US and European countries announce mass expulsions of Russian diplomats
58 replies, posted
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43545565
Thanks to our bros across the channel/ocean for not letting this attack divide the West
Woah, didn't think they'd actually go through with it, quite a few countries on that list too
It's for the best. A good message to send. Sadly my gut says things will only escalate.
Good riddance.
Send the republicans with them, since they're pretty tight evidently
My personal theory is that Putin is seeing how far he can push.
So Cold War part 2 is on?
Part 1 never really ended
More like everyone is looking at "how far you can pudh a narrative without solid evidence"
There is evidence, you've been told this before with both this incident and in past incidents. You aren't deceiving anyone, just annoying them.
I thought I had diarrhea this morning turns out I just had a lot of Russian diplomats to expel.
Anyway massive show of fealty to England, good stuff. Damn Russians. The Poles and Finns at my office hate them especially.
A Russian refugee who spent years in a Russian prison, who was apparently a source in the Russian blackmail/collusion investigation, was killed by a Russian nerve agent.
Clearly, this could only be the work of those damnable Chechen separatists. I don't know what I was thinking, assuming Russia was playing any part in this.
Nah this is just Cold war Chapter 4: "Bit chilly in here innit?"
nah son it was the Eternal Tatar
It was obviously Ukraine's fault. Better invade them again.
We really can only speculate but here are some of my theories, could be a combination of any of these, or something else entirely
Test/divide the West
In the era of Trump and Brexit, I don't think it could be taken for granted that the US or even the EU would support Britain in this. It's entirely possible that Trump could have tweeted that Russia did nothing wrong, and that Europe would have told Britain to fuck off or just issued a soft condemnation/statement. We've seen Russia adopt a strategy of interfering in elections just to sow general chaos and stir shit in the West. Maybe they just wanted to see if America would back us up, what Europe would do, etc. and they probably hoped it would devolve into a shitshow and damage relationships and alliances.
Sending a message to other potential 'traitors'
Sergei Skripal became a spy for MI6 and passed Russian state secrets to the UK. He was caught, sent to prison, and then given to the UK in a spy swap. Attacking him sends the message that if you think you can cross Russia and then claim safety in a Western country, you're wrong cus they're still going to get you.
Sending a message to some specific person(s)
Maybe some shit's going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Maybe the US is actively trying to recruit Russians as spies, maybe some high-up Russian has disappeared and potentially defected to the West, anything like that. Rather than just a general threat, Russia might have a specific person or group who they want to intimidate.
Sergei Skripal knew something
Seems kind of farfetched given he's been in the West for so long, but who knows, maybe Skripal actually did know something new about Trump-Russia, or maybe he was still talking to sources in Russia and leaking new stuff.
Russia does weird shit all the time
This isn't a theory but just something to note. Skripal's death is an extreme case because of the chemical element, but it's not an isolated incident. Russian diplomats have been dying in suspicious circumstances all over the place. Here's a series of long articles about the many suspicious deaths linked to Russia over the past fifteen-or-so years. It's not out of character for Russia-linked people to die in suspicious ways for reasons that seemingly make little sense. It's important to note that Russia deciding to kill Skripal would have been a tiny story if not for the remarkable way that they chose to do it.
Nobody believes them because Russia denies sending soldiers into Ukraine meanwhile there are pictures on Twittwer of masked men in Russian military uniforms disembarking from Russian trucks and holding Russian weapons.
I get it, no one wants to think their government is literal garbage... But come on dude, how much more obvious does it need to be that the Russian government is the glorified mob?
How would you define solid evidence?
Of course it is. The country is barely held together with tape and when I say tape I mean energy and ressource money.
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your standpoint, but a few weeks ago I remember you basically going "well, Russia is just reacting to whatever the West has done to Russia", but now it kinda sounds like you see it differently. Have you changed your mind (not necessarily to "the West is completely innocent", but still) about Russia's (or Putin's or whatever's) actions? Or have I just read some kind of justification into your earlier posts that just weren't there?
Good to see that this problem is being dealt with. Sympathies go out to our russian brothers and sisters who see through Putin's veil and how sketchy the Kremlin is.
I think I'd like to read a bit of a blog posty post from you at some point, both because I must admit that I've kinda skimmed over a lot of what you've posted in the past - probably because I just really don't get you perspective - and second because I really haven't met many people who would argue ideals like openness, transparency and democracy aren't necessarily good values, so I'd like to read a perspective on that.
I must admit that my knowledge on Russian matters is pretty limited, but my personal view is that Putin at some level simply doesn't think he's doing anything out of the ordinary. I watched an interview with Vladimir Posner recently (which was pretty interesting), and he was asked whether he'd reckon Putin thought that Trump could just phone up a station and tell them what (not) to air, and his assessment was that yes, he'd think so. Basically I think Putin is just incapable of recognising that his methods are really that different. I'm not gonna pretend to be an authority on that, though.
Good lord mate quit drinking the Koolaid...
As far as i'm concerned, your utter denial of the facts is complicity in what Russia is up to.
Time to wip this old baby out....
https://puu.sh/zQdc6.jpg
This one's obviously off the deep end but would a Russian citizen really be in any position to bad-mouth their government online?
If I lived over there I'd probably be too paranoid to do that, so now we'd end up with an internet full of people either silent on the matter or pro-government.
doesn't work as well now that Kari's got a different avatar
and i made that
I think
https://i.imgur.com/CkfdSbx.png
is more fitting.
Karimatrix never sticks around after one or two post as he never defends his points and just repeats the process again and again thread after thread. (But to be fair 90% of Facepunch does the second part)
Sounds like someone's upset he didn't get to pretend to be a furry on the internet.
Trump is still too buddy buddy with Putin.
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