(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Slava Ukraini: For some reason, no one wants to hang out with loser Russia [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-24 Russia's image is in the you-know-where. Just a couple of days ago, Russian state propagandists lamented their lack of allies in their illegal and murderous invasion of Ukraine. x Russian propagandists complain that they need more allies and no one is really coming to their side. Skabeyeva consoles them that as soon as Russia has real successes, allies will appear. I've got bad news for her. pic.twitter.com/462AYMlmsg — Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 23, 2023 It was a remarkable segment, not just for admitting their inability to rally anyone to their cause, but also their inadvertent admission that one year in, they’ve suffered nothing but failure: In other words, one year in, they haven’t succeeded. “As soon as we begin to really succeed, then our allies will appear” is quite a bizarre thing to say. Do they mean that Russia’s pals are all fair-weather friends? That they can’t actually depend on their “allies” in their time of need? Ukraine rallied 50+ nations in support during their darkest hour, when most people expected Kyiv to fold in a matter of days. Why is Russia so bereft of similar help, including from the Chinese, who signed a treaty promising “friendship without limits” just days before the invasion? At the United Nations, a new vote confirmed that Russia still lacks any allies outside the pariah world: x This resolution is a powerful signal of unflagging global support for 🇺🇦. A powerful testament to the solidarity of 🌎 community with 🇺🇦 people in the context of the anniversary of RF’s full-scale aggression. A powerful manifestation of global support for 🇺🇦 #PeaceFormula! 2/2 pic.twitter.com/fPBis4v9p1 — Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 23, 2023 Belarus is essentially occupied by Russia. North Korea, Syria, and Eritrea are repressive pariah states. Mali is occupied by Wagner mercenaries. Nicaragua has its issues, but nothing like the rest on this list. Not even Cuba or Iran voted with Russia. Obviously, it’s not black and white. The New York Times has an interactive story which argues that while Russia has few explicit allies, there is growing ambivalence in much of the world. Indeed, countries representing two-thirds of the world’s population haven't joined in sanctions against Russia. India and China, in particular, have benefitted greatly from Russia’s below-market petroleum sales, helping control inflation in those countries. But that doesn’t mean they’re friends; more like hungry vultures taking advantage of Russia’s troubles. Still, no matter how you look at it, Russia’s international standing has suffered because of the war. World’s second-best army It’s better to be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and erase all doubt. Russia’s influence was, in large part, predicated on the assumption of a fearsome war machine. It allowed it to cow many of its neighbors into submission, and brought the country credibility and prestige on the global stage. Russia never had the word’s second-best army. And now, it’d be lucky to crack the top 20. Of course, it always has its nuclear arsenal to lean on, but even that … Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through deconfliction lines under its New START treaty obligations, one official said, adding that “such testing is routine.” Another official said that the test did not pose a risk to the United States and that the US did not view the test as an anomaly or an escalation. The test of the heavy SARMAT missile – nicknamed the Satan II in the West and capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads – appears to have failed, officials said. That doesn’t imply that they don’t have an effective nuclear deterrent. Only one needs to work. But their ability to project power, as they’ve been doing in Africa, Syria, and some of the former Soviet republics, has certainly suffered a serious blow. NATO expansion Among the myriad excuses Russia used for its invasion, it claimed that Ukraine’s ascension to NATO would threaten its security. It cried about being surrounded by a hostile NATO, though that’s a pretty strange definition of “surrounded.” Not really surrounded... Of course, Russia wasn’t worried about NATO. It has since transferred units to Ukraine to protect Kaliningrad (surrounded by several NATO countries), the Finnish border, and the far East, anything near Alaska. Russia knows NATO would never attack. That’s what those nukes are for. They do work as deterrents. Also, no one wants Russia. Thanks to its invasion, however, two gray countries on its border—Finland and Sweden—have abandoned generations of neutrality to join the Western alliance. Hungary (pro-Russian) and Turkey (domestic politics) are holding up their applications, but they are already de facto members, and their ascension is just a matter of time. And while Russia might’ve been able to negotiate Ukrainian neutrality before invading, it’s pretty much a given that Ukraine itself will be a NATO member as soon as the war is over. Poland Poland took a look at Germany and France’s tepid initial reaction to Russia’s invasion, and said NOPE. And while it trusts the United States right now, no one’s forgotten that Donald Trump intended to pull the U.S. out of the alliance in his second term. With MAGA-ism running strong in our country, there’s plenty of reason for our European allies to feel insecure. So Poland set out to arm itself, and in five years will have one of the largest armed forces in the world. Its arms buying spree includes: Growing its ground forces from 150,000 to 300,000 394 M1 Abrams battle tanks 1,000 K2 Black Panther Korean battle tanks 288 K239 Korean MLRS 500 HIMARS launchers and a metric f-ton of ammunition 672 K9 Korean self-propelled howitzers 800 additional domestically produced self-propelled howitzers 1,470 infantry fighting vehicles (domestically