US Sanctions Spree Continues With 15 More For Russian Entities (theregister.com) 129
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: It's sanctions central at the US Treasury this week as a further 15 are slapped on organizations and individuals in Russia. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated 13 organizations and two individuals -- all concerning financial services organizations, including cryptocurrency exchanges that offered services to already-sanctioned dark web marketplaces in Russia, and those who helped run them. Five of the 13 freshly designated entities were also controlled by individuals who were already sanctioned. The latest round of trade restrictions were placed on those who are believed to have helped evade existing US sanctions.
"Many of the individuals and entities designated today facilitated transactions or offered other services that helped OFAC-designated entities evade sanctions," an OFAC statement read. "These designations build upon OFAC's February 23, 2024 action to target companies servicing Russia's core financial infrastructure and curtail Russia's use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine." They follow the initial seven sanctions announced on Monday, all relating to Chinese nationals and members of Beijing's APT31 offensive cyber outfit.
"Many of the individuals and entities designated today facilitated transactions or offered other services that helped OFAC-designated entities evade sanctions," an OFAC statement read. "These designations build upon OFAC's February 23, 2024 action to target companies servicing Russia's core financial infrastructure and curtail Russia's use of the international financial system to further its war against Ukraine." They follow the initial seven sanctions announced on Monday, all relating to Chinese nationals and members of Beijing's APT31 offensive cyber outfit.
Why not 500? (Score:3)
Why not sanction 500, or even 1000 at a time? 15,000? Let's cast a wide net, and then redact as necessary. This is one of those rare cases where "shoot first, ask questions later" is probably a valid solution.
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Every time I hear about more sanctions I'm puzzled that they didn't go scorched earth when the war first started.
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That should be clue 1 that this stuff doesn't work. If it did, it would be employed punitively to accomplish goals. Instead, it's used to generate press releases.
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Do you know why Putin won the recent election overwhelmingly? Because **ALL** the alternatives are an order of magnitude worse, and unlike the Untied States the Russian people don't blindly believe the propaganda they're exposed to. I know the US thinks that if we just remove Putin that we can impose a new Yeltsin on them and resume looting the country, but that's not what's going to happen. People remember the '90s, when people pensioners were evicted into the snow to freeze to death under bridges and p
Re:Why not 500? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you know why Putin won the recent election overwhelmingly? Because **ALL** the alternatives are an order of magnitude worse,
Yes, being dead is often considered worse than not being. Funny how all the good people end up barred from running bu Putin, then wind up dead.
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Excuse me, where are all the 'good people' running for office in the US?
Might be worth thinking about. The elites in Rome liked to call themselves the optimates, 'the best', differentiating themselves from the declasse 'populares' like Caesar. The population as a whole didn't agree.
This whole line about Putin being unpopular reminds me of the bullshit we used to believe about the Soviets, divining leadership motives by how they wore their gogol on the reviewing stand or allowing some unitary dissident to
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Because **ALL** the alternatives are an order of magnitude worse
What alternatives? Wait do you think the people who "stood" for elections were alternatives? They were picked and endorsed by the Kremlin. Hell they actively endorsed Putin and said it was not their place to criticise him in interviews. There were not alternatives. ... Well actually there was but Putin had him assassinated.
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Do you know why Putin won the recent election overwhelmingly?
For all the same reason tyrants win their elections with breathtaking majorities. Murder and jailing of opposition, widespread censorship and state sponsored propaganda, forced voting by people with guns and good old fashioned ballot stuffing are my personal favorites.
When those living in semi-functioning democracies hear of presidential elections posting 87% of vote most people instinctively laugh it off as nonsense. In tyrannical regimes governed by force the tyrant can't help himself. He thinks more f
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Wow, there is so, so much wrong in your beliefs about Russia that I wouldn't even know where to start. As a Soviet general told author Farley Mowat, "The difference between American propaganda and Soviet propaganda is that no one believes ours." You've definitely swallowed the Kool-aid, and came back for a second serving.
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Wow, there is so, so much wrong in your beliefs about Russia that I wouldn't even know where to start.
This isn't rocket science. You start by quoting the text you disagree with and explain objectively why you believe it is wrong.
As a Soviet general told author Farley Mowat, "The difference between American propaganda and Soviet propaganda is that no one believes ours." You've definitely swallowed the Kool-aid, and came back for a second serving.
What's even the point of this language? You're brainwashed! No you're brainwashed! No no you are... no you are. Good grief if you have something substantive to add then say it, nobody cares about your lame ass excuses.
