(02-24-2022, 08:57 PM)TheO-LineMatters Wrote:  Sanctions do nothing. Putin knows he has the backing of the Chinese. Sanctions are useless and he knows Biden and NATO don't have the balls to fight back unless they absolutely have to. This tyrant is gonna try to reform the Soviet Union and he's gonna get very little resistance.

Sanctions matter if there is a strong trade relationship. When the US sanctions Russia, it doesn't mean much to either side. When Europe sanctions Russia, it could be a very big deal for both sides. Europe is hoping they'll get lots of cheap methane from the US and from the Arabs, and as you correctly point out, Russia is hoping that China will start buying lots more Russian gas and other Russian stuff. Remains to be seen how any of that will work out for anyone on the Eurasian continent.

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(02-24-2022, 09:10 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote:

(02-24-2022, 05:21 PM)TrivialPursuit Wrote: I bet the families of the dead Ukrainian soldiers aren't so c'est pas grave about it.

And it's not like Chernobyl is not still deadly as hell. The only thing standing between lethal radiation and the people is that containment unit. There is still very high levels of radiation in the exclusion zone from the nuclear accident in 1986. Breach the containment unit and things get ugly real quick.

I was pointing out that so far they haven't broken it.  Let's hope it stays that way.  No one cares whose army controls a useless abandoned nuclear reactor.  Everyone cares that the containment stays intact.

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