How Russia's Airline Industry Was Pushed To the Brink in a Week (ft.com) 191
Banned from swaths of the world's skies, denied access to vital spare parts, stripped of insurance and battling to keep hold of planes, Russia's aviation industry has in the space of a week been plunged into its gravest crisis in decades [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled]. From a report: Western governments have unleashed waves of sanctions since Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine late last month, but few have delivered such a visible punch as those targeted at an industry that accounted for 6 per cent of the world's airline capacity last year. Flag carrier Aeroflot, which took delivery of its first western aircraft from Airbus when Boris Yeltsin was in the Kremlin, on Saturday announced it would stop all international flights other than to Belarus. S7, Russia's second-largest airline, has also scrapped flights outside domestic airspace. The industry's mushrooming crisis is "unprecedented, unpredictable and unforecastable," said Max Kingsley-Jones of Ascend by Cirium, the aviation consultancy. With no clarity on how long the sanctions from US and EU authorities will remain in place, experts warned that in a worst-case scenario Russian domestic carriers' schedules would shrink to levels not seen in three decades.
As expected (Score:2)
...not that many Russians would afford flying in the near future.
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That's OK. They are used to alternative modes of transportation [allpainters.ru].
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And when you reach your destination you can eat it.
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Re:As expected (Score:4, Interesting)
Russia has an absolute monster of a rail system in basically every way, so I'd expect them to amp up use of that and cut down use of aircraft because trains are a lot cheaper to operate, and they are operating them already.
The Russian rail system is one of the largest. (Score:2)
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Re: As expected (Score:2)
Flying was already cheap in Russia. I flew Aeroflot from Moscow to St Petersburg in 2015. It was something like a fairly new Airbus A320, full meal service, checked baggage, all for £17 (less than $25)
depression (Score:2)
Re:depression (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. The key word being "after." So in WWII, we did the opposite: we paid to reconstruct Germany and did not demand they repay the damage they caused. In order to prevent another world war, we ensured all countries were economically tied to each other. Going to war would mean destroying your own economy, as all those ties were untied. Putin went to war anyway, thinking the other countries would simply overlook his violent aggression. He very, very badly miscalculated the response.
So once Russia collapses, leaves Ukraine in defeat, and deposes Putin, we will remove all sanctions and help them rebuild. As long as Putin is in charge, though, there can be NO international cooperation with Russia. Who would ever trust him again? No one. But with someone else in charge? We will extend trust once more, and help Russia rebuild.
There is a way out of this for Russia. There is no way out of this for Putin. His only choice now is to go out like his worst fear, sodomized with a pitchfork by an angry mob of his own countrymen, like Ghaddafi, or face trail in the Hague. That's it. I know Putin cares for his family, if he wants them not to die by gang rape, he should surrender and face the music. Otherwise, ugly things will happen, done by angry starving Russians.
Re:depression (Score:4, Interesting)
Did he? It's not as if he or anyone else really paid any price for annexing Crimea in 2014. Why would he or anyone else think he wouldn't again be able to nibble off a bit more? I think everyone is pretty surprised by the extent of government & private sector actions against Russia over the current matter.
Re: depression (Score:3)
Taking Crimea got Russia kicked out of the G8, which cost Putin and his pals personally billions. Putin had Trump spend 4 years focusing on getting Russia back in, and when that failed, Putin frankly had very few moves open to him to leverage his way back in. I think his plan was to take Ukraine quickly and use it as a bargaining chip. Not sure it would have worked, and almost 2 weeks in it certainly won't work now. Now Putin is stuck in a mess and likely looking for some way to claim victory and retrea
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The Great Putini's days might be numbered or they may not. He's shown he cares not how many or whom he kills. He'll simply crack down on any dissent harder. I read an article (cannot recall where) that he had approx. a 300,000 - 600,000 goon squad who are not part of the army. So he has his own brownshirts, just Iran has their goon squad (fortified with Hezbollah when in need).
His military is seemingly rife with graft at the high levels. They won't be stopping their gravy train anytime soon just because Put
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The Great Putini's days might be numbered or they may not. He's shown he cares not how many or whom he kills. He'll simply crack down on any dissent harder.
It's not The People who can reasonably rise up and depose Putin here, they are cannon fodder. It would have to be someone in the military, financially or otherwise motivated by the oligarchs, who are themselves losing money hand over fist right now.
