"I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland," he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. "Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I'm not sure, to be honest. We'll clean them."
This guy sounds exactly like Donald Trump.
The orange menace would be only too happy to oblige Putin's every whim, after all, he is one of Trump's main dictator heroes.
Lets say Russia magically is able to land on US soil completely intact after passing through the US Navy infested waters of the Atlantic or the Pacific. Lets just assume they can so we can continue this crazy thought experiment.
To take territory you need boots on the ground, troops, tanks, APCs, etc. These are transported by troop transport aircraft and large ships that are naval landing craft. For Russia that would be the Ropucha-class. Each of these ships can carry about 10 tanks and about 310 troops (per ship).
So how many of these ship does Russia have? Hundreds, right? Nope: 11. Thats it. So assuming a full load of every ship thats about 110 tanks and about 3500ish troops. And all of that assumes all 11 ships will make it alive to US soil.
This is just how crazy this Russian claim of taking US States is.
It's not supposed to make sense, it's supposed to make actual Kremlin policy seem sane and moderate to the domestic audience.
They wouldn't need magic. They'd just need a hamburder puppet President in office.
You forget that Alaska is like 2 miles from Russia
Well, there's a remote island that belongs to Alaska that's about two miles away from a remote island that belongs to Russia. You can swim across that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomede_Islands
I mean, I'm sure that Russia can get forces across that. They've got a military base on their little island, and we've got a small Native American village on our little island.
But then you've planted some number of forces on a strategically-irrelevant island in the Pacific. You've blown your largest advantage, surprise, and you've dumped however many people there, with a supply line that dictates that you need to support them by having ships sail up, while you just kicked off a war with a country with a much larger navy and air force.
And it's not much of a springboard to a beachhead that you can use for land-based logistics, because there's no infrastructure up there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bering_Strait_crossing
The Russian side of the strait, in particular, is severely lacking in infrastructure. No railways exist for over 2,800 kilometers (1,700 mi) in any direction from the strait.[24]
The nearest major connecting highway is the M56 Kolyma Highway, which is currently unpaved and around 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) from the strait.[25] However, by 2042, the Anadyr Highway is expected to be completed connecting Ola and Anadyr, which is only about 600 kilometers (370 mi) from the strait.[26]
On the U.S. side, an estimated 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) of highways or railroads would have to be built around Norton Sound, through a pass along the Unalakleet River, and along the Yukon River to connect to Manley Hot Springs Road – in other words, a route similar to that of the Iditarod Trail Race. A project to connect Nome, 100 miles (160 km) from the strait, to the rest of Alaska by a paved highway (part of Alaska Route 2) has been proposed by the Alaskan state government, although the very high cost ($2.3 to $2.7 billion, about $5 million per mile, or $3 million per kilometer) has so far prevented construction.[27]
In 2016, the Alaskan road network was extended westwards by 50 miles (80 km) to Tanana, 460 miles (740 km) from the strait, by building a fairly simple road. The Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities project was supported by local indigenous groups such as the Tanana Tribal Council.[28]
He's talking about California. He understands taking Alaska and Hawaii, but cali?
Hmm, Pearl Harbor and the place where the 10th mountain train to fight in snow.
Ok Ivan, good luck. You’re gonna need it.
Bruh there's so many gun nuts in Alaska that jerk off to Red Dawn it'll be Winter War 2: Now With Air Support
I think you forget that we have 24 hour satellite surveillance all over the globe.
If you think Russia could send a large fraction of its blue water navy to one single point on the globe while also mustering all those troops and equipment on the ground in Russia beforehand without the US knowing about it weeks before hand, you don't have a good grasp on the level of technology employed in today's military.
Hexbear users are real quiet when posts like this come around.
Be careful, they might show up and start posting gifts and emojis, thus negating everything you say, or any evidence of wrongdoing you may present!
Its totally all media lies and checks notes you being a racist cishet white male, regardless if you are any of those, and therefore your entire worldview is irrelevant and wrong. Oh and if you're from AmEriKa (the K is important to them, it makes them feel smugly superior) then anything you say is automatically wrong and you're an imperialist pig who deserves to die. Even if you actively protest against things. Because you aren't violently rioting.Which they TOTALLY would be doing... Not that their parents would let them out past sunset since teenagers have a curfew.
And even if you agree with them, go kill yourself because you're probably older than they are and old people killed the world so you are also at fault despite the fact that the modern problems of the world are millenia in the making, centuries of intentional planning, and decades of underhanded subversion by people who died long ago or are old enough to remember the moon landing.
Or just mute them like I do and never have to read another response as they scream pointlessly into the void since lemmy doesn't hide my posts from them, just theirs from me. Every so often someone will tell me what's being said but honestly the only thing I care to do when they show up is either pretend they don't exist or make fun of their insane bullshit.
Isn't even just hexbear these days. The Genocide Joe crowd posts nonstop anti-Israel, anti-Biden articles, but as soon as a Republican says something like "finish the job" they're radio silent.
I could absolutely see Turnip Dump willingly "trade" those states to Russia to get something else in return, if he won a 2nd term as President.
That is to say, he would float the idea to see the response, then say he wouldn't do it, then turn around and do it anyway.
People who are saying "that would never happen," answer me this: what happened on 1/6/21? Specifically what happened with a confederate flag in the Capitol building? Something you thought would never happen?
Can someone help me find this out -
Is selling an entire state something that literally anyone can do? Like, can the president do it? Congress? Secretary of State? Library of Congress?
