For real? Quebecians are a special breed

Poutine is overrated btw, never got the hype.
Great drunk food tho

Not a huge fan either tbh

I guess majority of french people never heard of it so they assume the guy supports Putin in french his name is written Vladimir Poutine he is laughed at in Quebec for it

Lol so unfair n lazy ppl... I love Poutine, how can u not love unhealthy foods like fries flooded in gravy n some cheese

Art Morte wrote:Blaming any of this on NATO is a lazy and dumb analysis. NATO is a defensive alliance that lies dormant unless a member is attacked. NATO was never, ever going to attack Russia. Ukraine wasn't even close to gaining NATO membership; indeed they didn't even meet the criteria. Putin knew all this. Blaming NATO is just convenient for his domestic propaganda - sad that it works on other people, too, apparently.

NATO as a collective wouldn't attack Russia, but individual members on Russia's borders may feel emboldened to challenge its influence in the region and pursue their own geostrategic interests without fear of consequences. At least that's what the Russian ruling elite fears.

A good example of this is what happened in Georgia in 2008. The mere mention of Georgia as a potential NATO member emboldened its president to attack Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. Do you think he would've been this bold had he not been operating under (ultimately false) confidence that West had his back?

Fear of NATO's eastward expansion is something that worried Russia's ruling elite years before Putin became president. Soviet officials were asking for assurances that NATO won't expand eastward as early as 1989. Madeleine Albright's memoir recounts tense discussions she had with Yeltsin's entourage in the 1990s and how many of them viewed NATO expansion as an existential threat to their country.

And let's stop acting as if Ukraine joining NATO is some made-up propaganda piece by Putin. Smaller and less strategically important former soviet states have already joined and last I checked, the Bush administration campaigned heavily for offering them a Membership Action Plan in 2008. They were slowly and surely drifting to the EU and NATO sphere of influence and what we're seeing right now is Russia's effort to put a permanent kibosh on that. This will either be done through regime change or by getting the west to recognize it as a permanent neutral entity.

Art Morte wrote:Blaming any of this on NATO is a lazy and dumb analysis. NATO is a defensive alliance that lies dormant unless a member is attacked. NATO was never, ever going to attack Russia. Ukraine wasn't even close to gaining NATO membership; indeed they didn't even meet the criteria. Putin knew all this. Blaming NATO is just convenient for his domestic propaganda - sad that it works on other people, too, apparently.

For the sake of argument, let's physically swap the places of Europe and USA. So, now the states from Florida down south to Maine up north share a land border with Russia. Would anyone argue that "well, these states are otherwise part of the USA, but when it comes to military and security, they have to be on their own, not part of the wider armed forces of the USA, to keep Russia happy." ? Obviously no one would argue that. So why do people argue that for independent European nations?

If Putin can't handle that countries at his borders form defensive alliances to maximize their security, that is 100% Putin's problem and 100% of this war in Ukraine is on Putin. Anything else is appeasement and it doesn't work on dictators. Didn't work on Hitler, doesn't work on Putin.

Well to be fair Serbians in 1999  would have plenty to say about it

So Israel as mediator ...
on paper it makes sense , atm it's neutral about it.
Good relations with Russia, Ukraina and of course USA

Since when is drifting into a different sphere of influence argument for an invasion. Just don't get what day and age some of you think we live in.

If tomorrow Mexico were to announce "we are pulling out of NAFTA, signing a trade deal with China and we're thinking lf signing a self defense pact with them" and the US then invaded them, would anyone here think "oh yeah, checks out, they had it coming "? It would be ridiculous.

If Russia wanted to keep Ukraine in their influence they should give them a better deal, assurances to their independence, make them want to be in it. Threatening to erase them is completely unacceptable.

The US would assassinate those politicians in Mexico before it ever gets close to that... done it plenty of times before around the world.  Did it to Iran allow the Shah to come back.

Did it to Murrieta according to many because the CIA was the biggest drug dealer in the world back then (probably still is frankly) to finance its various proxy wars.  Murrieta threatened that.

This war is shocking.  An assassination would not have been.  Very messy way to go about things.  I would not be surprised if this escalates to World War 3.  Losing this war is not an option for Putin.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Since when is drifting into a different sphere of influence argument for an invasion. Just don't get what day and age some of you think we live in.

