Forum Members Not Heard From in a Long While

[TimM]

Hopefully the Russian site members will be able to come back once the current insanity is over and done with.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's gonna be that easy.  Even if Putin dropped dead today, there is no guarantee that whomever replaces him will be any better. 

It would be like Hitler dropping dead, before the war.  The person most likely to have taken over would have been Hess or Goering, both die hard Nazis.  In other words, more of the same.

It will be years, if not decades, before relations between Russia and the West return to what they were just a few years ago.

[katmaxoz]

They've made a mess of things for sure - or Putin has. He really seems to think he's another Czar and has to have his war to prove it. It will achieve nothing good.

[TimM]

Yeah, that's the whole problem.  Putin sees himself as a 21st Century Tsar and is on this quixotic quest to restore the Russian Empire.  He actually thought his troops would be welcome with open arms in Kiev. 

Well, this little "special military operation" (looks like a war to me) has cost the lives of hundreds and thousands of Russian soldiers.  And, of course, decades of bridge building with the world has been wiped out. 

Is it worth it, Vlad?