Russia

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

What was Trump doing for him?   
 

Not arming Ukraine?  Nope

 

Less NATO funding?  Nope

 

Nord Stream approval? Nope

 

So what exactly did Trump do for Russia that they aren’t getting from Biden?   Specifics would be great.   your sound bites are cute and probably gives you lots of laughs but are meaningless stupid attacks.   Have some substance at point.  

 

So, what is Biden doing that Trump didn't do?  You're the first one that claimed Biden was causing the problems.  Let's see some specifics.  Or, your comments were nothing more than meaningless stupid attacks.  Some substance at this point would be on point.

[FrantzHardySwag]

Germany shutting down already operating nuclear power plants, in favor of Russian gas is still one of the more stupid energy decisions I've ever seen. 

[commando]

does anyone remember when trump told the G-7 that  Russia had the right to annex crimea because many of it's residents spoke russian?  putin didn't even have to sell propaganda points as he had trump making them for him.

 

and in that line of thought...does anyone remember what excuse Hitler used to occupy territory and countries before the start of WW2?   do they seem familiar to anything recently happening concerning Ukraine?

[knapplc]

8 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Germany shutting down already operating nuclear power plants, in favor of Russian gas is still one of the more stupid energy decisions I've ever seen. 

 

Merkel was a flawed leader. 

[Scarlet]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russia-invaded-georgia-10-years-ago-dont-say-america-didnt-respond/2018/08/08/ba4279d4-9b3e-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html

 

This is behind a paywall so I copied it below.  Russia is currently using the exact playbook it used back in 2008 when it invaded Georgia.  That'll put to rest the Trumpist notion that Russia only invades sovereign nations under Obama or Biden because they are "weak".

 

 

Quote

Ten years ago this week, during the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Georgia. Post columnist Robert Kagan marked the anniversary Wednesday by connecting the dots from Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Russia’s democratic neighbor — and the response to it by the United States and the rest of the West — to the many challenges facing the liberal world order.

 

It is important to note several points for the historical record.

We in the Bush administration did recognize the looming danger of Russian military action in Georgia. Beginning in the spring of 2008, the United States and Germany tried to negotiate a de-escalation of the growing tensions in the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The effort would have physically separated Russian peacekeepers from the Georgians and established much-needed “rules of the road” in how they operated. (There should never have been Russian peacekeepers in these breakaway regions to begin with — but that is another story.)

 

It was in that context that I told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili — privately — that the Russians would try to provoke him and that, given the circumstances on the ground, he could not count on a military response from NATO. I did not “blame” him for the crisis — and I still do not. This was simply a statement of fact in an attempt to temper the actions of the Georgians, whose passions were understandably inflamed.

 

When the Russians launched their invasion, the United States focused first and foremost on protecting the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and the duly elected Georgian government. In that regard, U.S. military transport returned Georgian armed forces from Iraq so that they could defend their homeland. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told his Russian counterpart that we were doing so and not to interfere. And, as Saakashvili recounted in his own op-ed

Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, we launched a “humanitarian convoy,” escorted by U.S. warships. This was a signal to the Russians.

Was there a threat to Tbilisi? Indeed there was: In a phone conversation days into the crisis, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, told me there were three conditions for ending the war. First, the Georgians should sign a “no-use-of-force pledge” in the breakaway regions. Second, the Georgian forces had to return to their barracks. These were acceptable to the Georgian government and its allies.

 

However, the third condition, which he said was “just between us,” shocked me. “Misha Saakashvili has to go.”

 

I told Lavrov that the American secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister couldn’t have a secret conversation about the overthrow of a democratically elected president. “I’m going to call everyone I can and tell them that Russia is demanding the overthrow of the Georgian president,” I told him. He was furious. But we did just that. And the Russians’ true motives were revealed to the world. Saakashvili remained in power, and Georgian democracy survived.

 

By the way, as Kagan noted, the United States did ask the French — who held the presidency of the Council of the European Union at the time — to try to negotiate an end to hostilities. Ultimately, they could not — and I personally negotiated the final agreement that ended the war. Sitting in Saakashvili’s office — working from the French draft — we made important changes, including altering the geographical limits of where Russian troops would be allowed so that they could not threaten the Georgian capital.

The United States is sometimes constrained in what it can do in circumstances such as the Georgian conflict. We focused our energies on stopping Moscow from overthrowing a new democracy that then-Russian Prime Minister Vladi­mir Putin hated with a virulence that is hard to overstate. America and its allies raised $1 billion in aid for the Georgians. Sanctions levied on the separatist regions remain largely in place, so Moscow foots the bill for its adventurism in territory that is difficult to develop economically.

And we reminded our European friends that, only months before, they had denied Georgia and Ukraine a closer association with NATO through the Membership Action Plan — against American and Eastern European wishes. That was indeed a bad signal to Putin.

We could not deter Moscow in this case. But we did act, and Georgia survived. It is still a sad story — and perhaps Putin did take the wrong lessons from it. In order to deter him in the future, however, we need to first get the facts right about the past.

 

The bolded about the Russians demanding the removal of a democratically elected president and the Bush administration not having any of that is where I have doubts that TFG would have stood up to Putin.  Did he ever speak up in defense of democracy?

