noddy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 2:33 am
the folks worshipping Putin are an odd lot - the only thing unifying them is a love of macho bravado.
a wistful dream of returning to a simple world, were men are men and goats are nervous.
Russia has lots of border conflicts, half of them are propped up dictators with no local support, plenty of "rotten apples" to fall.
Belarus , Chechnya, are both rotten apples.
the 'stans are full of rotten apples
seems odd you only notice some of the rotten apples and are blind to the others.
When Putin took power, all Persian Golf and Macao Casinos were overflowing with Russian hookers, Russia was on her knee, retired people were selling their everything on the street for nothing , Chechnya, Dagestan wars was bleeding Russia
Putin saved Russia to what Russia is today
That is why his approval rating is over 77% right now , Gallup
https://news.gallup.com/poll/167408/put ... mpics.aspx
At the same time that Russians began to express more doubt about their leadership, Putin's approval ratings started to slip, although he still earned 77% approval in his new role as prime minister at the height of Russia's recession in 2009. Then-President Dmitry Medvedev -- the other partner in the power tandem -- debuted with a relatively lower 68% job approval rating that same year.
There no western leader with 77% approval rating by Gallup
Western media all fake news belittling Russia and Putin .. big mistake .. Russians will not forget this, and become convinced that Putin is right re West.
noddy , Putin looved West, he tried his best to include Russia in Europe
Europe said "F*ck off"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/26/worl ... ussia.html
Speaking in what he called “the language of Goethe, Schiller and Kant,” picked up during his time as a K.G.B. officer in Dresden, President Vladimir V. Putin addressed the German Parliament on Sept. 25, 2001. “Russia is a friendly European nation,” he declared. “Stable peace on the continent is a paramount goal for our nation.”
The Russian leader, elected the previous year at the age of 47 after a meteoric rise from obscurity, went on to describe “democratic rights and freedoms” as the “key goal of Russia’s domestic policy.” Members of the Bundestag gave a standing ovation, moved by the reconciliation Mr. Putin seemed to embody in a city, Berlin, that long symbolized division between the West and the totalitarian Soviet world.
Norbert Röttgen, a center-right representative who headed the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee for several years, was among those who rose to their feet. “Putin captured us,” he said. “The voice was quite soft, in German, a voice that tempts you to believe what is said to you. We had some reason to think there was a viable perspective of togetherness.”
Ask yourself, noddy, what happened ?
Putin , all Russians wanted to be integrated into Europe, be in NATO .. if so, Russia would align their culture towards European one.
But, looking what followed, one must conclude
Europe/West had other things in mind
Unfortunately
So, don't blame Russia , Putin .. Blame West
.
