Posted on 08/25/2014 11:27:00 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Russia's just not the same under President Vladimir Putin.
It wasn't long ago that Russia didn’t need to paint its military convoys a pale white to cross international boundaries.
The trucks and tanks were green and boldly emblazoned with red stars -- not crosses -- on their sides and turrets. And when they entered a country, they stayed, at least for a while, in countries like Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. (The United States followed the Soviet example in Afghanistan more than a decade after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.)
And places like Kiev, Luhansk, Donetsk and the rest of Ukraine belonged to the masters of the Kremlin by right and by conquest and without question. And the Kremlin starved the Ukrainian breadbasket in the name of Stalin's Socialism and a greater good that never came.
And the men in the Kremlin dreamed.
The dreams were large.
The ambitions of the Soviet Union didn’t end at the ends of the earth, or even at the edges of the atmosphere. They imagined first creating a red planet that wasn't Mars and then planned to make Mars Red, too.
Such ambition lives on in one of the few high officials still standing in Ukraine’s Russian-aligned armed opposition. ....
The Soviet Union was first to land a probe on the moon softly enough for it to function.
But the United States landed men there and won the war.
And now, despite the fact that Russia has the only way to get people to the International Space Station, the spaceport doesn't even sit on Russian territory. Russians have to make the hike to independent Kazakstan to reach Baikonur, with its Cosmodrome, which was once theirs by right, too....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
bump
The question is ... of what?
WHAT are (once) great nations afraid of .... muslims?
I think not.
I believe nation' governments have become so Godless, they fear THEIR father ... the devil ... Satan.
Nothing else answers the question, What are you afraid of ?
What needs to happens is to achieve a face saving way for Russia to get out of Ukraine, so we can forge an anti ISIS alliance which will include the US, Europe, Russia, China and India.
Reuters sounds a little disappointed with their Russian buddies. They must miss the USSR.
Total fantasy. Russia does not care about beating ISIS at all.
The Russians have not mobilized.
They actually have a rather small professional army, the rest is a lot of short service conscripts (as was the old Red Army).
I don’t think Putin wants to call up the conscripts, or even use the ones currently serving. This is a quick way to make a war really unpopular.
Russian patriots need to hang Putin and Medvedev from a lamp post. That way Russia can pin the blame on them and save face.
Russia has a severe muslim problem. There is so much muslim immigration that Russia may go majority muslim within 10 - 15 years. There has been speculation that Putin wants eastern Europe just to tip the balance back.
The only countries Putin has ever invaded are Christian countries. Putin is letting millions of muslims run wild all over Russia because he is too busy persecuting his Christian neighbors.
AP....BREAKING:
Ukraine president Poroshenko ‘dissolves parliament’ and announces early elections in October. So Til Oct. Poresneko is the sole rule in Ukraine....interesting.
Putin is a sole ruler too with an iron fist.
Ukraine needs new elections, Parliament needs it if it is going to be be able to do its job properly. It was far too fractured. New elections should help.
I saw this coming a week ago.
Prices for seats in the new Ukrainian parliament will start from 200 grand and go upwards to a million. ....
Oligarchs will think they died and went to heaven now.
Not nearly enough for a seat in the rubber-stamp Duma
He is dissolving Parliament because it was not able to do its job and function as it should. It was totally gridlocked.
Well then we are comparing Ukraine now to Russia...both stack their parliments to do their bidding. The Norm for Russian type political theater...just surprised a bit Poroshenko took the Russian route....so nothings changed as we anticipated.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.