His military is seemingly rife with graft at the high levels. They won't be stopping their gravy train anytime soon just because Putini is stupid. It would take the rank and file to get seriously annoyed.
The Russian economy is well and truly down the bog now in a way that makes their usual garbage economy look like paradise. That has a way of causing things to happen.
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By the way, Trump lost, get over it.
Trump still apparently plans to run again, and there is sufficient risk that he will carry the party rather than splitting it that it's worth continuing to be concerned about his shenanigans.
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Putin was using Trump to try to get the USA to bail on NATO for four years. [thehill.com]
And yes, he was also pushing Trump (2018) [cnn.com] to lean on G7 (2019) [nytimes.com] to readmit Russia (2020). [bbc.com] Over and over again.
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Blame is an odd way to frame it. Trump spent a solid chunk of four years at Putin's behest trying to get Russia back into the G7. I have no idea why Trump chose to do that - perhaps that meeting he had with Putin of which there are no records had something to do with it. In any case, while he did that, Russia played nice. That is the most likely reason Putin didn't invade Ukraine while Trump was in office - there was some hope of getting back into the G7 - you almost can't overestimate how much money be
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Why would he or anyone else think he wouldn't again be able to nibble off a bit more?
He probably easily could have 'nibbled off a bit more'. Which makes it all the more baffling why he didn't just do that, rather than try to attack and destroy the entire country. Had he just marched into one or two small areas, 'annexed' them (al la Crimea) and called it a day, I doubt the world would have jumped into this fight with weapons and sanctions so heavily.
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Apparently he has a grievance against the West for dissing him. Put quickly, the West told him they thought he had a short dick and this is his response. Now we know that it is much, much shorter than we figured. He's a tiny little fuck who just happens to have the FSB ready to off anyone who stands up to him.
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Perhaps it is the strength of Ukranian resolve, which has been revealed to be extremely strong (as it would have to be for their identity to have survived the Soviet eta.) I imagine he didn't believe that he'd face so much resistance, and that his impressive looking but pathetically fragile military would have Ukraine sufficiently cowed that he could roll in and do whatever he liked.
Russia would be better off with 1/4 of their current number of forces but in good condition, but sadly the only things they ha
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And also invasion of Georgia, which resulted in a cease fire agreement that was quickly violated with no repercussions. Also fighting in Checnya, which tecnically was Russia though not ethnically so, which had an extremely brutal fight and was really a civil war with Russia fighting on behalf of one side (note that many Russians lived in Grozny but evacuated when shelling of that city started by the Russian army, but it was claimed that this was because of separatists). Also, giving soldiers and aid to th
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Also don't forget the world not giving a single shit when they encircled Aleppo in Syria and bombed it into rubble. You know, just like they're trying to do to Ukrainian cities now. And they did in Chechnya in the 90s.
It's kind of the only game plan they have - 1940s siege warfare.
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There are two other options for Putin if he feels like he can't win:
1. A nice glass of Polonium tea, or
2. Press the 'nuclear button" and follow it with a nice glass of Polonium tea.
I don't know Putin personally, but somehow I don't see him using a gun or a rope to make his final exit. I could be wrong, though.
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Actually, the Allies did a lot to stabilize the Weimar Republic. The US offered a lot of very low interest loans in the 1920s, some of the terms so easy that Churchill observed in his History of the Second World War that Germany had better terms with US banks than the UK did. In fact, the Weimar Republic was in reasonably decent shape in the late 1920s, but it was the global Depression which killed Western largess that started the downward spiral of the Weimar economy, and paved the way for the rise of Nazi
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I tend to think that Hitler had a lot to do with it. He was able to mesmerize the pop. at a time they were vulnerable to mesmerization.
Radio (Score:2)
Hitler was very good in using radio to spread propaganda...
Same what Putin has done with social media...
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A lot of that happened after Hitler became Chancellor. Certainly he had legions of loyal followers, but in any fair election he never approached a plurality in the Reichstadt. His direct route to power was to agitate against the Communists and other left wing parties, and while a lot of German conservatives were hardly enamored with the man (Hindenburg thought him a ridiculous figure), the instability (in part through far right agitation and outright violence) was led to successive "hung parliaments" with n
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The allies did some. They imposed huge war reparations though. Bank loans are one thing but when reparations are siphoning off most of your GDP, loans won't help.
