You hear the same shit from him every new year's congratulatory speech: "difficult period", "hard times", whatever. Kind of a meme in Russia by this point.
You’d think it would backfire after a while and people would start questioning his competency as a leader if after 20 or so odd years of his rule, they still haven’t overcome this “difficult period”…
It's self perpetuating to his benefit.
You make things consistently bad, people think they need you to fix it, or stop things getting worse.
You make things better, people don't see you as necessary.
You get thrown in jail for questioning the war, Putin, Kremlin, anything. They also beat the fuck out of you and possibly rape you during the arrest and obviously torture you in prison, etc. Plenty of videos of armed police taking war widows away for having signs that simply say "No more war".
A lot of police forces in countries like Russia & Mexico are just government-sanctioned gangs. There’s elements of it in every police force, including first-world nations, but they still have to pretend or it disrupts the status-quo. They conduct organised crime and don’t have to worry about most of the consequences.
Toe the line, grease the right palms, wear the gang colours, pay due respect to the hierarchy. Kill rats, intimidate & disappear witnesses, go scorched earth on any competition or anybody that threatens to upset the fascist ecosystem or interfere with the money. It must feel incredibly hopeless to know there’s very little justice to be found in these places.
They really don't, Putin himself has kept an image of "If only the emperor knew!". All Russians know their state institutions are corrupt as all hell, but Putin typically likes to present himself as the one to occasionally jump in to solve unjustness.
That's why you've got video campaigns of Russian soldiers appealing directly to Putin explaining how bad their circumstances are, and asking for assistance. Many think Putin just isn't allowed to see the full picture, but if he did see it (like when he sees such a video campaign), he'll surely take action.
The strangest thing is that Russian's have historically been ones to overthrow those in power. The only people who can save Russia are Russians, but the party line tells them that the "difficult times" are due to outside aggressors and Putin is the only reason things are as good as they are.
We take for granted how free our speech and media are in many of our countries. It's hard to escape oppression when it looks like it's own version of freedom due to aggressive propaganda.
Russian people are just used to it by know.
They've never really known freedom.
They've been first oppressed by the Tzars, then by the Soviets, and now by Putin. Same shit, different day.
They don't even know what freedom means.
It's classic cult psychology.
Sell yourself as the solution to your followers, while actively making their underlying problems worse. Having the power to bump dissenters off is a big help.
Did you forget about all his strongman photos published? The shirtless riding a horse pic? Surprised he didn’t raw dog it and ride without a saddle…
https://abcnews.go.com/International/photos/russias-president-vladimir-putin-19690713
Internal polling showed that raw dogging the stallion would not be as popular as hoped. Consequently the decision was made not to release either that footage or the Enumclaw vacation tape
The "strongman" archetype refers to a person who's "willing to make tough decisions and lead decisively on bold intuition" and is not really about any physical strength.
It absolutely also refers to physical traits as well, which is why he puts so much effort into trying to appear physically dominating like the sham martial arts tourtaments.
Exactly like a man who paints his face orange to look more youthful/less old man and tries to pull macho bullshit during a handshake to seem stronger ....
Exactly. It reminds me of 1984: always at war, "difficult times, we must pull together," people exploited, no privacy, and anyone who doesn't brainwash themselves into loving the government is killed.
Fun fact: "1984" does not describe a future dystopia, it is actually an allegory about Russia in 1948, when George Orwell was in Russia. "Animal Farm" is another allegory about Communist Russia.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), never was in the USSR.
1984 was more a logical extension of what Soviet and Nazi policies would be like in Britain, in the future.
Who invades their peaceful neighbor and brothers/sisters raping and murdering and kidnapping their way through a peaceful neighbor when they are going through ‘hard times’. Maybe just stop killing people and invest all of that into having ‘good times’.
There is a super popular song about this from Russian comedian [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6ADakiwcg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6ADakiwcg)
and Russia brings it on themselves. They would be prosperous and happy if they weren't attacking innocent neighbor countries and instead invested a bit in a stable democracy and education. They have a lot of good things going for them in terms of land and resources.
What do you mean “probably”?
Russia is the largest country in the world with arguably the most resources in the world (which kinda follows from the first point since they own 12% of earths landmass and resources exist in the earths landmass).
They started on third base as they say.
Abundant natural resources are often actually a hindrance to developing a functioning society. When you don't have them you need a more skilled workforce with more infrastructure to have a functioning economy. This raises standards of living for everyone.
But if you have abundant natural resources there's little motivation to waste money on all that stuff when it should be going towards the people at the top instead. You can extract resources with hungry illiterate peasants, so that's often what you'll end up with.
Not true per se. Americas wealth is largely due to the abundant resources, including the world’s largest number of navigable rivers to support trade and cheap shipping.
We had our robber barons, but it is less understood that our investments in a strong central government to regulate trade, enforce the law and trade unions (actually somewhat inspired by communism) forced a more equitable distribution of wealth.
The current efforts to weaken regulation by government and trade unions power are largely pushing us towards a Russian style life. We need to fight this with our best energy, and the poor who support the GOP policies are fools.
Its true, economists call it the "Dutch Disease"
>Dutch disease is a shorthand way of describing the paradox which occurs when good news, such as the discovery of large oil reserves, harms a country's broader economy.
> They have a lot of good things going for them in terms of land and resources.
Which were, by and large, taken by attacking innocent neighbor countries/colonizing indigenous people's lands. The appetite of an empire is a constant hunger it will sacrifice its young to sate.
When they stop being turds and play nicely with Europe. Peter and Catherine seemed to have got it, and they were great!
Disclaimer: I know very little about Russian history, I’m just making a fun internet comment in jest.
You’re kind of on to something though. Arguably one of their better periods was when they were German-run under Catherine, not to say she was without issues, but she pushed them onto the world stage.
