Russia’s diplomats were once a key part of President Putin’s foreign policy strategy. But that has all changed.
In the years leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, diplomats lost their authority, their role reduced to echoing the Kremlin’s aggressive rhetoric.
BBC Russian asks former diplomats, as well as ex-Kremlin and White House insiders, how Russian diplomacy broke down.
It’s actually hilarious how millennials are refusing to shit themselves in fear over hollow threats of nuclear apocalypse like the boomers did for decades.
Like, I’m going to die a slow death from microplastic poisoning. My kids will slowly cook to death as the earth warms. Instant death by fireball sounds pretty nice.
idk, I think I prefer the constant fear, at least compared to the bloodthirsty calls for nuclear war to begin over Ukraine because ackstually Russia’s nukes don’t work anymore, and also nuclear war isn’t really that bad anyway
Who is calling for nuclear war exactly? Isn’t the whole reason NATO boots are not on the ground because nobody wants a nuclear war?
I’ve seen this on reddit and other hellholes from time to time
most people tend to have a degree of separation from it, like early on in the war when people were calling for a no-fly zone over Ukraine (which would have necessarily meant NATO strikes into Ukraine or Russian territory, which would put us at the closest humanity has ever been to a nuclear exchange); about mid-way through the war when some countries were trying to form a “coalition of the willing” (article is more recent than when I was thinking though) to enter Ukraine that wasn’t technically NATO forces but like, my god, you’re really cutting it fucking close there; and some people nowadays are musing if F-16s could be used from NATO territory
there’s also been some vague threats from time to time over Kaliningrad but luckily that’s never escalated to outright military rhetoric, at least not yet.
The young scions of our age find themselves in a curious juxtaposition to their forbearers, who once trembled at the thought of world-ending calamities unleashed by the fiery engines of the Autarch’s weaponry. These newer souls scoff at such fears, deeming them hollow echoes of a past era, perhaps because they have been raised in the shadow of subtler, yet equally inexorable, dooms. To them, the threat of slow ruin wrought by the invisible maladies that pollute our waters and air, or the gradual inferno that the Sun’s ever-increasing wrath promises to our world, hold more tangible dread. For these youths, the prospect of instantaneous annihilation in a blaze of cosmic fire seems almost a reprieve, a quick severance of life’s Gordian knot, sparing them the prolonged suffering promised by the ills that plague our slowly deteriorating Urth.
Pretty good
Your sentiment is not, in fact, new. It existed back then as well.
millennials are refusing to shit themselves in fear
Started good…
Like, I’m going to die a slow death from microplastic poisoning. My kids will slowly cook to death as the earth warms. Instant death by fireball sounds pretty nice.
…And then you wrote this. I see contradiction.
I’m really sorry to piss on your little eco-statement here, but climate change fears are relevant for decadent rich societies only. Most of the actual humanity is still more concerned with poverty, illiteracy, hunger, epidemics and genocide.
But I agree that those threats are hollow now, because people who’d never actually fulfill them are voicing them. Mostly thieves from the Russian “elite”.
In 1984 the threat would be voiced by bureaucratic leaders of a block occupying large part of the globe which was more or less designed from the ground up for playing “Global Thermonuclear War”, you can see than even in the way Soviet military in its every component was being developed starting from the 50s. Those leaders were not even that corrupt, usually (well, such famous Politburo members as Boris Yeltsin and Heydar Aliyev obviously were, but still), what they owned officially and unofficially is upper middle class level, in Western terms.
So maybe boomers were not so cowardly, yes?
Ah yes, Russian diplomacy is so weak that pretty much all of the world outside the west is aligned with Russia
- https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-rest-global-public-opinion-one-year-into-russias-war-on-ukraine/
- https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/27/the-global-south-refuses-pressure-to-side-with-the-west-on-russia/
- https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-krishen-mehta-the-ukraine-war-viewed-from-the-global-south/
- https://archive.is/2023.02.23-211202/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/23/world/russia-ukraine-geopolitics.html
- https://archive.ph/4kbWG
- https://www.eiu.com/n/russias-pockets-of-support-are-growing-in-the-developing-world/
Haven’t you heard? The West IS the world!
Diplomacy isn’t just cozying up to nations that are your friends and and insulting others, it’s having cordial relations with all nations.
Diplomacy isn’t cozying up to nations that are your friends and and insulting others
Yes it is.
it’s having cordial relations with all nations.
No it’s not.
No one does this, though?
If that’s diplomacy, then we’re living in a world of the opposite.
cozying up to nations that are your friends and and insulting others
You’ve literally described western diplomacy here.
I agree with this take. But very few countries follow this kind of diplomacy.
Russian diplomacy is at their weakest, which is why almost every single African country sent a delegation to Moscow.
You gotta remember though, people who claim that Russia is isolated are the same people who were outraged that Russia started a war in a country where people have blue eyes and blond hair.
“Socialism is when multipolar sharia law.”
- Karl “not Lenin enough for Stalin” Marx
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Ok
Is Putin paying you per link or something?
Was it ever alive to begin with?
Soviet diplomacy was actually pretty strong.
It was at least less cringe
Nah, Russian diplomacy is at their highest once they realize they could write off the West as a loss instead of sucking up to them, who sees the Russians as Asiatic orcs anyways. Russia is somehow able to be friends with both India and China, they have made huge diplomatic (and military) strides in Africa, and they’re not doing too shabby in SEA or WANA either. That’s almost two continents right there.
