The US started the new cold war on China 6 years ago, with increasing levels and scales of sanctions & initiatives against a country whose main crime is its fast-rising GDP. The US, UK and some other West countries have successfully forced China into a corner and in the brace of Putin. The war in Ukraine seems to be one of the sweet fruits (or poison pills, depending on your view) of US policies, initiatives (e.g. "China initiative) and actions.

@paulhouston

It is just pure materialism. You can't be leader is your manufacturing sucks and your main power is huge propaganda machine and military personnel.

Russia has resources, China has manufacturing. US has... well, Facebook and Apple, and later one is just advanced reseller of Chinese products.

UK

• RUSSIA TO BE BARRED FROM RAISING SOVEREIGN DEBT IN U.K. MARKETS
• U.K. TO FREEZE ASSETS OF RUSSIA'S VTB BANK IMMEDIATELY
• U.K. BLOCKS RUSSIAN COMPANIES FROM RAISING FINANCE IN LONDON
• UK TO BAN AEROFLOT AIRCRAFT FROM LANDING IN UK
• U.K. IMPOSES SANCTIONS ON OVER 100 RUSSIA INDIVIDUALS, ENTITIES
• JOHNSON: BANNING EXPORT OF HIGH-TECH COMPONENTS TO RUSSIA

As usual this guys will seize money of people.

Britain, as part of a package of sanctions due to Russia's military operation in Ukraine, will impose a £50,000 ($66,800) limit on the amount of money that Russians can keep in their bank accounts, the UK Foreign Office said.

"The new restrictions will cut off wealthy Russians' access to British banks, including by setting a limit of £50,000 on bank accounts," the statement said.

Idiots.

I don't get this invasion. Has Putin become unhinged? I was under the impression that he did not have much desire for the Donbass region and this seems like an extreme reaction to whatever cross-border conflagrations that have occurred there over the past 8 years. Europe is squirming and has already balked at full sanctions but I doubt they want this headache, and Russian relations with the rest of the world will take years to mend

And now we know who are real organizers and owners of this shitty scum.

@Mihuel

Russia has everything to be a paradise on earth, very well-educated people, resources, land. My question is, why is Russia not a paradise on earth?

Specially for you I pinned the answer:

https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/24970/socialism-on-liberals-and-bad-dicatatorships#Item_6

It explains why certain capitalist states are as they are and can't be different. Of course, if they don't want to be totally worthless colony who can't decide anything by itself like your country now.

And as you very much liked capitalism, you need to eat that it comes with - wars.

Interesting fact, Germany to be Germany you know robbered Ukraine citizens of gas energy and got it for themselfs after 2014. You can open statistics and check.

To add some more - our elites almost always had been West oriented, I mean here that they robbed workers and loved to Live in Paris, London :-) Usually Russia retaliates as West do some stupid thing to punish elites who love them and who provided them with lot of almost free stuff. But it is never enough for some guys :-)

Vitaly, wake up.

Putin's favourite sport is calling the west at their own game. It's not really a fun game or a fair game. That's why western politicians have so little to say and are generally reduced to bad sport commentators in such a situation.

Another way to look at nation-state politics is a bunch of mafia bosses who have a 'truce' from time to time but make secret deals on the side until some business goes bad and then it gets ugly when they have to figure out how to knock someone off to expand into their territory. Of course to look 'clean' they do lots of PR with charities, loans, parties etc to keep up a good image. In our case, autocratic "democracies" are a kind of mafia that deal mostly in fossil fuels, the opium of the 20th century and now 'data', the synthetic fashion drug of the 21st.

It does help to look at various facts like Ukraine's debt, a big part of which is loans to buy military hardware (funny enough from the same people who lend them money). Imagine if Ukraine used any of that money to buy Russian hardware. What do you think would happen? If you're a grifter bank, how much sympathy do you give to your clients, really... https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/26/imf-review-ukraine-debt-gdp-linked-warrants-reform/

The woes of materialists is all quite sad and pointless in the end (at least for me), but you'll never hear the well paid propagandists, bankers and analysts complain about it (except to their bar tenders, prostitutes and therapists).

Intel, Dell and Lenovo stopped any deliveries to Russia, all their products will be banned from selling to Russia.