this post was submitted on 15 May 2024

155 points (97.0% liked)

World News

39386 readers

2135 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

155

How China is helping keep the Russian economy afloat (www.dw.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

China threw Russia an economic lifebelt after the West hit Moscow with sanctions over the war in Ukraine. As Putin prepares to visit Beijing this week to promote even closer ties, Washington is ramping up the pressure.

Days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West foisted deep sanctions on Moscow in the hopes of hurting Russia's ability to finance the conflict. The sanctions targeted politicians and oligarchs, froze foreign reserves, curbed access to Western technology and cut Russian banks off from the Swift international payment messaging system.

The financial penalties were widely expected to bring Russia to its knees. Initially, the ruble plummeted in value and the Russian economy contracted by 1.2% in 2022. Last year, however, Russia's growth outpaced both the United States and Europe at 3.6%. The country is on course for another strong year in 2024.

Much of that growth came in the way of trade with China, which acted as a counterweight to the West by refusing to impose sanctions and becoming a major buyer of Russian energy. Despite pressure from the US and the European Union, the two countries have formed a deeper alliance since the war started.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The West let it happen. They didn’t arm Ukraine quickly enough, nor did they do much of anything to help Ukraine in the decade before.

A decade before the country was run by Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych. Any western economic or military assistance would have helped Russia continue to own Ukraine politically.

Instead they became closer pals with Russia after the annexation and even more dependent.

The hope was, and there was a lot of evidence it was working, that engaging Russia economically would act as a force against Russian aggression because no one could imagine Russia throwing away their access and economic prosperity by openly invading another country. Also, Ukraine, immediately following the exit of Yanukovych in 2014 had a lot of corruption in government with lots of Russian backed political appointees still there.

At the time it didn't look like a country that could or would defend itself from Russia even if they were invaded. The taking of Crimea with almost no push-back from Ukraine, and Ukrainian military officers marking their weapons of war to Russia in exchange for Russian military command reinforced this idea.

Had they nipped this in the bud more than a decade ago, Russia wouldn’t have had the means nor the will to invade Ukraine.

Who is "they" and "nipping" it sounds like you're suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people. 2014 was also when the USA was fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trying in Afghanistan to build a domestic army to defend their government against the Taliban.

You're looking at Ukraine as the Zelenskyy-era version which has this hope and promise of being a less corrupt place and fighting Russia. Zelenskyy didn't even take office until 2019. Even then it took a couple of years to learn that he was going to be different than the previous leaders.

I say all of this, and I hugely support Ukraine today! I want more support for them from my government and others, but that doesn't change what Ukraine was 10 or more years ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Who is "they" and "nipping" it sounds like you're suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people

The Western powers, but mostly Western Europe. The Baltic states and Poland were very wary of Russia and there multiple news articles of them fearing a Russian invasion (Lithuania 2017).

Gearing up NATO for a possible invasion to actually increase military spending for secure Baltic borders, stockpiling arms and weapons, as well as gradually much harsher sanctions for Russia together with increasing economic distancing - aka a strong response, could've shown Russia who not to trifle with. The former USSR states said multiple times that Russia wouldn't recognize much apart force.

The Nord Stream pipeline was beyond idiotic. After signing the Paris agreement in 2015, agreeing to get more gas into the EU and from Russia of all parties, was just dumb. The dependency created was more on European side than Russian side.

Russia started testing its own internet and tried producing its own chips for Russian "independence", but after the annexation how could that not be interpreted as preparation for disconnection from Western tech?

Probably the situation was complex back then and even more complex today, but the reality is that to many people the attack on Ukraine was not a surprise but a matter of time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Who is “they” and “nipping” it sounds like you’re suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people

The Western powers, but mostly Western Europe. The Baltic states and Poland were very wary of Russia and there multiple news articles of them fearing a Russian invasion (Lithuania 2017).

The Baltic countries and Poland have been the victim of large national powers for nearly all of the 20th century. Further, NATO has strengthen the Baltics as well as Poland. How are you suggesting this changing the situation in Ukraine historically? For the point you're making, are you treating Ukraine as a NATO member and suggesting they should have received equal treatment?

Gearing up NATO for a possible invasion to actually increase military spending for secure Baltic borders, stockpiling arms and weapons,

This happened. The Baltics only joined NATO in 2004, and today NATO members have bases and armies in these countries.

as well as gradually much harsher sanctions for Russia together with increasing economic distancing - aka a strong response, could’ve shown Russia who not to trifle with.

There were sanctions on Russia after the 2014 invasion of Crimea. Russia didn't do anything to NATO. Geopolitically, responding militarily to a completely separate sovereign nation being invaded without that country asking for assistance would have been the exact global hegemonic response our enemies claim we are.

The former USSR states said multiple times that Russia wouldn’t recognize much apart force.

And today NATO countries are still free with zero Russian soldiers on them. I'd like it to stay that way.

The Nord Stream pipeline was beyond idiotic.

I've already addressed this. The West was trying to engage Russia economically strengthening ties to Russia to give them something to lose if they went to war again.

After signing the Paris agreement in 2015, agreeing to get more gas into the EU and from Russia of all parties, was just dumb. The dependency created was more on European side than Russian side.

Russia is largely a petro-state. If you're trying to build economic ties with them you have to have mutual trade. Natural resources are one of the few things Russia has to sell. Further, the goal of switching to natural gas was to switch to cleaner energy generation for Europe than coal. In that, it was successful.

Russia started testing its own internet and tried producing its own chips for Russian “independence”, but after the annexation how could that not be interpreted as preparation for disconnection from Western tech?

India is also launching its own semiconductor research and manufacturing capacity right now. source Are you suggesting its planning to disconnect from Western tech?

Probably the situation was complex back then and even more complex today, but the reality is that to many people the attack on Ukraine was not a surprise but a matter of time.

Yes, there were voices saying we should cut off and isolate Russia instead of engage in the early 2000s. Think of the consequences. Doing so would have also handed Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter. There never would have been an invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022. With zero consequences, why would Russia have stopped at Crimea in 2014?