Not to justify any bigotry, but the key point here is whether or not it's systemic, which the UN reported on one of the links I presented. The UN report stated there are prejudices on individual basis, which they do not nor anyone should condone, but there is no Ukrainian state-sponsored discrimination on Russian-speakers.
You're just really trying to shoe-horn obvious Kremlin propaganda.
The economic and political infrastructures between Russia and Central Asian states are already well established thanks to history, which makes both parties still rely on each other. But the connection between Central Asia and China and India is not well established, which makes more immediate realignment difficult for Central Asians. The Belt and Road Initiative is still in its infancy in Central Asia. But even then, many analysts say the BRI infrastructures in Central Asia has not been profitable for China. Many say the real purpose of BRI in Asia is to provide back up trading route for China, if South China Sea ever becomes a war zone too dangerous for shipment towards the country.
I have said this before, the issue of political and economic alignment among Ukrainians, and the separatist conflict on Eastern Ukraine is an internal one. And there is no evidence of persecution of Russia-speakers. Much of the separatist sentiment had been stoked, more than likely by Kremlin. And Zelensky is a Russian-speaking Ukrainian Jew; meanwhile the Ukrainian defense chief, Oleksandr Syrsky, is a Russian himself who have come to call Ukraine his home. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to accuse Ukraine as Nazis or Russophobe.
With all that said, the supposed systemic persecution of Russian-speakers is made up, and the divide between Russian and Ukrainian-speakers on whether to align with the West or Russia is internal issue that does not justify invading another sovereign country. I always make the analogy that it is like the Republic of Ireland invading Northern Ireland, which the latter is legally part of UK, after making the justification to defend Catholics (and the Irish government did draw up a plan for an invasion but they did not go ahead because they know it's illegal). Or Turkey invading the entirety of Cyprus after already occupying the northern part. Invading another country which everyone knows are flimsy pretexts is illegal.
Just like any countries that put their economies on war footing, it is creating a bubble that would eventually burst. The Russian economy is booming because of increased government spending. But how long will it last especially with Russia being heavily sanctioned than before, and will continue to do so even if Russia wins? Even as we speak, 98% of Chinese banks refuse to lend to Russia since Chinese banks are more afraid from secondary sanctions by the more lucrative market of the United States.
It is worth mentioning that when the first stuffed sample of platypus was sent to Britain, the scientists thought it is a joke.
Yup. I argued to a Russian troll before that the "similar culture" is not good reason to violate national sovereignty. Like, UK could not forcefully retake New York simply because New York once belonged to the UK and both speak English. The troll responded that if the people want to join another richer country, then just let that happen. Which is a farcical argument, even for a Russian soaked in Putin's propaganda, that the US is ten times richer than the UK, and of course New York would wish to remain with the former, if economy is the arbitrator on where one should side with. It did not also occur to the troll that he/she should apply the same logic to Ukraine as to why they want to align with the EU/West. Because the West the way richer and even ordinary Russians know it.
Sorry Vlady, the West could afford a bigger wedding ring.
Only if you're a landlocked Central Asian country with no other avenues for more trading opportunities with the wider world.
Attacking Ukraine to prevent them joining NATO would have worked had Ukrainians been as weak as Putin thought. But nope, what does Putin expect from a group of people, whom his country had subjected to Holodomor before? Somehow happily rejoin Russia for another round of persecution? That's like UK invading Ireland again, and expecting Ireland to give up and happily rejoin the UK despite the previous 800 years of atrocities.
Putin had also thought the Ukrainian military are still the same Ukrainian forces who were doing badly in 2015. But the fact that Ukraine was on the verge of defeating separatists in Luhansk and Donbas, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, would have hinted to him that the UFA have matured. Former Ukrainian defense chief, Valerii Zaluzhny, attributed the eight years of fighting in Eastern Ukraine for allowing UFA to gain valuable combat experience that has been indispensable in the current war. In hindsight, the Russian meddling in Eastern Ukraine only helped Ukraine to gain more experience! Thank you Putin!
Shittiest take on this community by far.
It's an myriad of reasons from what I can tell. Americans are conditioned to think along the status quo lines even if there is certain degree of freedom of thought. The American corporate media carves the political landscape to intentionally but subtly influence folks to pick either only Democrats or Republicans.
Another reason is that, I suppose rugged invidualism won out in the American society for better mobilisation. As you rightly pointed out, there just isn't grassroots activism among American people (not counting civil and lgbt rights which are undoubtedly grassroots activism and successful ones at that). But this isn't what it used to be. Before and in the early 20th century, there have been other third political parties still gaining respectable number of votes, the last one being the Socialist Party led by Eugene Debbs. He won a respectable 1 million votes as a presidential candidate while campaigning from prison during World War I.
Not sure what happened why political grassroots activism that could counter either Democratic and Republican parties died out, but my guess is that the proliferation of mass media in the 20th century may have had a hand to convince people to stick with two parties, as well as heavy emphasis on individualistic values.
The alpha/beta wolf notion doesn't even make much of a sense, considering wolves tend to be loners but only make packs when they need to hunt.
Dan Schneider has not been convicted though.
And unfortunately lemmy.ml is getting more online traffic recently.
Ignoring the lack of updates if the game is buggy, games back then were also more focused on quality and make gamers replay the game with unlockable features based on skills, not money. I can't count the number of times I played Metal Gear Solid games over and over to unlock new features playing the hardest difficulty and with handicap features, and also to find Easter eggs. Speaking of Easter eggs, you'd lose a number of hours exploring every nook and cranny finding them!
Is it just me, or I thought it's a general consensus long ago that voters have the memory of a goldfish? Why would forgetting the worst of the Trump presidency be any different? Even people have somehow rehabilitated George W. Bush in spite of deliberate lying by his administration, and dragging the United States into a needless conflict for 23 years that cost $1 trillion.