The current propaganda trends of Kremlin are relying a lot on a glorious past. The 9 May is one of the staples of the propaganda, that now represents WWII as a victory over the most of the world, not just a victory on an Eastern European front of the WWII. The USSR space achievements are another reason to boast about the glorious past.
So it would be ironic if glorious past reached through the space to hit those who idolizes it, because they idolize not the historical past but the alternate history past. Reality strikes back.
This spacecraft was part of the Soviet space exploration program, designed to consolidate USSR's World Power status.
The Moscow military parade is meant to demonstrate the neo-imperial Russian military might, on the 80th anniversary of the USSR conquering half of Europe. That's the way it is presented, with slogans like «Можем повторить» i.e. “We can repeat it”.
The former striking the latter would be a bit like a terrorist accidentally blowing up on a bomb of their own making.
You could mention something about "Losing 80% of their population of fighting-age men and nearly losing their capital city to German aggression before turning the tide" and something about the race against the other Allies, but that is what happened.
Victory Day is basically the largest holiday in Russia.
They entered the Second World War as allies of Nazi Germany. When Germany inevitably turned on them, it was we—the collective West, with my own country playing a significant and costly role—who helped drag them out of the mess they’d enabled.
And yet, not long after, they turned on us. They occupied Eastern Europe, ruled it with an iron grip, and spent the next 80 years constructing a narrative in which they were the heroes—and that they’d done it all on their own.
Saying they turned on us is misleading. They were never on our side, but Hitler was the bigger threat.
The US nuked Japan post surrender (go look it up - the documents were declassified a decade ago) as a bluff to convince the Russians that they could not win a war where they attempted to take all of Europe.
Ukraine and Belarus suffered the highest losses in proportion of their population. Weird that contemporary Russia tries to take credit for results obtained with the blood of others.
Then abusing the big win by attempting to absorb all the Eastern European companies as puppet provinces. Let's not act like they weren't doing it for their own ambitions, just like Hitler. A lot of those millions could have been preventable because Stalin had zero concern for the lives of citizens or his military
Yes, the former Nazi allies that the Allies gleefully partnered with as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Of course that was just a one time thing and the West would never again ally itself it forces that openly call themselves Nazis. Oh wait, the West is currently doing that today. Relative moralism is something the West specializes in doing.
There was no glee, it was simply a partnership of convenience to defeat the much worse enemy. The west didn't starve and murder their own people to the tune of 10 million+ like the Soviets did, outside of the losses in fighting the Nazis
Their total losses were about 26.6M. For comparison, German concentration camps killed about 6M, but Russia was on our side, so we don’t like to compare these two numbers.
I heard that saying too, “if a stranger tries to make you do something illegal, it's a cop” or something close to that. Isn't it the principle of a sting operation?
That's a myth purposely spread by cops in order to fool people. Even if it was true, unscrupulous cops looking for promotions would be breaking it like all the other rules they routinely ignore.
Oh Lord, I apologize for being a person almost congenitally incapable of using /s. I had thought/ hoped the idea of an AI "cop" having to tell you it was a cop was ridiculous enough on its face, but it also occurs to me I am of a certain age where that was a very popular legend in the US and that doesn't apply to everyone. I accept the downvotes as appropriate!
> ... some were concerned about the law's provisions favoring American industry. ... the chairman of the 2023 G20 meeting in India, called it "the most protectionist act ever drafted in the world", asking American officials, "You believed in market forces and now you do this?" Other countries have begun to create their own similar laws. China requested WTO dispute consultations with the United States.
> 27 European Union finance ministers have expressed "serious concerns" about the financial incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act, and are considering challenging it. They have listed at least nine points in the legislation, which they say could be in breach of World Trade Organization rules. They were opposed to the subsidies for consumers to buy North American-assembled electric cars, as EU officials believe the subsidies discriminate against European carmakers. One EU official told CNBC that, "there is a political consensus (among the 27 ministers) that this plan threatens the European industry" and its supply of raw materials. In February 2023, the European Commission announced it would propose the "Net Zero Industrial Act", similar to the IRA, in turn putting pressure on the United Kingdom and South Korea.
Brussels is watching amazed, as Trump destroys the US economy. "Nobody in the Commission thought that the US government would be this stupid and self-destructive," an EU official tells me. "That they would blow up their own country by letting ChatGPT make their trade policy."
EU officials are quietly preparing brutal countermeasures — but they’re in no rush.
Markets are doing the work for them. Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:
Trump’s chaos is collapsing the US markets faster than any EU retaliation could.
Inside the Commission and among EU governments, the mood is: Don't give Trump an excuse to blame this on others.
Since February, the S&P 500 has dropped 20%.
European officials believe Trump's trade chaos is backfiring — and see no reason to escalate while the damage grows organically.
Inside the Commission and among EU trade ministers, the mood is calm — almost mocking.
“We’ll just let them stew,” another senior official says.
“If Trump doesn’t blink by the end of the month, we’re ready to hit hard.” But for now? They'll watch him sweat.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck summed up the mood: “We're under no time pressure. The Americans are under pressure and are now in a position of weakness,” he said. “The damage can get even worse — that’s why we must act calmly, carefully, but decisively.”
Habeck also mocked Elon Musk’s call for a US-EU "zero-tariff" deal:
“It's sign of weakness and fear. If he has something to say, he should go to his President... Before we talk about zero tariffs, stop the nonsense and mess you just made in the last week.”
Behaving irrationally, intentionally or not, is scaring investors away rather than attracting them.
Seen from abroad, trust in the rule of law and property rights has been eroded. Today Trump sends randos to El Salvador, maybe tomorrow he will nationalize enterprises or other assets, with no meaningful opposition from the Congress and the judiciary? Germany is already pulling gold from the US, that had been stored there for decades. Better safe than sorry.
Amazingly, this is exactly what Russia has been trying to do for years now: introduce chaos and uncertainty. Capitalism can handle bad news all day long, but it can't withstand prolonged unpredictability and ambiguity.
It's worse than that. Navarro has sincerely held these views (that imports are inherently bad for the economy) for a long time. He is to economists what flat earthers are to astronomers. Imagine if an anti-vax activist was hired at the Depart of Health. Oh, wait...
What makes the story tragic is that he got a job that gives him such an influence on trade policy. How he got the job would be funny if the consequences weren't so dire:
> Navarro was invited to be an advisor after Trump's advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner saw on Amazon that he co-wrote Death by China.
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