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Because the US at least nominally follows the rules of law and doesn't collectively punish innocent people.
Sanctions (Score:2)
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They 'contributed' to bringing people to the table in the past, but they were employed properly at that time. Against small nations and/or against the Communist bloc that was demonstrably economically weaker than the US-led West. This is no longer how things are done, and no longer the case.
Re:Sanctions (Score:5, Informative)
The sanctions are significant, their effect is just indirect.
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Note: German source. Russian GDP growing. [dw.com]
Gold in rubles - 5y [ycharts.com]
Gold in USD - extend to 5y [businessinsider.com]
I have no idea why otherwise smart people keep believing things that are demonstrably not true.
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"What's happening right now is that Russia is actually, in a way, almost ironically becoming more like the Soviet Union in that it has high spending on the military and in some cases heavy industry, and at the same time the level of consumption is falling for the population.
So all the money is wasted on the military and all the people are worse off. (the ones still alive)
It's very easy to spend money to make GDP. Just look at China for example. At least China gets some high speed rail and some fancy infrastructure. Russia just gets some missiles to shoot off and some vehicles to get blown up. (not tanks or planes as they can't really make them any more).
According to your chart Rubles are worth 30% less gold than a year ago. Only 9% for US dollars.
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Your currency charts reflect how much the ruble has fallen compared to the dollar, though I think it's a little hard to read this way. You can see that the price of gold has gone up 65% over the last five years in dollars, and 135% in rubles. So the va
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/shrug.
Fuck around and find out. The noose will only get tighter
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Yeah, because that's worked **SO** well in Cuba.
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Ah, you mean like that bastion of democracy, Honduras? Or maybe our wonderfully successful ally Guatemala? I'm sure every country would love to emulate their success!
Re:Sanctions (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't discount them just yet. Does Russia still sell the products we sanction? Yes. Sure they do. We don't control the behaviour of other countries. But it means that they have to sell at heavily discounted prices because they need that money and can't really find any takers for their very one-dimensional exports.
One can argue that China is profiting heavily from this, since they got Russia by the balls and they sure know it.
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Over 150 countries are ignoring the sanctions, representing around 80% of the world's population.
How much of the worlds money... LOL
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Most of it because they're still able to buy US and Euro products through third parties.
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They can't even sell their oil for market values.
Even their best friends China won't trade freely with them.
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That's an interesting question you raise. Worth thinking about. Currency is currency, but trade is ultimately one good for another good.
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We don't calculate international trade based on "% of world's population". We calculate international trade based on products and money moving. And while countries ignore sanctions Russia has resorted to selling their products at a huge discount to North Korea because they are actually running out of options.
In other news don't expect to invite a starving kid from Ethiopia to a dinner and have them split the bill with you. Not all people are equal in terms of international trade of goods.
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So in your opinion only rich people are worth selling to? That's a rather, umm, unique perspective.
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No, what he means is people without money, who are ignoring the sanctions merely in spirit, are irrelevant to the equation. I don't really think you're stupid enough to need that explained though. I think you're just an asshat who thinks getting the last word in means winning the argument.
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People in poor countries still need raw materials and finished goods and food and petroleum. Sure, Peruvians or Indonesians may not have a ton of spending money but they're buying what Russia is selling and there are a lot more of them than there are of us. Which would you rather have, one rich customer who can buy 10 of your widgets, or 100 customers who can only buy one each? Russia threw their lot in with the latter a long, long time ago, and it's the main reason the sanctions are having very little e
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Why would China be supplying weapons to Russia if they've never asked for them? Do you think they should force the Kremlin to take them for some reason?
But they don't have any money to buy them...
Really? People in poor countries don't buy anything not produced domestically? Damn, I loathe people who are ignorant by choice.
Sanctions just took 90% of your profits.
Scratching my head over this one, do you really not know how sanctions work? What mechanism are you fantasizing that would produce that bizarre
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I can see why you post AC, I'd be embarrassed to use my name for a post that stupid.
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Wasn't the blockading of the South a major factor in their economic downfall ?
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Blockade != Sanction
We can't blockade Russia, it's an act of war.
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Also, they have interior lines. That's the problem - Mahan's theories don't work well against a continental power like Russia. They are like rock to scissors.
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Sanctions don't do anything but we should do them anyway for moral reasons.
Russia sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
1. In spite of them torturing terrorists, they are still the number 1 most terrorist attacked indiustrial nation. The Moscow subway (the same one Tucker Carlson said was way better than anything in America), for example, has been bombed 3 times in the last 20 years. Republicans are saying "we should torture, like the Russians do" .. yet it's only made them more of a target. Torture is never OK, independent of it being beneficial or not .. but Russia shows that being a torturer doesn't pay.