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The reparation schedules were eased as well, still quite high, and again Germany wasn't in terrible shape after the initial shocks. Yes, the onerous terms at Versailles played a part, but even the Allies by the mid-1920s realized that to rehabilitate Germany meant easier terms. The economy of the late 1920s made reparations manageable, though obviously the territorial concessions forced on Germany at Versailles were also another kind of humiliation. What Churchill was trying to demonstrate was that while Ve
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Mod parent up, though I think you should have updated the Subject.
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As long as Putin is in power and Russia stays cut off, China wins. They may have even been whispering in Putin's ear, goading him into attacking Ukraine. China wins either way. If Russia wins, the west is destabilized and demoralized. Good for China. If Russia loses, then yes absolutely, you end up with Russia a vassal state of China. China wins even more.
But the worst case scenario for China is seeing Putin deposed and Russia making friends with the west. So far, this has not turned out how China wanted. P
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Now only if we can figure a way to reduce the body count in the interim...
Well, except for one particular kleptocrat dictator cunt's body that needs to hit the floor and go cold.
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But I honestly don't think they realize this. I've talked to people with actual ties in Russia. Regardless of a few thousand protesters, most Russians continue to support Putin. They lloooovveee their Czar. Let's see how they feel after a few years of eating nothing but reindeer fat and borsht.
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You know, I once thought that way too. But everything else about Russia has been shown to be a lie. Support for Putin is almost certainly exaggerated to a huge degree. There are much, much more than a thousand protesters. People who support the war in Russia are getting bricks thrown through their windows. Definitely don't want to put that invasion Z symbol on anything in Russia you want to stay in one piece.
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And yet, history shows us plenty of times when the people turned on their leaders. Usually, because those leaders once seemed strong and scary, but now seem weak and defenseless. Putin has dug his own grave, and no one will help him out of it.
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we paid to reconstruct Germany
And Japan. So there's precedent to this. Both cases turned out fairly well. We may do the same for Russia* after Putin. The rebuilding costs will be much lower (unlikely that Ukraine will be inflicting much damage on Russia). But the West man impose similar restrictions on Russia's military capabilities as a condition for economic normalization. Basically wind down to a defensive force with mutual protection treaties with neighbors.
*And Belarus.
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Nothing much to rebuild in Russia. Ukraine will have a lot to rebuild.
After Putin, just remove the sanctions on Russia and let it go back to being a gas station.
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I would amend that to "also drop a 20% tax on Russian oil and gas sales to rebuild Ukraine."
You break it, you buy it.
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Personally I'd be happy with "Hey Russia - you fucked up bigtime and now you're in the jackpot. You know how you get out? Dismantle your nukes, and turn the plutonium into mixed-oxide reactor fuel. And you know what, we'll do the same just so we don't have this spectre play out ever again. Our inspectors will be there in a week to oversee the process."
"Or, we leave the sanctions in place and in a year your economy will be so far down in the toilet you'll look up to see turds and think 'man, remember the
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Hah! What China wants is what is happening right now. Russia being cut off from the rest of the world, with no trading partner but China. They would have taken "Russia wins in Ukraine, West is demoralized and fractured" as a consolation prize. But a Western friendly Russia, even with no military? China absolutely does not want that.
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Mod parent up, in spite of the typo for "trial". But I really expected this story to be troll-ridden. Can I count it as a good sign that the "usual" trolls are apparently busy elsewhere?
Oh yeah. A joke. How about an attempted joke?
"The master has become the student."
At least everyone used to think that Putin was a master on the level of Darth Vader, but this crazy stunt in Ukraine sounds like an idea he might have gotten via TFG's iPhone... Now he's a pariah and you can't spell "profit" with "pariah". You're missing the "o", "f", and "t".
I think the trolls are having a hard time covering the internet bills...
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I know, right? I seriously thought of Putin as a fairly scary dude, and Russia as a threat to the West, second only to China. Now I, and the whole world, know that Putin is a buffoon, and Russia is a shit hole kleptocracy with no functional armed forces. I bet even their nukes are missing parts, sold off to pay for vodka. Did you see the video of the Russian soldiers riding into Ukraine on twenty year old run down dump trucks? God that must be demoralizing. "Go fight your brothers, who speak your language a
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The funniest "Russian army is crap" note I heard recently is that their ONLY aircraft carrier never leaves port without a tug escorting it, because the engines on the carrier are prone to break down.
