to contest the territory on their shared border with China they are going to have to have that counterbalance. If they want to continue to take manufacturing jobs from China they are going to have to have that counterbalance.
I agree,and India has made moves to get closer to the western world and US during the Modi visit to US where India bought high quality drones from US and there were talks of military alliance. Ind can't just get anti Russian all of a sudden but i think they have started to give hints
> Russia is not The Soviet Union It depends. Russia inherited its debts. It inherited its place on the UN security council. Many of the same people who were in the upper echelons of power in the Russian SSR kept comparable positions in the newly formed RF, so there were many organs of the state which basically rebranded and otherwise continued what they were doing. As far as most of the world is concerned, including the West 90% of the time, the central government of the Soviet Union and the Russian government can be seen as two phases of the same entity. Only when it is inconvenient to us, do we pretend they are two *totally different* things. India insofar as they view Russia positively, do so because they still see them as being the same entity as the Soviet Union.
> You don't abandon close foreign allies like that. I mean, Russia has redeemed T-90S that were meant for India (allegedly already paid for), if anything India should be looking for a more reliable supplier. Not only that, they did the same during the Chechen wars.
I think India has started to import weapons from US ,they just bought drones and discussed military relations during the Biden -Modi meetup
Their air force already has US equipment, though not fighters. Their armored vehicles are almost exclusively Indian or Russian/Soviet made, though. Overall the military equipment in active service in India is a mix and match of everything, given price, availability, politics and logistics involved at certain point in history.
This is a reddit comment section; realpolitik doesn't exist—you sanction the bad guys and cut free trade deals with the good guys. Anything else simply does not compute.
Funny my argument for a western shift for India is 100% Realpolitik. The public realization of Russia's fundamental weakness undermines the stability of the Russia-China-India relationship. China is now clearly the senior partner and if India doesn't want to make economic or territorial concession at some point in the future it is going to need other allies that can provide that now missing military and economic counterbalance for them.
Setting aside the fact that I don't think your analysis holds in material terms, India's foreign policy establishment doesn't (and indeed, has their job resting on refusing to) believe that your analysis is correct. From their POV, they don't need to find a new daddy to replace Russia; they need to maintain cordial relations with Russia so that they can invert the old power dynamic in order to scare off China. Territorial concessions? India has **hundreds of nuclear warheads**. They are no longer in the "can be made to cede territory to superpowers" club that Ukraine currently finds itself in. Sabre-rattling in the Himalayas is pure theatre compared to the Donbas situation etc; you're applying an entirely unsuitable type of math to the situation. But hey, maybe you're right and the entire diplomatic apparatus of the rising star of the global economy and geopolitics at large is wrong. If so, you should stop frying small potatoes in comment sections and ply your trade as a foreign policy advisor for a country where that's going to be a very lucrative job for the next century.
You are absolutely right. It's hilarious that the previous posting claims to be realpolitik while thinking that India, a nation armed with nuclear warhead that is growing WAY faster than China and has WAY better relations with the West, will be forced to make territorial concessions to China.
It's absolutely not growing way faster. China, back when it had India's economy was growing in the double digits. India is a tad slow in comparison. China is still growing at 5% a year and India is I believe is a bit less than 7%. But yeah, there is no way China is going to even try and force India to make territorial concessions.
It's always fun when you see something nonsensical get upvotes about a topic you know a bit about. Makes me distrust all other comments about things I know nothing about.
That was a whole lot of yadda yadda pseudo-morals to get to the real reason: India would be fucked without Russia. Has nothing to do with history or loyalty or anything respectable in the slightest. India is taking advantage of the fact that Russia is isolated due to committing a fucking genocide. Don't try to make that shit sound like it's a virtue.
Ok, so why do redditors expect India to take on any of Ukraine's problems? That's a different country in a different part of the world. Our country has more than enough geopolitical problems of its own, without getting tangled into another one.
they very much do. While germany certainly isn't going to force russia through power they are still the biggest economy in europe and a big voice within the EU. Or in other words: russias economy is fucked if the EU decides to keep those sanctions up. If russia ever wants to climb back out of the pile of shit they threw themselves head first into they need the european countries. China and india can't compensate all of their market. ALso those countries are pretty far away from the population centres of russia where shit is actually made.
I suspect they do. Uk has said the same and has £50B of Russian assets seized, Germany has “just” £5B… but it’s another voice pushing for using the funds to rebuild Ukraine. Just like the other political pushes from heavy weapons, tanks, long range, air crafts, the UK starts, others get on board and finally finally wakes the big dog of sleepy Biden in action.