Is this something that's even possible?
I assume the answer is a hard no, but the only source I could find online is quora and I have a negative amount of trust in that site
There are institutions that are designed to prevent it, but as we saw in 45's first term, he has absolutely no qualms about dismantling meddlesome institutions.
In a word, no.
In more words, haha no.
And they thought Ukraine was hard to conquer it will be like 1776 every body and her brother killing the invaders
There is a 50/50 chance the MAGA crazies will side with Russia.
My first thought was Putin's well on the way with Texas and Florida, but California might be a challenge.
One third of the American colonists helped the Revolutionaries, one third did nothing, and one third helped the British. The conservatives (Monarchists, Loyalists) wanted to stay part of the British Empire. The Revolutionaries were liberal democrats, literally.
All of these locations (Alaska, California, Hawaii, much of eastern Europe) are ones that Russia has at one point in its imperial or soviet history had either outposts or territorial claim to. Of course, much of Eastern Europe was as recently as the 1980s under the Kremlin's direct control, either as puppet states or as territory Russia or the USSR directly claimed. Finland and Poland in particular have both been completely invaded by Russian forces multiple times, but at the moment they are built up defensively in ways that Russia quite honestly has zero chances of winning against.
Alaska was territory that imperial Russia claimed before any European country did. It was sold to the US during the Crimean war (1853) because Russia needed the money and in all likelihood it was going to lose it to Britain. Russia established early trading outposts in Alaska and California but sold or abandoned them after wiping out the fur animals they'd come to harvest and trade.
This talk for the benefit of Russian audiences is about reminding Russians of former imperial or soviet glory, but the problem with that historically is that it wasn't actually glorious.
The current propaganda push to get Russians thinking they really have a shot at rolling back the map changes since Imperial times is just an effort to sustain Russia's modern project: dismantling the post-WWII order in which the West (the US, in particular, but NATO and much of the UN) upholds alliances that Putin sees as against Russia's interests.
Anyone taking this seriously should think again. Of course Russia isn't going to invade the US, it would be suicide on too many levels to count. This is just posturing to tile up their own base, get people to still believe in the supposed might of mother Russia.
It's the same bullshit coming from the Republican party as well
Okay, so Alaska I get. Hawaii, well okay middle of nowhere, strategic location.
But California? The fuck? Good luck with that.
But California? The fuck?
He's listing the states where Russia has had territorial control at some point. Like, a "we controlled land once, so we can come back and take it" sort of thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_colonization_of_North_America
Imperial Russia controlled Alaska prior to the Alaskan Purchase.
They also had three forts in Hawaii, and one fort in California.
Yes I’ve been to an old Russian fort on the coast in Northern California.
But really I’m pretty sure California could defeat Russia
The Mongols controlled Russia from around 1240 to 1481, a fairly long time. So Mongolia is entitled to the Russian lands.
"I want the Russian empire with Alaska, Hawaii, California, Finland, and Poland," he said, as translated by Gerashchenko for the clip he shared. "Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I'm not sure, to be honest. We'll clean them."
OAKLAND — President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed California for its raging wildfires and threatened to withhold federal money, reprising his attacks from previous rounds of catastrophic blazes.
“I see again the forest fires are starting,” he said at a rally in swing-state Pennsylvania. “They’re starting again in California. I said, you gotta clean your floors, you gotta clean your forests — there are many, many years of leaves and broken trees and they’re like, like, so flammable, you touch them and it goes up.”
He was invoking his famous comments from 2018, when he visited the remnants of Paradise, a California town that suffered the state’s deadliest and most destructive fire. Back then, he pointed to Finland, claiming its leader said the European “forest nation” had “spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don’t have any problem.”
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö later said he told Trump that Finland takes care of its forests but did not say anything about raking, according to CNN.
I'm getting some decidedly conflicting messages here on the relative cleanliness of California and Finland.
To be fair, the Cheeto is not wrong.
Forest fires naturally experienced small burns that take care of all of that and through human action of stopping that it is allowed a lot to build up and that is a huge cause of why there are so many giant wildfires right now
Yeah good luck with that.
Although Poland and Finland are so stinky, I’m not sure, to be honest. We’ll clean them.
wtf is that supposed to mean
Projection.
In WWII, a lot of Russians got damage from easily preventable things that the Finns didn't, as we had saunas and better equipment. Something as simple as getting dry, clean socks and getting to wash your feet can be incredibly important. Just hygiene in general. Not to mention how a good sauna can improve moral.
If anyone was stinky in Winter War, it was definitely the Russians. Not the Finns. (weather at -30 in this photo)
Photo from this article with lots of other photos: https://www.life.com/history/the-coldest-front-lifes-coverage-of-the-winter-war/
Genocide I imagine.
Near the end of the clip, the host of the program was quick to deflate Mikheyev's comment as "wishful thinking" divorced from actual politics.
"Yes, but again, wishful thinking is one thing and actual politics is another," the host said.
Gerashchenko, meanwhile, was less keen to write off the political scientist's comments as fantasy.
I mean, glad to see that even some Russian propagandists expect some of their viewers to have functional brain cells.
I’d love to see Putin spend a week in the wrong part of Los Angeles and have his a__ handed to him by some Mexican American gang, or black gang. You want California, dude? As a white (non-Russian) living here, I have had gangs threatened to shoot me about five times now, because I accepted a job assignment in an area they considered to be their turf.
A big part of belonging to a cult is acting out the communal lie. It's a way to signal inclusion despite being antithetical to reality.
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