Does this end at some point? Where there are no more formerly state owned resources to pillage and convert to Euros/CHF/USD?
Again, the argument is that it does not matter. As long as the people in power are well compensated the general wellbeing of federation is of little consequence.
It is pretty simple. People who barely scrape by have no time, resources or focus to be fighting. They can't have too much or too little.
...Is Russia slowly bankrupting itself by pretending to be its former self?
Two countries (Latvia and Estonia) have already flipped to the west (NATO members). Ukraine is torn between Russia and the west (that's what Maidan morphed into after starting off as an anti corruption protest). Lukashenko was engaged in a struggle with pro western opponents.
There's a proxy war going on on its borders. I don't think this is about Russia trying to dominate the world. I think it's about Russia wanting to buffer its most exposed border.
If Western Canada joined in an alliance with Russia and Eastern Canada was run by a pro American dictator do you think America would behave differently?
I think this comment is far too apologetic.
It would be an exposed chokepoint if Russia didn't also hold sevastopol, though.
If they gave up entirely on their foreign policy objectives a more likely scenario than tanks would be the Russian State ending up a fragmented, powerless mess.
I don't imagine a US led NATO coalition immediately rolling tanks into Moscow if all 5 countries flip to NATO, but stirring up a separatist movement on the borders of Belarus or Ukraine and then "helping" out? Definitely.
I don't for one second believe that the US will instantly grind to a halt after creeping up on the Russian border for 70 years.
As soon as Poland had a chance, they wanted into the EU or NATO, preferably both. They, Poland, desperately wanted in. Why? Because they wanted protection from Russia, and with good historical reason.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania? Same story. It wasn't that the US had a nefarious plot to ensnare the border countries in a US-dominated alliance. They desperately wanted in, because they have experience with being overrun by Russia.
If Russia doesn't like this, maybe they should work on making their neighbors not feel so afraid of Russia. Things like the Ukraine and Georgia? They are not helping.
The US didn't admit them to NATO because of the volume of their begging. It admitted them because it let them put military bases right on the border of its geopolitical rival.
Similarly when Cuba begged the Soviet Union for nukes a year after a failed US invasion attempt, the Soviet Union didn't put them there just because it was felt sorry for them.
In both cases the countries were legitimately seeking protection from invasion though.
I'm not really sure if it's practical for Russia to try and make its neighbors "feel safe enough to quit NATO". In all likelihood any overtures would be treated as a sign of weakness. But, maybe you have ideas about practical steps Russia could take that would convince Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia to quit NATO. I'd be curious if you did.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-12/finlan...
[0] https://ifunny.co/picture/select-all-squares-with-finnish-sn...
If anything, in a far future some more eastern states might apply for EU membership, but with the current state of things even that isn't overly likely and would happen in an absolutely peaceful manner.
And if you think that nuclear engineers are making significantly more than an average Ivan, then I have a bad news for you, that's unlikely. For example, a friend of mine works for a subcontractor of Roscosmos (Russian space activities corporation, basically russian "NASA") as an electronic measurements instrumentation engineer and makes 60000 rubles per month before taxes (roughly 850$ per month). That's a joke of a salary and he is only able to work there because he is owning a property in Moscow.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028682/russia-federal-b...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028682/russia-federal-b...
Most western countries can actually visit without getting a visa in your passport beforehand.
The US and the UK also benefit a lot from tourism, and yet they have an extremely hostile border control system + an extremely onerous visa application process (I got a Russian visa a few times... It's definitely simpler)
Maybe we're all confused readers because the Reuter articles make the timeline hard to follow.
>, the issue was already resolved... so what's the news here?
The timestamp for Reuter's own linked article about the "resolved last week" flight routes was May 29: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-ap...
But this thread's article's timestamp is May 31 with new issues about the routes around Belarus that Russia is denying clearance for.
I had half joked I wanted to take the Moscow -> Bejing train at some point , but I guess I'll reasses (my IRL contacts know how much I absolutely LOVE trains), but shit like this makes me inclined to keep spending that money on overpriced coffee or whatever.
I looked at the data[1], and Russia made ~11 billion dollars from tourism in 2015, so they must really value being petty since reading these things make them sound unwelcoming, unfriendly, and straight up antisocial.
[1] a pdf in they wayback machine cited on wikipedia https://web.archive.org/web/20150112082549/http://www.e-unwt...