"The enemy is advancing on us! Quickly, full speed!"
"Nyet, Captain, the tug is still getting into towing position."
"Fuck, I hate this ship..."
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Recently? The pile of scrap has needed a tug for a decade [news.com.au] to get around
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Language is different - similar but different - quite a few Ukrainian words are like Polish counterparts - not Russian ones.
And culture is different - many elements are shared but many are very different.
Political culture is completely opposite - Ukrainian is based more on Kozak/Commonwealth/Habsburg tradition while Russian has more Mongol/Tatar heritage.
For Kozaks freedom was key value, for Russians it was will of their tsar/khan.
This is why authoritarian system was forced in Russia and Byelorussia and not
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I would have to say that this remains to be seen. My guess is he over-played his hand, but that doesn't mean he does not have contingency plans. His real fear has to be the people of Russia, and so far he is controlling them effectively. He can likely send in 50-100% more troops if he needs to, or he can focus on inflicting pain in
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he can focus on inflicting pain in Ukraine to the point where a retreat can still be a victory.
The more pain he inflicts in Ukraine the less likely he will be bale to exit with a victory. I don't see how anyone will turn their backs to the civilian murders. Then again you may be right because humanity has a way of turning it's back to such injustices.
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Kazhakstan refused the Russian request to send their troops to Ukraine, Belarus troops have mutinied and said they won't fight, so now Russia has turned to Syrain fighters to go into Ukraine [washingtonexaminer.com]. This is in addition to getting troops from Chechnya which are already being decimated by the Ukrainian army [timesofisrael.com].
There are reports Russia is now pulling troops from the far East to supplement the exorbitant losses it's suffering in Ukraine, including the l
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"Ultimately for Putin to truly lose, Chrimea needs to be re-liberated back into Ukraine."
And then what happens to the Russians who live there? A repeat of the Sudetenland after WW2? If you've forgotten, or likely never learned;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And there was Poland,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Ethnic cleansing after this could be just as brutal.
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They may just come back to from where they came. And Tatars can come back. They were resettled all over Russia.
Sevastopol base would be demilitarized
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More troops don't help if you can't even move the troops you already have. Their logistical operation has completely and utterly failed, which means their front lines had better be stocked up on body bags. They've ground to a halt, which means they're burning through ammo, fuel, and food without taking any more territory. And, they aren't securing the territory they've already taken, so the logistics they do have are getting regularly hit by rear-guard action as well as from the air because they haven't
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Can I count it as a good sign that the "usual" trolls are apparently busy elsewhere?
Patience. They'll be here once they're done on the Linux story from a little while ago [slashdot.org]
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But I really expected this story to be troll-ridden. Can I count it as a good sign that the "usual" trolls are apparently busy elsewhere?
I'd hate to disappoint you. Is asking reasonable questions = trolling?
Are we going to do this stuff for every war, or just this one? If just this one, why?
When we did anything remotely like this to Islamofascists in the past, we were said to be just "creating more terrorists". This is different because ... ?
And isn't the "real danger" that we are going to create anti-Russian "hate"? Or is that only the "real danger" when the enemies are more exotic?
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The West is going to do this for every war that involves a crime of aggression against a European state. It would do the same for a crime of aggression against the US, Canada, Australia and probably New Zealand too. Some other countries might get a similar response, depending on circumstances. If that strikes you as unfair, may I introduce you to the concept of realpolitik.
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You seem to be proving my point? That was your first comment on the story, nyet?
Anyway, there is a time for questions, but sometimes it is a time for trying to save lives. And I think it is never the time to encourage sociopaths like Putin. Unfortunately, right now Putin is taking any evidence or even traces of "division" among his enemies as "evidence" he should stay the course and keep on killing Ukrainians.
So where were you when Dubya was lying about reasons to invade Iraq? Might be a fair question, but
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It's different because Russia has nukes. If they didn't, we wouldn't bother with sanctions, we would just bomb the shit out of them like when Iraq invaded Kuwait (and for the record, yes, that did create more terrorists).
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we would just bomb the shit out of them like when Iraq invaded Kuwait (and for the record, yes, that did create more terrorists)
It created more terrorists because the incompetent Shrub regime had no plan for actually fixing root issues.