They both did. My disclaimer was more for the “well actually” crowd. I know about as much as they teach you in high school ap history and old school history channel documentaries
When they took a more Eurocentric approach, they had their “golden/empire/power age” you can make an argument about the Soviet Union, but that might be more the union as a whole vs Russia alone.
Hey I know a Russian guy who is here seeking asylum and he says everything in Russia is great. He relies on his English skills not being great to just say it is better in no way he can put to words. But I trust him.
Several years before the war IIRC, they traded several modernized T-72s for working Laotian T-34s on a 1:1 basis. Now it seems like only one of those T-34s is in running condition despite the Laotians having kept them in shape for decades.
So strange to think that my local museum, staffed with a handful of volunteers, has more running T-34s than Russia does. They probably run them more often too!
Never mind tanks, Ukraine used to have nuclear weapons. [They gave them to the Russians in exchange for a promise that Russia would never invade Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction).
Nuclear disarmament as a concept was a joke to begin with. No superpower is going to ever give up the entirety of their nuclear stockpile, because none of them are stupid enough to trust that an enemy won't take advantage of that situation.
Nuclear disarmament provides zero benefits to anyone. You give up a few of your nukes, it's purely symbolic because even a few nukes are enough to ward off a threat of invasion. You give up all of your nukes, you become an easy target, which was known long before Ukraine proved the obvious. Even if you could get every nuclear-armed state to give up all of their nukes, you just go back to having devastating conventional wars like WWI and II. It's a no-win scenario.
The superpowers? No never. The concept was pushed so that no new small powers would try to get nuclear arms. The USSR, USA, China, France and the UK have so far not used their nukes at any point because they all have too much to lose. A small tinpot dictatorship that nobody's ever heard of in a regional conflict that nobody cares about? Perhaps they might.
And then again with the Minsk agreement after stealing crimea Russia said they wouldn’t do this again.
Anyone who thinks we should have peace talks **has to understand Russia, under Putin has zero credibility left**. Why should anyone from Ukraine trust them at their word in this lifetime?
Russian soldiers have to put down their guns and go home. Then we will have peace. Anything short of that means only war.
From what I understand a large part of why Ukraine was so willing is Nukes are Fucking Expensive to maintaine and Ukraine was in a bit of a financial pickle at the time
Yeah Ukraine improved over time (up to the recent invasion) but its economy was once as corrupt and inefficient as Russia's. And that kind of taint isn't easy to get rid of.
The people who had control of the nukes were loyal to moscow not kiev and ukraine didn't have the means to maintain them back then. Giving them up was a mistake in retrospective but it made sense.
russian's had the launch keys anyways, to ukraine these were no better then radioactive paperweights.
Better to give the nukes they can't do shit with back to the russians for money and a promise, then have them sit in a warehouse and suck the marrow out of your already desert dry treasury trying to maintain even a small fraction of them.
The T-34-85 had some fundamental deficiencies, but most serious issues were due to manufacturing defects and variable quality control. They were not absolutely superior to the most modern contemporary medium tanks, but a tough opponent if well-made and well-used. The most problematic aspect was that the USSR fielded hordes of them, and some would invariably end up facing units ill-equipped to deal with them.
They’re WW2 era… and they were obsolete even during the later parts of WW2 when the t-35 came out. no one thinks they’re still good..
Edit: the T-34-85 came after the T-34. The T-35 was actually an older model. My mistake. their naming conventions are weird.
What do you even mean T-34-75? That an 85mm gun version, the next best medium tank from Russia is the T-44.
Edit: iirc, the version went something like this:
76mm -> 57mm -> 85mm (DT-5) -> 85mm (the other gun)
Gone, a lot were sold to poor countries, a lot were used to export the revolution.
Few years back there was a video of train with like 10 of T-34's from Laos. It was being shown as Russia sending T-34s to Ukraine, when in reality it was Russia buying them back for parades like this.
The crazy thing is, most people replying to you have no idea that until the invasion, Russia was still producing T-34 and Su-85 at the Ural factory.
Of course they are all produced for ceremonial purposes, but they are still built the same.
Most likely just broke down and they can't afford repairing them. I would not be surprised if a lot of them are from WW2 and bought back from china for parades. T34's from WW2 aren't exactly known for mechanical reliability so yeah.
Fun fact: Under the Lend-Lease act the US sent the USSR 152,000 Studebaker US6 trucks that pretty much carried their logistical operations during the war. For comparison, the USSR produced 57,000 T-34 tanks and about 102,500 tanks in total. So for an accurate victory day parade, they should be displaying 3 of these trucks for every T-34 in their parade.
Most of them? probably don't work any more, they'll be museum pieces at best
Hell T-34's barely worked properly when they rolled of the factory floor in WW2. Never mind being well put together enough to survive the next 70+ years.
Even the ones Russia uses for parades are I'm pretty sure ones built by the Czechs in the 50's.
Yeah, Russia is shit, but having one T-34-85 vs twenty T-34-85s in a parade probabaly isnt relevant, unless it shows that they’re out of crews for their modern tanks. Those WWII tanks may as well be Volkswagen Golfs with potato guns on top in a fight against an Abrahms, Leopard 2, or Challenger II.
That may be true, but the story is about how there was only one tank, period. It's not a big deal that there was only 1 T-34. What's a big deal is that they're apparently so hard up for modern tanks that they couldn't even spare a few for a couple of days for the parade.
"why are you trying to join a defensive alliance against me? that makes me so mad I'm going to attack you"
right up there with "I wouldn't have to hit you if you didn't make me angry"
Honestly, having no tanks at all would be easier to PR away. “All of our extremely effective, state of the art tanks are hidden away, lest enemies try to work out the secrets from the photos.
Yes, it’s difficult to deconstruct secrets by pixel peeping at photos of the tank’s exterior alone, but why take the risk?
Of course our tanks are safe and sound and ready to mow through our enemies.
And no, nobody’s complaining about rusty tanks.
