[WesternCulture]

The leaders of Russia sound immensely anxious, defensive and paranoid these days.

In neither the US or the EU, there’s a ‘hunger’ for any ‘holy Russian soil’. Geopolitics is dead.

Being Swedish, I’m well aware of the hatred and struggle between our two countries in the past, but the incentives to the struggle for ‘domination’ of the Baltic region is since long gone.

Today, power and prosperity comes from healthy capitalist enterprise. In this field, the Russians are our close partners and allies and the same goes for all of Europe and the US as well.

Sometimes, uneducated peasants have more of common sense than the rulers of a country. 15 years ago, I saw an old man from the Russian countryside being interviewed on TV. To the question ‘What should Russians do in order to make their economy catch up with the West?’, he responded;
‘Invite the Vikings again’.

Since then, not only Scandinavian/Viking companies like Ericsson, Volvo, ABB (Swiss/Swedish), Nokia and Scania have brought Western technology to Russia, but all sorts of Western and Japanese technology and capital have found their way too. No wonder the Russian economy today is healthier than at the time of the days of Soviet bankruptcy.

Why not put an end to all sissy quarreling and instead build a joint EU-Russian-US missile shield to defend Western Civilization from the maniacs in power in Tehran and Pyongyang?

[Logical me]

Russia is a total loss. They had a chance to join the civilized world but went back to their old sick leaders. We can no longer rely on Russia for anything that would protect the globe from terrorist. The sad part is one day Russia will reap exactly what they seem to be supporting.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Baltics hit back at Putin's "regrettable and misleading" speech - Apr 26, 2007 - 'I evaluate his announcement with regret, because in fact it undermines the treaty as such,' Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The announcement is a 'pretext' for Russia not to comply with the 1999 Istanbul agreement, by which Russia undertook to withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova, he added.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet was equally dismissive, saying that the statement was regrettable and misleading, a foreign ministry statement read. 'President Putin should know that (the CFE treaty) is not in force, because it has not been ratified by all parties,' Paet said. 'Most of the countries have not ratified it because Russia has not met its Istanbul obligations of withdrawing its armed forces from Georgia and Moldova,' he added.

'Ratification by NATO allies of the adapted treaty is awaiting Russia's ... continued fulfilment of its Istanbul summit commitments regarding withdrawals of Russian forces from Georgia and Moldova,' a US State Department fact sheet said.

And according to both Paet and Pabriks, the Baltic states - who joined NATO in 2004 and were not signatory to either the 1990 treaty or the 1999 amendment - cannot make any move to join the treaty until its original signatories have ratified it. 'Russia never honoured its commitment to pull its troops out of Georgia and Moldova. That makes it impossible for Latvia to join the treaty,' Pabriks said bluntly.

[Teacher317]

“How DARE you show an ability to destroy missiles and save millions of lives? It is clearly a threat to us, even though the system cannot serve any offensive purpose! We must retaliate!!! Ivan, call that Pelosi woman and have her declare another jihad or something.”

[Badeye]

Big deal, Vlad. You think not cooperating isn’t something America is used to in its dealings with clowns?

Sheesh.

[ApplegateRanch]

charged Thursday that foreigners seeking to thwart Russia's resurgence are increasingly interfering in its affairs.

Does he mean Marx, or Engels?

[cougar_mccxxi]

This is whats odd...this story is not presented on CNN, Fox, or any US news network with any amount of urgency. Why?