In the first Gulf War, Hussein was pushed out of Kuwait but he was left in power, with the allied nations hoping that economic sanctions would take the wind out of his sails over time. Most of the allied nations (at the time) recognized that taking him down would just cr
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I don't blame people for hating on nations that are indiscriminately bombing them, after lying to the world about them.
Even has horrid as the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were, at least they didn't just turn rocket artillery onto civilian apartment towers and schools. Sure, there were some well publicized fuckups of drone strikes hitting shit that had nothing to do with anything; it was never anything close to the absolute horrors that Russia has been conducting over the last two weeks, and continu
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Mod parent up, in spite of the typo for "trial". But I really expected this story to be troll-ridden. Can I count it as a good sign that the "usual" trolls are apparently busy elsewhere?
Apple is doing a product release day today, so go to that story to find the trolls.
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Don't worry, the appeasement army and sock puppet accounts will be along shortly to spread the Kremlin's misinformation.
Perhaps not (Score:2)
Wasn't the rise of Nazism fueled in part by economic collapse and hyperinflation in Germany after WW1 ?
That was the general consensus when I was in school (*), but the "The Great War" [youtube.com] channel pointed out that Germany was past its economic problems by a couple of years when the WWII broke out.
Reading "Mein Kampf" with an historical eye, Hitler describes society as having a lot of poor (including himself), but not that society was poor in general. His problem (in his words) was the erosion of traditional Germanic virtues (Hitler was Austrian). In his eyes it was more about the disparity of wealth than the over
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You're half correct and half mistaken.
Germany WAS getting past its economic problems by the time WW2 broke out, but that's not when Hitler's rise started. He started his rise to power in the 1920s, and he did it by instigating people who were still experiencing the economic strife they'd been in since the end of WW1 and directing all their anger towards scapegoats in the form of various ethnic and religious minorities. He spun a tale of Germany not as the loser in a rather nasty war, but rather as being "
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Economic sanctions because the Japanese Army invaded Manchuria in 1931, a bit of the same thing that Putin is now doing with Ukraine.
But the CCP has shown that it does not have one single atom of humanity in them, by supporting Russia and nicely forgetting the previous fact.
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Well, yes, but it's more complicated than that, and much of what is popularly believed is a myth. When the Nazis ended the Weimar Republic in 1933, hyperinflation had actually been ended a decade earlier.
Both the Communists and the Nazis made major gains in the elections of 1932, but by that time the German economy had started to recover from the global recession triggered by the Wall Street crash of 1929. German war reparations were cancelled that year too -- not that Germany was paying them, and in fact
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And WW2 started in large part because various nations stood by and watched Germany "Anschluss" neighboring countries, such as Czechoslovakia, and then decided Appeasement was the correct way to address it. [iwm.org.uk]
Instead of appeasement working, though, Hitler kept going and kept escalating. The parallels to what's happened with Putin are obvious, and the expression "history may not repeat exactly but it sure as hell rhymes" is something people need to remember.
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Also rise of Putinism was fueled by collapse of the USSR
Last but not least - new media for propaganda lies: radio for Hitler, social media for Putin
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Capitalism didn't replace communism in Russia an Oligarchy did. Interestingly, the opposite of Communism isn't Capitalism, it is Oligarchy.
Not surprising (Score:2)
but Russia can ban and jail the foreign repoman (Score:2)
but Russia can ban and jail the foreign repoman and skip out on the bill.
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Aircraft needs continued maintenance. They won't get spare parts easily anymore.
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Sure they will. They'll just buy the sub-standard Chinese counterfeits that are so common and widely available that they wind up being used... and causing crashes... even in countries that actually have aviation regulations that make them illegal. It's kind of like the situation in Amazon's warehouses where the counterfeits are in the same bins as the real thing and it's a crapshoot which one you get.
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
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About the only actual counterfeit aircraft parts are fasteners of all kinds. The rest is genuine, just not officially usable.
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Why do you think the airlines are not flying internationally? This is one of the reasons.
This cripples enemy logistics (Score:2)
Good. Airlines = airlift since all Russian aircraft are effectively military assets since Soviet times.
Shut off spare parts and they'll be static displays soon enough if they do fly.
