And that’s why they are sending thousands of their citizens to help the russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine.

A true vanguard against imperialism!

Kurashov himself never testified. According to court reporters, his lawyer Anna Karpenko said her client “sincerely repented” and that he believed he had simply been following orders from above not to take any prisoners.

What a russian thing to say.

That’s fair.

enough material for russian propaganda to legitimate further acts of war.

You should watch some russian propaganda. They already show “news” pieces about how their nukes can reach London and other European cities. That ship has sailed.

I agree with you on all the points that you mentioned (with the exception of “people seeking political asylum”, with some qualifiers), however, I think you misunderstand the mentality of the overwhelming majority of russians who support genocidal imperialism.

Remember that when WW2 began, the russians collaborated with the Nazis to split up Europe. To this day, even allegedly liberal russians (who publicly oppose the full scale invasion) don’t really recognize this. They still think that people believe their victim-hood narratives and don’t see them for who they really are. This is a key point in understanding russian mentality and finding effective solutions to dealing with them.

These measures you describe are fundamentally carrots. There is nothing in what you’re saying that would affect the calculus of any russian. From the poorer ones in the provinces, to the rich professionals in Moscow to the leadership and oligarchs. The “costs” inherent to your proposals do not represent a risk of loss to change their behaviour.

You mention fighting fire with fire. I am not calling for a pointless suicide march. I am calling for a sober approach to truly raising the costs for all russians.

The first point is recognizing that russia is a continental empire that is currently occupying many independent nation and I am not about Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The list is much longer.

You need the strike the underbelly of the their colonial empire. Provide freedom fighters in countries like Chechnya with monetary and financial support, so the population at large feels that they have a chance to get rid of the russians. Provide them with weapons (at least manpads) so they can take down russian planes. Intel so they can utilize senior collaborators like Kadyrov.

It’s not only about Chechnya and Dagestan, but Buryatyi, Komi Republic, Yukutia…

Utilize the children of senior leadership and oligarchs when they are on vacation in Dubai or the Maldives.

Provide financial support for developing the language and culture of occupied peoples. Show them that they have a chance.

I strongly disagree with providing “political asylum” to ethnic russians (with some exceptions for individuals truly opposed to imperialism).

Look at Vladimir Kara-Murza, the darling of the west, who was freed in a prison exchange.

Let’s see, what does he think about russian imperialism:

“I spoke with a colleague who works extensively with prisoners of war on both sides. So she had spoken a lot with Ukrainian prisoners of war who had been released from Russia, and with Russian prisoners of war who are still in Ukraine. And she told me there’s another reason why Russian Defense Ministry recruits so many representatives of these national minorities — because, allegedly, they say it’s psychologically really difficult for Russians to kill Ukrainians. Because it is… Because we are the same… We are the same, these are very closely related peoples, as everyone knows. We have almost the same language, the same religion, centuries and centuries of shared history… But if it’s someone who comes from another culture, allegedly, it’s easier. That’s what this colleague told me yesterday. I had never thought of it that way. For me, it was mostly about economic reasons, but since she told me that yesterday, I’ve started thinking about that too.”

Same fucking bullshit about “same people” and some racism on top.

And this is Vladimir Kara-Murza, can you imagine what goes through the head of the average russian?

I don’t disagree (look at Schroeder, he is still walking free), but my point stands, the number is a tiny percentage of EU GDP.

Even the costs saving of using russian gas were something along the lines of 0.2% of EU GDP (and thats ignoring the cost of the caustic effect that the russians have had on democracy and governance in EU).

I used to live in russia (this was before they invaded Georgia). I have former friends who I know are supporters of russian genocidal imperialism (that’s why they became former friends), you can most probably still find the evidence for this on their social media.

That being said, based on chatting with another friend who uses FB, they are bit more careful these days and tend to go with more implicit public statements of support “I hope there will be peace soon and I can visit Moscow via a direct flight from London”.

And appeasing them has not led to war?

If they make small incursions into the Baltic nations, would you also support appeasement and enabling such actions?

The reason I ask is that I have close friends living in the central EU and they’ve definitely mentioned the presence of an attitude of cowardice among certain people “let them have the Baltics, they probably won’t get to us”.

What are those economic interests? What is the number? What is it as a percentage of annual EU GDP?

Of course there is support by EU of Ukrainian strikes against Russia.

But EU is not directly targeting russia even though russia is directly targeting the EU (including drone attacks and airspace violations).

The EU can’t even arrest Timchenko who is a citizen of Finland.

Not to mention basic counter-intelligencence programs such as a review of all russian citizen and permanent residents (e.g. benefiting form the putin regime, but also evidence of support for genocidal imperialism on social media) in Europe.

Thank god Merkel wasn’t the Chancellor when the russians launched the full scale invasion. For Ukraine, she would have been far worse than Trump. She would have sold us out for extermination by the russians (don’t forget Bucha and the massive kill list and internment program that was planned by the russians following “victory in three days”).

Even in retirement she is working for the russians:

Ex-German chancellor Merkel blames Poland and Baltic States for war in Ukraine (Oct 2025)

I hope she ends up in a russian interment camp. But that is unfortunately unlikely to happen. I will settle for her getting Alzheimer’s (I don’t say that lightly, close family member had it, it’s a nightmare).

And yet the Europeans are too cowardly to launch sabotage programs against the russians without US backing.

That being said, respect to Poland and the Baltic nations for taking a sober understanding of what the russians are like.

