[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by Pointman

I'm calling you out on that. You are just making stuff out of your rear end. I've been against Ukrainian war from the start, I was also against Crimea annexation, and I have decided to leave Russia for good long before any threat of conscription was on horizon. You can see it from two things in my posts. First, I say that the biggest threat by far for an average Russian is losing a job. Which means that mobilization is not in play at all. Second is I say in April 2022, that waiting times are very long and I expect to be done with a country by 2023. Which means I expected to stay in Russia for at least next 9 months, so I was under no immediately danger and didn't see one coming any time soon.

Such bologna. You were defending putin in 2022. That's a fact. Multiple posts of you defending putin.

This you?

Originally Posted by Pointman

How did Putin broke the rules? If you mean Crimea, it happened long after NATO has been illegally expanding.

Originally Posted by Pointman

This is true. It's also true however, that there's no real need to remove Putin from power. The current crises stems from NATO trying to get right to Russia's borders by taking in Ukraine. When Russia put missiles to Cuba in 1962, USA went nuts, and deservingly so. This is the same in reverse. Putin is mad the west doesn't honour agreement about not expanding NATO

Originally Posted by Pointman

I get what you're saying, but when Russia did the same in Chechnya, westerners said it's a war. You can word it differently like "prevent Ukrainian regular army from moving into the region and massacre it's own people" (who are rebels and thus mostly criminals). Basically Putin's point is that he wants to prevent blood shed that would happen had he not recognized rebel republics. It is kinda phony, but not as egregious as it may sound

Originally Posted by Pointman

We are NOT trying to re-create a Soviet Union. We couldn't care less if Moldova is going to join us back. Or Kyrgyzstan. Crimea is a bit of a special case, as it is historically a Russian, not Ukrainian, land. And even Crimea annexation happened as a response to the coup that toppled an elected president. Otherwise though, no reasonable Russian wants a war just so we could look at the map and say "Look, Armenia is in the same country as us now, cool. I can go visit there. Wait, I could do it before the war anyway, so what was the point".

Originally Posted by Pointman

How? Being power junkie and habitually murdering anyone who is even remotely a threat to his position does not necessarily imply that Putin is bad at actually doing his job. Conversely, a democratically elected president voted in by The People may turn out to be horrible president. This is why Russians don't want to fight for the sake of some Freedom and Democracy. They look at USA and how they've got to vote for either keeping Trump or replacing him with Biden, and no other options, and wonder whether Democracy and Free Elections would really give us any better leaders than what we have now

Originally Posted by Pointman

I would take Putin over both Bushes, Trump and Biden. Probably not over Obama and Clinton. Putin is also notorious for putting really skilled people in key government roles.