produced) 94 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters For context, Britain has 227 tanks, France has 222, and Germany has 320. (The U.S. has around 2,500.) The rest of Europe is finally rebuilding its tattered defense capabilities. It sucks, but the world can’t have nice things as long as murderous tyrants like Putin exist. Rather than improve its security, Russia has spurred a massive arms buildup among its neighbors. (Not that any of them will be invading Russia … ever.) Kazakhstan Oil-rich Kazakhstan shares a massive border with Russia, and has been a founding member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a NATO-style military alliance that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. A month before Russia’s invasion, its VDV paratroopers flew into the Kazakh capital to prop up its dictator, who was then facing severe public unrest. Throughout this past year, the relationship has deteriorated into outright hostility, with Russian state propaganda personalities calling for another “special military operation” to occupy the country. In fact, Putin and Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev literally traded barbs on stage at a gathering of central Asian leaders. Putin ultimately said that all the former Soviet republics—of which Kazakhstan is one—historically belonged to Russia. It couldn't have been clearer to all of those former republicans that after Ukraine, they were possibly next. x Attention, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan! Russian propagandists are saying your countries are "pain points" for Russia. pic.twitter.com/brqo1ebabd — Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 17, 2023 Whatever relationship the two countries had is gone, with Kazakhstan seeking security guarantees from China, happy to cozy up to the former Russian client state. Speaking of the CSTO Last fall, Armenia was invaded by neighboring Azerbaijan. It appealed for military help, as allowed in the CSTO charter. No one came to its aid. Russia, certainly, was in no position to help, with 98% of its forces committed in Ukraine. Armenia thus declared the alliance dead, and has been making kissy faces with Europe (and France, in particular), and even hosted a Nancy Pelosi visit late last September. It was clear the CSTO “alliance” was simply a way for Russia to exert its dominance over several of its former colonies. With Ukraine shredding Russia’s military might to pieces, the CSTO alliance is all but dead. Serbia Serbia’s anti-NATO fervor runs deep, as the Western alliance thwarted its genocidal campaign to keep the former Yugoslavia intact. Think of them as a mini-Russia, in words and deeds. It’s no surprise that Serbia has long been Russia’s most reliable ally in Central Europe. Yet in January, Serbia’s president said, “We said from the beginning that we cannot support Russia's invasion of Ukraine. For us Crimea is Ukraine, Donbass is Ukraine—it will remain so.” Serbia has refused to join economic sanctions against Russia. Moscow has been a strong defender of Serbia in its ongoing conflict with Kosovo. Yet he also committed to moving Serbia westward, with an eye to membership in the European Union. Finally, just this week, Serbia announced it would give up its Russian MiG-29s and buy French fighter jets instead. China China is slated to release a peace plan on the anniversary of the invasion. It might have even been released as you read this (I wrote this Thursday). From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled): China’s leadership is growing worried that increased Western military support for Ukraine will severely weaken Russia, a key partner for Beijing in its heightened competition with the U.S. and its allies. Ukraine’s robust battlefield resistance has prompted a rethink in Beijing, making it more inclined to push for a cease-fire to prevent further Russian setbacks—or even a larger-scale defeat, according to people close to Chinese decision-making. American intelligence has warned that China is already shipping non-lethal military aid to Russia, and that it is seriously considering arms and ammunition as well. While I once posited that China would benefit greatly from a weakened Russia (such as moving into Kazakhstan), this story suggests the opposite: If China hopes to see a global counterbalance to Western power, it needs a strong Russia as backup. Indeed, the two are pillar countries of the BRICS pseudo alliance—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. They fashion themselves part of the “global South,” along with a rising Africa and Latin America, that would offset the global economic powerhouses comprising the Western alliance—the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and increasingly, Taiwan. But by bolstering a faltering Russia, China will come into direct conflict with Europe and the U.S., leading to a further deterioration of diplomatic relations, increased military saber-rattling, and greater incentives for the kind of Western economic decoupling that has already harmed Russia (it doesn’t want to be selling discounted oil to India and China! Here are Germany and China sniping at each other). So what happens to China’s billion+ population when Apple moves its iPhone production to India or even onshored back to the U.S., and thousands of companies follow suit? What happens when China’s dominant position as the world’s manufacturing hub is shattered because of a belligerent foreign policy and support for Russia? As for BRICS, this is from the Russian state propaganda video at the top: Yeah, it’s not really a thing. None of those countries voted with Russia at the UN. Rather than project strength and dominance, Putin’s Russia has exposed itself as weak, impotent, and incompetent. This will have grave consequences for the country for decades to come. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/24/2154625/-Slava-Ukraini-For-some-reason-no-one-wants-to-hang-out-with-loser-Russia Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/