Sure, if you are trying to convince me that a lot of Russians support the idea of Russian Empire rebuilding style policy, i'm not one of the "Russians are poor little liberals like everyone else oppressed by oligarchs and FSB" people, i can believe that.
Some are, some fit the stereotypes, some just want to live in a country that is not looked down upon.
The tone of the first sentence is touching and very informative of your bias.
I'll play the world's smallest violin for Russia's half-aborted attempts at settler colonizing nearby countries.
I have had dealings with people from the Baltic shitters, everyone from the HRs to the developers was insufferable.
Estonians are somewhat better, but they all look down on us and think we work for peanuts.
For the unfortunate people mixed up in them, i have the same advice i have for the diverse migrants who want to change western countries to be more like their homelands.
If you hate it here, perhaps think the people here are mean to you and treat you badly, and you want to live somewhere that's more like your home, then go fucking home.
Once I generate a large enough amount of money and once a nice, cleansing recession hits so that all of the deadwood and kindling are gone I will probably fuck off to some place in central or South-East Asia.
Or move back to my ancestral village and finish renovating the villa, I might even fork out the cash to put in luxuries like indoor plumbing.
They don't even have the excuse that their homeland is a war torn failed state (yet) or overcrowded like Bangladesh. If they love Russia so much they can't learn the local language and care so much about its culture, and are supposedly treated so badly where they are, why don't they move there? It's not like the Balts are sending everyone they catch on the border to death camps, they would fucking roll out a red carpet for them to fuck off.
Maybe because they were born there and are stubborn, like a lot of other people.
Crimea river. It's nothing other countries don't do or deal with, and Russia is in no way behind the world average in this kind of stuff.
Yes, surrender sure is a way to defuse a tension with an expansionist power next door that has colonized them already in the past.
But whether it's a good way... let's not ask the people who are biased towards it.
Lol... Russia first. If you want to use paranoia to excuse shitty behavior for Russia, we have better excuses.
Yeah, I am not buying the whole "Muh new Russian Empire" narrative.It will overstretch the Russians and they remember well how much maintaining the Warsaw Pact cost them, I think most have far more realistic goals in mind.
So, first off Russia needs to stop thinking it will be an Empire or a Soviet Union like entity again. Ever. See, i can be a smartass too.
Nice try, asshole. Maybe when NPT dies through shenanigans in Asia and ME. Until then, becoming Europe's Iran or NK would only help Moscow's schemes regarding us and a lot, so no.
Oh, and India, Pakistan and Israel are not on the list?
They all forced their way into the 'Nuclear club' as did France to an extent.
You know, I thought that you Poles were all bluster and revanchism and greed for land coupled with some weirdo conspiracy theories talking to you and the other bellicose Pole is starting to make me think that you really are afraid to some extent of the Russkies.
We still need to have beneficial economic ties with countries that aren't trying to turn us into a satrapy and ways to deal with hybrid warfare style threats that Moscow is more than eager to use, don't play smartass games with me like that, stick your "neutrality" you know where.
Yeah, beneficial bilateral ties are a good thing, but aligning with you means that you will start running and jumping and dragging your allies along at the word Russia.
"Negotiate" is such an abused word these days. We don't want to negotiate the things they want, and they don't want to negotiate the things we want.
Since when Russia does not see us as a part of their "near abroad" and if not, what stops it from seeing us as their "near abroad" again whenever convenient?
If Russians "reassert themselves in their near abroad", this obviously is also our "near abroad" if not us too, so we absolutely have good reasons to go ballistic.
They are 5x your population, 55x your territory, have a sizable military-industrial complex, thousands of nukes and the ability to launch their own satellites, are self sufficient in energy and a lot of other raw materials.
It's hard to avoid noticing how you complain about Poland's attempts, real and imagined, to "reassert itself in its near abroad" and paint it as some sort of unreasonable nostalgia for past greatness... but at the same time consider Russia's far more aggressive and ambitious attempts at the same something natural that everyone should just roll with and negotiate (their surrender) to. Projection much?
I'll offer you a compromise then - i can accept that double standard, but we have to switch the standards around to the other country, how about that?
I am pretty sure you guys don't just want to defend yourselves, a lot of you salivate at the chance of getting large portions of Ukraine and Belarus back and from what I have read of your treatment of the Orthodox and cirillic-using Slavs I am not really all that inclined to to trust you, especially since anything Russia-related makes you act like a bull that has seen red.
I have absolute zero tolerance for this "sphere of influence for me, not for thee" crap Russia simps try to sell. This shit is exactly why Russia has such disappointing and falling levels of soft power in the near-abroad.
You tried to Color Revolution Belarus, you are very chummy with the Lithuanians and you have been asserting yourselves a lot.
However I doubt that you will get much traction in Orthodox areas.
As to spheres of influence, well, I am perfectly happy to cede to you half of Macedonia, Serbia, the non-Hungarian and non-Bulgarian parts of the merged invented successor state of Wallachia and Transilvania.
As long as you do not abuse any orthodox slavs
cough cough aside for Serbians and Macedonians cough cough, ugh, something stuck in my throat or ethnic Russians you can have the shitty Baltics.
You can also have Bosnia, the western bits of Ukraine and Czechia, Slovakia if you and they like each-other.
However I do not trust you to not get a bit too greedy or for the success to go to your head and for you to decide to be more pushy, overstretch and dream up more
Promethean nonsense or decide that all of us are a bunch of serfs on account of our Orthodox backwardness and cyrillic usage that you can just boss around.