But that's what superpowers do and that's how America has been acting since the end of WWII. It doesn't make it right, it's just literally how the world works. Do I have to remind you that the US invaded a faraway impoverished nation in south Asia east just because it considered the emergence of a communist regime a threat to its hegemony in the region?

And regarding your Mexico scenario...jeez if only we had some frame of reference that could help us predict how the US would react if a Latin-American country drifted out of its sphere of influence...if only...

... and then russians had their own failed war in Afghanistan

Digging the horrors of the cold war tells us that escalation is not good for anyone even the most powerful have to pay a hefty price

Putin is using Ukraine as blackmail instrument and he planned this invasion since many years. The sole responsible for this escalation of violence is Putin, directly responsible with concrete acts, not hypotetically responsible like Nato who supposedly provoke him. By international law Ukraine is a sovereign country they can be allied with whoever they want. I can understand why they turn their back on Russia whose leader don't even recognize their legitimity. Putin is a paranoid megalomaniac playing the sudeten card. To talk of denazification is another joke. Zelensky is jewish and the russian militia trying to assassinate him are neonazis.

@farfan got me there.

But like sports said the US has historically reported to special ops, assassination and funding coups. it hasn't done invasions in this part of the world and I do think people would react differently to it.

But for arguments sake replace it with Canada, which might be more analogous to what Ukraine means to Russia anyways.

USA will not invade another Nato country, it's the main incentive to join Nato

Their favorite method is to assassinate and put someone who will comply in place

But if they bombarded Montreal and Toronto tomorrow i'd not expect it to escalate like Ukraine situation. The canadian identity is not well defined enough, their is no real motives for national pride, majority would choose to just surrender and become officially 51st state. Only in Quebec i would expect some resistance, broken down in less than a day. Then yes it may lead to cold war between USA vs europe but very unlikely to happen. Even USA have nothing to gain from it.

A better example of what could really affect world peace is China vs Taiwan

Can we stop with these obtuse definitions of what NATO is and how it actually works? It's not a country club where individuals just submit an application and wait for approval. Everything is initiated by the US. You guys are somehow forgetting that the Bush administration campaigned heavily for Georgia and Ukraine to receive a membership action plan despite strong opposition from France, Germany, and other European countries..precisely because they feared what's happening now.

Yes you submit an application and wait for approval

It's not a simple process but that's essentially it

https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/why-isnt-ukraine-already-in-nato-heres-what-it-takes-to-join-the-30-country-alliance/articleshow/89915085.cms

Finland and Sweden don't want to join since they prefer neutrality. From what i understand Ukraine want to join for protection because Russia is a threat for them. Yanukovitch the pro-russian president wanted none of it.

From another article
NATO has also made clear that having “unresolved external territorial disputes” weighs against being admitted, a consideration that gives Putin an edge, since Russian forces occupy internationally recognized parts of Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and Ukraine (Crimea).

I can't believe I'd ever say this because I actually thought he was extremely smart... but Putin is out of his depth here or lost his mind.

Take lessons with what the US is doing.  Not the president or politicians of course... but the military, security, and intelligence institutions.

They are talking to Poland about Poland giving Ukraine its modern, Russian no less, fighter planes and the US would backfill Poland with F16s.  Why?  It's not our planes.  We're not the country giving the planes either.  It's Russian planes from Poland lol.  They've also already delivered 80% of their 400 million weapons cache that was promised last week... which includes Javelin, Stinger, and NLAW missiles (that's why Russia can't control the airspace and tanks are stalled).  

We're going to have other people fight this war for us. We'll have our fingers all over it... but nothing direct if we can help it.

I'm just hoping Putin doesn't go nuclear as a result because then it's going to be a full world war.  That's the fear.  If Putin and Russie were reasonable, you sit down while you can and negotiate a deal.

Doing what we do.  Arm our proxies, create military alliances that would never exist without a crisis, and consolidate US power in Europe.

Pretty clear to me Vladdy is on a huge ego trip. Spent his life building this tough guy image, now 69 years old, he was not going out without a bang.

Yet he needs a quick end to this war or he's gonna have a heart attack. So far it's a lot of work for poor results, somebody important is gonna lose patience at some point.

They way forward now is to give Putin a way to concede defeat without too much embarrassment for him or give him some of what he wants right? Many of the experts saying never push a madman into a corner with no back door exits

Warrior wrote:Well deserved for Dostoevsky that's what you get for approving this war....

