Bad Baltic Takes
@BadBalticTakes • 58,260 subscribers
“Bad Baltic Takes skewers the lazy prejudices of the foreign commentariat and serves them up sizzling.” - Edward Lucas.
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Here’s how the world reacted to the Baltic Chain on this day in 1989, as two million people here turned their backs on Moscow to demand freedom. This is proper journalism of a sort that’s sometimes lacking today. The report is centred on the Baltic Chain protestors, reflects their perspectives about their own countries, and explains the historical context without the imperial lens. The Russian response is included, but not entitled to frame the entire story. That’s how you do it. The Baltic Chain protestors achieved something truly spectacular, despite no mobile phones, no social media, and with a brutal regime determined to stop them. Two million people across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania formed the world’s longest unbroken human chain of nearly 700km across our three then occupied nations. When pictures of this circulate on social media today, it’s too often by engagement farming accounts that treat it as just a pretty spectacle of people coming together across borders. It’s treated on the same level as that vacuous “World Clap Day” bullshit that’s been going around recently. But the Baltic Chain had a real purpose and a real message for the world. They were marking the half century anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the criminal collusion between the Nazis and Soviets to divide up other people’s nations and pave the way for the aggression that sparked the Second World War. The continued occupation of the Baltic countries half a century later meant that war wasn’t over. The Pact had to be fully annulled. As the Baltic Chain organisers said in a statement on the day: “…only then will Europe divest itself of the last colonies of the Hitler-Stalin era, and the Baltic nations will get the opportunity to determine their own destiny on the basis of free self-determination.” “…one way or another, we have to solve it together, proceeding from the principles of international law. A common European home can only be set up if all European nations are granted a free right to self-determination.” “Let us unite our voices and demand that Hitler-Stalin pacts together with their secret protocols be declared null and void from the very moment of their signing! Let us declare the annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania unlawful!” So the Baltic Chain was indeed spectacular, visually and logistically, and incredibly brave. But the really, really world changingly spectacular thing they achieved wasn’t the hand holding alone. It was the actual annulment of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, officially declared just a few years later, fully restoring their independent states, and ending the occupation. Unlike those who cosplay anti-imperialism today on Twitter, people living under Soviet colonial occupation did describe it as such and actually did things that were anti-imperialist. And, seriously, fuck that World Clap Day. The world needs more people who take a stand for real values, hence why we will be marking tomorrow’s Ukrainian Independence Day too. As then, still today: A common European home can only be set up if all European nations are granted a free right to self-determination. Thank you, Carole Simpson & Jim Laurie - focus on Asia for covering the Baltic Chain so well 37 years ago today.
Bad Baltic Takes45,540 views • 4 days ago
“Just lies. Absolute bullshit,” says Latvian blogger Maksometr, reflecting on his new life in Belarus. Maksometr used to spread a lot of false information about life in Latvia - including that Latvia was mining the border to prevent Latvians from fleeing to Russia and Belarus. His supporters from Russia and Belarus urged him to save himself and come live a better life with them. He actually took up their offers and moved to Belarus in 2023. Alas, as he now laments, life there turned out not to be so great. Not only that, his donations appear to have declined significantly after he left Latvia, suggesting that much of his audience was only interested in him spreading anti-Latvian content from the inside.