Russia has some very ugly options on the table (Score:4, Interesting)
That the ruling class of the West doesn't want to discuss.
The first is they can nationalize all of the shares held by foreigners on the Moscow stock exchange. That's 81% of the shares on the market [reuters.com].
Blackrock and others are also potentially going to lose a ton of money in the bond markets between commercial and government debt if Russia decides to retaliate by canceling its sovereign debt and telling its corporations they're off the hook.
What most folks don't realize is the Western investment markets are a powder keg that's bigger and more precarious now than the markets were in early 2008. Those who predicted the bailouts would send a message that says criminality and unethical behavior will be covered by tax payers were right, and the level of misconduct is through the roof.
It wouldn't take much from this conflict to potentially set up a series of dominos that eventually topple the Western markets.
Re:Russia has some very ugly options on the table (Score:4, Insightful)
Western markets have been overvalued for years. One way or another, a correction is inevitable. There's worse ways to have it happen than opposing a murderous tyrant.
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You're feeding a troll, but if we have to bring more politics into it, then I think this war may be a godsend for the Democrats in November. Whatever isn't fixed by then, they can blame Putin and Putin's War in Ukraine for it. Even better if the fake Republican candidate has defended Putin. Talk about hanging a giant albatross around your neck... You can't make those pesky videos go away.
Re: Russia has some very ugly options on the table (Score:2)
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If they do that, they'd never see a dollar of foreign investment again.
Blackrock would survive if Russia decided to cancel its sovereign debt. Russia would not.
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If they do that, they'd never see a dollar of foreign investment again.
That would be ideal. They'll turn to China, of course. China is going to eat Russia alive.
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Yeah, just ask Greece how defaulting meant they never got . . . uh, never mind.
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That would require the Moscow Stock Exchange to, you know, open again. And, of course, everything to not drop down to zero almost immediately as everyone tried to sell.
Yeah, Black Rock and others hold about $170 billion in Russian assets [disruptionbanking.com] as of December 2021, but that's a drop in the bucket. Black Rock is the largest asset manager in the world, with over $10 TRILLION managed. They can write off Russia 100% and ride it out as a ripple.
Western markets aren't going to get toppled over Russia, who looks to now b
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if Russia decides to retaliate by canceling its sovereign debt and telling its corporations they're off the hook.
That could be a case of "cutting off your nose to spite your face". Sure, you can get out of your CURRENT debt, but how will you raise future capital to get your heavily-sanctioned economy going again?
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The first is they can nationalize all of the shares held by foreigners on the Moscow stock exchange.
How did that work out in Cuba when it mostly involved US assets?
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You mean the stock exchange which hasn't been open for a week because the valuations of all those companies is close to zero? Nationalizing all those companies, not shares, would be case closed for Russia. No one will invest which means no money. With Russian banks cut off from the outside world, a complete and total collapse would be inevitable, and fairly quickly based on current conditions.
If
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Western governments will bail out all the banks and investment houses that lose money on their Russia investments. That's what they did in 2008. They'll do it again.
They could decide to keep the planes (Score:2)
I haven't RTFA since it is paywalled and maybe it is mentioned in TFA but many planes in Russia are on leasing contracts. If the Russian companies keep them one way or another the foreign companies which lease them are screwed.
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The leasing companies are screwed, but the Russian airlines are even more screwed. If they don't honour leasing obligations, they won't be able to lease planes again in the future. And that's the end of them as an industry.
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They will probably get some financial help from Western governments in order to "ride" this issue.All in all, even the largest Russian airline company can not have leased so many planes.
Re: They could decide to keep the planes (Score:2)
Paywalled content. (Score:2)
Railroads (Score:2)
Don't worry. Russia is the land of railroads. And, unlike in the USA, Russian trains depart on time, and arrive on time too. Russia can even brag about having bested USA in high speed rail access. I have tried to reach from place A to place B by trains in USA twice, and it was a fucking joke. First time, the train arrived and left to early, fucking up everybody waiting for the fucking Amtrak train. The second time I tried to take a train in the USA, it never arrived, and the a clerk came to me and told me t
We were the world, we were the peeeople. (Score:2)
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I thought Cliff Notes was brief.
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Yes... need to realize that broad brushing is a fundamental evil. Putin needs to follow Hitler into a bunker soon and allow Russia to rise above the mess he has created.