Comments by "Tim Trewyn" (@timtrewyn453) on "Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics u0026 Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414" video.

  1. In part, Putin based, and continues to base, his sense of inevitable victory over Ukraine on Russia having 3.5 times Ukraine's population. If that is such a valid metric for him, he must be deeply concerned about the threat of a rising China. In spite of his awkward use of history, he probably knows that the Russian empire has in the past taken land and people from the Chinese empire. While I don't think his concern is fear, I think his desire for victory forces him to constantly calculate. The Russian perception of the Chinese threat is severe enough, that he must divert that concern to NATO. A calculation has been made that there can be no negative portrayal of China, a calculation China would like all other nations to abide by as well. To face and balance this new power, Putin needs to acquire more power for Russia. It is easier for him to go westward, ergo Ukraine, Belarus more easily being brought back under Russian supervision. It wasn't just the West that humiliated China in the 19th Century. Russia was a part of that humiliation. Putin's resorts to history expose him to these facts. Open hostilities occurred between the two empires as recently as 1969. Yet hyperbolic terms are used to describe the "friendship" between the two nations.
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