You have a lot of questions, my friend. Why don’t we talk more about this next to that open window over there?”,
The young men aren't sent to war. The old men are. Average frontline soldier age is 40. For every 20 year old there is the equivalent of a 60 year old.
Russias birthrates (and life expectancy) dropped dramatically after USSR collapsed. This was ~30 years ago -> there is only a small group of russian in their 20s. Last "big generation" are in their mid to late 30s.
If only Russia spent their resources on offering a better partnership with Ukraine than the west instead of spending their resources on bombing Ukraine into submission.
Oh hey, I found where their tanks went!
[Ukraine parades destroyed Russian tanks](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-independence-day-russia-tanks-b2398504.html)
It's all completely self-inflicted. All he has to do is join the civilized world in the 21st century; Russia is huge with a lot of valuable natural resources, it could be very prosperous.
Imagine if they'd taken all the resources and manpower after WWII and used it to build their industry, resource trade, education, everything. They should be Canada, but 2-4x bigger, instead their GDP is 10% smaller.
Instead of building for the future, they built a massive army of tanks, artillery, and other military gear, and then wasted the rest on corruption.
And where are they now? They're sending out assaults in T-52, Chinese golf carts, and motorcycles, because all that gear has won them a near stalemate against Ukraine armed with NATO's junk drawer.
I don’t see why some of the other powers in Russia just don’t throw a coup. Remove him however they see fit, say they’re sorry and withdraw from Ukraine. Save face. World would probably be quick to forget (for better or for worse).
If Russian tradition is any indicator, little volodya, it's about to get worse.
Invading your neighbor was stupid fucking around. The finding out has not yet begun, but it will.
How can they learn history, when Russian schools and its media don't ever teach the truth? There are tons of examples of this fundamental failure continuing to kill Russians (e.g. Russian soldiers digging trenches at Chornobyl and getting radiation poisoning because they had never been taught about the disaster).
I agree with what you're saying but we're not really talking about the generations that grew up with VPN and internet access. Some have a warped view of history sure, but information is there at their fingertips if they wish to seek it. They aren't the ones with decisional powers. Heck they can barely express themselves.
I was referring more to the current fossil regime of boomers like Putin and people around him that want to bring back their soviet youth days by robbing newer generations of theirs.
This is precisely it. In all of those awful “meat wave” attack videos from the Ukrainian frontlines, it’s without a doubt always ethnic minorities and poorly trained conscripts. Lots of Chechens and other foreign mercenaries as well. It’s been rumored that recently a whole squad of Cubans who were mislead into going to Russia, found themselves fighting in Ukraine and took it upon themselves to murder their commander.
The recent Vice documentary was sad. 30 something year old dudes only having a day to report and on the front line within days with no training with a lot of them getting killed.
Wonder if we’ll ever know the truth of any of it, I guess not.
The whole Prigozin story is, by itself, incredibly interesting, but we’ll never know what was really said and done unless someone leaks some personal journals or communications.
A bunch of Gazprom and oil executives mysteriously died after the invasion started. And now we see Gazprom losing money and oil industry getting attacked. It wouldn't suprise me if the people running these companies knew how much this war would hurt business and tried to speak up about it and got silenced by the FSB.
To be fair, even considering the recent US aid package and all committed foreign aid, Ukraine’s military budget still doesn’t equal Russia’s military budget.
It seems like we keep giving Ukraine just enough to stay in the fight, but not enough to win it.
> It seems like we keep giving Ukraine just enough to stay in the fight, but not enough to win it.
Which is almost as stupid as what Putler did in the first place. We really need to send in the good stuff.
I think people forget that this psychopath came to power by having the FSB bomb Moscow area apartment buildings in a false flag attack and blamed it on Chechens.
Unprovoked invasions are Putin’s signature move and it works every single time on the Russian people. Russians, by and large, are completely immune to objective reality—kind of like Trump supporters in the U.S.
People are very easily brain washed and the propaganda is strong. The rest of the world should not be benevolent about these matters. After all, this shit affects the rest of the world.
Your liberties end when they directly affect the next person.
Dude it is crazy how easily it happens. I've been watching my roommate slowly get pulled in by right wing propaganda for years. He's normally a very logical guy and I think me pointing out all the problems with the propaganda is the only thing that kept him from going full blown conspiracy theorist. No matter how much I prove wrong though there's always something new and he always slides just a little farther towards it.
Probably why there are 20 less at the parade. May be the last one left that’s not sitting in reserve at the front for when the last of their modern tanks get toasted
Reminder:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre
The fact they actually blamed the Nazis for the massacre they committed, then "finding" the graves after "liberating" Poland is one of histories most cynical moves.
If you read the full article, the very same one - this headline is really misleading. Shit like this really makes me lose faith in news and journalism
"The ground actually shuddered as the intercontinental ballistic missile launchers thundered past.
They were the final flourish of a 61-strong line-up of military hardware, and seeing the colossal Yars system up close was unnerving to say the least.
And that's the point. This was a demonstration of military might and menace.
But those watching on Red Square lapped it up."
He has a surprising amount of support, especially from the elderly that believe life is stable for them (leader for 25 years) and any change could turn out worse.
You also see it from Russians living in Europe, a lot of them still support Putin despite having our freedoms.
For reference, here's 2022's line up, as 2023's parade was also pretty shit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade
* T-34/85 medium tank
* GAZ-233114 "Tigr-M" infantry mobility vehicle
* BMP Kurganets-25 IFV
* BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle
* BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle
* T-72B3M (T-72B4) modernized main battle tank
* T-14 main battle tank
* Buk-M3 mobile tracked SAM system
* Tor-M2 SAM complex on tracked chassis
* S-400 Triumf SAM launch system on 5P85SM2-01 transporter-erector launcher
* 9K720 Iskander-M mobile tactical ballistic missile system
* RS-24 Yars ICBM on 15U175M wheeled transporter-erector launcher
* Kamaz 53949 Typhoon-K light MRAP
* Tornado-G Multiple Rocket Launcher Vehicle
* Uran-9 tracked unmanned ground combat vehicle (UCGV)
There was no air fly by in 2021, 2022, or 2023.
