Quote from: xminer on June 13, 2024, 10:15:52 AM

Quote from: paxmao on June 05, 2024, 07:14:39 PM

Russia did (past tense) well under Putin for some people and it should have been doing better, so guess who made a mistake? Hint: there has only been one leader in Ruzzia for decades, at least in democracies you can blame the other guy.

I cannot thank you enough for making the point for me: I have no doubt that Moscow Metro is faring fantastically, the problem is the rest of the "Ruzzian World":

Meanwhile Ruzzian toilet (outside Moscow, of course)

30,000,000 people in Russia are not connected to centralized sewage systems –despite

There are simple figures - average monthly wage in Russia vs that in Ukraine - which was always higher in Russia. If you watch POW's interviews - people state their salaries, I envy them a bit.
There were simple cases - Ukrainians going to work to Russia right from western Ukraine, where they are definitely not pro-Russian anyway.

As for toilets? If somebody has a "better shitter" in Ukraine - it's not because of Ukraine, it's because of he has personally invested into having a more comfortable life. Why don't russians do that? Probably they expect it to be done by the state and not by themselves. Does this show Ukraine in any way superior? No. It only shows Ukrainians that are used to the fact of anarchy and effective absence of state power.

I can pinpoint you places in Kyiv (not the "outskirts") where there are no connections to sewers at all. So-called "private sector" (built during USSR mostly; perhaps some were rebuilt nowdays) - tens of meters from multi-floor buildings built during USSR and Ukraine rule has no sewer connection. The house I own in one of oblasts - has "central" water (built by local community) and natural gas (same case) and everyone has a "shit collector" of their own - with ordering of shit-transporter "barrel" periodically and stuff

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I can fully agree with you that Ukraine needs better toilets - an many, many better other things. What would you choose to get there? (a) be under the Muscovian regime - which is not ever going to invest in Ukraine, but rather convert it in another territory to get mercenaries at a cheap or (b) Try to be more like Poland - which joined the EU and got this:

I guess now you may understand what Ukraine is fighting for (hint: is not for toilets).

Moving on to news, the latest is about economic sanctions. These have now been increased in several ways:
- A shit-metric-ton of pressure on banks. Queues of people have been noted trying to get usd - I do give relative value to this information, but the volatility of the Ruble vs usd is 10% in a day during the last week. This means uncertainty - some believe that sanctions are going to have a deep economic effect.

- The last G7 summit in Italy is a discussion on whether the interests of the Ruzzian frozen assets are going to fund Ukraine's war effort and pay the Ruzzian debt or if it is actually the Ruzzian frozen assets that will be partially confiscated. A figure of 50 Billion has been mentioned. To put it in perspective, this is one year of US aid on top of the existing aid.

These seems a bit more serious than what has been done to date, so I would say that the frog is getting further heated. I really hope that Putin has a very good measure of what is the breaking point - a rogue Ruzzia is not the best scenario for the world.