Bad Baltic Takes32,081 views • 21 days ago
![Watch this latest video from russian state TV. It will be shown at russia’s tribunal. It will be studied in history classes by your children and grand children. “You understand that this list [of territories to be conquered] is incomplete. Everyone understands that this list is incomplete.” “It doesn’t matter what you call it …denazification or demilitarisation. Call it whatever you want. Everyone knows what it really means …the restoration of the russian empire.” “There are some nations whose existence is pointless.” This is just one clip of thousands of hours of footage in which the hatred and genocidal intentions of russia are on full display. It’s all documented for history. He’s right when he says everyone already knows what is happening. This is your regular reminder that future generations will not be in any doubt that you know right now that russia is a genocidal imperial aggressor. It’s very open about it. Polling in russia shows russians overwhelmingly believe the goal of their war is territorial conquest, not any of the excuses peddled by its supporters abroad. All of us around the world will have no plausible deniability that we didn’t know what was going on. You can see these clips. You can see the dictator literally standing over imperial era maps, comparing himself to other tsars, and discussing the erasure of a sovereign nation. You can read endless, carefully documented testimonies from people who have escaped the horrors of russian occupation and its very clearly genocidal nature. You know about all this. You scrolled past it. History will judge what you do now based on the fact that you know. It’s the reason no one has ever expressed any confusion about russia’s talk of imperial conquest or its use of neo-nazis to achieve it. Not a single person has ever said: “wait, this doesn’t make sense if it’s just a special operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine”. No one has ever said that because, as russian TV makes clear, no one is in doubt about what all this is really about. Russian soldiers who feign ignorance of being invaders when they are captured actually have no problem boasting of their atrocities in intercepted phone calls. Academics who insist the war is in some way excusable are suddenly very articulate about why imperialism and genocide is wrong when russia is not doing it. They know. They have just chosen to support genocidal imperialism in this case. Don’t let them gaslight you with excuses. There’s one irony here though. Russia’s war is based on denying the agency of Ukrainians and all nations in the way of russia’s expansionist aggression. However, the key to ending this is for us to respect the agency of those who deny ours. Don’t think of them as brainwashed or too stupid to know what’s going on. Respect their agency as supporters of imperial genocide. They are responsible for everything they are doing and must face the consequences of that. One day, the chorus of propaganda offering excuses will fall silent, as it did during the Nuremberg tribunal. The horrors of russia’s genocidal crimes will be more fully documented. As after Nuremberg, no one in future will give a shit about the excuses offered in our era to deny or delay the defeat of the genocidal aggressor and bring its leaders to justice. Make sure you can look your children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them what you did now to help achieve that. Send this clip to The Hague, along with all the others. #SpecialTribunalNow](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1707662507966443992/amplify_video_thumb/1707662135021404160/img/jsrm6rUZqC0hfclQ.jpg)
Watch this latest video from russian state TV. It will be shown at russia’s tribunal. It will be studied in history classes by your children and grand children. “You understand that this list [of territories to be conquered] is incomplete. Everyone understands that this list is incomplete.” “It doesn’t matter what you call it …denazification or demilitarisation. Call it whatever you want. Everyone knows what it really means …the restoration of the russian empire.” “There are some nations whose existence is pointless.” This is just one clip of thousands of hours of footage in which the hatred and genocidal intentions of russia are on full display. It’s all documented for history. He’s right when he says everyone already knows what is happening. This is your regular reminder that future generations will not be in any doubt that you know right now that russia is a genocidal imperial aggressor. It’s very open about it. Polling in russia shows russians overwhelmingly believe the goal of their war is territorial conquest, not any of the excuses peddled by its supporters abroad. All of us around the world will have no plausible deniability that we didn’t know what was going on. You can see these clips. You can see the dictator literally standing over imperial era maps, comparing himself to other tsars, and discussing the erasure of a sovereign nation. You can read endless, carefully documented testimonies from people who have escaped the horrors of russian occupation and its very clearly genocidal nature. You know about all this. You scrolled past it. History will judge what you do now based on the fact that you know. It’s the reason no one has ever expressed any confusion about russia’s talk of imperial conquest or its use of neo-nazis to achieve it. Not a single person has ever said: “wait, this doesn’t make sense if it’s just a special operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine”. No one has ever said that because, as russian TV makes clear, no one is in doubt about what all this is really about. Russian soldiers who feign ignorance of being invaders when they are captured actually have no problem boasting of their atrocities in intercepted phone calls. Academics who insist the war is in some way excusable are suddenly very articulate about why imperialism and genocide is wrong when russia is not doing it. They know. They have just chosen to support genocidal imperialism in this case. Don’t let them gaslight you with excuses. There’s one irony here though. Russia’s war is based on denying the agency of Ukrainians and all nations in the way of russia’s expansionist aggression. However, the key to ending this is for us to respect the agency of those who deny ours. Don’t think of them as brainwashed or too stupid to know what’s going on. Respect their agency as supporters of imperial genocide. They are responsible for everything they are doing and must face the consequences of that. One day, the chorus of propaganda offering excuses will fall silent, as it did during the Nuremberg tribunal. The horrors of russia’s genocidal crimes will be more fully documented. As after Nuremberg, no one in future will give a shit about the excuses offered in our era to deny or delay the defeat of the genocidal aggressor and bring its leaders to justice. Make sure you can look your children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them what you did now to help achieve that. Send this clip to The Hague, along with all the others. #SpecialTribunalNow