Merkel and Schroeder are some of the biggest enabler of russian genocidal imperialism in recent years.

“First, they went after the anti-war voices. Now there are none left, and the repressive machine cannot be stopped,” said the Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann.

…

Schulmann describes the divide as a struggle between two rival camps – the veteran propagandists tightly bound to the defence ministry and the Kremlin, known as the “loyalists”, and the sprawling grassroots movement of ultranationalist war supporters known as the “militarists” or Z-bloggers, after the letter that has become a symbol of the invasion.

I wouldn’t trust Schulmann, like most russian “liberals” they always have excuses for the behaviour of their society:

I continue to think that they started the war by mistake, based on incorrect information. This happens with autocracies: an information bubble forms, they live in it, they encourage loyalty over competence, good news is brought to the boss and he thinks that now is the right time to do Crimea 2.0, only even bigger and better, with a mighty strike on foreign territory [Donbas and Crimea is not foreign territory?] .

This was from 2024, 10 years after the russian annexation of Crimea, the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Schulmann, being the russian that she is, doesn’t even consider the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas as war.

And who the fuck is “they”? 85% of russians (with adjustments for preference falsification!) supported the annexation of Crimea and 65% of russians (at minimum, as per researchers, the real number is higher, even with preference falsification adjustments) supported the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

1.5 million Ukrainians having to leave the russian occupied parts of Donbas (including my family) and Crimea is no big deal for the russian “liberal” Ekaterina Schulmann.

This is what many Westerners don’t understand; if this is the attitude of an allegedly opposition minded russian, can you imagine what goes through the head of the median russian?

China and russia should foot the bill.

While I am pretty skeptical of US-style polemics on free speech, I of course support free expression, strong journalistic culture, limiting the influence of oligarch propaganda and significant safeguards to censorship.

That being said there are clear externalities to easy access to digital content distribution platforms that prioritize engagement above all else and do not bear responsibility for their actions.

I of course would never trust the CCP on this, but I think in the long term the externalities inherent to social media distribution will have to be accounted for.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures — a climate investment firm Gates founded — has bankrolled several nuclear startups, including fusion pioneer Commonwealth Fusion Systems

What exactly has CFS pioneered? I am genuinely curious.

Their wikipedia page states that they have yet to demonstrate net power generation (via fusion reactor) with the current target date set for 2027.

Their SPARC concept seems to be based on the ARC concept which is described as having the following key benefit:

The key technical innovation is to use high-temperature superconducting magnets in place of ITER’s low-temperature superconducting magnets. The proposed device would be about half the diameter of the ITER reactor and cheaper to build.

The sentence cites an article titled “Advances in magnet technology could bring cheaper, modular fusion reactors from sci-fi to sci-reality in less than a decade” from August 2015. Less than a decade indeed.

Gate goes on to say the following:

A growing number of big tech companies from Microsoft to Alphabet Inc.’s Google have inked power purchase agreements with nuclear startups [e.g. CFS] to secure future electricity supply. But Gates says there is still a long way off for those startups to deliver electricity at scale.

“Nuclear as a whole won’t be a gigantic contributor to data center electricity until 2035, and that’s assuming everything goes well,” he said.

I honestly don’t understand what the article is trying to say (both explicitly and implicitly). Gates believes that we need to invest more into fusion and fission to compete with china [and change our attitudes to nuclear power]?

I say all of this as someone who is generally supportive of nuclear power (I live in Ukraine, if not for our nuclear power plants, things would be far far worse with our electricity situation).

That’s why the term “committed support [for russian genocidal imperialism]” is arguably a much better characterization of Lula’s views than “turning a blind eye”.

What I read also concerned other regions, not only Crimea.

I will give Lula the benefit of the doubt (I am assuming he knows nothing about russia or Ukraine), but yes, you can kick the russians out of Crimea (under putin or otherwise). If you want to do it, one easy supportive action would have been to allow high impact strikes deep into russian territory from day one of the full scale invasion.

Or not reward them with Nord Stream II after they annexed Crimea in 2014 (Merkel).

Generally speaking, being meek, cowardly and corrupt rarely contributes to any goals (military or otherwise).

I believe Lula da Silva publicly supported the annexation of currently occupied territories. It was presented in a more diplomatic manner, but I am talking about outcomes.

Brazil hasn’t legally recognized the occupation like Nicaragua, but from what I’ve read in our local (Ukrainian) media, it’s more like committed support, as opposed to “turning a blind eye”.

I believe Brazil basically supports russian occupation of Ukrainian territories (and extermination of Ukrainian citizens, language and culture).

Let’s hope when one day Ivanishvili gets what he deserves and isn’t able to run away to Moscow.

The US is a bigger military force (qualitatively and quantitatively) than all other NATO members combined (although UK/France are no slouches and some smaller countries like Poland, Sweden, Finland hold their own). This is a critical issue in holding back the russians.

You denying this (and ignoring that russia is currently occupying 3 non-NATO members, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia), says everything we need to know.

The real irony is that I lean much more towards the Palestinian side, but that doesn’t mean I am going to buying into “DATO forced poor putin to invade1!”

Find a new boogeyman to justify a “defense” organization that has never acted in self-defense.

Made up in my head. Poland and Baltic nations totally didn’t join NATO to protect themselves from Russian invasions like in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.

You fake leftists are funny. Thankfully, no one gives a shit about you at all.