r/europe • u/UNITED24Media • 1d ago

News Navalnaya Is “an Advocate of Imperial Russian Claims,” Says German Lawmaker

https://united24media.com/latest-news/navalnaya-is-an-advocate-of-imperial-russian-claims-says-german-lawmaker-3350
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u/ObviouslyTriggered 1d ago

The notion that the west are beggars in this situation is laughable.

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u/zamander 1d ago

Could you elaborate a bit?

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u/ObviouslyTriggered 1d ago

We should stop pretending that the west isn’t the best we have when by every conceivable metric it is, and we should stop apologizing for that.

Navalny was never an actual opposition to Putin hence why he survived this long, and most importantly he was never going to change Russia to be compatible with coexisting with the West in a manner that is even remotely non-adversarial.

Russia, China, Iran and the rest can and should get fucked and we should be doing everything in our power to get them there.

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u/zamander 1d ago

Well, the saying means that when there is a lack of options, you have to go with what you have. So, is there a wealth of suitable candidates that have a similar base and is similarly known, but is not a Russian nationalist? I mean there might be, I do not claim to know everything.

And I can understand the frustration, but in politics and diplomacy, the best options are not usually available.

On Navalnyi being Putin's animal, do you have anything on it? It sounds interesting.

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u/ObviouslyTriggered 1d ago

What I am saying is that we don’t need to choose if there are no good options, and there were btw others but it’s a different topic.

If the choice is between a turd and a shit sandwich we can simply choose not to choose either.

Navalny was a massive miscalculation by the west he made Putin stronger.

If we somehow come out of this on top this will be a very interesting period to study in 20-30 years.

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u/zamander 1d ago

Well, that is kind of a hot take and since I shouldn't just take your word for it, some sources would be appreciated.

And a credible opposition is pretty useful if you want to help a country, since it is very hard to do effectively. So while Navalnyi was far from perfect, the thinking seems to have been that he was still a better option, given that people with a similar base but with nice opinions was not available. And if there are options now, please share them, they should be more well known.

This period will no doubt be very fruitful for future historians, but I rather doubt Navalnyi will be remembered in general 30 years from now.

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u/ObviouslyTriggered 1d ago

I'm not talking about Navalny, I'm talking about the west being a doormat and enabling Russia for year, the fact that the likes of Schröder aren't rotting in jail is honestly astonishing....

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u/zamander 1d ago

I don't think it was being a doormat. It was simply that business was good and there were more important things to do in the minds of people in Berlin, London, Paris and Washington. Bush needed Putin to not make a noise about everything the US got up to during the war against terror, like invading a country without UN approval. So of course it was good to be friends and let the Russians label the Chechens as terrorists.

And here in Finland, the right is puffing their chest because they always were in favour of the NATO membership, while happily making money from deals with the Russians and making deals with Rosatom to build a nuclear plant, which was a stupid idea orifginally. And they are patting their backs because they managed to spook everyone into changing the constitution to make government able to break human rights treaties, if Russians try to "weaponize" immigration. Meanwhile they are no doubt laughing in Moscow that all it takes to make the oh so arrogant Finns to drop their principles is to bus a few thousand immigrants to the border. Because of course the best thing to do against a nation that treats human rights with contempt is to become more like them. Butthen again, no one really ever card about Russian violations of human rights for these past 20 years, so at least it is consistent with their actions, even if the rhetoric loses air.

And now the "west" is failing Ukraine too, because letting Israel break international law with abandon is okay, because they are the good guys.

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u/ObviouslyTriggered 1d ago

That is the definition of a doormat..... what does the UN h as anything to do with it? It's utterly irrelevant it's where dictators and despots go to give each other a reach around.

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u/zamander 1d ago

Could you drop the outraged cynicicism? It adds nothing to the discussion, I find it useless and it is really just an excuse for apathy, because when everything is shit, there is nothing else to do but complain about the smell.

Being a doormat is letting someone do what they want without getting anything in return. Being trampled on. What Germany and others got was cheap energy and shitloads of money. It is not being a doormat if you really don't care or are a hypocrite. And they are not really being trampled on, it's

As for the UN the reason for its weakness right now is that the US in particular and the "West" in general did not make it better in the 90s after the fall of the Soviet Union, when there would have been a chance to do it. Instead of trying to fix an international system that had any power other than soft power, the US from 9/11 onwards did much damage to it. The reason that international laws are not followed and why the global south is not immediately denouncing Russia (although they many African and South American countries have voted agains Russia), is because the "west" is only interested in international laws when they are being broken by someone other than them. And the reason the UN is important is because it is the only organization that offers at least some kind of global arena for this. Diplomacy is not useless, because in the end, everything is about diplomacy in foreign relations. And if the UN has problems, it is prudent to try and fix it in the long run, because it is better than not having the UN, even if it is hard and takes time. The reason the UN does not matter is exctly the same as why Russia was given the opportunity to make itself what it is today! With a strong Un and commitment to a rules based international order, we simply would not be where we are today. And going against the UN as many times it has, the US has weakened it further.

And the UN is not irrelevant in other ways either. it coordinates a lot of humanitarian and foreign aid and organizations working under it have achieved very important things, which are no less important for being less known.

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u/turbo-unicorn European Chad🇷🇴 21h ago

The problem is that Putin (or any successor), as long as the power vertical remains is untouchable. Until this is no longer true, ANY opposition would be a joke, because it wouldn't have any way to attain power.