and then it will become a sub-state of Russia.
That's one way to you find your post-soviet country attacked by Russia's army in order to "protect Russian minorities there" and "liberate your country from nazis".
Though Russia is currently too busy in the west right now to register Kazakhstan on the radar, so now is probably the golden opportunity to break your chains from them if you have any.
Everybody has seen how actually weak their army is. Before that, counties and people were afraid of them mostly because of soviet era fame. Now they've shown they are incapable on anything except missile hits with a great failure rate.
But they've succeeded in pummeling Ukraine into stone age. These "unsuccessful" strikes last I heard caused just over half a trillion of damage - so far :(. Ukraine economy is anticipated to be down 40% in 2022 - and that's an optimistic estimate. And 4-5mil of their own people have already fled the country.
I think it's one thing for us to speak how "weak Russian army is" from far away. Inefficient as it may be, it still makes your day pretty lousy. And your country. And the convenient thing about authoritarian regime and culture that's enjoyed sense of martyrdom for centuries is they can bear far far greater losses than most in the west.
I don't think people around Russia are drawing the same conclusions as "Russia will think twice". A different conclusion may be "Russia Will attack a country if it really wants ti, and pummel it to rubble, consequences be damned". If I were their neighbour, I would think of Russia as pissed, not weak, right now.
With what money? The west will hardly make any significant loans or investments to Ukraine, when Russia can always steamroll in, and shell everything to pieces whoever they feel like it. If Ukraine were under the NATO protection like the Baltic and EE states, then yeah, investors can expect their money is safe there. But until Ukraine gets any real protection against future Russian aggression, not much will change.
Rebuild and come back stronger is one possible path out of this. There are many others that are possible or likely.
Any sources for this?
> Citing U.S. intelligence, three U.S. officials said the United States estimated that Russia's failure rate varied day-to-day, depended on the type of missile being launched, and could sometimes exceed 50%. Two of them said it reached as high as 60%.
But this blog post is a bit more informative [2]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/exclusive...
[2] https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2022/04/ukraine-...
google "russian missile failure rate" and you can find many more articles
Russia's performance was certainly underwhelming, especially their logistics and general appearance of disorganization, but weak might also be a bit of a stretch.
Russia is bankrupting itself to prop that number up and if they let up for even a week the currency flight would crater the exchange rate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/28/russia-central-bank-hikes-in...
I’m not sure it’s quite as easy to just “use” Western law as Kazakhstan seems to think. The black letter law doesn’t matter so much as how it’s interpreted and whether it’s consistently applied in court. It’s an interesting idea, though. And if they can get it off the ground it seems like a good strategy to take advantage of their unique geo-political position.
There is a push of Central Asian people toward a form of de-colonial thinking and praxis, but in my humble opinion, it's another colonization with a different color - from the west.
Russia is a terrible partner. Russia sympathizer in Ukraine brought destruction on that country from Russia. It's really tragic that Russia is obliterating people that considered themselves Russians living in Ukraine.
There is zero comparison between modern western projects and Russia imperialism that did not change in the last 300 years.
You could've studied and worked in Belgium/Netherlands/Finland and many other countries much richer than Poland even with the Iron Curtain in place.
Millions of people did just that.
- You werent able to cross to the west unless on official Government delegation.
- You werent able to cross the border _at all_ unless Government decided to let you. It was a political decision by a party committee.
- Vacations abroad were only possible as an official reward from the Government, and never outside ~Comecon.
- You couldnt even keep a passport in your own house. It was given to you before departure, and you had 7 days to return it after crossing back.
You know who did work and study in the west? People who ran away https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Miles_to_Heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ferry
My uncle actually planned stowing away on a ferry to Norway in 1981, but got caught in the port and landed in penal company.
No state is perfect, and one can always find this or that to pick at, but most of democratic ones have not unleashed armies of state-employed goons on their own people to keep them from speaking up.
You should work on your boot-licking addiction (and I am telling you that as a Soviet-born russian-speaking citizen of one of the former republics).
Large parts of Eastern Europe had a choice after the collapse of the Soviet Union and chose the way of the west/Europe, with all its challenges and shortcomings, because almost any system is better than living under the thumb of autocratic leadership.
I hope one day, not that many years from now, I can once again visit a prospering Ukraine, which will be a member of the EU. If that is what the Ukranian people want, that is.
Yeah but wait: Russia today is very capitalist and market based. Yet very autocratic. The two can well go together. And that is the case of Kazakhstan as well.
> Large parts of Eastern Europe had a choice after the collapse of the Soviet Union and chose the way of the west/Europe, with all its challenges and shortcomings, because almost any system is better than living under the thumb of autocratic leadership.
No, they had no choice, because there was no alternative, not even in Russia. And today we are dealing with this lack of alternative. I think you are prone to believe that Putin is the Soviet Union 2.0: that's far from reality. Putin is the product of this lack of alternatives of the 90s.
What is true is that democracy mostly exists in the west currently. But it's not colonisation if a country becomes a democracy. That could happen without "the west".
Ps. A sign of not a democracy is leaders in control for > 20 years.
It seems everyone had already forgotten that, though.
But things aren't always as simple as they appeared then either.