this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
90 points (89.5% liked)

World News

2309 readers
93 users here now

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Breaking Russia economically and causing a regime change was the hare brained scheme from the west. However, that whole plan relied on being able to sanction Russia effectively. The reality is that Russia is just too big and too integrated into the global economy for that to happen. So, when the west started trying to freeze Russia out of the global financial system they found out that India and China weren't on board, at which point the whole scheme fell apart.

What's worse, we're now seeing that it's actually the west that's having growing economic troubles while Russian economy is growing and domestic industry is developing. The relative cost of keeping this war going is far more significant for the west than for Russia. Europe in particular is screwed because they got cut off from cheap energy they were getting. Meanwhile, Russia has no problem selling energy to other countries. So, in practice it's Russia breaking NATO through attrition as opposed to the other way around.

The west trying to go the terrorist route is a possible scenario, and it has been openly discussed. However, that carries dangers of its own as well. What's likely to happen is that Russia will annex all the regions that are heavily populated by the Russian speaking population. People there just want the war to end, and they will integrate into Russia. Then there's going to be a rump state of western Ukraine left that's full of nationalists. It's not going to be able to function on its own, and it will become west's problem because if it fails then there will be a flood of refugees coming to Europe. This is the nightmare scenario for the west where they either have to keep pumping billions of dollars to prop up whatever's left of Ukraine or deal with a huge flood of refugees that Europe's not able to absorb.

And of course, the fascists will end up feeling betrayed by the west at this point and they will realize they've been cynically used. I expect there will be at least as much terrorism happening in Europe as in Russian controlled territory as a result. CBS put out a report a while back stating that only 30% of the weapons made it to the battlefront. The rest end up on the black market, and it's almost certain that Ukrainian fascists have been linking up with far right cells across Europe and feeding these weapons to them.

So, I agree with you that this is the likely US plan, but I predict that it's going to backfire the same way the proxy war did. US completely misread the situation and they've made huge blunders over the past two years that are now culminating in a debacle for them.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm sure it will backfire for the liberal element in the West, but this is exactly what the fascists could have hoped for. And unless those would-be terrorists are dealt with in the aftermath of the war, I foresee a fascist shitstorm in a region that's primed for fascist takeover.

I can't shake the feeling that more than a few people planned for a Russian victory from the beginning, martyring Ukraine for a fascist revival in Europe. Not saying people didn't genuinely think Ukraine could win, just that there were cleverer puppeteers who sacrificed the country for a wider fascist movement.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's an entirely plausible scenario given that western left shat the bed as usual.

[–] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, they're good at that.

[–] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

fascists will end up feeling betrayed by the west at this point and they will realize they’ve been cynically used

Idk, the original banderites that fled to Canada seemed pretty supportive of the regimes that used them. And their descendants even more so - just look at Christie Freeland

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 year ago

Sure, ones that flee to the west and get comfortable are going to be like that, but vast majority of them are gonna be stuck in a ruined country.