Comments by "Archangel17" (@MDP1702) on "How Putin (Accidentally) Re-United Europe - TLDR News" video.

@irham191 well, to be fair, Russia (or at least its leadership) gives ample reasons to hold negative sentiments towards Russia. Personnaly I hope that Russia someday might join the EU or at least becomes an allied nation with friendship from both sides. That is just not possible with current Russian leadership. Also I think (though I don't know enough about it), that Russians might be just as much if not more anti western due to for example the propaganda of Russia vs the west, eventhough most of the west couldn't give a shite about Russia in the last 20 years, except for when it was forced to due to Russian actions (like crimea annexation, Ukrainian invasion, Georgia, ....)
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@irham191 after all the sanction toward russia for the last 20 years And how often have these (not) been imposed after an action from Russia first? The fact that the EU needs to keep adding sanctions on Russia makes it clear that Russian leadership just don't care about it and by extension the regular Russian person. Afterall they knew that such actions would be taken after Crimean annexation and definitely after a full scale invasion of a country neighbouring the EU and NATO. The EU specifically warned that they'd have no other choice but to impose sanctions well before the invasion started. It was either that or getting militarily involved in the conflict. What i dont understand is after all the oil and gas import and other things, from russia to EU nation, why not let it join EU or NATO. Really? Letting a nation join that is larger than any other member (EU), and whose leader is a defacto dictator whose goals are at odds with the spirit of the EU sounds like a good idea? If the EU already has trouble with Hungary and Poland currently, problems due to a Russian member would be out of this world, probably ripping apart the EU from the inside. As long as there isn't a large substantial change in Russian leadership (ie. veritable democratisation), there is no chance at all that Russia can join the EU.
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@irham191 actually the eastern part of ukraine was predominantly russian. Because of former soviet policies to move Russians into that region. So if these people don't wish to be part of Ukraine, they should just again be moved back to Russia imo. Anyone that hasn't had several generation living in an area should claim said area for themselves. Otherwise why wouldn't Russia just help other Russians to move into other border regions and then claim to 'defend them against aggression'? Moreover polls showed that majority of the population might have been in favor of a special status within Ukraine (like increased autonomy), but not really independence/annexation by Russia. And the conflict in donbass has caused about 1,6 million refugee. 600,000 comes to russia. So in other words, the majority of the refugees weren't to Russia. Judging from the russian history, its not the first time that the sanction caused a hardship for russian and yet we never seen them topple their government, especially in soviet era. I'd argue that it actually was the economic difficulties that caused the soviet union to collapse in the first place. Also propaganda was much more easier to do in the past, even just by causing shear ignorance. If you never knew better, than why would you go against a government for economic reasons? These days, while there still is much propaganda, there are also more ways to get around it and people have more reference points, even due to just personal experiences of the last decades. And at the very least, a diminished economy means less government income, means less money to the military (or at the cost of a larger % of GDP). And apperantly china had some problem with trade war and sanction, with their close ties with russia, and india abstinence in UN resolution. It should made european leader worry about their position. Actually the expectation was that China would back up Russia. China remaining quite neutral is a very interesting development to the West, it could indicate the alliance between Russia and China is possibly more fragile then was expected and that China at this moment still very much favors stability and growing their economy vs getting into a conflict. India remaining neutral is mostly about their trade relationship with either side and regarding the Russians mostly to do with military trade. Not at all surprising.
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@irham191 crimea annexation was done by vote, I don't really have a huge problem with Crimea voting to join Russia, but how it was done, was completely stupid and unacceptable. Sending in armed troops and then making people vote, without any international oversight was bound to have repercussions, and the Russians knew it. However they also were imo afraid that in a regular vote, things wouldn't go as much their way as expected, similar to how Ukrainians are now putting up much more of a resistance than expected. It also wasn't just the crimean annexation, but also the support of an armed conflict in Eastern ukraine in the Donbas region. And judging from the gdp in 2000 its only about 300 billion and in 2013 it rose to 2 trillion, it drop after the sanction. Pretty sure the russian see him as a savior and condemn western country. Or it could just show that it was trade with the west/Europe that caused such a rapid rise in GDP and not necessarily Putin, rather that Putin stopped it by unnecessary antagonizing Europe. Afterall, after the sanctions GDP dropped and is now just following more or less the more 'struggling' EU economies like Italy and Spain.
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