Point of view. A look from the other side.

Don't mess with The Bear or you'll live (or die) to regret it?

 

The MiG-25 was a real box It was called “suitcase” in Russia. 40 tons of square stainless steel, capable of accelerating to 3500 km/h. And maybe more, since the limit was not limited by the engine power and even not always heat resistance, but road stability

MiG-31 is more modest in flight performance. But, of course, for the 1970s they shoved so cool electronics into it that even today it does not look quite outdated. Already in 1975 he had the color HUD. In my opinion, it was the first fighter with a phased antenna array, with an almost meter-wide aperture. He captured targets at a range of up to 400 km and could attack them at a range of up to 370 km. Unfortunately, the R-37 rocket, the production of which was extremely distributed throughout the USSR and therefore, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the production of this rocket was not restored, confining itself to the older R-33.

But as a platform, it is still unique. Therefore, in response to the Star Wars program, an anti-satellite missile was started to be hung on it and, apparently, they have now returned to the same idea. Still, it can accelerate 5 tons of load to 3000+ km/h and lift to an altitude of up to 30 km. There were projects and commercial space launches based on it, but did not develop because of the low demand.

 

Musical pause

An example of modern Russian popular musical culture. The song of the group "Leningrad": "ЗОЖ" ("ZOZh" = HLS = healthy lifestyle). The band plays household alcoholic punk rock, but it has very interesting clips In this song, it’s said that if you don’t have brains in your head, but ****, then no healthy lifestyle will save you. "Neither dumbbells, nor alcohol, Will not add your mind."

 

I really do understand the Russian sentiment, I really and HONESTLY do.

Swedes, Lithuanians, Poles, Mongols, Turks, French, Germans (i think four times actually), China, Japan and even the British once.

You guys have LITERALLY been attacked from all sides and each time it leads to enormous loss of life. For those than don’t understand:

Mongols invaded and Russia lost 5-7% of its entire population, would be close to 15,000,000 people today.

France invades four times in the early 1800’s and Russo lost 4 - 6,000,000 people.

Crimean war against British, French and Turks cost Russia half a million lives in what is considered a “small war”. (The American civil war is the highest casualty count for the US and is VERY similar to this “small war”)

WW1 saw Germans give out almost 8,000,000 casualties.

WW2 saw Germany give out an astonishingly high 20 - 27,000,000 casualties.

With this history, any sane person would have a higher alert to outside forces seen as “belligerent”.

But here in the West, at least the US, we have never had this problem because of our geography. Large scale wars seem to us, incredibly stupid. Which is why you see Americans have so much more faith in MAD than does Russia.

However, because of the media and Putin’s reactions to perceived threats, the difference in culture seems violent, cruel and reactionary.

While Americans see Russian reactions as such, Russians don’t understand the minuscule desire to have a large war of any kind.

So, because of not understanding each other’s past, both sides see the others difference in opinion as “violent, evil, or even despotic (tyrannical dictator stuff)

The true answer IMO is to respect differences in culture and opinions, wars are only necessary as a defensive action, that is how most of us in The West see it.

But coming from a Russian perspective, because of geography, defensive wars have proven to be DISASTROUS for Russia, even the wins leave millions and millions dead. You are correct, America’s would literally revolt if even in a defensive war they had that many casualties.

If I were Russia, where since the US was created, have received close to FIFTY MILLION CASUALITES, I would believe that aggressive wars were needed to prevent defensive wars as well.

I simply think it is a matter of the US not understanding Russia and Russia not understanding the US

Also, terrible tragedy in St Petersburg, so sorry you have to deal with this and god speed to your people in handling the situation

 

It is encouraging that the Russians are not vindictive The Germans destroyed half of the country and killed every seventh person in Russia. With that, the victims were mainly among civilians. But immediately after the victory, they began to build with the Germans a new socialist state, which became a loyal ally of the USSR. Yes, and to the German prisoners after the war, the common people usually did not have hatred. In the 1990s, Chechens staged heavy terrorist attacks in Russia. But now Russia has not only restored Chechnya, but the attitude of the people to the Chechens was often not just neutral, but positive.

Americans, in my opinion, have a similar trait. For example, although the war with Japan doesn’t come close to what Russia experienced, but for the Americans it was quite unpleasant. Nevertheless, the United States restored Japan and in America, they respect Japanese culture very much (and after America, by the way, in Russia, we culturally follow the West )

So now the main causes of conflict come not from below, not from the opinion of society, but from above, from politicians. With that, I'm sorry, but Russia here holds only reciprocal and very weak measures. The whole initiative to aggravate relations comes from the American leadership.

But I hope that sometime in the USA politicians who will not need the image of an external enemy will come to power. Hope is weak, but it is

 

In Crimea today was a terrorist attack a la Columbine. A student brought a hunting rifle and an improvised explosive device to the Polytechnic College. 18 students were killed, several dozens injured. Motives are not yet known.

...

And to the question of the Russian opposition. Again. According to the first information, while the culprit was not known, Russian social networks and oppositional resources were flooded with a wave of Putin’s accusations that he had staged a terrorist attack in order to dump everything on Ukraine and have casus belli to war.

Photo of the killer:

 

Photos of the Crimean shooter with surveillance cameras. Yes, I forgot to mention that he shot himself. His page on the social network Vkontakte is filled with very extremist content, but was abandoned in 2014. And here it is impossible not to criticize the Russian law enforcement officers, who, in search of extremists, are not investigating such figures, but figures of innocent pranksters with memes.

 

A little bit about how the opposition is being suppressed in Russia. For example, a certain Arkady Babchenko. The oppositionist, who allegedly fled to Ukraine from persecution. And who not so long ago faked his death, ostensibly to catch the Russian killer. After the tragedy in the Crimea, this creature gloats and says that things will only get worse. And then everything will be worse in the Crimea:

It had to happen.

And you know where he writes all this? In the Russian opposition media Ekho Moskvy. Do you think the Kremlin is imposing any sanctions against this media? Not. Its headquarters is located 5 kilometers from the Kremlin, it broadcasts on the radio in the usual FM-band and has a daily audience of 1 million people in Moscow and about 3 million more in the rest of Russia.

 

I got an interesting map. Is it that it turns out that there are so many beggars in the USA? Or am I somehow mistaken in the interpretation of this data? It warms my soul that Russia looks so good here



Origin: Mapping Extreme Poverty Around the World

 

Reality check, In the early 2000s, income levels increased in Russia and drove down the poverty rate from 29 percent in 2000 to 10.7 percent in 2012. Unfortunately, the income levels didn’t remain and the poverty rate has grown slowly back to 13.5 percent in 2016.
https://borgenproject.org/10-facts-about-poverty-in-russia/

 

But this level of poverty is 9700 rubles in 2016. Or about $145. That is, it turns out to be $4.8 per day, which is much more than the $1.9 on the map It turns out an incorrect comparison. However, if in the United States in 2011, 1.2% lived on an amount less than $1.9 per day, how many lives on an amount less than $4.8?

Although, of course, the map is also not correct, because it does not take into account the different level of dollar purchasing power in different countries. I think that at $1.9 per day it is much more difficult to survive in the USA than in Ukraine or, especially, in Africa.