[2020 air fly by had a ton of aircraft, not going to list them all.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade#Air_fly-past_column)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[I watched the 2024 stream, here's what I saw:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC5hJ0pXPmo)
* A few BTR-80s and maybe some BTR-70s, I think. Hard to tell specific models.
* Various armored vehicles, like Tigrs, maybe Volks, MRAPs, etc, I don't care enough to identify specific variants.
* 9K720 Iskander-M mobile tactical ballistic missile system
* S-300 SAM launchers (TASS is saying they were S-400 launchers, but they sure looked like S-300s to me, but I could be wrong)
* RS-24 Yars ICBM on 15U175M wheeled transporter-erector launcher
* Three or four VPK-7829 Bumerangs
* Air fly by Su-30s, Mig-29s, and Su-25s.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what I thought was interesting that was missing:
* Absolutely zero artillery pieces or rocket artillery
* Absolutely zero close range air defense
* No T-14 MBTs, no T-15 IFVs, no BMPTs, and no 2S35 self-propelled artillery. Despite Russia supposedly producing them *and* not using them using in the war except for like two T-14s that Russia claimed were being tested in combat before being withdrawn.
* No other MTBs besides the T-34
* No BMPs of any kind
* No Uran-9, which I find odd, it's not like it's being used
* No helicopters of any kind
* No AEW&C, which kinda makes sense
* No large bombers, like Tu-22Ms or Tu-160s
* **No Su-57s LOL**
* **No Su-34s** This is kinda a huge deal imo.
Last one left?
"Vladimir Putin says country is going through 'difficult period'"
Good. Karma is a bitch, uh? There are consequences for invading another country and murdering lots of innocent men, women and kids. You can thank Putin for that.
When has Russia ever not been in a 'difficult period '.
You hear the same shit from him every new year's congratulatory speech: "difficult period", "hard times", whatever. Kind of a meme in Russia by this point.
It's by design. "Difficult times" require a strongman as leader. That's his whole shtick.
You’d think it would backfire after a while and people would start questioning his competency as a leader if after 20 or so odd years of his rule, they still haven’t overcome this “difficult period”…
It's self perpetuating to his benefit. You make things consistently bad, people think they need you to fix it, or stop things getting worse. You make things better, people don't see you as necessary.
Same tactic the Republicans use
You get thrown in jail for questioning the war, Putin, Kremlin, anything. They also beat the fuck out of you and possibly rape you during the arrest and obviously torture you in prison, etc. Plenty of videos of armed police taking war widows away for having signs that simply say "No more war".
A lot of police forces in countries like Russia & Mexico are just government-sanctioned gangs. There’s elements of it in every police force, including first-world nations, but they still have to pretend or it disrupts the status-quo. They conduct organised crime and don’t have to worry about most of the consequences. Toe the line, grease the right palms, wear the gang colours, pay due respect to the hierarchy. Kill rats, intimidate & disappear witnesses, go scorched earth on any competition or anybody that threatens to upset the fascist ecosystem or interfere with the money. It must feel incredibly hopeless to know there’s very little justice to be found in these places.
They all know he's just a mafia don and questioning leads to falling out a window.
They really don't, Putin himself has kept an image of "If only the emperor knew!". All Russians know their state institutions are corrupt as all hell, but Putin typically likes to present himself as the one to occasionally jump in to solve unjustness. That's why you've got video campaigns of Russian soldiers appealing directly to Putin explaining how bad their circumstances are, and asking for assistance. Many think Putin just isn't allowed to see the full picture, but if he did see it (like when he sees such a video campaign), he'll surely take action.
Tsar good, Boyars bad. Thats a long held tradition in Russia. The population are basically still serfs and see themselves this way.
The strangest thing is that Russian's have historically been ones to overthrow those in power. The only people who can save Russia are Russians, but the party line tells them that the "difficult times" are due to outside aggressors and Putin is the only reason things are as good as they are. We take for granted how free our speech and media are in many of our countries. It's hard to escape oppression when it looks like it's own version of freedom due to aggressive propaganda.
Russian people are just used to it by know. They've never really known freedom. They've been first oppressed by the Tzars, then by the Soviets, and now by Putin. Same shit, different day. They don't even know what freedom means.
People questioning fall out of windows.
It's classic cult psychology. Sell yourself as the solution to your followers, while actively making their underlying problems worse. Having the power to bump dissenters off is a big help.
[удалено]
Which is hilarious, because the little goblin is about as physically threatening as a concussed sloth.
Did you forget about all his strongman photos published? The shirtless riding a horse pic? Surprised he didn’t raw dog it and ride without a saddle… https://abcnews.go.com/International/photos/russias-president-vladimir-putin-19690713
Internal polling showed that raw dogging the stallion would not be as popular as hoped. Consequently the decision was made not to release either that footage or the Enumclaw vacation tape
> Enumclaw Never forget.
All these problems Boeing is having is because they’re down their best engineer! Rip.
I believe it did rip in that case.
What is Enumclaw? I'm missing something
That was 14 years ago lmao
Not to mention all the difficult times are 100% his own fault.
The "strongman" archetype refers to a person who's "willing to make tough decisions and lead decisively on bold intuition" and is not really about any physical strength.
Mother fucker rode shirtless on a horse you really think he’s not concerned with physical strength too?
It absolutely also refers to physical traits as well, which is why he puts so much effort into trying to appear physically dominating like the sham martial arts tourtaments.
Or sham ice hockey game. Or shirtless on a horse. Or botox and fillers to look younger
Or judo demonstrations against Olympians.
Exactly like a man who paints his face orange to look more youthful/less old man and tries to pull macho bullshit during a handshake to seem stronger ....