Bad Baltic Takes1,087,181 views • 2 years ago
![It was at this moment she knew… she fucked up. Megan Romer is co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA / DSA). They advocate for a world in which ordinary working people in all countries have full control over their own society and future. Terms and conditions apply. Offer not valid in Eastern Europe. Because DSA has a weirdly specific obsession with one issue: Opposing security alliances for smaller European democracies that happen to border Russia. It doesn’t make much sense. Especially when you compare it with their militant anti-imperialist position on a very select few other international causes. And it is particularly baffling to Europe’s democratic socialists who have had a key role supporting NATO since its founding, exactly because it fits with all their lofty goals based on international cooperation. More recently, both Finland and Sweden had democratic socialist-led governments when they initiated their process to join NATO. To be fair, the Democratic Socialists of America may not recognise their European counterparts because they are unfamiliar with the whole concept of getting elected and doing actual work, rather than just shouting vague slogans and hoping no one asks follow up questions. And this is where Romer gets repeatedly stuck in this interview with David Remnick, host of The New Yorker Radio Hour. Romer says they would “tax the hell out of millionaires” so is asked some very simple questions that allow her to provide substance to that as a tax policy. “Uhh, yeah, you know, again, I don’t have like a solid [answer], but…” Romer says, laughing nervously. Remnick asks whether she should know the answer as a leader of the organisation. “Um, that’s a good question,” she says, flustered. It’s important to note, therefore, that Romer is at least capable of some shame. Then, on the issue of Ukraine, she sets her own trap and walks straight into it. DSA has been heavily criticised for amplifying Russian propaganda, especially since the build up to Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. Their argument is basically that if Eastern Europeans don’t want to be attacked then they shouldn’t act so provocatively. Knowing how much criticism they got for that, Romer was keen to somehow regain a moral high ground so she quickly tries to switch the subject from not supporting to Ukraine to not liking Putin’s Russia either …from a strictly socialist perspective. The problem with Russia, she says, is that it’s “right wing” and “hyper capitalist” so of course it’s a danger. Yeah, very insightful analysis, Romer. Except wasn’t there famously a left wing version of it too, relatively recently, which also invaded neighbours? Remnick asks the more relevant follow up question. Isn’t this precisely why those countries [facing Russian aggression] wanted to join NATO? In the next excruciating few seconds, we see her shame again, but perhaps also a brief moment of introspection. Until now, denying agency of non-Americans has been the real core of Romer and the DSA’s worldview. She thinks that she and her fellow Americans are solely responsible for everything, everywhere, all at once. “We created Putin,” she has said. In fact, “damn near every supervillain of the past 50 years was our creation.” The goal of US foreign policy should be simply to “not create more Putins”, according to Romer. It’s a comforting delusion because it offers an easy answer for every complex problem. Just do nothing. But - maybe, just maybe - before Romer scrambled to arrange her words, we may have witnessed a brief flash of realisation that people living in other countries also have agency and also like security. And we all benefit more from that when we cooperate as countries, regardless of where we all fit on the great horse shoe spectrum of politics.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2087456032100376968/amplify_video_thumb/2087455939108499457/img/-MAU6hL50RVVRSWx.jpg)
It was at this moment she knew… she fucked up. Megan Romer is co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA / DSA). They advocate for a world in which ordinary working people in all countries have full control over their own society and future. Terms and conditions apply. Offer not valid in Eastern Europe. Because DSA has a weirdly specific obsession with one issue: Opposing security alliances for smaller European democracies that happen to border Russia. It doesn’t make much sense. Especially when you compare it with their militant anti-imperialist position on a very select few other international causes. And it is particularly baffling to Europe’s democratic socialists who have had a key role supporting NATO since its founding, exactly because it fits with all their lofty goals based on international cooperation. More recently, both Finland and Sweden had democratic socialist-led governments when they initiated their process to join NATO. To be fair, the Democratic Socialists of America may not recognise their European counterparts because they are unfamiliar with the whole concept of getting elected and doing actual work, rather than just shouting vague slogans and hoping no one asks follow up questions. And this is where Romer gets repeatedly stuck in this interview with David Remnick, host of The New Yorker Radio Hour. Romer says they would “tax the hell out of millionaires” so is asked some very simple questions that allow her to provide substance to that