Merkel Apparently Fears Devastating Defeat of the Ukrainian Army

I think it depend on the time frame. Forgot about the declining population though. Not much chance of corruption being reduced to that level either.

 

When discussing "rivalry", it hardly matters what the present economies of the countries in question are like.

What matters is a willingness to force change upon others, and to what degree you are willing to suffer to acheive your goals. What else are the Russian people willing to give up? What are the people in the US willing to give up?

It's not like the Russians are a people unused to hardship.

Globally, US influence is waning. Precisely because the US does not want to pay the costs to be everywhere. Which is why we are facing this current series of messes. There will be more and more challenges from various regional rivals. It doesn't matter that they can't individually rival the US on an economical basis.

 

I saw in the news here that since last spring the Russian GDP went down 1.8%. And continues.

 

Here's a story about independent researchers using open source photos to prove Russian involvement in the Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/europe/videos-and-google-help-researchers-gauge-russias-presence-in-ukraine.html?ref=europe&_r=0

 

Russia still denying they have troops in the Ukraine but for some reason they need to decare soldiers deaths a state secret.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-denies-russian-troops-are-in-ukraine-decrees-certain-deaths-secret/2015/05/28/9bb15092-0543-11e5-93f4-f24d4af7f97d_story.html

Here's another one from independent sources that rejects part of "evidence" Russia used to support their case for not being responsible for the airliner shoot down:
www.rferl.org/content/russia-reportedly-faked-mh17-images/27046306.html
Now why would they spend the effort to fake photos in such a case if they weren't responsible to some extent?

 

No more declining population. Russia has a higher birth rate vs mortality than Europe...

 

The latter does not support the conclusion listed in the former. Now if Europe had a birth rate that was sufficient to maintain or expand the population it might but from what I recall reading it doesn't. Now if you care to present some current figures with regards to births and deaths in Russia from a trustworthy source that would be a differen tmatter.

 

CIA world factbook lists the 2014 EU population growth at 0.22%, and Russia's at -0.03%.

So it may well have a higher birth rate, but people would then be choosing to live elsewhere...

 

So population was declining as late as 2014. I seam to recall the EU has a population growth rate that is postive only due to imigration (and the birth rate among imigrant populations) but since I haven't looked at it in several years that may no longer be true.

 

I sure hope Russia and Russian men have learned their lesson...in one year...

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-25961063

The high number of early deaths in Russia is mainly due to people drinking too much alcohol, particularly vodka, research suggests.
The study, in The Lancet, says 25% of Russian men die before they are 55, and most of the deaths are down to alcohol. The comparable UK figure is 7%.
Causes of death include liver disease and alcohol poisoning. Many also die in accidents or after getting into fights.
The study is thought to be the largest of its kind in the country.
Researchers from the Russian Cancer Centre in Moscow, Oxford University in the UK and the World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer, in France, tracked the drinking patterns of 151,000 adults in three Russian cities over up to 10 years.

 

Certain people in Russia continue on the path of intimidation and pseudo-Soviet nationalism.

"The Russian chief prosecutor's office is to examine whether the Soviet Union acted legally when it recognised the Baltic states' independence in 1991."

"...the investigation into the Baltic states' independence followed a request from two parliamentary deputies. MPs Yevgeny Fyodorov and Anton Romanov, of President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, said the 1991 decision to recognise Baltic independence had been taken "by an unconstitutional body"."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33325842

Yevgeny Fyodorov since 2011, coordinates the activities of the national liberation movement in Russia, and in 2013 was elected as chairman of the factional groups in the State Duma of the Russian Federation "For sovereignty". According to Fyodorov rock music is "U.S.-instigated sabotage".

Fyodorov and Romanov have tried to bring Gorbachov to trial for the collapse of the USSR. (http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/10-04-2014/127322-mikhail_gorbachev_collapse_soviet_union-0/)

"It appeared in the light of the recent events in Ukraine - they are the continuation of the events of 1991. An investigation like this would have led to a legal confirmation of the fact of foreign intervention in 1991. It would legally validate the fact that the method of this intervention was a coup organized by Gorbachev."


The two walk hand in hand and are seriously concerned by any anti-federalist.

http://russialist.org/pravda-ru-can-russia-collapse-and-fall-under-western-control/

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/10/13/russia_birth_rate_did_vladimir_putin_really_boost_the_country_s_fertility.html

 

Well according to that article it looks like the population didn't decline in 2012. Looking at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/01/23/russias-population-is-still-growing-but-trouble-lies-ahead/
It looks like the Russian population increase, all be it slowly, starting in 2009 but the trend looks to be downward again and indeed the article mentioned both birth and immigration rates were down significantly in November of 2015.
This one:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/02/07/russia-just-recorded-its-first-natural-population-growth-since-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union/
mentions it was 2012 that was the first year the "natural growth rate" was positive but doesn't expect that to last for more than another 3-5 years. It also points out that this is the general trend in most industrialized countries.

 

Putin's still claiming that there aren't any Russian troops in the Ukraine isn't he? Kind of hard to believe when evidence like this is available:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/30/apparent-russian-base-found-in-ukraine.html#

 

1)The eastern part of the Ukraine is inhabited mostly by people from Russian origine

2) These people wanted to secede from the Ukraine and an Anschluss with Russia

3) They were helped by Russia .