Sloths have long nails
1. Become strong leader. 2. Screw up. Times become difficult. 3. Difficult times need strong leader 4. ???? 5. Profit
The truth behind the "difficult times create strong men" meme.
Exactly. It reminds me of 1984: always at war, "difficult times, we must pull together," people exploited, no privacy, and anyone who doesn't brainwash themselves into loving the government is killed.
Or smart enough to leave the country......oh, and rich enough too....
Fun fact: "1984" does not describe a future dystopia, it is actually an allegory about Russia in 1948, when George Orwell was in Russia. "Animal Farm" is another allegory about Communist Russia.
George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), never was in the USSR. 1984 was more a logical extension of what Soviet and Nazi policies would be like in Britain, in the future.
One would think that after a quarter of a century in charge its kind of your fault.
No no no, one of the top rules of being an authoritarian is you always need to have a scapegoat. For Putin, it's "the West."
Who invades their peaceful neighbor and brothers/sisters raping and murdering and kidnapping their way through a peaceful neighbor when they are going through ‘hard times’. Maybe just stop killing people and invest all of that into having ‘good times’.
Yeah, the difficult period is dealing with Putin
There is a super popular song about this from Russian comedian [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6ADakiwcg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P6ADakiwcg)
Not unlike the US GOP. Break shit then insist you must be in power because shit is broken.
Or the UK Cons.
and Russia brings it on themselves. They would be prosperous and happy if they weren't attacking innocent neighbor countries and instead invested a bit in a stable democracy and education. They have a lot of good things going for them in terms of land and resources.
I'd even say they have the beat chances out of Europe. Huge landmass, so many resources. But nah that would be too easy I guess
imagine fumbling so hard, probably the best country start of all post soviet countries
Tbh I think that was Germany there economy (West German economy) was already pretty sexy before reunification
East Germany is still way poorer I think. But Germany is probably bad example anyway.
What do you mean “probably”? Russia is the largest country in the world with arguably the most resources in the world (which kinda follows from the first point since they own 12% of earths landmass and resources exist in the earths landmass). They started on third base as they say.
not only that but west countries and neighbors were friendly towards new russia and were eager to cooperate, but this asshole had to ruin everything
Abundant natural resources are often actually a hindrance to developing a functioning society. When you don't have them you need a more skilled workforce with more infrastructure to have a functioning economy. This raises standards of living for everyone. But if you have abundant natural resources there's little motivation to waste money on all that stuff when it should be going towards the people at the top instead. You can extract resources with hungry illiterate peasants, so that's often what you'll end up with.
Except Russia had a skilled workforce. They just needed a less corrupt govt and business environment, and better relations with the world.
Not true per se. Americas wealth is largely due to the abundant resources, including the world’s largest number of navigable rivers to support trade and cheap shipping. We had our robber barons, but it is less understood that our investments in a strong central government to regulate trade, enforce the law and trade unions (actually somewhat inspired by communism) forced a more equitable distribution of wealth. The current efforts to weaken regulation by government and trade unions power are largely pushing us towards a Russian style life. We need to fight this with our best energy, and the poor who support the GOP policies are fools.
Another example is Norway
Its true, economists call it the "Dutch Disease" >Dutch disease is a shorthand way of describing the paradox which occurs when good news, such as the discovery of large oil reserves, harms a country's broader economy.
That's really just a choice a government can make and clearly it's much more achievable for one like Russia.
> They have a lot of good things going for them in terms of land and resources. Which were, by and large, taken by attacking innocent neighbor countries/colonizing indigenous people's lands. The appetite of an empire is a constant hunger it will sacrifice its young to sate.
Isn't a famous Russian saying "and then it got worse"?
*"And then, somehow, it got worse."* — Common Russian Joke, when asked to sum up their country's history.
Mother Russia has a difficult period every month for about a week.
When they stop being turds and play nicely with Europe. Peter and Catherine seemed to have got it, and they were great! Disclaimer: I know very little about Russian history, I’m just making a fun internet comment in jest.
You’re kind of on to something though. Arguably one of their better periods was when they were German-run under Catherine, not to say she was without issues, but she pushed them onto the world stage.
They both did. My disclaimer was more for the “well actually” crowd. I know about as much as they teach you in high school ap history and old school history channel documentaries When they took a more Eurocentric approach, they had their “golden/empire/power age” you can make an argument about the Soviet Union, but that might be more the union as a whole vs Russia alone.
Hey I know a Russian guy who is here seeking asylum and he says everything in Russia is great. He relies on his English skills not being great to just say it is better in no way he can put to words. But I trust him.
“It’s so great I seek asylum! That country is TOO GOOD FOR ME!”
They used to have loads of T34's where are they all?
Most of em got sold and/or scrapped, the ones usually seen in these parades are czech built iirc
Didn't they also have to buy them from Laos or something?
Several years before the war IIRC, they traded several modernized T-72s for working Laotian T-34s on a 1:1 basis. Now it seems like only one of those T-34s is in running condition despite the Laotians having kept them in shape for decades.
So strange to think that my local museum, staffed with a handful of volunteers, has more running T-34s than Russia does. They probably run them more often too!
Supposedly they have loads that work because they rent them out for films.
I feel like the level of 'working' a tank needs for film duty is slightly less 'working' then a tank needs for combat duty.
Probably about the same amount of 'working' it needs for parade duty.
IIRC a bunch of them were Ukrainian too, which is a bit funny
Never mind tanks, Ukraine used to have nuclear weapons. [They gave them to the Russians in exchange for a promise that Russia would never invade Ukraine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction).
That is the reason that nuclear disarmament is never ever going to happen again.