as a tax policy. “Uhh, yeah, you know, again, I don’t have like a solid [answer], but…” Romer says, laughing nervously. Remnick asks whether she should know the answer as a leader of the organisation. “Um, that’s a good question,” she says, flustered. It’s important to note, therefore, that Romer is at least capable of some shame. Then, on the issue of Ukraine, she sets her own trap and walks straight into it. DSA has been heavily criticised for amplifying Russian propaganda, especially since the build up to Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. Their argument is basically that if Eastern Europeans don’t want to be attacked then they shouldn’t act so provocatively. Knowing how much criticism they got for that, Romer was keen to somehow regain a moral high ground so she quickly tries to switch the subject from not supporting to Ukraine to not liking Putin’s Russia either …from a strictly socialist perspective. The problem with Russia, she says, is that it’s “right wing” and “hyper capitalist” so of course it’s a danger. Yeah, very insightful analysis, Romer. Except wasn’t there famously a left wing version of it too, relatively recently, which also invaded neighbours? Remnick asks the more relevant follow up question. Isn’t this precisely why those countries [facing Russian aggression] wanted to join NATO? In the next excruciating few seconds, we see her shame again, but perhaps also a brief moment of introspection. Until now, denying agency of non-Americans has been the real core of Romer and the DSA’s worldview. She thinks that she and her fellow Americans are solely responsible for everything, everywhere, all at once. “We created Putin,” she has said. In fact, “damn near every supervillain of the past 50 years was our creation.” The goal of US foreign policy should be simply to “not create more Putins”, according to Romer. It’s a comforting delusion because it offers an easy answer for every complex problem. Just do nothing. But - maybe, just maybe - before Romer scrambled to arrange her words, we may have witnessed a brief flash of realisation that people living in other countries also have agency and also like security. And we all benefit more from that when we cooperate as countries, regardless of where we all fit on the great horse shoe spectrum of politics.
Bad Baltic Takes22,619 views • 15 days ago
This “Stop The War coalition” supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. More accurately, it’s a Stop The West coalition, continuing an old playbook used by the similarly misnamed “World Peace Council”. Presented as a supposedly spontaneous post-WW2 initiative of intellectuals across Europe, the Soviets maintained strict control over its activities and messaging. They defined war and imperialism as inherent features of capitalism, while defining peace as communism. With that logic, it would only ever condemn the West for waging war, while either staying quiet or defending wars and occupations of the Soviet Union. Only the West ever had agency to them. Just as Stop The War blames the West for Russia invading Ukraine and laments the end of Assad’s civil war in Syria, the World Peace Council supported the North Korean invasion of South Korea and had nothing to say about the Soviet crushing of the uprising in Hungary nor the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It demanded the US, UK, and France withdraw all troops abroad, but of course never demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the occupied Baltic countries – or anywhere else. Based on its noble-sounding name, the World Peace Council grew into the most prominent part of the post-WW2 international ‘peace’ movement, organising protests and lobbying campaigns around the world focused on opposing NATO and other Western activity. Its devoutly communist members slowly lost their faith in their funders, however. One notable blow came from their own side when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a former Red Army captain sent to the gulag by Stalin was released and allowed by Kruschev to write about Stalinist terror …before he once again became persona non grata after Khrushchev and got arrested. While trying to ignore growing divisions and disillusionments among communists, the World Peace Council got epically trolled on this. Someone (which we now know from declassified files was British intelligence) issued a fake statement on their behalf in support of Solzhenitsyn after he got arrested. It had all the pro-Soviet rambling hallmarks of a real World Peace Council statement but its singular purpose was to goad them into having to declare their actual position on Solzhenitsyn. The World Peace Council took the bait. It wanted to maintain silence about human rights in the Soviet Union but, even more so, it could never allow itself to be seen to stray from the official Soviet position. So they angrily denounced the fake letter, making it clear that they had never said anything at all ever about Solzhenitsyn. Their concern for human rights always stopped at the Soviet border. Solzhenitsyn himself isn’t an admirable figure, by the way. He was merely off message at the time due to his personal experience of Soviet terror but remained a Russian imperialist after the end of the Soviet Union. More important is what he directly revealed about Soviet terror and what his case indirectly revealed about Soviet supporters around the world. The World Peace Council increasingly discredited itself, alongside the collapsing Soviet Union. The membership splintered. New groups came out of it. Key figures behind Stop The War were part of the World Peace Council and regularly appear on Russian state channels. In this same speech from Dianne Abbott, she even decries the “coup” against Assad and includes it in her list of US wars. Yeah, not the actual Civil War, but the end of that war. And they can’t ascribe any agency to Syrians. Stop The War and Dianne Abbot used to hold panel discussions about the Syrian war with pro-Assad talking points from only Western panelists while Syrians complained that they were excluded. The Soviet Union is no more. World communism can’t inspire many people anymore. But, absent its strict dogmatism, it’s still the same logic about war and peace used by organisations like Stop The War and Dianne Abbot in this clip.
