Comments by "Black Cat Dungeon Master\x27s Familiar" (@blackcatdungeonmastersfami5311) on "Is Russia going to collapse? — Brian Taylor interview part 3" video.

When Putin took over, Russia was disintegrating, it had suffered a massive drop in GDP, life expectancy was plummeting and oligarchs were looting the country. Under Putin, Russia has become stable, much richer and the oligarchs have been reigned in despite the endless hostility of the West. I think more neutral historians will be more favourable about his legacy than Taylor expects.
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@buck4490 Not how I read it at all - he's not hysterically anti-Putin like some Western commentators but he's definitely hostile. The only famous Western commentator I can think of who is sympathetic to the Russian position right now is John Mearsheimer - who has been warning about this war for years. And maybe Peter Zeihan who thinks it's all about geography and nothing else.
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@simonbucci1041 Western countries are geopolitical rivals of Russia therefore almost every commentator and scholar in Western countries has an anti-Russian bias. A deferral to the number of people holding a position rather than the merits of particular arguments is the sign of someone who is incapable of independent or original thought.
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@apacheattackhelicopter8185 What does it matter what the people of a region think? Well do yo believe in democracy or not? Because if you do, how can you deny the people of Crimea the right to decide which of the two countries they're members of? Why was Crimea part of Ukraine anyway? Only because Khrushchev wanted to buy the Ukrainian communist leadership in his own bid for power. Crimea was part of Russia much longer than it was part of Ukraine. Most of the people who live there are Russian. Apply your same logic to Kosovo if you can. Who gave NATO the right to break up Serbia? There was some violence but it was heavily exaggerated in the Western media. After Maidan there was quite a lot of violence in Ukraine too. Dozens of anti-Maidan people were murdered in Kiev and Odessa and in the south and east. Actually let's go back further. If borders are set in stone regardless of the realities of the preferences of the people who live somewhere, who gave the USA the right to rip Texas from Mexico? Personally I've seen too many videos of Ukrainian soldiers in places like Lysychansk and Mariupol complaining about the locals who hate them. I've seen convincing evidence of atrocities by Azov in particular against the locals in places like that. If you care about the Serbian army's brutality against the Albanians of Kosovo, don't be a hypocrite and admit how the Ukrainians have behaved in the east is no different.
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@57thorns The Crimea referendum wasn't perfect but Western observers agreed it was generally run ok. A few Tartars didn't get voting papers which isn't ideal but there's no doubt about the overall result. See also the polls run by Western polling companies before and after the referendum showing a heavy majority in favour of annexation by Russia. Ukrainian elections have also had serious fraud BTW.
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@apacheattackhelicopter8185 "paid Kremlin propagandist" - no I'm a patriotic Westerner who calls out BS from either side. Russia now is vastly richer than when Putin took over - look it up. Disintegrating - under Yeltsin the whole country was dysfunctional. Chechnya got close to breaking away. Dagestan would probably have followed. Putin sorted out the military and sorted out Chechnya. Now, Chechnya is solidly behind the Russian state for the most part. Like Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Putin was popular in the West to start with because Western leaders assumed he'd follow Yeltsin in allowing continued Russian decline and NATO expansion. He only fell out of favour when he stood up against both. Ukraine and particularly Crimea are crucial for Russia. He couldn't safely ignore the Maidan coup. Forward thinking Western politicians should have foreseen that. Instead people like Victoria Nuland encouraged a Ukraine hostile to Russia. Now we see the result. And it was foreseeable. People like Putin himself and John Mearsheimer predicted this would happen.
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@simonbucci1041 Actual scholars - as if you actually read any. Take John Mearsheimer for instance - he saw this coming and warned against it almost twenty years ago.
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@apacheattackhelicopter8185 The Crimean population is mainly Russia and overwhelmingly wants to be part of Russia. We don't have to take the referendum result at face value, we can look to opinion polls run by professional Western organisations before and after the Russian annexation. That logic was good enough for Kosovo. Yeltsin at the time warned the West that detaching Kosovo from Serbia set a dangerous precedent. So what did Russia do in Crimea that NATO did not do in Kosovo? As for corruption in Russia. It's not my job to defend Putin. Nevertheless, corruption in Russia is less under Putin than it was in the Yeltsin days. Ukraine is probably worse - at least it is worse according to some surveys. But Russian corruption is not really our business. I'm personally more concerned about growing corruption, censorship and authoritarianism in the West. One thing I do find amusing is that questioning the blatantly inaccurate and hypocritical Western media narrative on Ukraine gets me called a Russian bot/troll etc. Just shows how tight the grip of censorship is getting on the narrative about this war.
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@apacheattackhelicopter8185 What difference does it make whether Kosovo is independent or joined Albania? The point is NATO broke up a sovereign country in Europe. What Russia did is no different. They just followed where NATO led the way. Check out the poll results for yourself. I can look up references if you want help. You should read Ukraine in the Crossfire by Chris Kasper de Ploeg for a more balanced understanding of Crimea and Russian-Ukrainian relations. When you've done that try Ukraine and Russia by Paul D'Anieri - certainly not pro-Russian but at least shows both perspectives. So far you're just repeating all the same double standards arguments that you'd consider contemptible if Russia used them against the West.
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Putin and other senior Russian leaders have been warning for over a decade that Ukraine joining NATO was a serious problem for Russia. Austin, Blinken and Zelensky were all pushing this hard in the lead up to the war. Economic explanations may contribute but it's obvious Russia would not accept Ukraine in NATO.
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@matsfrommusic Before the war, Ukraine had a lower GDP than Russia and even more inequality. As for Ukraine becoming a democracy, its politics are controlled by oligarchs allied to nationalist extremists who murder their enemies. Its corruption is similar to Russia's. Whatever the reasons for Putin's invasion, jealousy is not one of them.
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@matsfrommusic It seems clear your understanding is overly influenced by the Western narrative of Russia as backwards and Ukraine as progressive. You are almost certainly correct however that Putin would be concerned however about the Western desire to see him replaced. Neocons are openly calling now for Russia to be broken up. Imagine if Russia were calling for Biden to be replaced and openly working to break up the USA.
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@matsfrommusic I don't claim anything is great about killing anyone. I agree many anti-government journalists and politicians in Russia have been killed. Many Western aligned countries act similarly. This is a problem for Russian society to solve for itself, Western interference would be opposed by the the vast majority of Russian society just as Russian interference in the politics of Western countries is opposed by Westerners. Political violence in Ukraine after 2014 was vastly worse than in Russia. I'd like to recommend a well referenced survey for you - Ukraine in the Crossfire by Dutch journalist Chris Kaspar de Ploeg. He is neither pro-Russians nor pro-Ukrainian, he criticises both sides. The West has a very poor record of replacing national leaders it calls corrupt with non corrupt alternatives. You will know some examples - Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't know how much money Putin has stolen. When he assisted Sobchak, the mayor of St. Petersburg his position gave him the opportunity to steal millions as did many of his colleagues. He came out of that situation with a wooden house by a lake and US $5000. He couldn't afford his wife's medical care in Germany after a car accident. Perhaps you have concrete evidence that Putin has personally stolen billions I am not aware of.
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