[knapplc]

1 minute ago, Scarlet said:

TFG would have stood up to Putin

 

The same TFG who held multiple closed-door meetings with Putin to which the American taxpayers have zero insight. 

[Archy1221]

12 hours ago, commando said:

how about the 4 years of peace part being false?   russia and ukraine have been shooting since something like 2014or so.    russia has taken territory from ukraine that has over 7,000,000 population.    just because trump was helping russia in that battle doesn't mean there were 4 years of peace.   

What territory did Russia take from Ukraine, and when did it happen?  How did Trump help with that? 

[Archy1221]

40 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

So, what is Biden doing that Trump didn't do?  You're the first one that claimed Biden was causing the problems.  Let's see some specifics.  Or, your comments were nothing more than meaningless stupid attacks.  Some substance at this point would be on point.

That’s not how this works.  I didn’t say Biden was causing the problems.  I asked why Putin was doing this now?  Maybe you read someone else’s post and got confused

I can copy and paste mine for you if you want.   But since you actually did make some claims, the evidence or rational behind them would be awesome.   

[commando]

11 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

What territory did Russia take from Ukraine, and when did it happen?  How did Trump help with that? 

the territories were attacked under Obama.  Obama placed sanctions on Russia and started giving military aid to Ukraine.    Trump came in and eased sanctions, blocked military aide, and spread Russian propaganda about Ukraine and sided with Putin when telling the G-7 that Russia had a right to annex Crimea because much of the population there spoke Russian.  today the far right supports Russia because Biden is sending military aid to Ukraine and going to sanction Russia..   the dems pushed back on easing sanctions and cutting aid to Ukraine....a few republicans joined with the dems on that push back......but majority of republicans sided with trump and Russia against Ukraine.  

[commando]

13 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

That’s not how this works.  I didn’t say Biden was causing the problems.  I asked why Putin was doing this now?  Maybe you read someone else’s post and got confused

I can copy and paste mine for you if you want.   But since you actually did make some claims, the evidence or rational behind them would be awesome.   

you did strongly imply that Biden wasn't doing enough to stop Putin.  what would you have Biden do that he isn't?  send troops to Ukraine?    send nukes to Ukraine?   declare war on Russia?  what in your opinion did Biden do wrong?

[BigRedBuster]

17 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

Good thing the adults are back in charge at the WH!  Those four years of peace were awful.   
 

Wonder why Putin is acting this way now?   We were all told he had his stooge in place from 2016-2020.  Why wouldn’t he have done all this then?  Maybe everyone was talking about the wrong stooge?  The one who, along with his Boss, told Romney to get out of the 80’s when talking Russia?  

Yeah, this is how this works.  I'll copy your post so you don't have to go through the effort.  
 

This is implying that Putin is doing what he's doing because Biden is in office instead of Trump.

 

So, what is different now compared to between 2016 and 2020?

[FrantzHardySwag]

2 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

So, what is different now compared to between 2016 and 2020?

Putin has Europe by the balls energy wise. He figures he can waltz in to Ukraine and if Europe doesn't want to pay out the a$$ for energy, they'll let him do it with minimal backlash. Don't think it's a Trump/Biden thing, it's a leverage thing. 

[BigRedBuster]

1 hour ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Germany shutting down already operating nuclear power plants, in favor of Russian gas is still one of the more stupid energy decisions I've ever seen. 

 

7 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Putin has Europe by the balls energy wise.

These two comments go well together.

[Archy1221]

31 minutes ago, commando said:

the territories were attacked under Obama.  Obama placed sanctions on Russia and started giving military aid to Ukraine.    Trump came in and eased sanctions, blocked military aide, and spread Russian propaganda about Ukraine and sided with Putin when telling the G-7 that Russia had a right to annex Crimea because much of the population there spoke Russian.  today the far right supports Russia because Biden is sending military aid to Ukraine and going to sanction Russia..   the dems pushed back on easing sanctions and cutting aid to Ukraine....a few republicans joined with the dems on that push back......but majority of republicans sided with trump and Russia against Ukraine.  

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/03/05/dont-rehabilitate-obama-on-russia/amp/
 

But not everything is relative; we should not slip into collective amnesia over the Obama administration’s weak and underwhelming response to Russian aggression. Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime. His foreign policy was firmly grounded in the premise that Russia was not a national security threat to the United States. In 2012, Obama disparaged Mitt Romney for exaggerating the Russian threat—“the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama quipped. This breezy attitude prevailed even as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, and hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Obama’s response during these critical moments was cautious at best, and deeply misguided at worst. Even the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by so much propitiation and restraint elsewhere that it didn’t deter Russia from subsequent aggression, including the risky 2016 influence operation in the United States. Obama, confident that history was on America’s side, for the duration of his time in office underestimated the damaging impact Russia could achieve through asymmetric means.

 

France and Germany spearheaded the Minsk ceasefire process in 2014-2015, with U.S. support but without Washington at the table. The Obama administration did coordinate a far-ranging sanctions policy with the European Union—an important diplomatic achievement, to be sure. But to date, the sanctions have only had a middling effect on the Russian economy as a whole (oil and gas prices have hurt much more). And given that sanctions cut both ways—potential value is destroyed on both sides when economic activity is systematically prohibited—most of the sacrifice was (and continues to be) born by European economies, which have longstanding ties to Russia

[suh_fan93]