good news for Ukraine

@diarrhea_isnt_funny said in #46:
> Explain to me precisely what Russia has lost. McDonalds? Russia is entirely self sufficient, and still has major trading partners with China, India, and other nations. The idea that the West could use sanctions to bring Russia to its knees was always an absurd notion without any basis in geo fiscal reality. It's time that this deadly fiasco stop and both sides go the the negotiation table, and if Z still refuses to do this he's only hurting his own people.

Their economy will perform great. Good luck!

@Sarg0n said in #51:
> Their economy will perform great. Good luck!

Well, in all honesty, claims that russia is a pariah state and their economy is dead are more like wishful thinking.
West really did not do enough. From the beginning of war in 2014 there were only "deep concerns" and "grave concerns" about it, and Germany even built North Stream 2, because "business is separated from politics". Now, Europe still buys russian gas and oil and the price limits are pretty high to hurt russia in any way. We read something amazing like "Swiss blocks 7.5 billions of russian money" (but it's not mentioned that Swiss has 200 billions of them). And Swiss government even might be happy to give those money to Ukraine, but they can't, because they need to change the law and referendum is required for that, so, maybe in the next century...
Regretfully now it is still more like "business as usual" with russia.

Well, I missed a lot, good news is good, but there is a bad news, WW3, trust me WW2 happened like this, Britain and France declared war with Hitler, and he is Germany, I'm not saying Germany is starting the WW, but, you understand? now Ukraine and Germany are fighting against Russia.

Sanctions are a long-term effort.

Search for and read articles (from different sources) on:
Sanctions Russian Economy

This gives a perspective on what the sanctions are about.

@what_game_is_this said in #54:
> Sanctions are a long-term effort.
>
> Search for and read articles (from different sources) on:
> Sanctions Russian Economy
>
> This gives a perspective on what the sanctions are about.

How are those sanctions working with respect to Cuba? Cuba has been sanctioned for 60 years now, and that little country
is not even close to surrendering. The same is basically true for Myanmar and Iran and North Korea. Sanctions rarely work even applied to isolated countries. Russia is far from being an isolated country, and has massive natural resources and more than sufficient trading partners. The Russian economy is not hurting, nor are the Russian people and Putin's popularity is in the 80s. The whole sanctions crusade against Russia was an epic political canard.

@diarrhea_isnt_funny said in #55:
>

Funny that we agree on the point that sanctions are pretty weak.
But I blame West for a very weak reaction and "too little too late" regarding sanctions. While my opponent praises russia and calls sanctions mechanism not working in general and implies that they should not have been applied at all...
The sanctions against russia should have been stricter, much stricter. russian people do not really feel the consequences of the crimes their country is committing.

@Alex_1987 said in #56:
> Funny that we agree on the point that sanctions are pretty weak.
> But I blame West for a very weak reaction and "too little too late" regarding sanctions. While my opponent praises russia and calls sanctions mechanism not working in general and implies that they should not have been applied at all...
> The sanctions against russia should have been stricter, much stricter. russian people do not really feel the consequences of the crimes their country is committing.

The sanctions we already have in place are creating major economic havoc throughout Europe. I'm open to ideas of how even more extreme sanctions could have a positive effect in a short time and not cause even more hardship for Europeans and the rest of the West.

@diarrhea_isnt_funny said in #57:
> The sanctions we already have in place are creating major economic havoc throughout Europe. I'm open to ideas of how even more extreme sanctions could have a positive effect in a short time and not cause even more hardship for Europeans and the rest of the West.

I kinda understand your pervert logic. You try to present it like sanctions hurts Europeans more and therefore should be stopped (not a single word about russia, right?).

But no, some inconveniences for Europeans is just a price they should bear to hurt russia (and russians) to the point when it can't continue its aggressive war. If such inconveniences won't be taken however, the future problems will be much-much worse. Basically, as we see it now: the full-scale war after Europe was "gravely concerned" for years from 2014 but did not do almost anything.

@Alex_1987 said in #58:
> I kinda understand your pervert logic. You try to present it like sanctions hurts Europeans more and therefore should be stopped (not a single word about russia, right?).
>
> But no, some inconveniences for Europeans is just a price they should bear to hurt russia (and russians) to the point when it can't continue its aggressive war. If such inconveniences won't be taken however, the future problems will be much-much worse. Basically, as we see it now: the full-scale war after Europe was "gravely concerned" for years from 2014 but did not do almost anything.

What future problems? I guess if you believe the media that Putin wants to take over all of Europe, then indeed, that's a big problem. But there's no evidence that's so. Putin only had an issue with Eastern Ukraine, and for reasons that people need to be aware of.

As for sanctions, are they working? I guess the theory is that sanctions against Russia will work if they're just the right kind of sanctions. To that I'd reply, have sanctions worked in respect to Cuba, Mynmar, North Korea? How many years have those sanctions been in place?

As for Europe, they're suffering needlessly under these sanctions that are supposed to hurt Putin. And these sanctions don't work.

Anything else you'd like to say?

@diarrhea_isnt_funny said in #59:

> only had an issue with Eastern Ukraine

Right. And before, soviet union / russia "only had an issue" with some territories in Hungary, then in Czech, then in Afghanistan, then in Moldova, then in Chechnia, then in Georgia. But now russia will finally stop, I promise. Funny thing: they always used the same excuse for aggression in different countries - it's all about nationalism, fascism and often genocide of poor russian people.

> Anything else you'd like to say?

No. Just that I am really missing that facepalm emodji on lichess.