The people of Kosovo wanted the same and got the consent of the US,thus why should those of eastern Ukraine not have this right .

The people of Texas wanted the same and got the consent of the US,thus why should those of eastern Ukraine not have this right .

Denying the population of Eastern Ukraine what was given to Kosovo,Ireland,Croatia, South Sudan,etc,etc is only proving that one is applying double standards .
The right of self determination applies for every one .

 

Come now LJAd, I know your not that thick.

Kosovo became an independent republic...It was not annexed by anyone.

Texas became an independent republic...It was not annexed by anyone.

Perhaps...If they had broken away to form their own independent nation, the international community would have been more receptive to their break away from the Ukraine.

However, this was not the case. They broke away from the Ukraine, or the express purpose of being annexed by Russia.

Fixed that for you.

 

Depending on how you define "Russian origine(sic)" perhaps or perhaps not.

That is highly debateable. The most reliable surveys I saw did not support this contention.

The insurrection was instigated by Russia that certianly doesn't qualify as helping the majority of the citizens there. While it may count as helping a few fantatics that is hardly is grounds for claimiing moral superiority or breaking international treaties.

It's not at all clear what you are talking about here. It could be:
1) Texas becoming independent from Mexico. In which case the US did not give it's consent that acomplished by the residents of Texas.
2) It could be Texas joining the US but Texas was an independent country when it joined the US and had been for some time. That is hardly the case with the Eastern Ukraine or Crimea for that matter.
3) It could be Texas's attempt at independence from the US as part of the Confederacy. In which case note that the US did not consent and indeed prevented it by force of arms.

Not really. None of those examples is really applicable to what is going on in the Ukraine due to Russian actions.

Actually it doesn't but that is irrelevant to the case at hand because there is no strong evidence that the majority of people in the Eastern Ukraine want to join Russia. Indeed it's an open question if those in Crimea wanted to.

 

is there enough Mexicans in Texas already they can claim they should be part of Mexico?

LJAd considering the Stalin train transports of people around the USSR, do you have numbers and places who were sent and where before calling the original local people?

For instanc the Ukraine origin people in Vyborg said they have always lived there, and without the knowlledge the Finns movin away from there 1944, some might even believe it.

 

Statistics do not support your claim. According to the CIA World Factbook only countries in Europe with greater decline in population in 2011 were Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, Montenegro and Bulgaria. Don't think the situation have changed that much since - the refugees of the Ukrainian-Russian War not counted.

The only thing that might have kept the Russian population kind of steady for a couple of years (according to Russian "statistics") had been the immigration of ethnic Russians from the ex-soviet countries and also the cheap labour from those very same countries. Now there are not that many willing ethnic Russians left to immigrate - Eastern Ukraine not counted - and the abyssmal Russian economy does not lure anybody to come and try to find a job either. On the contrary the (clever) Russians are emigrating again. All those things might have caused, that the Russian demografic statistics have not been published any more for a while...

http://www.ecology.com/population-change-country/

Here you can check the UN population prospects by country. According to it Russia is going to decline by 300-700,000 persons per year at least until 2050.

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp

 

Putin did not create the problem:the problem existed already in the 19 th century :there was a strong Russian minority living in the Ukraine:in 2001: 17.2 %.If this minority no longer can live together with the Ukrainian majority,there is only one solution :let them go .Ukrainia refused and they seceded.If they wanted to be (re)united with Russia,that's their choice . They have the right to do this after they seceded.

Sometimes the seceded people formed their own state : the US,Timor,Panama, South Sudan.Kosovo.Belgium.Slowakia.Finland .

Sometimes the seceded people preferred the (re)union with the motherland : Texas (after some years of existence as an independent state),the Sudeten Germans .Ulster.The Alsace .

That the secession of the eastern parts of the Ukraine is benefiting to Russia is not a reason to deny the population of eastern Ukraine the right to secede.

If the Basque provinces of Spain are seceding and constitute their own state,should the Basque provinces of France not have the right (if they want) to secede and to be united with the Basque state ?

After WWI,the Ukraine was divided between Poland and the SU,but the Ukrainian nationalists wanted to secede from Poland and the SU to form an independent state,thus,why should the Russians in the Ukraine not have the right to secede and to form an independent state/to be united with Russia ?
If there was an independent Kurdistan,should the other Kurds(in Turkey and Iraq) not have the right to be a part of this state ?
After WWI,some districts mainly populated by Germans were annexed by Belgium (the east cantons):these people wanted to become again a part of Germany .They were denied this right because they were German.
If the Sudeten Germans had the right to become a part of Germany, and the population of the Alsace to become a part of France, and the population of Teschen (Tescin) to become a part of Poland, why should the Russians of the Ukraine not have the right to become a part of Russia?
An ethnic more homogene Ukraine would be stronger than an Ukraine with a strong Russian minority .

Putin did not invent the problem:the problem existed since a long time ago : Russia before WWI was a multicultural state,with all the problems that result from such a situation .

And the same applies for the whole of Central and Eastern Europe : Transsylvania was inhabited by a mixed population of Romanians and Hungarians .There was Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Italians in the empire of the Hapsburgers,the Austrians in Italy ,etc,etc...

If the people of Quebec want to secede of Canada,who would deny them this right ?

Borders are not for eternity .