2. Going by the homicdes numbers on Russia's own federal website: In terms of chance of being murdered, Russia is the deadliest white-ruled country for white people. The US OVERALL homicde rate last year was 6.4, Russia's rate according to their own statistics was 6.9. For whites, the US rate matches any European country.
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Every country on the planet tortures terrorists. The CIA's worst black sites used to be in Ukraine and Poland ironically enough.
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Why do facts get modded down? The US spent a decade trying to argue that torture is legitimate and practiced it in many places. I'm not sure we are done with it, etiher.
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Moscow metro has been bombed multiple times, not including shove (happened last year to a teenager) and machine gun incidents and to "top" that of course a beheading (no pun intended).
That's "better than anything in the US" how?
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Isn't it kinda late now? (Score:3)
The war in Ukraine is now over 2 years old. Any Russian companies, oligarchs, whatever have now known for 2 years that they are likely targets of sanctions.
Why would they leave themselves vulnerable? Move assets to shell companies, distant family members, what ever.
I think the sanctions stick is yielding diminishing returns..
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Assuredly, but sanctions were pointless in this case. Psychological at best. Pissing off near-peer nations who can forge trade ties that are de-dollarized in response to dollar-based sanctions is a foolish move that ruins the efficacy of sanctions in the future against smaller countries.
Analogy: utilizing inadequate doses of an antibiotic against a pathogen. They develop resistance quickly. Same here. Then they can pass the resistance to other bacteria, to the point that your antibiotic becomes ineffec
You get a sanction & you get a sanction... (Score:1)
Space filler continues on Slashdot (Score:2)
Not tech and anyone who follows the Ukraine war has better sources by far than this place, for example Telegram channels etc where there are fewer useless middlemen.
Oh wait (Score:2)
Are we allowed to go back to making fun of absurd and ineffectual sanctions now? (as the story lead is clearly doing, even if just a little)
Just kill Putin (Score:2)
BRICS+ (Score:2)
At this point it's just obvious there are moles at Treasury who are working to promote the replacement of USD with the BRICS+ currency.
USD is fully weaponized and counties that don't want to snap to orders from whatever US administration are going elsewhere.
The dummies figured SWIFT would be too hard to replace.
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I wholeheartedly endorse your post.
- Vlad's other sock.
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Informative)
Looking forward to reality-based government again sometime in the future.
So not the criminal con artist who wears makeup?
Russia is so weak they were warned of an impending attack two weeks ago, given actionable information, and their "security" services (more like security circus) STILL didn't do anything. As a result, over 140 Russians dead (that we know. Knowing the muscovite midget the real number will never be known).
and the sanctions are having very little effect on Russia
If sanctions aren't working, why do you keep talking about them?
snuffing out the military fraction in Ukraine over the past two years
And by snuffing out, you mean the roughly 400,000 dead and wounded Russians, the sinking of one third of the entire Black Sea fleet, including its flag ship, by a country which doesn't have a navy to speak of, all of which is the result of an operation which was supposed to be over in two weeks, two years ago.
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
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I'd also like to remind you of what a fantasy you were living in after Ukraine finally loses worse than they already have and capitulates
What fantasy? A Ukraine loss does not mean a Russian win. Russia's army is massive in comparison. Russia's resources were massive in comparison. The fact that Russia sustained the losses they did from their "small military operation" is an astounding loss for them even if the Ukraine ceases to exist.
I'm not from Texas or even the USA, but I'm happy to call you Ivan since you so clearly want to be associated with Russia. I find it hilarious that you are even able to question other people's credibility with y
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I'm happy to call you Ivan
I figured you would. Busted a little chuckle there.
I find it hilarious that you are even able to question other people's credibility
Keep laughing then, because you have zero credibility, bud. You're clearly on your back foot. First, Ukraine is losing and going to continue to lose until they capitulate. Even the mainstream media that was cheering on the conflict is s
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Keep laughing then, because you have zero credibility, bud. You're clearly on your back foot. First, Ukraine is losing and going to continue to lose until they capitulate.
The truth is at present the war is a stalemate with no side having anywhere close to the required resources to win outright. Ukraine at present is in defensive mode (due to resource shortages) attriting the fuck out of the Russians who continue to take horrendous disproportionate losses in equipment and manpower. Even with Russia's ramped up MIC war production is not at present anywhere near sufficient to make up for attrition rates of Soviet stockpiles. At Russia's current rate of "winning" it will take
Re: Translation: (Score:2)
Russia has already lost. They have spent all of their modern equipment and have to field WWII-era tanks without reactive armor. They have spent most of their regulars and have to send convict conscripts to fight. NATO has never been stronger, or more firmly committed to containment. China is going to wind up owning Russia because Putler is too committed to cut his losses, withdraw, and focus on rebuilding forces. And the rest of us will suffer for it.
