User Controls
Russia's getting boring
-
2019-02-25 at 8:01 AM UTC
Originally posted by Octavian I just finished a good book, "I'm going to ruin their lives", although they,(Medvedev & Putin) appear to have different agendas at times, both have the same end goals. It's all been perfectly planned to create an aura of there being "more autonomy" as opposed to the same brand of United Russia. You can't help feel sorry for those that actually thought there was going to be change by Medvedev becoming President. Putin has been the all omnipotent power house since 1999 in one form or another and people have gotten use to, and would feel a sense of loss without him. The same was felt by many surprisingly in 1953 when Stalin died. By playing upon the national sentiment of patriotism and anti westernism, he's created a fatherly persona and a need to keep him.
That's just it, for the last 15 years at least Putin's had over 70% approval and Medvedev's peaked at something like 20%. Statistically, nobody's interested in what he's selling - there's no reason for the party to give the illusion of plurality if nobody's interested in the other option. I suspect it's more along the lines of keeping the 'fifth column' in the government, but in areas where they can do minimal damage (like Kudrin being assigned to the Accounts Chamber, good primer here) - in theory the prime minister has significant power, but still has to answer to the party.
The peoples' backing of Putin is far more practical than emotional like western think-tanks like to claim - he's literally rebuilt the state from the ground up after Yeltsin sold it off, specifically rebuilding state infrastructure and the military at a pace that outsiders thought impossible. More recently he's been able to use the Crimea sanctions and oil price manipulations to buy back many of those privatised industries and has transformed Russia into Europe's biggest agricultural exporter.
As an amusing aside, last year the statistic was that Russia had lost ~$40 billion in trade in the period of the sanctions, and the EU had lost ~$80 billion. It was impossible to disentangle the losses due to petroleum price drops, so it's entirely possible Russia suffered no significant trade loss as a result of those sanctions.
Originally posted by Octavian The Boris Nemtsov murder was far too brazen.
Nemtsov was killed by Chechen soldiers who considered him, primarily, a blasphemer against Allah and also a traitor to Russia. There are significant questions around the incident, but no-one has found trace of a 'mastermind' behind the attack, even though western foreign policy think-tanks blame the Kremlin for 'silencing a critic' and Russian nationalist groups blame the CIA for 'attempting to start a coup'. Given the realities of the time, neither makes sense in terms of risk-reward.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2019-02-25 at 8:39 AM UTC
Originally posted by Firekrochfatty germans & russians seem to always have overindulged in alcohol. granted, they seem to handle it somewhat better than many other breed of peoples— well, the irish, are another liquor toting lot. lol 😋
There's some variation on the genes which dictate cytochrome p450 enzyme production that only has been found in irish people. It helps metabolize alcohol by giving it's humans an abundance of these enzymes, which is why redheads/irish people need more of some drugs than other people. Their bodies are better at getting rid of them.
Likewise, a lot of Asians and Native Americans (north and south) have a gene which does the opposite, and also makes them get very red when drunk. It's basically the same reason that some ethnicities are lactose intolerant and others aren't. These metabolic differences are pretty interesting honestly. It goes far beyond milk and alcohol. -
2019-02-27 at 6:14 AM UTC
Originally posted by aldra That's just it, for the last 15 years at least Putin's had over 70% approval and Medvedev's peaked at something like 20%.
Apparently now it's nosedived to like 30% over the last few months, largely thanks to appearing to back Medvedev's pension reform and new taxes, as well as refusing to get directly involved in the Ukraine along with a bunch of less interesting internal political issues -
2019-02-27 at 6:48 AM UTC
Originally posted by aldra Apparently now it's nosedived to like 30% over the last few months, largely thanks to appearing to back Medvedev's pension reform and new taxes, as well as refusing to get directly involved in the Ukraine along with a bunch of less interesting internal political issues
its his last term isnt it ? -
2019-02-27 at 10:55 AM UTC
-
2019-02-27 at 11:52 AM UTCIn Russia you can have two terms then give someone else a go; you can serve as many times as you can get elected as long as you don't have more than two consecutive terms.
For Putin in particular yeah, seems likely this will be his last term. He's talked a lot about what he plans on doing outside of politics lately, and has said that he 'doesn't plan on being president forever'. It's kind of worrying, because he's fairly moderate using his rivals as a yardstick, and I don't see any of them measuring up in terms of being a statesman... A lot of the things he did he was only able to do thanks to his background in the KGB/FSB and connections there -
2019-02-27 at 1:49 PM UTCThere will be another handpicked die hard Putin successor I should imagine. Ex FSB.
-
2019-02-27 at 1:50 PM UTCHillary Clinton will be the next Russian President.
-
2019-02-27 at 1:59 PM UTCIs Putin the most powerful man on earth?
Trump certainly isn't judging from his whiny Twitter feed. -
2019-02-27 at 3:52 PM UTC
-
2019-02-27 at 3:55 PM UTC
Originally posted by aldra In Russia you can have two terms then give someone else a go; you can serve as many times as you can get elected as long as you don't have more than two consecutive terms.
For Putin in particular yeah, seems likely this will be his last term. He's talked a lot about what he plans on doing outside of politics lately, and has said that he 'doesn't plan on being president forever'. It's kind of worrying, because he's fairly moderate using his rivals as a yardstick, and I don't see any of them measuring up in terms of being a statesman… A lot of the things he did he was only able to do thanks to his background in the KGB/FSB and connections there
he will still be in charge because a lot of his monies and assets are still in russia so russias wellbeing is his wellbeing.
i dont see or hear panama or paradise leaks mention of him having stashed much overseas. -
2019-02-27 at 3:56 PM UTC
-
2019-02-27 at 4:26 PM UTC
-
2019-02-27 at 4:57 PM UTC
-
2019-02-27 at 6:33 PM UTCThere's no mention Putin's US assets being frozen under the Magnitsky act. Trump wouldn't dare anyway.