A famous dish where i'm from is called poutine (english lads would love this gastronomy)

Some french guy liked it so much he opened a poutine restaurant in France and now he receives death threats people are dumb

As I was driving up to the cottage last week, I noticed the local Casse Croute had re-opened, a sure sign of Spring. Casse Croute, by the way is essentially a poutine stand, they dont just have poutine, you can get pogos or pepsi or jos loius, but for most of us it is a poutine snack bar. On the 1.5 hour drive here, I probably pass by a dozen casse croutes, that is how many you will see in rural Quebec. Some are open all year, but most are Spring to Fall outdoor snack stops along rural Quebec three digit highways (three digit highways are smaller than single or double digit highways.

Please stop this attack Mr Poutine,,,I mean Putin, think of all the hungover masses who need to have Poutine available with out fear of attack. Yeah for me Poutine is hangover food.

https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/poutine-putin/

Lmao, just today Salvini has been humiliated from the Przemysl mayor

Salvini has travelled to Poland border and was subject to some genius trolling by the mayor of the Polish town of Przemysl who has shamed him with the Putin shirt sported by Salvini in a trip to Moscow.

Mayor of Przemyśl is my hero of the day!

Prezydent Przemyśla @wojtekbakun pokazuje @matteosalvinimi koszulkę z Putinem, w której Salvini paradował kilka lat temu - sprowadzając na ziemię jego obecność przy granicy ukraińskiej dzisiaj!

Szacunek!pic.twitter.com/E2JyT9wInl

— Dominik Krakowiak (@dkrakowiak_eu) March 8, 2022

   New avatar

GOAT

The American Pundits Who Can’t Resist “Westsplaining” Ukraine

John Mearsheimer and other foreign policy figures are treating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine like a game of Risk

https://newrepublic.com/article/165603/carlson-russia-ukraine-imperialism-nato

War is hell for anyone in it. And it’s a predictable but regrettable call to arms for people with opinions who aren’t. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, as the fighting on the ground has escalated, so has the volley of opinions about the war. And for Eastern European scholars like us, it’s galling to watch the unending stream of Western scholars and pundits condescend to explain the situation in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, often in ways that either ignore voices from the region, treating it as an object rather than a subject of history, or claiming to perfectly understand Russian logic and motives. Eastern European online circles have started using a new term to describe this phenomenon of people from the Anglosphere loudly foisting their analytical schema and political prescriptions onto the region: westsplaining. And the problem with westsplaining is illustrated particularly well when pundits westsplain the role of the eastward expansion of NATO in triggering Russia’s attack.

#Russia intends to change conscription rules

It is proposed to make amendments so that a summons can be sent to a conscript by registered mail.

If he does not receive the letter and does not come to the recruiting office on his own, it will be considered a criminal offence. pic.twitter.com/kZHZByfsFo

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 10, 2022

Conscription or jail

If this does happen, I doubt it will be reported on Russian media. Also, I reckon they won't conscript in the major cities, but more in rural areas and smaller towns, hush hush.

The US still has the option to draft as well.

While the draft ended after the Vietnam War when the U.S. moved to the current all-volunteer military, the Selective Service System remains in place if needed to maintain national security. The mandatory registration of all male civilians aged 18 to 25 ensures that the draft can quickly be resumed if needed.

I'm sure that if Ukraine had enough supplies they would draft too. There's a reason they're not letting 18-60 year old males leave the country.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I'm sure that if Ukraine had enough supplies they would draft too. There's a reason they're not letting 18-60 year old males leave the country.

I think they are drafting, but drafting for a defensive war is normal. Russia drafting for an offensive war is going to only worsen the morale, possibly for both the troops and society.

Art Morte wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I'm sure that if Ukraine had enough supplies they would draft too. There's a reason they're not letting 18-60 year old males leave the country.

I think they are drafting, but drafting for a defensive war is normal. Russia drafting for an offensive war is going to only worsen the morale, possibly for both the troops and society.

Yup. Yup yup yup. The brain drain is already starting. There's a small community of Russian expats here in town that studied tech stuff at university (IT, economic informatics, computer engineers, stuff like that), and pretty much all of them applied for German citizenship, and not because they want to dodge anything (at least so they say), but mostly in protest.

Russia is going to be majorly hurt by this. Just remember how much upheavel the Vietnam war meant for the US, and what Russia is doing is happening without the back bone of a healthy economy.