Since launching a surprise attack last week, Moscow has been unable to push Ukrainian troops back after they advanced up to 30km into Russian territory and are now in control of about 28 settlements.
Since at least WWII russia has threatened war with every leader it's had. It's only just now being viewed as a terrorist state, but realistically we can trace that mindset back to Stalin. I wouldn't mind Finland, Japan, Ukraine, maybe a handfull of others carving russia up.
And now they are the second most powerful in Russia.
I think it's been that way for longer than people think. Remember when Wagner just rolled through Russia without any resistance? Putin's might has always been false promises/ blackmail, but it's obvious now that Russia hasn't had the means to back itself up for a while now
I think it might have been dissatisfaction of his troops that lead to the coup. He knew it would not work out, so he tried to bail out quickly. He should have probably just left the country never to return.
The fact that people like you can rationalize the Kremlin's far-right, proto-fascist ideology as some sort of anti-Nazi movement is just more proof that the biggest threat to humanity is ingorance combined with a near-infinite potential for self-serving delusions. We desperately need to reform our formal education systems and limit the impact of authoritarian propaganda as much as possible, and from there the number of victims, like Dragon.
they made a classic blunder- the one slightly more well known than getting into it with a scillian when death is on the line! Getting into a land war in Asia!
I think it's probably more correct to say Russia straddles the border between Europe and Asia. The people in charge are European, and Asian Russians are treated more like serfs and cannon fodder. Disclaimer: I am not a social scientist.
well, "usually" the geographic divide is placed either at the Ural mountains, and southward through the caspian sea. (which cuts off the western third of russian, more or less.)
That said, if you go with geological distinctions, there's only one tectonic plate covering eurasia. So it's important to note that what it really comes down to is an arbitrary cultural distinction; basically a "are they more east or more west". and that's above my paygrade.
I'm just here to mock them any way I can.
It should also be noted, that part of the reason for the line in Princess Bride is what happened to the germans picking fights with the soviets- which was definitely a military blunder of epic proportions.
The ostensible reason for the German invasion in ww2 was because they needed a source of oil to continue the war effort. which, the military staff wanted to invade the middle east, Iran, Iraq. Palestine, etc. I forget what they were called at the time. the middle east was largely equipped and armed with cast offs from ww1; that were obsolete before that war had even ended.
But Hitler insisted, instead, of going into Siberia mostly because he absolutely loathed and despised Stalin. Which, there's no reason to believe that the Germans couldn't have steam rolled the middle eastern states. the question I have is how the occupation would have gone over. history says that holding Arab states is not an easy proposition. Suffice it to say that ww2 was likely to have been far more protracted than it was.
Most of productive thoughts throughout the pre-soviet russian history was wasted on that exact question. No joke. That long-going identity crisis even caused a divide within the elites about the choice of following either the european footsteps (westerners) or going on their own (slavic-philes).
The correct russian names for these two groups are западники and славянофилы. I feel like googling them like this you'd encounter better results. But they are limited to one period of history while the question itself was before and after them.