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Learn to read, son. Nobody agrees with you. We all think you're a dumbass.
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The futility of these globalist measures when the USD is losing its default role in international exchange and the sanctions are having very little effect on Russia
Personally I'm quite pleased with impact sanctions are having on Ruzzia. Sanctions by themselves are never a panacea yet opportunity costs to Russia vs no imposition of sanctions are significant nonetheless. The Russian economy is shit with huge inflation despite 16% interest rates while Russia continues to burn through its war chest after which in another year and change inflation will go truly bonkers. Price caps on hydrocarbons has already cost them tens of billions of dollars in profits. Hundreds o
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The world? You mean the 150+ countries, representing 80% of the planet's population, which are ignoring the sanctions? Sanctions haven't worked anywhere in the last three decades at least, but like the World Bank's continual prescription for austerity and privatization which never work they'll just keep doing the same thing over and over.
The Russian economy expanded faster than almost any other in Europe last year, they have record export surplus, they sold more petroleum last year than ever before, unemp
Usual Russian lies and propaganda from you cusco (Score:1)
The world? You mean the 150+ countries, representing 80% of the planet's population, which are ignoring the sanctions?
Lie. India isn't accepting Russian oil. Tanker are floating ofsore full of the stuff. Even China isn't trading freely with Russia due to fear of secondary sanctions.
Only a Russia propagandist wouldn't know this.
The Russian economy expanded faster than almost any other in Europe last year,
Yes. Spending all your money on weapons does make your economy make more "stuff". But Russian reserves are way down trying to do it. That can't last very much longer as the reserves are draining fast.
they have record export surplus, they sold more petroleum last year than ever before
Just more lies. "Russia's overall trade surplus in 2023 -- down 58.5 percent on 2022"
"Russia
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Hey, if you can't increase the numerator, decrease the denominator! :D
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The world? You mean the 150+ countries, representing 80% of the planet's population, which are ignoring the sanctions?
And what percentage of the planet's economy? Besides, I'm sure you're including China in that 80%, but China isn't selling weapons to Russia even though Russia is desperate to buy, so that sounds like at least a partial win for sanctions.
Sanctions haven't worked anywhere in the last three decades at least
Except that time when they got Iran to halt its Nuclear weapons program [wikipedia.org].
Of course, that deal got killed by folks who were more concerned about keeping Iran down as a regional power than they were concerned about non-proliferation, but the sanctions still worked.
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Iran never had a nuclear weapons program, the ayatollahs have issued multiple fatwas against WMD in general and nukes in particular. No evidence has ever appeared in spite of two decades of fearmongering. What Iran wants is to break into the nuclear fuel rod business, IIRC uranium is their second most valuable natural resource and is essentially untouched.
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Iran never had a nuclear weapons program, the ayatollahs have issued multiple fatwas against WMD in general and nukes in particular. No evidence has ever appeared in spite of two decades of fearmongering. What Iran wants is to break into the nuclear fuel rod business, IIRC uranium is their second most valuable natural resource and is essentially untouched.
Yeah... that's pretty naive.
Now, where you've vaguely right is that I don't think Iran necessarily wants to build a bomb. Rather, they want threshold capability so if they feel under particular threat, they could build a bomb in a relatively short amount of time.
But actually going the extra step and building that bomb? That puts them in further into the international pariah camp in a way they can't easily get out of.
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The world? You mean the 150+ countries, representing 80% of the planet's population, which are ignoring the sanctions?
Back on planet earth where 90% of international commerce transacts in USD even Chinese banks are playing ball.
https://www.scmp.com/news/chin... [scmp.com]
Sanctions haven't worked anywhere in the last three decades at least
While they don't by themselves lead to change in behavior sanctions are effective. Sanctions for example played a key role in the JCPOA agreement /w Iran before the US unilaterally bailed on it. Sanctions have cost Russia hundreds of billions of dollars it would have otherwise had available and denied Russia cheap and easy access to western inputs to feed its war
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Total Russian propaganda. Hope Newhitler pays you well.