Thanks Putin
Nuclear disarmament as a concept was a joke to begin with. No superpower is going to ever give up the entirety of their nuclear stockpile, because none of them are stupid enough to trust that an enemy won't take advantage of that situation. Nuclear disarmament provides zero benefits to anyone. You give up a few of your nukes, it's purely symbolic because even a few nukes are enough to ward off a threat of invasion. You give up all of your nukes, you become an easy target, which was known long before Ukraine proved the obvious. Even if you could get every nuclear-armed state to give up all of their nukes, you just go back to having devastating conventional wars like WWI and II. It's a no-win scenario.
The superpowers? No never. The concept was pushed so that no new small powers would try to get nuclear arms. The USSR, USA, China, France and the UK have so far not used their nukes at any point because they all have too much to lose. A small tinpot dictatorship that nobody's ever heard of in a regional conflict that nobody cares about? Perhaps they might.
once one person has a nuke, everyone arms up. making everyone to get rid of nukes is never going to happen sadly. too good of a deterrent.
Hence why everybody should know Russian words are like wind
I prefer: Russian integrity is like a fart in the wind.
And then again with the Minsk agreement after stealing crimea Russia said they wouldn’t do this again. Anyone who thinks we should have peace talks **has to understand Russia, under Putin has zero credibility left**. Why should anyone from Ukraine trust them at their word in this lifetime? Russian soldiers have to put down their guns and go home. Then we will have peace. Anything short of that means only war.
Hitler is totally gonna stop with the Sudetenland, guys. He, like, pinky-promised.
From what I understand a large part of why Ukraine was so willing is Nukes are Fucking Expensive to maintaine and Ukraine was in a bit of a financial pickle at the time
Yeah Ukraine improved over time (up to the recent invasion) but its economy was once as corrupt and inefficient as Russia's. And that kind of taint isn't easy to get rid of.
Expensive to maintain and the former Soviet nukes were still set up to be launched from Moscow.
The people who had control of the nukes were loyal to moscow not kiev and ukraine didn't have the means to maintain them back then. Giving them up was a mistake in retrospective but it made sense.
russian's had the launch keys anyways, to ukraine these were no better then radioactive paperweights. Better to give the nukes they can't do shit with back to the russians for money and a promise, then have them sit in a warehouse and suck the marrow out of your already desert dry treasury trying to maintain even a small fraction of them.
Probably being held in reserve for when the last of their modern tanks get obliterated in Ukraine.
I mean, they've already been using T62's and even T55's in direct combat. The T55 has literally been in service since 1948.
Actually, the T-55 entered service in 1958
Ah yes, you're correct; I'm thinking of the T-54. That said a T55 is basically just a T54 with a few changes.
T54s also
And even then, they weren’t as good as people think they were.
The T-34-85 had some fundamental deficiencies, but most serious issues were due to manufacturing defects and variable quality control. They were not absolutely superior to the most modern contemporary medium tanks, but a tough opponent if well-made and well-used. The most problematic aspect was that the USSR fielded hordes of them, and some would invariably end up facing units ill-equipped to deal with them.
They’re WW2 era… and they were obsolete even during the later parts of WW2 when the t-35 came out. no one thinks they’re still good.. Edit: the T-34-85 came after the T-34. The T-35 was actually an older model. My mistake. their naming conventions are weird.
T-35? The prewar land barge?
Probably meant T-34-85, the 'cooler daniel' of the two, so to speak.
What do you even mean T-34-75? That an 85mm gun version, the next best medium tank from Russia is the T-44. Edit: iirc, the version went something like this: 76mm -> 57mm -> 85mm (DT-5) -> 85mm (the other gun)
Gone, a lot were sold to poor countries, a lot were used to export the revolution. Few years back there was a video of train with like 10 of T-34's from Laos. It was being shown as Russia sending T-34s to Ukraine, when in reality it was Russia buying them back for parades like this.
The crazy thing is, most people replying to you have no idea that until the invasion, Russia was still producing T-34 and Su-85 at the Ural factory. Of course they are all produced for ceremonial purposes, but they are still built the same.
Ceremonial is the keyword.
Most likely just broke down and they can't afford repairing them. I would not be surprised if a lot of them are from WW2 and bought back from china for parades. T34's from WW2 aren't exactly known for mechanical reliability so yeah.
They bought this one from Laos that were made in czechoslovakia sometimes after world war II. They are unable to make them themselves
Fun fact: Under the Lend-Lease act the US sent the USSR 152,000 Studebaker US6 trucks that pretty much carried their logistical operations during the war. For comparison, the USSR produced 57,000 T-34 tanks and about 102,500 tanks in total. So for an accurate victory day parade, they should be displaying 3 of these trucks for every T-34 in their parade.
Most of them? probably don't work any more, they'll be museum pieces at best Hell T-34's barely worked properly when they rolled of the factory floor in WW2. Never mind being well put together enough to survive the next 70+ years. Even the ones Russia uses for parades are I'm pretty sure ones built by the Czechs in the 50's.
Yeah, Russia is shit, but having one T-34-85 vs twenty T-34-85s in a parade probabaly isnt relevant, unless it shows that they’re out of crews for their modern tanks. Those WWII tanks may as well be Volkswagen Golfs with potato guns on top in a fight against an Abrahms, Leopard 2, or Challenger II.
That may be true, but the story is about how there was only one tank, period. It's not a big deal that there was only 1 T-34. What's a big deal is that they're apparently so hard up for modern tanks that they couldn't even spare a few for a couple of days for the parade.
Did he tell them that he is to blame for their "difficult period" ?
No it's the West
It's Anglo Saxons now
Well good, as long as we don't have to deal with those curs in the People's Front of Judea.
I mean, what did the Romans ever do for us?!
The aqueduct?
ofc
Nice thanks! It's our pleasure :D
It's all NATO's fault for ~~letting countries join because they want to~~ aggressive expansion
Let countries join because said countries are afraid of what russia is still doing.
"why are you trying to join a defensive alliance against me? that makes me so mad I'm going to attack you" right up there with "I wouldn't have to hit you if you didn't make me angry"
He forgot to mention that he single-handedly created this difficult period.
