In Soviet echo, Putin gives Russian army a political wing

Reuters ^ | July 31, 2018 | Andrew Osborn

[C19fan]

Vladimir Putin has created a new directorate inside the Russian army to promote patriotism, evoking memories of a Soviet practice that once saw soldiers taught the precepts of Marxism and Leninism by political commissars.

The move, approved by Putin in a presidential decree published on Monday, will affect Russia’s around 1 million active military service people and appears designed to ensure soldiers’ loyalty at a time when Moscow is locked in a geopolitical standoff with the West.

[Midwesterner53]

Our military has the same configuration. Soldiers are taught homosexuality is normal, the sexes are equal in strength, being white is bad, Christianity is no longer important, etc, etc, etc.

[Zhang Fei]

[Sorry, Trump is not very loyal to Ukraine. He needs the money to build the wall for America.

You should vote for Biden. His son is working for Kyiv government.]

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Given that Ukraine is an ally that contributed troops towards the US missions in Afghanistan and Iraq whereas Russia has spent the past several decades either impeding those efforts, and in recent years, aiding the Taliban, it’s not particularly an issue that *any* American has business interests in Ukraine. Heck, plenty of Americans have business interests in the aggressor country, Russia, and nobody’s giving them any guff about it.

[dfwgator]

Aren’t they going after Manafort for his business dealings with Ukraine?

[ek_hornbeck]

The difference between liberals and conservatives isn’t whether they show up personally with rifles in Ukraine - it’s whether they support lethal aid to Ukraine. Conservatives do. Liberals don’t

The Republicans who were the loudest advocates of giving military aide to Ukraine were John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who also happen to be the two of the least least conservative Republicans in the Senate. Similarly, even George W. Bush had the sense to tell Georgia that they were on their own during their skirmish with Russia, while McCain and Graham were champing at a bit to become involved in a proxy war. So your claim that your neocon position is somehow the official "conservative" one is nonsense, much like the rest of your posts.

The conflict in Ukraine is a proxy war between the Brussels Eurocrats and Moscow. I see no reason to prefer the EU bureaucrats to Putin's people - the only difference between them is that the EU is better with soft power and carrots than with hard power and sticks.

[granada]

There’s no difference between you and a typical liberal, technically.

Both of you are keen on spreading russia scare.

Both of you attack Trump over the summit.

Both of you claim Trump is not tough on Putin.

Both of you claim Trump doesn’t do enough for Kyiv regime.

both of you believe he should focus on confronting Russia, instead of funding the wall.
..........

And you try to justify MSM’s anti-Trump propaganda.

you need to prove you are not a liberal, no the fifth column of Dem Party.

Pls prove it.

[granada]

Trump is struggling to fund the wall, support american workers, but you are whining about Trump didn’t “push much bigger lethal aid packages to Ukraine.”

Tell us how much bigger lethal aid packages are big enough for corrupted Kyiv regime?

[ek_hornbeck]

Zhang's foreign policy talking points do sound a lot like Hillary's - i.e. "we're not tough enough on Putin," "we need to do more to help the Syrian rebels" etc. Scratch a neoconservative, find a Democrat.

The way I look at it is this. The power struggle in Ukraine is between Russophiles who will be beholden to Putin and Europhiles who will be beholden to Brussels and the EU. There's a small faction of authentic Ukrainian nationalists, but they have close to zero chance of coming to power, much less effectively governing.

Between the EU and Putin, the latter is the lesser evil. Why? Because whenever a nationalist, populist party or leader emerges in Europe (LePen in France, Orban in Hungary, AFD in Germany etc), the EU sides with the internationalist establishment while Putin supports the nationalists. While Putin obviously does so for self-serving reasons, that's still preferable to the alternatives of Macron, Merkel, ad nauseum.