Bad Baltic Takes30,701 views • 25 days ago
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Latvia, August 1992. The country is still occupied by 60k Russian troops. The newly established Latvian National Guard (🔵) confronts a drunk, abusive group of them (🛑). Just when you think it’s all over, they find out the hard way Latvia is an independent Republic.
Bad Baltic Takes27,967 views • 24 days ago
14 June. It’s a date seared into our memories. The start of Moscow’s mass deportations in Baltic countries. Today flags fly are raised, candles & black ribbons line railway platforms, victim names are read. Here’s Tallinn’s Freedom Square. 🧵 on what the world needs to know…
Bad Baltic Takes595,119 views • 3 years ago
Jordan Peterson is visiting the Baltics this week to lecture local audiences. Let’s recap some of his genius. After first presenting himself as a self-help guru, Peterson spent time in russia and Serbia dealing with his addiction issues before returning to the West as an expert on international politics …with consistently Kremlin-aligned talking points. Peterson repeatedly talks about Ukraine as russia’s “buffer”, “historical sphere”, “historical territory”, and the “key to russian identity and security”, while excusing russia for its imperial genocide because it was supposedly threatened by “careless and provocative Western expansionism into a country we really don’t care about.” These lines, by the way, are also used by Kremlin propagandists against the nations he’s touring here this week. Peterson now supports John Mearsheimer’s admiration for great power politics - although with his own added culture war twist. In an hour long video he posted over a year ago titled ‘Russia Vs Ukraine or civil war in the West’, Peterson spent most of the video rambling about race and gender issues in North America - and arguing this is the reason russia invaded Ukraine. He even mentions Estonians among other nations who, he says, agrees with him that Western “degeneracy” is equivalent to soviet tyranny. 🤷♂️ Now that Peterson is a “russia expert”, he’s now - of course - consistently wrong about russia. This clip here, for example, shows him a year ago joining in with the Kremlin’s then favourite talking point that winter is coming - and winter is on russia’s side. It was supposed to force Ukraine to surrender while Europeans cowered in the cold. Peterson’s predictions about russia’s war have not aged well. He has repeatedly overemphasised russian competence while underestimating Eastern European agency. But - to be fair - this has never disqualified anyone from posing as a “russia expert”. Note his other point in this clip is that russia could nuke Ukraine …but that shouldn’t be considered an escalation by the rest of the world. He then quickly switches to arguing it’s actually the rest of the world that is escalating against russia “on every front we could possibly imagine”. Peterson has consistently repeated key Kremlin narratives about russia’s supposed red lines - ignoring each time it has proven wrong. It’s worth reminding that Peterson became famous while arguing people shouldn’t “exceed their domain of competence” and should tidy their room before trying to understand and change the world. The reality is that Peterson never had his life together, although he at least managed to semi-plausibly pose as a life expert before it so publicly fell apart. His russia expertise is less convincing, although fairly standard by the industry norm. But, in addition to lecturing, hopefully Peterson will spend some time listening while he’s here to people who actually consistently predict russia right and understand the importance of international law. Most people here support Ukraine, obviously don’t tolerate russia’s excuses for invading neighbours, and don’t give a shit about the culture wars of other nations. Here’s the reality, Dr Jordan B Peterson. Russia is not at war as a reaction to the culture wars in the West that make you so angry. Russia is supporting the culture wars to make you angry. It wants to polarise democratic societies in order to wage more imperial war. Some of the commentators and many of the social media accounts that trigger your rage are backed by the same people pretending to support you. We can’t simply stop russia’s genocidal war of imperialism by telling others not to resist. But so much of the culture war is just bullshit designed only to enrage us. That’s something we simply can end.
