Vladimir Putin's message to the west: Russia is back

The Guardian ^ | Tuesday 18 March 2014 | Simon Tisdall

[MinorityRepublican]

Vladimir Putin likes to take his kit off in public. But Tuesday's exhibition of naked power by Russia's president at a joint parliamentary session in Moscow was delivered fully clothed before a conservatively suited audience of officials and adoring, applauding fans dressed up as MPs.

Speaking at a white rostrum amid flags, flourishes and gold leaf, a dapper-looking Putin's message was clear: after years of being cheated and dissed by the western powers, Russia is back. The US and friends could like it or lump it. But as the Ukraine crisis showed, Russia would no longer take it lying down.

Putin spoke primarily about Crimea, whose cause was "sacred" and whose return to the Russian fold was justified, democratic and legal. But his broader theme was that Russia was finally standing up for its rights nearly a quarter of a century after the Soviet collapse.

[molson209]

Big deal Putin gave a few soldiers new vehicles and uniforms

[goldstategop]

A Community Organizer is no match for a KGB-trained professional.

[tumblindice]

“Your commie has no regard for human life, not even his own.
It leaves me with a profound sense of fatigue, an emptiness.
Even still, women sense my power ... but, but I deny them my essence.”
‘Mein Kankles’, p. 4,9285, Hillary Clinton

[VeniVidiVici]

The Red Army would have annihilated us.

The Red Army ain't jack and hasn't been for decades. The only fools that believes this are the ones that keep buying Russian hardware only to see it utterly destroyed on the battlefield.

I think it's hilarious on other threads some idiots debate the battlefield prowess of the the T-72 over the T-60. LOL!

[Netz]

CCCP (USSR) is back, not Russia. Actually, in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, I warned my friends and family not to rejoice in the streets, celebrating the new “Peace Dividend”. The Russian bear receded and was in hibernation only to rear it's ugly RED head from the cave once again. It is unfortunate that America elected an effeminate, pansy amature who, after so many years is still trying to figure out how to lead and show some backbone. America is in a tailspin and her enemies are breaking out the Champagne. Sad, very sad.

[Organic Panic]

An even better message is

“You voted for Obama, you got Obama”

[jmacusa]

The Red Army was a steamroller that flattened the Wehrmacht. Had we turned on it in 1945 it would have been a disaster for us. Casualties mean nothing to the Russians. When you have an opponent who isn’t afraid to die and will do everything in his power to annihilate you in the process, you don’t have war you have Armageddon. Americans were tired of war and the country was going broke funding the one we were fighting at the time. And point of fact they didn’t have T-72s or T-60s in WW2. They did have the T-34 considered one of the best tanks of all time. Besides turning on the Russians would have meant getting to Moscow and occupying Russia. That didn’t work out for Napoleon or Hitler. You don’t have to tell me about Russian made stuff. I know it’s crap.