russia leapfrogging large economies to become the 4th largest in the world while under ??? how many us sanctions? how do you explain it if not affording them their competence at meeting those challenges imposed?

"In 2014, after a well-prepared[3] US-sponsored anti-Russian coup in Kyiv, Ukrainian ultranationalists banned the official use of Russian and other minority languages in their country and, at the same time, affirmed Ukraine’s intention to become part of NATO. Among other consequences, Ukrainian membership in NATO would place Russia’s 250-year-old naval base in the Crimean city of Sebastopol under NATO and hence U.S. control. Crimea was Russian-speaking and had several times voted not to be part of Ukraine. So, citing the precedent of NATO’S violent intervention to separate Kosovo from Serbia, Russia organized a referendum in Crimea that endorsed its reincorporation in the Russian Federation. The results were consistent with previous votes on the issue.

Meanwhile, in response to Ukraine’s banning of the use of Russian in government offices and education, predominantly Russian-speaking areas in the country’s Donbas region attempted to secede. Kyiv sent forces to suppress the rebellion. Moscow responded by backing Ukrainian Russian speakers’ demands for the minority rights guaranteed to them by both the pre-coup Ukrainian constitution and the principles of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). NATO backed Kyiv against Moscow. An escalating civil war among Ukrainians ensued. This soon evolved into an intensifying proxy war in Ukraine between the United States, NATO, and Russia."

from former ambassador chas freeman. you know what came after this ? a brokered peace agreement by osce france and germany in which various terms were settled which neither france, nor germany, nor ukraine were intending to uphold. this is the minsk agreement.

there’s a lot you like to leave out, and i’m sure you’ll deign to forget this history, too.

edit: to the one user who upvoted me: i see you, bless your heart and open mind- more than makes up for the dozens upon dozens of salty idealogues

i was hauling 20 percent of china’s tea in my car when you stole it.

if you’re a country and 9 out of 10 of your papers are funded by USAID, you’d be good with that?

that is because zelensky and europe don’t want peace.

reddit is promoting divisive conservative rhetoric? that could just be conservatives being conservatives. this is a moment of strength for them and their cause. they could be rallying in awe of what is taking place-- you don’t have to like it but maybe stop trying to push everything you don’t like or agree with out of every corner of the internet and learn to promote your own rhetoric better. it probably didn’t occur to you that they (conservatives) do make up a large percentage of the population of this country.

in case you are not aware, the online version is hosted in china and has to comply with their laws… if you don’t like censorship you can locally install one of the distilled models which are: open source

so you were gonna vote for kamala and the continuation of genocide in gaza, yeah?