Bad Baltic Takes406,710 views • 2 years ago
This is your regular reminder that russia does not hide the fact it’s fighting an imperial war of genocide and doesn’t intend to stop at Ukraine. At least, it doesn’t hide that to russian audiences who, according to polling, clearly identify ‘territorial conquest’ as the whole point of their war. This is Yevgeny Balitsky, the russian-installed so-called governor of the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast. He’s been a key collaborator enabling the illegal annexations. During the subsequent ceremony, he was on stage clasped hands with putin when they did that cringe ‘russia’ chant. People like Balitsky don’t bother with the various excuses for russia’s war that are offered to its useful idiots abroad. Russia is exactly what the Baltic countries long warned the world that it is. Listen to us now. Give Ukraine everything it needs for victory as fast as possible. Set up the Special Tribunal now. The whole world will pay a much bigger price in future if we again delay recognising the reality of russia.
Bad Baltic Takes111,135 views • 2 years ago
World news 34 years ago tonight after the Baltic Chain. It’s a decent report. Proper context, focus on perspectives from those involved, no dwelling on the predictably delusional comment from another capital (“independence is not an option” 🤣). A lot of journalists today could learn from it when reporting ‘Eastern Europe’.
Bad Baltic Takes79,913 views • 3 years ago
⏪ Berlin, 1990. East and West Germany were concluding their re-unification agreement as part of the 2+4 talks, which included the US, UK, France, and the now-deceased soviet union. For the first time, Bad Baltic Takes can exclusively reveal what happened in those discussions. (I’ve pieced it together based on claims made by Kremlin propagandists and vatniks on Twitter, combined with the reality of what happened afterwards.)👇 Gorbachev: Wait. One more thing. We need a promise that NATO won’t expand into the former soviet union. Bush Snr: The what? G: We need a promise that NATO won’t expand into former soviet states like Estonia, Latvia, & Lithuania. B: The soviet union has broken up? G: No. I’m continuing to violently repress their re-independence movements while insisting my reforms are the only alternative …but for some reason I’m also now negotiating on the assumption that the soviet union will suddenly collapse, even though that scenario would take all of us by surprise. B: Ok. I agree to that …even though it fundamentally contradicts what we’ve been saying publicly. So you want that promise included in the ‘Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany’? G: No. Just a totally unrecorded verbal agreement should be fine. This promise has far-reaching, contentious implications but we don’t need any of it clarified or any evidence of it ever being agreed. B: Well, should we, like, declare it publicly at least? G: No. In fact, write the exact opposite clearly in the agreement. We’ll declare Germany, like all sovereign nations, can freely choose its own alliances. But, somehow, the promise still stands despite that. B: What if no one believes you when you say you were given this promise? G: That won’t be an issue because I’m not going to say I was given this promise. I’ll repeatedly insist none of this was ever discussed, as will other soviet officials around at this time. I’ll maintain this denial in future interviews on both russian and German TV. But, despite this, the promise I’m going to deny still stands. B: So if the soviet union collapses then you hope this unrecorded promise will somehow be transferred to the countries once part of it? Even so, if those countries democratise and want to live freely and securely as part of the rules-based world then they could just rescind this promise to them? G: Oh, no. Out of our soviet “family of nations”, which I claim to represent, only russia inherits the promise. B: So russia will want this promise in writing? G: No. Russia will repeatedly commit itself to international agreements, including the NATO-russia Founding Act, reinforcing the key principle of our rules-based world that all sovereign nations have a right to choose their own security alliances. In fact, russia too will ask to join NATO - although on the condition it should be fast tracked as a “great power” with priority over other former soviet nations. And when the Baltics join NATO because they went through the proper process of reforms, russia will publicly insist that is their sovereign right and it has no impact on russia because we’ll still be busy pretending to support the rules-based world at that moment. B: So you don’t actually have a problem with NATO enlargement? You understand that all sovereign nations have the right to choose their own alliances? So why do you need the promise? G: Russia won’t care about this unrecorded promise for a couple of decades. However, as russia increasingly reverts to authoritarianism at home and genocidal imperialism abroad, which severs relations with the West, russia’s propagandists and supporters will suddenly remember this unrecorded promise and use it as one of their main grievance narratives promoted to international audiences while excusing a new cycle of russian imperial genocide. B: Won’t it sound like this promise not to enlarge NATO is entirely made up in retrospect by supporters of russian imperial genocide. G: 🤔
Bad Baltic Takes71,961 views • 2 years ago
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