Yeltsin was the last good Russian leader - Vladimir Putin Discussion

[–] fc31 (4573) 2 years ago

Of course. Yeltsin let foreign oil companies controlled more than 90% of Russian oil resources, it can't get any better than him.

Then Putin nationalized oil industry, instead of giving Russian resources almost freely to foreign corporations, he had the nerve to use it on Russian people. What an evil monster! Russian people didn't need that, they can sell their wives and daughters as Russian brides, wasn't that much better? That dictator Putin just has to go, just like all the other dictators in the all the countries nationalized oil industry.

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[–] KaiMaster (791) 2 years ago

Yeltsin invaded nobody. Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 and now, Ukraine. Moldova might be next.

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[–] fc31 (4573) 2 years ago

Even Russia attacked Ukraine and Georgia, but it is quite apparent now it's goals are no NATO or NATO forces in those countries. So basically that is a more defensive posture.

Moldova is a neutral country, I don't think it is in any danger at all

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[–] Pete314 (2455) 2 years ago

Yeltsin was accused of being a traitor. He did not end in jail because they were afraid he could arrange a coup.
But yes, from the American POV he was "good" . He sold the most valuable Russian resources just for some bottles of vodka...
How can Putin dare to ask for a fair price?

But nice trolling.

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[–] KaiMaster (791) 2 years ago

Pete314, the people of Ukraine disagree with you.

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[–] Pete314 (2455) 2 years ago

The Ukrainian people who illegally tapped the gas pipelines running through their country for decades? Which was generously tolerated by Putin?

You better change your news sources.

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

Remember when Yeltsin came to America and spoke to congress?

I thought our conflicts with Russia were pretty much over at that time...

Anyhow, here's a link to his speech... https://www.c-span.org/video/?26640-1/boris-yeltsin-address-congress

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[–] andersonb85 (1588) 2 years ago

I remember thinking we'd never have a problem so long as he was in power. Gorbachev wasn't bad either. I didn't trust Putin when he took over, it probably had to do with his constant scowling. You could tell even then that Vladimir wasn't satisfied with Russia's state of affairs. Yeltsin looked like he and Jimmy Johnson (Cowboys head coach) could be twins..

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

And Yeltsin actually picked Putin out to be Prime Minister back in '99. Not long afterwards, Yeltsin would step down and Putin became president and a shift back towards the old Soviet ways became apparent.

But even with Putin in charge, I still didn't see Russia as a military or security threat to the US. In fact, Putin did embrace some western ideals, he didn't have 100% Soviet beliefs. Being close to Yeltsin was probably why he held some of his more western beliefs, so he may have learned a few things from Boris.

But as time went on, Putin would lean more on the dictator side of things rather than embracing democratic ideals completely. Still, I don't think there would have been anything wrong with treating Russia like an ally rather than a foe, after all, they did help the United States during our war on terror by providing intelligence and bases to launch attacks from. Russia has dealt with terror attacks too, so they know what its like dealing with Muslims.

Hell, Barack Obama even said in 2012 that treating Russia like an enemy was "80s foreign policy nonsense". But I guess that all changed when they thought Russia helped Trump in the election. Now it looks like we'll never have any kind of relationship with Russia because of this.

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[–] Gd5150 (11030) 2 years ago

Democrats tried to cut a deal with Putin to rig the election for Hillary sometime before 2016 and he refused. So they cooked up the Russia collusion nonsense.

The Democrat party has been in bed with Russia/USSR since they killed JFK.

There is a hilarious video of Obango having breakfast with Putin back in 2012. It’s like a man and a child. Obama was so over his head it’s laughable.

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

You got a link to back that up? I don't think I recall anything about Democrats trying to cut a deal with Putin. Unless you're talking about the Steele Dossier.

But yeah, I think you could make a decent argument that the dems have been in bed with Russia for a long time.

And Obama has done several things in the presence of Russian officials that just didn't add up. But it's a bit disturbing just how much our relationship with Russia has changed over the last 6-8 years.

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[–] Pete314 (2455) 2 years ago

Actually the relationship changed when Putin granted Snowden asylum in 2013.

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

Yep, the US government didn't like what Snowden did at all.

But I can't be too angry at Snowden. The Washington swamp was exposed and they didn't like it.

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[–] Gd5150 (11030) 2 years ago

2008 and 2012 Obama set records for political donations from throw away credit cards. Hitler/Putin was part of that.

Then magically they suddenly hated Putin 2016.

Wonder why.

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[–] muffleface (97) 2 years ago

Heard that Yeltsin realised when it was too late that he made a.mistake in agreeing with Putin as his successor. He had realised that Putin was masking what he was really like when he seen some of his actions. The only way back for Russia is to get rid of that psychopath and his yes men and have rational leaders like most other countries. Even if China, USA, North Korea so on decided of their own accord to invade another country and brutalise civilians it would be seen as a major problem that would need intervention. Hence why Taiwan hasn't happened. Putin has lost his mind completely with how he handled this. There is no way back for him.

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

I think that's one of the issues though, Russia feels kind of like an outsider because NATO and other nations have treated Russia as such.