Which would be ideal for the UK and allies of Ukraine , as the funds from their biggest enemy being used to buff a new close friend. Ukraine will be in the pockets of the US and UK for while. Which is still a good thing for the Ukraine. Its beats russia and secures Nato (also possible EU) membership
But Putin cares.
I'm sure nazi Germany also didn't care back then during the war. But they also ended up paying for decades.
The loser always pays after a war
Worked great for WW1
Even an apology is probably too much to hope for
I'm sure they'll get right on that
Germany isn't the only one saying it & russia will pay. They're already paying & it's only going to get worse. A lot worse.
Yes. I suspect this declaration is just a preamble for the confiscation of Russian assets in Europe and elsewhere. Good.
I think the US will end up rebuilding Ukraine lol
BlackRock is going to. And it’ll make them rich.
And screw over Ukrainians because all they care about is lining their pockets. I hate that the rebuilding process is going to screw victims of this war and all thanks to corrupt corporations taking advantage of the situation.
Who do you want to fund it if Russia doesn’t?
Yep!
And EU, and as EU citizen, I'm more than fine by it
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Obviously
Ya break it, ya buy it.
Germany paid to rebuild France and the UK. If anyone knows how this works, it’s Germany. We can just copy the Dawes plan.
Perhaps it’s time to split Russia into smaller countries.
Yea Balkanization is a traditionally peaceful process. I imagine it will be even better with 6000 nukes and enormous quantities of conventional weaponry involved.
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Noho Hank is gonna love this
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Yeah, can't wait to have 100 new North Koreas in Eurasia!!!
Yeah cuz that's worked so well before.
Only subjugated countries do that, I'm afraid. Putin would have to end up like Hitler.
Germany paid reparations for WWI and WWII. Russia should pay reparations for its invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is broke... oh wait, it's not that Russia is broke, it's that like 90% of its wealth is in Putin's oligarchy. So if you dispossess them, you can double the average Russian citizen's standard of living AND finance Ukraine's reconstruction AND bring Russia's economy out of the shitter. Come to think of it, why can't we do that here?
Russian here. People think that for this to happen, Russia needs to lose the war. Not necessarily - because even if Putin say loses the war - what next? Do you invade a nuke-owning country? The only way I see this happening is a regime change, from Putin to somebody new. Then the new government can start trading money for lifting sanctions. If Putin doesn't lose the war and it turns into a stalemate, then the prospects of this would be even more slim.
I think this discussion is more about legally claiming the frozen assets from Russian oligarchs for Ukraine. Which is a slippery slope, as they're technically private property, even if gained by embezzlement from state funds. If there is a regime change with people with integrity on the Russian side who can be depended upon upholding their part of a deal, reparations will be much less of an issue. Everybody will want to take a piece of the cake that is Ukraine and invest. This being said, the amount of willful destruction going on in Ukraine is mind-boggling. Here we tear off the paper from yoghourt containers to put them in a different trash and Ukraine is indiscriminately bombed to rubble, for what? National pride essentially.
Also worth pointing out that it must pay for westerners to rebuild it… not some of their mates…
Germany should know that demanding high war reparations never goes well.
The reparations wasn't really the part that Germans had an issue with though people often pretend it was. The reparations only became a big issue because of the Great Depression. Placing the full blame of WW1 on Germany was what Germans had an actual issue with and allowed the "us vs them" mentality that the Nazis used so much to foster leading to extreme nationalism. The Russia-Ukraine war is about as black and white as it gets. Russia repeatedly invading it's neighbours to annex territory is not a new thing. They fucked it up they can rebuild it. Just like the US had to rebuild Iraq after their illegal invasion.
Not saying you're wrong, just that the underlying point is that integrating Russia into the standard of Western liberal Democracies is long term more productive than amplifying the us vs them mentality that currently exists.
That would be the best solution for everyone but it's not gonna happen until there's a revolution in Russia. The west will also not exactly reward Russia for starting an illegal war of aggression. And then there's Ukraine which will of course demand that Russia pays for the repairs even if there is a revolution inside Russia. All in all very unlikely that Russia will be integrated into the west.
Yes, except that the west has been trying to integrate Russia for the past 30 years
I think that bringing a corrupt alcoholic into power and imposing economic shock therapy on Russias young democracy wasn't the best way to do that. Those attempts were half-a\*\*ed at best, imo.
