geoka9

There's no Russian state anymore, there's a mafia that runs the country, whose only goal is to stay in power at any cost. Hence Putin looks for an ally/protector in China because it will never insist on pushing Russia towards democracy the way other centers of power would (or would have, in case of the pre-Trump US). China will keep extracting big concessions from that vulnerability in exchange for their providing life support to the Russian regime.

It's a curious symbiosis that is very much against the interests of Russia, but that's what you get when a mafia takes over your country.

if you just want to return results from a couple of goroutines, shouldn't be a problem I think?

Probably 100% of them. Only they don't realize it won't stop with the Baltic countries either - so no cheap gas even in that case.

It seems to be the way they want Ukraine to win: Putin withdraws but keeps his power in Russia at all costs. But this goal is akin to threading a needle.

Ukraine wasn't getting closer to NATO until Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Both its Constitution and popular polls were against joining NATO (i.e. remain a neutral country).

Regardless of Putin's obsession with Ukraine, the problem is that his clan views this war (and future wars like this) as a campaign to create a new world order where the EU and the US withdraw from supporting countries in what they consider their sphere of influence, and, ultimately, give up any ideas of affecting change inside Russia.

It's an age-old story of a crime family holding on to its mafia state.

Very good points in your replies!

> Imagine if tomorrow, Russia went on the defensive and froze its lines in Ukraine, setting up Surovikin lines everywhere,then withdrew half the forces it has currently committed.

They'd have to give up a big chunk of the occupied land to do that, since creating that line within 50 km of the front line would now be much harder than it was 3 years ago. Who knows, maybe that's what's stopping them from attacking another country as you described.

> This is one of those cases where the only winning move is not to play, and both belligerents have proven stupendously bad at not playing.

It remains to be seen for Iran. I wouldn't be surprised if Iran gets out of this with the sanctions removed (to say the least).

> Israel was wiling to roll the dice on regime change in Iran

Why would they want to change the regime in Iran? If the goal is to hold on to power in Israel.

> turning the global economic outlook less positive

Specifically, mounting inflation expectations, no? Investors wouldn't want to park their money at 4% if they expect inflation that is close or higher than that.

I don't know, you guys yourself like saying "Russia's only friends are its army and its navy".

Your post sounds like concern trolling to me. I'm not a European and I watched the whole speech in real time and it was clear to me that he was attempting a coup.

I would (probably) not bother with jj if I only had to work on my own codebases. As a developer on an active repo with lots of contributors and ceremony around PR reviews (~500 lines per PR, stacks, etc.) it's invaluable.

Banks are actually pretty good at valuing assets. They don't want to overvalue because that's their collateral. And lowballing will make the borrower choose another bank.