"Consider the war against Germany, Italy and Japan. Those nations went from being international terrorist states to being peaceful prosperous nations contributing much to the world. Russia could be a great nation like them, but it chooses to be an impoverished terrorist state run by gangsters."

Putin didn't want to invade Ukraine, he spent 14 years since 2008 trying to avoid it, but the West left him no choice.
As far as the sanctions against Russian oligarchs are concerned, the West did Putin and Russia a favour sanctioning them and stealing their assets.

For one, it sent a message to other countries (like Saudi Arabia for example) that the US could potentially freeze their central bank reserves and steal their assets, which pushed many to speed up de-dollarisation and work on alternative payments systems outside of swift, and the pace of these changes has increased quite fast.

Secondly, for Russia specifically those western or European leaning oligarchs who lost out, Putin laughed it off and told them 'that's what you get' and 'you should invest in Russia' if you don't want to lose your prized possessions.

"How were Germany, Japan and Italy destroyed by the west in ww2? The only nation intent on remaining a shithole seems to be Russia, and they are proving to be a brilliant success at it. That is where a them and us mentality leads."

Sanctions are having an impact on Russia, but it has plenty of energy, fertilizer, food and other goods. Russians have done it tough before, but this time they won't starve, and the world's come to realise that it needs what Russia has, meanwhile Russias finding alternative markets (other than the west) for those goods, has improved its own shipping fleets and has it's own shipping insurance, doesn't need Lloyds, just more income the west loses.

BRICS has a higher GDP than the G7, this trend is the new reality.
The west is slowly descending and BRICS nations are ascending.

Michael Hudson Explains How Russia and China DEFEATED US Dollar Hegemony
http://youtu.be/cfDfTvaLt0c

Gravitas Plus: Europe divided on Ukraine War
http://youtu.be/xYGqOTCA-Ho

ttbn,

Russia started this war as it has started many wars in the last 30 years, and Putin has made his imperialist intentions clear which is why so many countries are wanting to join NATO.

Just as when Hitler invaded Poland after annexing parts of Europe, this final invasion of Ukraine is a red line after which the world has to beat Russia so badly that never threatens its neighbours again.

The $bns of aid and weapons given to Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia have already paid dividends as the resourceful Ukrainians have already degraded the Russian army by destroying 1000s of tanks along with troop carriers, artillery, air defence systems, planes, and helicopters and killing or wounding 200 000 Russian soldiers. And the sanctions are preventing the Russians from replacing more than a tiny fraction of their losses.

Putin's Russia has been a malignant tumour in Europe left over from the cold war that is now getting its chemotherapy.

The sooner Russia realises that it cannot win the less damage Russia and its people will suffer.

ttbn,

over the decades Nato has spent $trillions on arms to protect itself against the USSR. Now for a fraction of that one of the worst tyrannies in the world is being brought to its knees. It's money well spent.

AC,

You write such bollocks. The GDP of all the BRICS countries is roughly equal to the USA alone and does not come close to overtaking the G7. Similarly, as the most important feature of a reserve currency is that is floating, and market-driven none of the BRICS countries meet this requirement. As a result, the RMB of China is used less than 1/2 as much as the British pound and nowhere near the US$,

The price of oil and gas is falling as world demand drops. The world has learnt to live without Russia. Russia may have food and fuel, but they can't afford to pay their soldiers and they can't build new weapons. Inflation is ramping up and real wages are plummeting.

Russia will lose this war.

SM

I'm not sure that Russia is being "brought to its knees". However, if it is, will China step in, do you think, and/or will Russia resort to nuclear weapons? I cannot see Russia just giving in quietly; it's just not in the DNA.

Sometimes you really are as dumb as a box of rocks SM,
You refuse to see anything you don't want to see,
You're like an 8 year old girl running around with it's fingers in it's ears screaming "I'm not listening to you"

Russia criticizes NATO pledge to Ukraine, Georgia April 4, 2008 REUTERS
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-georgia-ukraine-russia-idUSL0315483920080404

US gov’t knew NATO expansion to Ukraine would force Russia to intervene
http://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/02/27/us-nato-expansion-ukraine-russia-intervene/

"Senior US government officials knew as far back as 2008 that the possibility of adding Ukraine to NATO was seen as a serious “military threat” by Russia, one that crosses Moscow’s security “redlines” and could force it to intervene.
Yet Western leaders continued insisting that Ukraine would join the US-led military alliance, right up until Russia did indeed intervene in February 2022."

- What's the date on this classified diplomatic cable you brainless jellyfish?
NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA'S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES
http://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

>>Summary. Following a muted first reaction to
Ukraine's intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP)
at the Bucharest summit (ref A), Foreign Minister Lavrov and
other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition,
stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion
as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement,
particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic"
issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also
underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and
Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue
could potentially split the country in two, leading to
violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force
Russia to decide whether to intervene. Additionally, the GOR
and experts continue to claim that Ukrainian NATO membership
would have a major impact on Russia's defense industry,
Russian-Ukrainian family connections, and bilateral relations
generally. In Georgia, the GOR fears continued instability
and "provocative acts" in the separatist regions. End
summary. <<

- It's February the 1st 2008, 2 months before the NATO summit in Bucharest
And where the hell is Assange now?

As for G7 v's BRICS -

The data comes from a UK-based macroeconomic research firm citing the IMF's own data.

>>Fortunately, there are other economic analysts, such as Richard Dias of UK based Acorn Macro Consulting, a self-described “boutique macroeconomic research firm employing a top-down approach to the analysis of the global economy and financial markets.” Rather than accept the IMF’s rosy outlook as gospel, Dias did what analysts are supposed to do — dig through the data and extract relevant conclusions.

After rooting through the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Data Base, Dias conducted a comparative analysis of the percentage of global GDP adjusted for PPP between the G7 and BRICS, and made a surprising discovery: BRICS had surpassed the G7.

This was not a projection, but rather a statement of accomplished fact: BRICS was responsible for 31.5 percent of the PPP-adjusted global GDP, while the G7 provided 30.7 percent. Making matters worse for the G7, the trends projected showed that the gap between the two economic blocs would only widen going forward.<<

Don't forget Saudi Arabia is joining BRICS
- Charter boat? What Charter boat?

http://www.rt.com/business/574303-brics-g7-share-global-economy/
>>Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “more than a dozen” nations have expressed an interest in joining BRICS, including Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bangladesh have acquired equity in the New Development Bank, BRICS’ funding organization.<<

And FYI, Russia's not going to lose the war.

NYT, nightmare doc leak. Running out of S300. Putin super popular, in USA. BBC state new label. U/1
http://youtu.be/0LP3C7JawnA

Bakhmut is 90% taken, the Ukrainian armies experienced troops are all dead and it lacks weapons.
And the West is losing the economic war, destroyed by it's own sanctions.