They are still part of a country that’s not within the EU. Even living in Ireland it’s sometimes a major pain to do anything in the UK. (Ordering stuff, returns, etc…) I can imagine it’s turned up to 11 in NI.

It wouldn’t get as far as Belarus IMO. Belarusian people don’t have such a slave mindset. They are not free, but they are also willing to fight somewhat for their rights.

But still, popular candidate would be a problem in russia.

Obviously Putin is going to get 105% of the votes. There’s no winning if you’re not Putin.

But this is still quite a disaster for Putin as the collected votes are the closest thing to citizens expressing their real opinion on Putin.

That’s why they are trying to present the signatures as illegitimate. It’s not that they are afraid of losing elections to the opposition. It’s the fact that the opposition got such a support that is problem.

IMO it will likely drive the price in countries that still directly buy cheap russian oil. So russia and India. There might be some price increase that will bubble up to the western countries, but it’s probably not going to be huge.

Those clowns even promised to not be the last country to ratify Sweden’s application.

Old habits something something…

You’re talking to a bot. It’s few days old account spreading russian propaganda.

You got downvoted, but South Africa never complained about russian regime commiting genocide in Ukraine. They were busy sucking putin’s dick while russian rockets bombarded silos with grain for the African continent.

Which is not to say that they are wrong about the genocide in Palestine. They are right this time IMO. I just don’t believe they care about the genocide at all.

I think the best way to look at it is to see their side. If your relatives are similar to mine, they don’t really care about Ukraine or Zelensky. Not even in a negative way. They just want simple solutions to their problems that are actually very complex.

You understand that having a fleet of Migs that depend on russian technicians is not a reasonable thing if the biggest warmonger in the neighborhood is russia itself. You understand that Slovakia can’t depend on russian gas or oil after russia proved many times, that they will not hesitate to use this dependency every opportunity they get. You understand that making concessions to russia for a promise of peace isn’t going to stop them, because we tried that many times before. You understand that none of these problems have simple solutions.

But many people choose to be ignorant and believe politicians that promise simple solutions. “We will stop supporting war, negotiate peace in Ukraine and buy cheap reliable russian energy again” It sounds good, it sounds easy. So they will believe any lie that supports this “solution”. Or pretend they believe it, because frankly in many cases I know they aren’t really that stupid to believe some of the lies. They just choose to be ignorant and don’t ask questions.

How can you depend on russian gas again if you saw them draining EU gas storage year before the invasion and after you saw them cheerfully proclaiming that your family will freeze to death? You can’t. But people choose to ignore reality, because they don’t like how it looks.

When you look at it this way, you understand that there’s no reason to discuss Ukraine with your family. Because it’s really not about Ukraine. It’s about how much they pay for their groceries. And it’s easier to believe that corrupt Zelensky is to be blamed for expensive bread rather than the fact that we trusted corrupt unstable country with our energy dependency and now have a lot of work, tears and blood ahead of us to dig ourselves from the hole we dug for decades.

Brand new account spreading russian bullshit.

No? Where did you get that impression?

It looks like he actually found the inspiration in russia:

he added that he was inspired by Alina Afanaskina. However, according to him, she did not kill enough people, which he intended to rectify.

I mean, just look at the list of countries by GDP/capita: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Europe_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Sort by rank, scroll all the way down. There it is.

the Russians will engage in an endless stream of provocations

🌍🧑‍🚀🔫🧑‍🚀

Always has been.

Brinkmanship is one of russian favorite pastimes.