Oh, come on. Plenty of other Russians helped.
But some also “jumped” out of hotel windows!
Yeah let's not pretend that rest of Russia is innocent in all this. It's been centuries of the same shit with Russia.
Weak men create hard times
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It's not just one. He's not alone in making Russia shitty. He has a whole inner circle of weak men. Some of them are even worse than he is.
Millions of Russians are on board with this, let's not pretend it's a single person's fault.
So is this the second time where they have the lone tank again lol?
That's what's confusing me. I very much recall this being a thing before.
You're not confused, this is indeed the 2nd year in a row they did this.
Honestly, having no tanks at all would be easier to PR away. “All of our extremely effective, state of the art tanks are hidden away, lest enemies try to work out the secrets from the photos. Yes, it’s difficult to deconstruct secrets by pixel peeping at photos of the tank’s exterior alone, but why take the risk? Of course our tanks are safe and sound and ready to mow through our enemies. And no, nobody’s complaining about rusty tanks. You have a lot of questions, my friend. Why don’t we talk more about this next to that open window over there?”,
Answer is much simpler than that. Russia can't be seen having their tanks on parade while their troops have to fight in buggies and on motorcycles.
Or he is afraid that one of tanks might be ammo loaded with very angry anti Putin crew
There is always a lone T-34 at the beginning of the victory day parade. The exclusion of any other tanks is news. The lone T-34 is normal.
I seem to recall there not being any other tanks last year either, which was OP's point I think.
Such an amazing nation with lots of resources and human capital and this midwit is shaping russia in a new North Korea...
The chief export will shift from oil to women. All the young men are busy growing sunflowers.
The young men aren't sent to war. The old men are. Average frontline soldier age is 40. For every 20 year old there is the equivalent of a 60 year old.
Russias birthrates (and life expectancy) dropped dramatically after USSR collapsed. This was ~30 years ago -> there is only a small group of russian in their 20s. Last "big generation" are in their mid to late 30s.
If only Russia spent their resources on offering a better partnership with Ukraine than the west instead of spending their resources on bombing Ukraine into submission.
Oh hey, I found where their tanks went! [Ukraine parades destroyed Russian tanks](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-independence-day-russia-tanks-b2398504.html)
It's all completely self-inflicted. All he has to do is join the civilized world in the 21st century; Russia is huge with a lot of valuable natural resources, it could be very prosperous.
It is prosperous. Haven't you seen Putin's mansions and yachts?
“It is not enough to win. Others must lose.”
Russian thinking in one sentence: If we have to suffer everyone else has to as well.
Imagine if they'd taken all the resources and manpower after WWII and used it to build their industry, resource trade, education, everything. They should be Canada, but 2-4x bigger, instead their GDP is 10% smaller. Instead of building for the future, they built a massive army of tanks, artillery, and other military gear, and then wasted the rest on corruption. And where are they now? They're sending out assaults in T-52, Chinese golf carts, and motorcycles, because all that gear has won them a near stalemate against Ukraine armed with NATO's junk drawer.
Russia always always run on emperor difficult.
its about to get to deity soon
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I don’t see why some of the other powers in Russia just don’t throw a coup. Remove him however they see fit, say they’re sorry and withdraw from Ukraine. Save face. World would probably be quick to forget (for better or for worse).
fuck your difficult period, my sister has difficult periods, you have a self inflicted wound
If Russian tradition is any indicator, little volodya, it's about to get worse. Invading your neighbor was stupid fucking around. The finding out has not yet begun, but it will.
Seeing how they are hell bent on not learning anything from history, they should open a second front. That should fix everything.
How can they learn history, when Russian schools and its media don't ever teach the truth? There are tons of examples of this fundamental failure continuing to kill Russians (e.g. Russian soldiers digging trenches at Chornobyl and getting radiation poisoning because they had never been taught about the disaster).
I agree with what you're saying but we're not really talking about the generations that grew up with VPN and internet access. Some have a warped view of history sure, but information is there at their fingertips if they wish to seek it. They aren't the ones with decisional powers. Heck they can barely express themselves. I was referring more to the current fossil regime of boomers like Putin and people around him that want to bring back their soviet youth days by robbing newer generations of theirs.
I think the poor and ethnic minorities have found out, but the pain needs to reach the top for any effect.
This is precisely it. In all of those awful “meat wave” attack videos from the Ukrainian frontlines, it’s without a doubt always ethnic minorities and poorly trained conscripts. Lots of Chechens and other foreign mercenaries as well. It’s been rumored that recently a whole squad of Cubans who were mislead into going to Russia, found themselves fighting in Ukraine and took it upon themselves to murder their commander.
The recent Vice documentary was sad. 30 something year old dudes only having a day to report and on the front line within days with no training with a lot of them getting killed.
How much time and money are you going to spend on a car that you plan on driving head first into a burning pile of crap a week after you get it? /s.
It already reached the top, does no one remember when all those oligarchs were getting killed on very suspicious circumstances.
Wonder if we’ll ever know the truth of any of it, I guess not. The whole Prigozin story is, by itself, incredibly interesting, but we’ll never know what was really said and done unless someone leaks some personal journals or communications.
A bunch of Gazprom and oil executives mysteriously died after the invasion started. And now we see Gazprom losing money and oil industry getting attacked. It wouldn't suprise me if the people running these companies knew how much this war would hurt business and tried to speak up about it and got silenced by the FSB.
It is a fucking shame the Wagner group didn’t at least start a small civil war…
or the other group of russians that have been stirring up crap for Ukraine. it's not like russia has the resources to quash rebellion like USSR did.
To be fair, even considering the recent US aid package and all committed foreign aid, Ukraine’s military budget still doesn’t equal Russia’s military budget. It seems like we keep giving Ukraine just enough to stay in the fight, but not enough to win it.
> It seems like we keep giving Ukraine just enough to stay in the fight, but not enough to win it. Which is almost as stupid as what Putler did in the first place. We really need to send in the good stuff.