Only Russia is not a friend for India and China. Its capabilities are not sufficient to be one anymore. It’s just begging them to make some appearance of friendship for cheap resources and various concessions which can not go on forever.
The USSR is still breaking up. Russian state as it exists now is not sustainable. It was a complete nightmare in the 90s, yes, and was apparently becoming better in the 00s and even 10s, but now we will see what is going to transpire inside Russia after cessation of hostilities with Ukraine, and that is not yet a thing.
So it was ‘sucking up’ to the west but is ‘friends’ with India and China? Delusional much?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Russian diplomats were a key part of Mr Putin’s team, helping resolve territorial disputes with China and Norway, leading talks on deeper co-operation with European countries, and ensuring a peaceful transition after a revolution in Georgia.
But as Mr Putin became more powerful and experienced, he became increasingly convinced he had all the answers and that diplomats were unnecessary, says Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who is living in exile in Berlin.
A year later, when Russia invaded Georgia, Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly swore at his UK counterpart, David Miliband, asking: “Who are you to lecture me?”
In 2009, Mr Lavrov and the then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed a giant red “reset button” in relations, and the two countries seemed to be building co-operation - especially on security issues.
But it soon became obvious to US officials that their Russian counterparts were simply parroting Mr Putin’s growing anti-Western views, says Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to former US President Barack Obama.
Mr Bondarev, who used to work for Moscow’s mission to the UN in Geneva, recalls one meeting where Russia blocked all proposed initiatives, prompting colleagues from Switzerland to complain.
The original article contains 1,612 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
What? Did someone put polonium in its tee?
did someone put polonium in its tee?
No but that’s how Putin kept trump in line, polonium laced tees ready at a moments notice for his many impromptu golf trips. Must be what Kishner used that secret Russian channel for
Russian diplomacy is actually pretty good with many successes, but to notice that you should look at something other than USA and EU.
What are examples of it being pretty good?
For example continuing cooperation and expansion of BRICS, recent Africa summit, increasing relations with countries in LatAm, many trade relations which were in large part able to replace everything lost on NATO embargoes, etc. etc.
But that’s just being nice to those who are automatically nice to them. Why don’t they do the same with those who oppose them? They just keep doing “no u, no u, no u.” In that respect, other countries such as Saudi Arabia and China have better diplomacy.
Because modern diplomacy says to be nice to your allies and not nice to your enemies? That’s why the US keeps on throwing sanctions at China.
Sure, sure. But China is not full “I will nuke you!” with the U.S. I don’t even like the Chinese government. But their diplomacy is better than the Russian one. That’s all my point.
But that’s just being nice to those who are automatically nice to them.
That’s part of a diplomacy. Also ask yourself, why are they being nice to them, especially places being plundered by wester colonialism for centuries. For example something like the current situation in Niger where French diplomat get his credentials and visa revoked over not even pretending to be doing his job + ignoring the government he was ambassador to + inflammatory speech of Macron worsening the situation. Which leads to the curious problem of westerners, including a lot of people in this thread, having weird definition of diplomacy as dictating ultimatums to kneeling nonwhite people. USA and EU are now doing exactly this: dictating ultimatums, and are bewildered when other people don’t want to hear this.
Also, it’s not olny being nice: there are a lot of treaties being signed, a lot of gound prepared for further ones - this is how you gauge diplomacy.
Why don’t they do the same with those who oppose them?
You mean Russia? West is only speaking to Russia with ultimatums and loaded “propositions”. I guess the revelation of how France and Germany treated the Minsk agreement was a big bucket of cold water for Russia, they stopped believing what NATO says.
They just keep doing “no u, no u, no u.”
Again, what does west expect when they aren’t even engaging in a good faith? Non hostile countries hear something vastly different, as proven by the examples i cited earlier.
In that respect, other countries such as Saudi Arabia and China have better diplomacy.
Idk about Saudis, but China recently vrokered a deal between Iran and Saudis, two of the most traditionally mutually hostile countries on Earth, i would call this stellar diplomacy.
Aaah projection and propaganda. There it is.
And what you say about China, that’s exactly my point. They have better diplomacy than Russia.
oh so you are one of them Iron Curtain blindfold guys. Keep denying reality bruh.
Lol nice troll!
Sorry kiddo but we’re talking about our garden and our yards in front and behind the house and not the jungle right outside our pristine whitewashed picket fence
did they fix the emoji thing yet?
No, “maybe later” ones are normal size but the porky is humongous.
Lmao as big as their ego
my source is I made it the fuck up
Why exactly do you think that pretty much the entire Global South has not placed significant sanctions on Russia? Why do you think so many countries want to join BRICS?
Must be because of poor Russian diplo. Meanwhile, African countries are literally committing coups for their government staying too close to European colonial powers.
Joining sanctions necessarily incurs a cost in trade. It’s understandable that poorer countries which have smaller stake in the war don’t want to participate.
Why do you think so many countries want to join BRICS?
They want to join to get funds from the development bank. Not much more.
Now, now, let’s not let facts get in the way of the narrative.
Delete yourself
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Russian diplomacy is just as good as it’s military, and space program. A complete joke.
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