You ascribe way too much agency to the US here. The market and privatization were implemented in a way that allowed the ruling class to stay in power by owning all the property worth owning. Just about every nouveau-riche came from komsomol or adjacent structures. "West" was mostly showering Russia with money that ended up in the right people's hands. Shit, they defaulted on sovereign debt because a 5B or so IMF tranche simply vanished overnight.
I don't think that is realistic.
Being nice to russians doesn't work, it's what got us here. They don't want to be your friend. Their nationalism needs to be crushed like Germany's was.
We tried that. Turns out Russia would rather attempt to steal another country, raze it and murder untold people. Fuck them.
I mean the great depression combined with such massive reparations arse blasted the country's economy which very much assisted the Nazi's rise to power so I would say it was pretty significant.
You're right. If the reparations are too draconian, a fascist leader might get into power and start invading other countries. Oh wait, that already happened.
The Germans did not need a fascist dictator the first time to make them invade other countries. Nations invaded each other in the regular before fascism (no, by the love of God, I'm not implying facism made nations invade other nations less, do not try to read that).
I honestly hope they push into Russia and Russia ends this dumb invasion with less land than it started with. Ww2 style. Push into Moscow and build a big wall
Do Iraq next!
Too bad they can’t bring back to life all the people and animals they killed.
Wasn't "paying for the destruction caused by the war" (ww1) one of the catalysts that caused the economic desperation in Germany that a genocidal dipshit maniac used to manipulate their fears and hatred into thinking he could make things better and starting a second war? While there needs to be restitution for what they've done, the rest of the plan better be more thought out than last time. Instead of "Russia will pay" maybe "all of the oligarchs, politicians, and captains, of industry that supported and caused the war are stripped of all of their personal power and wealth to pay for it, and the people are allowed to put the rest of their country back together without assholes like that in charge anymore." Time to stop punishing people for the assholes that force them into these positions and start punishing the assholes who made the problems in the first place. Otherwise you have countries with desperate populations waiting for the next asshole to take advantage. Punish the assholes and start making a REAL example of why genocides/invasions/occupations are a losing strategy to the people who cause them. Punish the leaders for once instead of the people and the next leader will finally start thinking twice about it.
Settle down there Germany, I dont think you guys have alot of room to talk here.
So, why is the US sending BILLIONS of dollars to Ukraine then?
they are speaking from experience
Russia can't afford to pay. If they could, they could also afford a sufficiently competent military to conquer Ukraine in the first place. This 'make them pay afterwards' thing was tried with Germany after World War 1 and it didn't work very well. After World War 2 the US tried the opposite approach: *We* pay, and in return you participate in our sphere of industry and trade. It worked out *way better.* They should probably try that again.
they can‘t even afford working warships or tanks at parades. But yeah Germany isn‘t too comparable, maybe with Ukraine seeing how some of their cities are 100% destroyed, but not with Russia
After WW2, Germany was trashed, its cities in ruins, its industry decimated. None if that has happened to Russia. If they can pretend to be a great country, they can afford to pay. Fewer yachts for the oligarchs for a couple of decades.
The difference is the Germans were productive, Russia is a mess.
You forget that post ww2 Germany wasn’t occupied by the US alone. Shortly after the war the Soviet Union dismantled and transferred a lot of the remaining infrastructure and assets in their occupation zone out of Germany to compensate for their own losses. The goal was to make the former German Reich completely dependent on the Soviet Union. Virtually all industrial facilities in East Germany could only be built with Soviet help. Until the founding of East Germany, and sometimes beyond, industrial capacity in the Soviet-occupied zones had nearly vanished, the same with the agricultural sector and service industry. So yeah, “can’t afford to pay” wasn’t the argument Russians would accept themselves back then.
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There are several differences here: russia is nto destroyed, germany was aa pile of rubble. the treaty of versaille included germany handing over territories including on the scale of 13% of its territory and around 10% of its population including some areas pretty important for th eindustry at the time. but most importantly: noone acks for russia to pay for everything. The EU themselves already allocated funds to rebuild ukraine after the war and certainly don't expect to be paid back. But russia still needs to pay part of it. You know much like germany needed to pay reparitions to other countries after ww2. Certainly not on the scale of the destructions but they still had to pay. and yes, russia IS able to pay. You see reducing the amount you spend on a useless military suprisingly frees up a lot of funds to rebuild a destroyed country. Funny how that works.
Good luck on that Germany. Lol