At one time Putin did request to become a member of NATO but he was largely ignored. And while other Euro nations slowly become more and more involved in the NATO pact, it's made Russia feel threatened by it.

I don't agree with Putin's tactics, fact is, this war could have been prevented but I just don't get why NATO and the US feel the need to play "world police" every-time some nation acts out. Especially when it's a nation we're not even allied with.

And on top of this, the news media here is telling us that the Russian military is now deliberately attacking pregnant women, schools, children, old people etc...

I'd like to see some video footage of this, these are extremely strong claims to make against a nation that has laser guided missiles with pinpoint accuracy. They have no reason to target non-combatants.

I say this because western media and western intelligence has lost some credibility when they falsely claimed Saddam had WMDs which led to a 20 year war in the mid-east. So again, I need verification of these atrocities before I can agree that it's really happening. And it needs to be from an outside source too, one that has no stake in this game.

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[–] andersonb85 (1588) 2 years ago

It started with Putin reintroducing the Soviet-era national anthem in December 2000 which Yeltsin criticized at the time. He and Mikhail Gorbachev later criticized Putin for going back to a Soviet-era centralized government, undoing the work Gorbachev and Yeltsin did to de-centralize Soviet power and economy. Putin then manipulated his autocratic leadership to continue long-term with no conceivable end. Gorbachev later realized that when the wall came down the U.S. had become emboldened as the sole superpower to expand NATO virtually unchecked which Putin is now justifying with his attack on Ukraine. The problem is Ukraine is not part of NATO and just wants to be neutral from Russia.

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[–] stickman38 (3017) 2 years ago

Putin has done some questionable things but he has not taken over the country like the old soviet leaders did. He has embraced some capitalist/democratic ideas. In fact, their elections are really not any better or worse than Ukraine's. But overall, you could make a decent argument that Ukraine's elections are worse than Russia's. They've been full of corruption for quite some time.

And sure, some parts of Ukraine want to be neutral or straight up European but the thing is, the eastern part of Ukraine is very Russia leaning. In fact, most agree that Viktor Yanukovych's 2nd election was legitimate. And Yanukovych was friendly to Russia and had deals with Russia for various imports.

NATO countries didn't really like it, so, according to some reports I've seen, they actually supported opposition NGO's in an attempt to overthrow Yanukovych's government. And it worked, he was then replaced by someone that wasn't even elected.

For the most part, Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations in the world. It's not worth fighting for in my view. But I'm sure people that live there would say otherwise, however, it really holds no vital interest to the US or even most Euro nations. The fact that we're even getting involved in this is a bit strange.

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[–] andersonb85 (1588) 2 years ago

I can agree with you that the eastern bloc of Ukraine wants to be part of Mother Russia more than the central/western bloc does. I also agree that Ukraine has it's bad elements but so do all other countries including the U.S. The problem for Putin now is that he has overextended himself in Ukraine. It wasn't enough for him to focus on retaking the eastern bloc of the country north of Crimea. He wanted an all-out central assault on Kiev to take the capital and his armies have basically bogged down for weeks in a war of attrition. I have my doubts that he can take the capital now as it has taken too long. It reminds me of the bloody fight for Stalingrad only this time it's the Russian army who are overextended rather than the German army in WWII. The only difference is we still don't know how it will end. I understood that Ukraine is recently taking back cities they had lost earlier in the war. If Putin goes chemical in desperation or worst nuclear, that would be a gamechanger.

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[–] maximmm (3045) 2 years ago

Good for whom? Russian people were bankrupt under Yeltsin. Money gone, army dismantled, stores had nothing, corruption everywhere, foreign entities privatized everything that should have been state owned and leeched the nation dry.
Yeltsin was the best for the US, which makes sense given that he was a project of the US (his entire elections campaign was being run the US government - it's very interesting to observe, as it tells you how puppets are formed).
Unfortunately..... things fell apart for the US later on - I dunno if the US got overconfident and figured they could control anyone after Yeltsin was gone - or if Yeltsin in his senility did not obey commands directly - either way, he gave birth to Putin.

US lost big time after that - all oil companies became nationalized again, same goes for other utilities - the leeches were expelled. What's even worse - he's still in power, even after 20 years. Every elections, US-groomed candidates get arrested and are no longer allowed to participate - installing a new puppet is nearly impossible. Things are really not going well for the US...

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[–] KaiMaster (791) 2 years ago

At the very least Yeltsin was a restraining influence on Putin.

Yeltsin died in 2007. After that, Putin invaded Georgia and created the puppet state of Abkhazia. Then he seized Ukrainian territory in 2014. Now he is grabbing more territory.

I fear Moldova will be next.

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[–] maximmm (3045) 2 years ago

lol
History revisionism at its best.
Check the history of that 'invasion'.
UN determined that Georgia attacked Abkhazia/south Ossetia first.
Alas, you should go deeper than that - check the history of Abkhazia/south ossetia.
Perhaps Yeltsin had a restraining influence on Georgia? Is that why they attacked after his death?

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