Russia

It’s all a farce, disgraceful and certainly not democracy in any form, strong economy or not!

Where Russian power has proved very effective is online.

They have been one step ahead of the West in cyberwars.

Putin's aim to destabilise the West had great success in 2016 when his campaign of online disinformation and propaganda succeeded in 2016 when he managed to use an onslaught of lies on social media, aided and abetted by certain "useful idiots" in the West to manipulate the UK referendum result to achieve brexit and later that year, got Trump elected in the USA.

His "special military operation in Ukraine may not have gone according to plan but he still exerts influence in Africa and in the Middle East - to say nothing of his hold on Trump.

Katie59 the Russians pose no major threat to NATO. The air power alone is far superior, and better trained, than anything Russia has to offer.

Gillycats

Never believe a word of what Putin and his ‘government’ say. I don’t think for one minute that their economy is booming. The awful attack on Ukraine is costing Russia a lot of money (not forgetting the loss of life too of course). They don’t even have a decent military force (especially their Air Force), just sadly large numbers of people being sent to their deaths in a war that they will never win. It’s high time the UN were disbanded and replaced by something that actually protects the innocent and stands in the way of oppressors.

The economy certainly isn’t booming but they can sell whatever they wish to export but cant import much, so the population has to buy whatever is available within the country. More importantly they have abundant resources and manpower, militarily they don’t need to import anything, which if they decide to fight a prolonged war is a serious problem for NATO.
Ironically Ukraine has given Putin an excuse to militarize Russia again and get control of the population, extinguishing any liberal changes

You can't believe anything in the Russia media, they announced yesterday our king was dead!

Never believe a word of what Putin and his ‘government’ say. I don’t think for one minute that their economy is booming. The awful attack on Ukraine is costing Russia a lot of money (not forgetting the loss of life too of course). They don’t even have a decent military force (especially their Air Force), just sadly large numbers of people being sent to their deaths in a war that they will never win. It’s high time the UN were disbanded and replaced by something that actually protects the innocent and stands in the way of oppressors.

President Putin has been weaponising the Russian Orthodox church. The Patriarch of church is one of Putins besties and has endorsed the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is trying to turn the Ulraine war into a religious jihad. The godless west against the religion of the Russians.

Pope Francis, who has been trying to bring eastern and western Christianity together has already rebuked him once for politising religion. EU authroities want to put the Patriarch on the sanctions list.

There is an excellent article on the subject (from which I got the above information at www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/world/europe/kirill-putin-russian-orthodox-church.html

M0nica

Nankate Hold your horses, and check your sources. So far only the RUSSIAN media have reported this. No confirmation from the Vatican or western media sources.

The EU President Charles Michel apparently congratulated him too - days before his victory was declared.

🤔

Perhaps it's a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Let’s hope I’m wrong MOnica. Thanks for pointing this out.

Nankate Hold your horses, and check your sources. So far only the RUSSIAN media have reported this. No confirmation from the Vatican or western media sources.

I have just read that one of the first people to congratulate Putin on his re-election is the POPE. What a bl**dy disgrace.

If I was a Catholic I would denounce him.

The Soviet command economy was so inefficient that it struggled to feed the population and eventually collapsed. Then despite widespread corruption the whole eastern block burst into production, many nations have become reliant on Russian food, oil and arms.
Newly enriched Putin decides to regain lost territory, his generals miscalculate the invasion of Ukraine for sure, it was going to be a quick takeover. Now it’s a war of attrition, unless NATO arms Ukraine quickly it will be too late because Russian industry is on a war footing and will get stronger quickly.

One of the things Stalin did was move large groups of people around so that there ethnic Russians formed a significant part of the population in every part of the USSR, he then moved people from their areas to othe provinces in Russia.

In the same way, he made each province's agriculture a mono culture. The Ukraine grew wheat, Uzbekistan grew cotton. The idea is that every province was so dependent on other provinces for their basic supplie they would not be able to split apart.

Who is going to stand against him? The majority of them are either in prison, in exile or dead.

As Katie59 has said he will use it as a justification for stepping up the war in Ukraine. He may control the media but he can't control what soldiers tell their families about what is happening in Ukraine. As usual with wars, the history of the region, particularly Crimea, is not straightforward, with lots of people with ties to Ukraine living in Russia and vice versa. Russia is an absolutely huge country with such a range of people, different living standards etc sadly I'm not sure that it could ever be a proper functioning democracy and it's certainly not one now.

Heard on some news , cannot remember which one, that Putin has been compared to a modern day Stalin.

Gosh, Jollyjilly, do you think they actually counted the votes in Russia rather than just announcing the result they had decided on.

MPs in the House of Common unelected? If this was Russia Keir Starmer would long ago have been arrested, imprisoned and, sadly, died of a heart attack. most of the Labour front bench would be living in exile.

Yes, the House of Lords is large representative, but members now are largely appointed for political service or public service and can stand back and take a view of policy without the relentless pressure of opinion polls brething down their neck and they have, i assume the wisdom and knowledge that comes from their age and wide expereience of every sector of our economy.

GrannyGravy13

I am amazed that people are surprised he won, it was a foregone conclusion.

Exactly!

He would have won even if there'd been more votes cast against him than for him😆

I am amazed that people are surprised he won, it was a foregone conclusion.

That was to JJ.

Like they do in N Kor ea and China?

Oh I agree that no doubt there is a significant number who may want to vote for him.

But, good finances or not, a huge lack of personal freedon doesnt matter?

What a surprise Putin got a landslide victory, there never was going to be any other result why are we surprised.

He will use it as justification for continuing the Ukraine war, so unless NATO ups its support massively the war is lost. If there were marches in support of Ukraine I might have some hope.
NATO has hesitated allowing Russia to gear up for war production, it looks unlikely that the US will make a decision on aid, whatever Europe decide to do will be too little too late.

Perhaps the Russian people are voting for him because they want to. I am more bothered about the unelected powers that be who are running our country and that also goes for the unelected old codgers in the House of Lords who can vote against anything they don't like.

Gosh petra.
I am aware sometimes that I dont agree with you.
But sometimes, when I realise I dont agree with someone quite often, a poster says something like you have done, and I become aware just how far apart on our opinions are.

Petra can I assume that you believe that Putin got 87% of the vote because nearly everyone voted for him because the economy is doing so well.