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The futility of these globalist measures when the USD is losing its default role in international exchange and the sanctions are having very little effect on Russia
Personally I'm quite pleased with impact sanctions are having on Ruzzia. Sanctions by themselves are never a panacea yet opportunity costs to Russia vs no imposition of sanctions are significant nonetheless. The Russian economy is shit with huge inflation despite 16% interest rates while Russia continues to burn through its war chest after which in another year and change inflation will go truly bonkers. Price caps on hydrocarbons has already cost them tens of billions of dollars in profits. Hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctioned assets. Military sales are basically dead, commercial aviation has gone to shit and a huge portion of their highly skilled people have long since fled the country.
It's the same faith-based stuff "we can win against Russia" that resulted in snuffing out the military fraction in Ukraine over the past two years.
Putler has already irrecoverably lost a half million men while his soviet stockpiles continue to dwindle down to shit. They do have significant new production in some areas and about a years worth of shit they can resurrect from mothballs and put into service. Short of that so long as the world keeps arming Ukraine Russia is fucked. 1/6th of Putlers refineries are offline and its only going to get far worse in coming months.
"Our sanctions will work!!"
Sanctions are working just fine. The world needs to keep turning the screws and step up with vigorous enforcement. It's a continuous struggle.
Looking forward to reality-based government again sometime in the future.
The reality is Putler's wars of conquest are not going to end with Ukraine. The world either stops them now in Ukraine or the billions of dollars being spent to arm Ukraine will look like a goddamn rounding error in blood and treasure later.
Sorry. While I do not agree with this fools assessment of better future governance, I also do believe that sanctions can not work against a country with the resources that Russia has. Yes it's a corrupt shithole, but it's a shithole the size of the the US with just as many resources. The Russian government can sustain it's level of corruption for a very long time (about 15 centuries now), it's up to the Russians to end the crap, not us.
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Sorry. While I do not agree with this fools assessment of better future governance, I also do believe that sanctions can not work against a country with the resources that Russia has. Yes it's a corrupt shithole, but it's a shithole the size of the the US with just as many resources. The Russian government can sustain it's level of corruption for a very long time (about 15 centuries now), it's up to the Russians to end the crap, not us.
Are the sanctions forcing Russia to capitulate? Of course not.
But wars are won and lost on logistics and defence manufacturing. Harming Russia's ability to buy the things it needs to run it's economy, depriving them of easy access to the advanced components they need to build their weapons.
Those things help.
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but it's a shithole the size of the the US with just as many resources.
Resources aren't always sold for the same price, even when they are fungible. Russia is having to sell at fire sale prices because of the sanctions.
it's up to the Russians to end the crap, not us.
Making a better world is hard, so we should let someone else do it all? How inspirational of you. Fellate Putin on your own time, sport.
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Making a better world is hard
LOL, that's adorable! You are so cute!
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It's not cute that you gave up. You're just pathetic.
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It's not cute that you gave up. You're just pathetic.
You're a sensitive little thing aren't you?
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You're a sensitive little thing aren't you?
You just got triggered by my saying you're pathetic, and I'm the sensitive one? Try the mirror, kiddo.
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You're a sensitive little thing aren't you?
You just got triggered by my saying you're pathetic, and I'm the sensitive one? Try the mirror, kiddo.
Wow, you think that's a triggered response? You are sensitive. Not much of a sense of humor either.
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I can see that it is, because it clearly upset you.
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Sorry. While I do not agree with this fools assessment of better future governance, I also do believe that sanctions can not work against a country with the resources that Russia has.
Sanctions are having a substantive negative impact on Russia. Those who believe "work" means bankrupt into submission have a point sanctions never "work"... That was never the point.
The Russian government can sustain it's level of corruption for a very long time (about 15 centuries now), it's up to the Russians to end the crap, not us.
The only thing that matters is Russia stop waging wars of conquest against other states. Nobody cares about Russia sustaining levels of corruption.
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The only thing that matters is Russia stop waging wars of conquest against other states. Nobody cares about Russia sustaining levels of corruption.
Hmmmm, I would suggest that the Russian people care more about the corruption than they do about the conquest. I don't care about either as long as they don't effect me, so I would say your statement is likely incorrect.
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Hmmmm, I would suggest that the Russian people care more about the corruption than they do about the conquest.
That's fucked up.
I don't care about either as long as they don't effect me, so I would say your statement is likely incorrect.
Nobody gives a fuck about Russia.
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Russia has kidnapped over a million Ukrainian children and has been selling them off through its adoption services, and doing so very openly. They intentionally destroyed records of their origin so there's no chance of ever getting them back to their Ukrainian parents.
So they're up 600K. ;(
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One rule to rule them all (Score:2)