The weekend.

Everyone knows Putin is chummy with China. My friend shared his perspective of the overall situation. He was saying that china was already heavily invested in Russia. I don’t know if any of this is true, but he was saying that they already owned the top 10 companies in Russia and most Russians already knew a lot about the significant Chinese influence over the country. He also said that Russia was already giving oil to China for free (of course, this might be debt payments / interest or something else like that).

He also indicated that Russian people in general are a lot similar to people in the US in that they’re not supportive, or apathetic- it’s just that many just feel they can’t do anything about their government, and most are just trying to survive their daily lives. Plus, it’s still a lot easier to be locked up if you come out against the govt. Russians can’t fight against Russia in Ukraine or they’d be criminals and their families would be locked up too.

He’s like, what can we do? There’s no way that the everyday Russian can fight back against their government, and that in the end, the sanctions are hurting everyday Russians that can’t do anything about what’s going on.

Re China, he did emphasize that Russians have always known what was going on, and that this is not a new relationship at all. And the US has always known about it too. Russians think China will take over Russia and Russia is then a satellite state dependent on the China marketplace, which ultimately benefits from whatever Russia provides.

Back before the invasion, this group of friends all said Russia wouldn’t invade, that it was all for leverage. Putin was crazy, but not that crazy.



[Post edited by reconhokie at 03/15/2022 11:11PM]