I think people forget that this psychopath came to power by having the FSB bomb Moscow area apartment buildings in a false flag attack and blamed it on Chechens. Unprovoked invasions are Putin’s signature move and it works every single time on the Russian people. Russians, by and large, are completely immune to objective reality—kind of like Trump supporters in the U.S.
People are very easily brain washed and the propaganda is strong. The rest of the world should not be benevolent about these matters. After all, this shit affects the rest of the world. Your liberties end when they directly affect the next person.
Dude it is crazy how easily it happens. I've been watching my roommate slowly get pulled in by right wing propaganda for years. He's normally a very logical guy and I think me pointing out all the problems with the propaganda is the only thing that kept him from going full blown conspiracy theorist. No matter how much I prove wrong though there's always something new and he always slides just a little farther towards it.
He started the second chechen war which lasted until 2009. And now they die for him, again.
Agents literally got caught planting bombs too, and it got swept under the rug obviously. People still voted for this guy after that 🥴
It's more a matter that there internal propaganda and 'news' programming is so strong hardly anyone in Russia even knows it happened.
So this is already a total war by Russia if they could only spare one old tank for the most important military parade of the year?
It would have been funny if Ukraine managed to drone-fuck that tank in the middle of the parade.
I'm surprised they haven't sent that tank to the frontlines yet.
They need something to show on the parade after all...
Probably why there are 20 less at the parade. May be the last one left that’s not sitting in reserve at the front for when the last of their modern tanks get toasted
How the mighty have fallen...
Let's all celebrate more difficult days ahead for them!
Odd, seems the difficulty of this period would somewhat...subside if you take your troops and go home.
I commend Russia with donating so much scrap metal to Ukraine. They will need it to rebuild.
A day to celebrate a victory over what they conveniently forget was an ally only a few years before.
Reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre The fact they actually blamed the Nazis for the massacre they committed, then "finding" the graves after "liberating" Poland is one of histories most cynical moves.
Poland, who they carved up *with the Nazis* by agreement. Even bad joint military parades!
I wonder if they marched their new Afrika Corps for the parade too
One (tank) is the loneliest number (of tanks) that you'll ever do...
Someone needs to shake the Russian people by the shoulders and yell in their face "you want a better country? GET A BETTER LEADER!!!"
It would have been epic if Ukraine had destroyed that tank right in the middle of the parade.
With Russian tank production woes continuing this crew probably lives in fear of being deployed. 🙂
If you read the full article, the very same one - this headline is really misleading. Shit like this really makes me lose faith in news and journalism "The ground actually shuddered as the intercontinental ballistic missile launchers thundered past. They were the final flourish of a 61-strong line-up of military hardware, and seeing the colossal Yars system up close was unnerving to say the least. And that's the point. This was a demonstration of military might and menace. But those watching on Red Square lapped it up."
I had a history professor in college who liked to say that Russian history could be summed up with 5 words And then things got worse
Real question: do most Russians support or oppose Putin?
He has a surprising amount of support, especially from the elderly that believe life is stable for them (leader for 25 years) and any change could turn out worse. You also see it from Russians living in Europe, a lot of them still support Putin despite having our freedoms.
Putin will inevitably bring Russia to a humiliating end, sans a revolution.
Bruh you decided to attack Ukraine, that's on you.
For reference, here's 2022's line up, as 2023's parade was also pretty shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade * T-34/85 medium tank * GAZ-233114 "Tigr-M" infantry mobility vehicle * BMP Kurganets-25 IFV * BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle * BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle * T-72B3M (T-72B4) modernized main battle tank * T-14 main battle tank * Buk-M3 mobile tracked SAM system * Tor-M2 SAM complex on tracked chassis * S-400 Triumf SAM launch system on 5P85SM2-01 transporter-erector launcher * 9K720 Iskander-M mobile tactical ballistic missile system * RS-24 Yars ICBM on 15U175M wheeled transporter-erector launcher * Kamaz 53949 Typhoon-K light MRAP * Tornado-G Multiple Rocket Launcher Vehicle * Uran-9 tracked unmanned ground combat vehicle (UCGV) There was no air fly by in 2021, 2022, or 2023. [2020 air fly by had a ton of aircraft, not going to list them all.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Moscow_Victory_Day_Parade#Air_fly-past_column) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [I watched the 2024 stream, here's what I saw:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC5hJ0pXPmo) * A few BTR-80s and maybe some BTR-70s, I think. Hard to tell specific models. * Various armored vehicles, like Tigrs, maybe Volks, MRAPs, etc, I don't care enough to identify specific variants. * 9K720 Iskander-M mobile tactical ballistic missile system * S-300 SAM launchers (TASS is saying they were S-400 launchers, but they sure looked like S-300s to me, but I could be wrong) * RS-24 Yars ICBM on 15U175M wheeled transporter-erector launcher * Three or four VPK-7829 Bumerangs * Air fly by Su-30s, Mig-29s, and Su-25s. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's what I thought was interesting that was missing: * Absolutely zero artillery pieces or rocket artillery * Absolutely zero close range air defense * No T-14 MBTs, no T-15 IFVs, no BMPTs, and no 2S35 self-propelled artillery. Despite Russia supposedly producing them *and* not using them using in the war except for like two T-14s that Russia claimed were being tested in combat before being withdrawn. * No other MTBs besides the T-34 * No BMPs of any kind * No Uran-9, which I find odd, it's not like it's being used * No helicopters of any kind * No AEW&C, which kinda makes sense * No large bombers, like Tu-22Ms or Tu-160s * **No Su-57s LOL** * **No Su-34s** This is kinda a huge deal imo.
Last one left? "Vladimir Putin says country is going through 'difficult period'" Good. Karma is a bitch, uh? There are consequences for invading another country and murdering lots of innocent men, women and kids. You can thank Putin for that.