Of Russia and Ukraine (and the West)

[Songbird]

Couple of things:

° Oh, by the way, the U.S. can start buying Ukrainian pipelines. Riiiiiight.

http://rt.com/business/180388-gas-pipelines-eu-ukraine/

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law that will allow foreign companies from the US and EU to co-manage Ukraine’s national gas transportation system (GTS) which has a value of around $25-35 billion, one of the largest in the world.

The motion, proposed by PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was only supported by 228 parliament members, just two more than the required 226 to adopt the bill. The first reading of the bill was approved on July 4.

Ukraine will control 51 percent and foreign partners will be offered 49 percent in the venture, which seeks to “strengthen” Ukraine’s position as a transit state, according to the bill’s advocates.

° And who knows how it plays out, but Putin's food embargo is paralyzing the E.U.

http://rt.com/business/180040-eu-catastrophe-russian-ban/

Austria is warning of catastrophic falling prices, and the Netherlands is saying losses could be triple initial estimates. A third of Lithuanian milk producers say they are facing problems.

Putin doesn't **** around. Serious chess being played. Just waiting for China to jump into the pool now.

 

[Pilot]

I ended up on a 6 mile hike with an expert on the region. He talked a lot about the consequences of sanctions against Russia and how it wasn't this harmless thing. One of the things I hadn't ever considered was how other countries would interpret that move. He explained that Russia is far different from any other country we've ever sanctioned like that. It's dramatically larger and more important, obviously, and not some obvious rogue state in the same way. And other countries, some our allies, took notice of that and wonder whether if we have some disagreement with them, we'd be willing to sanction them now.

He also had a lot to say about how much our actions were pushing Russia toward China.

Then, I was listening to an audiobook about the W. Bush presidency and it included a story about how Putin once got mad at Bush because he thought we had two different types of chicken wing factories, one for the U.S. and a ****ty one for Russia.

So, that's all I've learned about Russia recently.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

A ****ty chicken wing factory would be grounds for war.

 

[BTExpress]

Russia is moving closer to all the BRICS nations. As it should.

 

[Football_Bat]

Russia is moving closer to all the BRICS nations. As it should.

Considering it's the R in BRICS and all.

 

[BTExpress]

Doesn't mean they have to or need to be allies.

The acronym simply identifes the nations as having similar stages of economic development. Ideologies can be 180-degree opposites.