Meanwhile In Balkans...

[Roman Alymov]

13 hours ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

Even Roman is full of criticism of the Russian government and yet is completely powerless.  

   Sorry to disilusion you, but me (and many others) being "full of criticism of the Russian government" does not mean i believe "West" to be any better. You know my opinion on "collective Putin", but in comparison with with Western ruling elite our incompetent croocs are intellectual giants and saints. In just 30 years "West" have not only lost the fruits of what they called "victory in Cold War" (that actually newer happened, as USSR impoded for internal reasons where Cold War have prolonged its life, not shortened it), but is now in worse position in any reasonable aspect.

   Even hardline pro-Russians are posting videos of, for example, recent events in UK with comments "Look at that - it is what will happen with us if we allow our pro-Western elites to stay in power"

Examples

https://t.me/donbass_skripnik/25364

https://t.me/donbass_skripnik/25988?single

https://t.me/SergeyKolyasnikov/71069

 

[Jaroslav]

28 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

"Look at that - it is what will happen with us if we allow our pro-Western elites to stay in power"

Examples

https://t.me/donbass_skripnik/25364

https://t.me/donbass_skripnik/25988?single

https://t.me/SergeyKolyasnikov/71069

 

What a jungle

[Stefan Kotsch]

32 minutes ago, Roman Alymov said:

 Sorry to disilusion you, but me (and many others) being "full of criticism of the Russian government" does not mean i believe "West" to be any better.

My God, I would never have accused you of finding the 'West' any better. Never. But still, you are completely powerless towards the mafia people in the Kremlin.

[Roman Alymov]

14 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

My God, I would never have accused you of finding the 'West' any better. Never. But still, you are completely powerless towards the mafia people in the Kremlin.

This man sitting on court bench is former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Army General Pavel Popov. The man who have personally insisted on my department in Patriot Park disbanded and all the team fired. 

   Now he is in Lefortovo detention prison (not for firing me, of course - but still).

[Stefan Kotsch]

And what does that change?

[Roman Alymov]

10 minutes ago, Stefan Kotsch said:

And what does that change?

For you, nothing. For me, a lot.

[ink]

By comparison (and to keep things heading in a Balkan detention), nobody from the Serbian 'ruling elite' is in prison for anything.

[Markus Becker]

15 hours ago, bojan said:

Do you understand that higher % of Serbian citizens went to streets in the last 9 months than % of East Germans that did so in 1989?

How could we know? Certainly not from our news. It's basically a non issue. At best state news brings a brief mention of student protests against corruption every few weeks. But with not in depth information about all the dirty stuff the government does. That we only learn here. 

Edited August 31 by Markus Becker

[blatob]

It is expected given the censorship in EU. You don't hear about the dirty crap your country does. It's not much different across the world.

 

[Ssnake]

I wouldn't call it censorship. Balkans governments simply are assumed to be corrupt, so that alone isn't going to generate much attention. Journos, after all, are professional attention whores.

The reports here in German TV news and newspapers seem to be broadly correct, the protest movement isn't gravely misrepresented from what you're writing here.

It's just that the protests are competing for world attention with other news stories, and it's not gaining top attention.

[Roman Alymov]

8 hours ago, ink said:

By comparison (and to keep things heading in a Balkan detention), nobody from the Serbian 'ruling elite' is in prison for anything.

Slobodan Milošević died in prison. And if we believe Strelkov (who was fighting as volunteer on Serb side) the war and outcome of war was to great extent result of Milošević actions.

[Detonable]

On 8/16/2025 at 6:34 AM, blatob said:

As for elections. Every election on every level is rigged. Everything is used -importing voters from other countries who are given citizenship over the night, with fake ids and fake addresses (dozens people on a address that is empty lot covered in gravel), voter lists filled with long dead people who vote for the regime, people having to make a photo of the ballot to show thst they voted for dictator in order to keep job, voters being payed with cooking oil and sugar to vote... 

 

Sounds like the 2020 US election, except we didn't need to photograph our ballots.

[Jaroslav]

11 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

Slobodan Milošević died in prison. And if we believe Strelkov (who was fighting as volunteer on Serb side) the war and outcome of war was to great extent result of Milošević actions.

Do you have details or link for his statement

[Roman Alymov]

11 minutes ago, Jaroslav said:

Do you have details or link for his statement

It is thinly spread across his posts and his book on experience on Yugoslav war ( you can listen to it as it is available in audio format https://t.me/diodandbooks/179 ), by the way he is often drawing analogy between Milošević  and Putin. 

   Also, he is very sceptical (to say the least) about Vucic 

"I have long suspected that Vucic is a member of a secret sect of masochistic Serbs. The Serbs are beaten, humiliated, and treated, but immediately after the heart-rending screams about Kosovo, about the Serbs being oppressed there, and about the new Turkish occupation (after sending a Turkish battalion to help the shiptars)   - an enthusiastic willingness to lick the owner's dirty ass is immediately expressed... No, I understand that the Serbs have nowhere to go and have to endure, but even they can endure in different ways. It is possible with dignity and without it. Vucic is not about dignity. It's about total dishonor."  https://t.me/strelkovii/5307
 

"- the "prostitution" of President Vucic. – For some reason, I'm not surprised by this "from the word at all": "milking two cows at once" is a characteristic feature of Serbian/Yugoslav rulers, dating back to the Obrenovich dynasty. Vucic is just continuing it." https://t.me/strelkovii/7103

[Stuart Galbraith]

So Milosevic was also a tool of the west?

[Ssnake]

Isn't it obvious?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Now that you put it like that.

 

[blatob]

Every tool has its use. Also, in case of people, expiration date. Just like Sadam. Noriega... Take a pick.

[bojan]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

Isn't it obvious?

Which politician was "Factor of stability in Balkans and guarantee of Dayton peace accords" in early 1997. when there were protests against him going on?

Which country advised Ibrahim Rugova not to negotiate with Serbian opposition at the same time?

Which politician noted "Worst Albanians get now the better will be for them tomorrow" in 1998?

One does not have to be actually set or paid by someone in order to be useful tool for someone's long term interests.

[bojan]

4 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

...

"I have long suspected that Vucic

...

His, and anyone's else main mistake is to think that:

- Vucic has any agenda other than being in power. He does not. He will do whatever is needed for that. So far his doings (mostly) aligned with "west", he would also align to "east", or "north" or "south" or anyone тhat has most influence in Serbia ATM in order to stay in power.

- That Vucic is actually sane actor.* He is not, if he was there would be no current protests** and he would be most probably reelected (more or less fairly is up the debate) probably until his natural death. His need to be seen to be in control of everything and eternal "victim of circumstances" transcends even "regular dictator" levels and comes to the Best Korea style. In the same interview he would claim that: "There was no reconstruction of train station" "There was, but not the part that collapsed, "That part was also reconstructed but it was maybe a terrorist attack", "It was not a terrorist attack, because we have best security, but we are being slandered by US/EU/Russia/China/Aliens", "It was reconstructed but there might have been mistakes", "There were no mistakes, we have best people", "We had to hire Chinese company because we don't have enough good people to do reconstruction"...

*For a long while I have made same mistake - idea that some politician is really seriously mentally ill was foreign to me as a standard "yeah, sure, it is common thing to say and 99.99% not real". Key thing, even when reading prepared speech any kind of non-scripted question can throw him off and he will become to rant or have serious anger issues.

**IMO all he had to do was ignore them at the beginning when it was just some students making 15 minutes traffic stops for mourning. But he had to send thugs to beat those students (most recently he has pardoned them ofc...) and things snowballed from there.

 

 

 

 

[old_goat]

Is Vucic somewhat similar to Orbán in that he runs the country by corruption and otherwise have no definite ideological direction to lead the country?

[bojan]

Yes. They are all of "self-centrist" political alignment - anything goes as long as it serves them being in power. But Vucic is Orban taken to even more extreme + clear signs of mental illness. He was "literary Orban" until something like 2015-16-17. when more malign elements started getting more and more up the front.

 

[Roman Alymov]

36 minutes ago, bojan said:

His, and anyone's else main mistake is to think that:

- Vucic has any agenda other than being in power. He does not. He will do whatever is needed for that. So far his doings (mostly) aligned with "west", he would also align to "east", or "north" or "south" or anyone тhat has most influence in Serbia ATM in order to stay in power.

Well, Strelkov is rare case of monarchist in his political views*, so he considers ideal politician to be the person with a mission to serve his country, not just to grasp for power. 

* not "monarchist" in terms of supporting surviving "Russian monarch dynasty" whom he considers to be clowns.

[Yama]

On 7/21/2025 at 12:39 AM, urbanoid said:

Holy fuck, that's USSR/commieblock level - as far as the bolded part is concerned. 

Back in the day, municipalities would divide public jobs among party lines, and it was hard to get a permanent job if you didn't belong to the Party. (What party was "The Party" depended from where you lived - in my town, it was the Centre Party).

After the 1990s outsourcing and privatization got rid of that disease, but brought in new ones.

[ink]

On 8/31/2025 at 7:51 PM, Ssnake said:

I wouldn't call it censorship. Balkans governments simply are assumed to be corrupt, so that alone isn't going to generate much attention. Journos, after all, are professional attention whores.

The reports here in German TV news and newspapers seem to be broadly correct, the protest movement isn't gravely misrepresented from what you're writing here.

It's just that the protests are competing for world attention with other news stories, and it's not gaining top attention.

Everything you say is true, but consider also the difference in reaction to Maidan in 2014 (even before it turned violent) and these Serbian protests.