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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • I think the best way to look at it is to see their side. If your relatives are similar to mine, they don’t really care about Ukraine or Zelensky. Not even in a negative way. They just want simple solutions to their problems that are actually very complex.

    You understand that having a fleet of Migs that depend on russian technicians is not a reasonable thing if the biggest warmonger in the neighborhood is russia itself. You understand that Slovakia can’t depend on russian gas or oil after russia proved many times, that they will not hesitate to use this dependency every opportunity they get. You understand that making concessions to russia for a promise of peace isn’t going to stop them, because we tried that many times before. You understand that none of these problems have simple solutions.

    But many people choose to be ignorant and believe politicians that promise simple solutions. “We will stop supporting war, negotiate peace in Ukraine and buy cheap reliable russian energy again” It sounds good, it sounds easy. So they will believe any lie that supports this “solution”. Or pretend they believe it, because frankly in many cases I know they aren’t really that stupid to believe some of the lies. They just choose to be ignorant and don’t ask questions.

    How can you depend on russian gas again if you saw them draining EU gas storage year before the invasion and after you saw them cheerfully proclaiming that your family will freeze to death? You can’t. But people choose to ignore reality, because they don’t like how it looks.

    When you look at it this way, you understand that there’s no reason to discuss Ukraine with your family. Because it’s really not about Ukraine. It’s about how much they pay for their groceries. And it’s easier to believe that corrupt Zelensky is to be blamed for expensive bread rather than the fact that we trusted corrupt unstable country with our energy dependency and now have a lot of work, tears and blood ahead of us to dig ourselves from the hole we dug for decades.




  • As a huge fan of the movie (and books) I kind of agree. I have managed to watch it in full only handful of times. I usually fall asleep mid-movie.

    Having said that, I still love it. It also helps me fall asleep sometimes, so win-win. But I get what you’re saying.

    One thing that’s probably worth keeping in mind is that the movie was made before the manned moon landing in 1969. So many of the scenes are super interesting just from the realism POV. Today we’re one click away from a HD video someone made at the international space station. Back then you had few grainy transmissions from space. Star Wars was almost decade later.

    So yeah, seeing ship slowly floating across the screen in complete silence is boring, but it’s also realistic. Same for many other scenes. Now you can play games that will render the same scene in real time on a potato-level PC, so the novelty of seeing “how space might look like out there” is just not there.

    So in many ways it’s like seeing the bullet time scene in Matrix for the first time vs seeing the bullet time scene in any random movie decade later.


  • FYI president in many eastern European countries is just a ceremonial figure without much actual power. It’s kind of like the king in UK.

    The real power is in the hands of the government and its prime minister.

    So when the article mentions that the president signed the law, he effectively does not really have any options not to sign it once it was approved by parliament. Outside of very specific cases. For example if he had a good reason to suspect the law is unconstitutional he could have the constitutional court decide whether it’s okay. And if it is, he’d have to sign it.


  • Something that were already seeing with Slovakia cutting all aid to Ukraine and taking a ‘war is bad, negotiate peace’ stance that is a blatant and thinly veiled Russian supportive line.

    Keep in mind that Fico is lying populist. He is very vocal about ending support for Ukraine, but then ends up supporting budget that includes help for Ukraine.

    He’s very dependent on EU money. Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas very correctly pointed out to reporters that Hungary often said one thing to the media and did another thing behind closed doors. Fico is exactly the same.

    Any military equipment Slovakia could send is already in Ukraine. And any future financial help will be approved by Fico after making loud claims in the media how he’ll stop any and all support. Or pretend that the support is only humanitarian. (But obviously money is money, we can easily pretend the 1% of the overall budget that Slovakia sent was used for… …uh… …fuel?)


  • Well there is the risk of losing Ukraine’s goodwill. It’s one of the biggest countries bordering Slovakia. I’m quite sure there will be a lot of money flowing to Ukraine pre-EU to support reconstruction and preparation for joining the EU. There are many contracts to be lost etc…

    It just makes no sense to be on bad terms with your direct neighbor just so you can be a simp for constantly drunk guy down the street that has nothing to offer and no perspective.

    I mean Slovakia found out that russian technicians were fucking with the jets they were maintaining for Slovak military.

    But it all makes sense when you realize that Fico only follows his own interests. He couldn’t care less about his country.


  • If you’re trying to find any logic or intent in what populist lying politician says, you’re doing it wrong.

    If Fico said that the sky is blue, I’d go outside to check.

    He just won election on the platform of russian lies and conspiracy theories. He’s a COVID denier that was privately recorded saying he personally had quite serious symptoms when he got it. He lies pretty much constantly.

    Whatever he says has no reflection in reality. There was pretty much zero military help from Slovakia since we gave away the only S300 system and jets. The rest (ie Zuzana howitzer) is paid for by a third party or an actual contract. And he’s not stopping that - if anything he likely gets a cut off that deal. It’s just posturing for the portion of his voting base that eats russian propaganda he personally helped to spread.

    Strategically it makes no sense to suck putin’s dick. Russia is done for no matter what happens in Ukraine. It’s a bankrupt pseudo-country on the verge of collapse. It makes zero sense losing the good will of the EU countries - many of which have bigger economies than russia - for anything russia can provide. And Fico isn’t some master planner. If there isn’t something in it for him, he isn’t interested. It’s that simple. And he needs EU money to fund projects he can then suck dry.


  • I think it’s important to point out, that “winning elections” does not mean that the majority of Slovaks support them. They just won as a party with most votes. (23% so not even a quarter)

    They just won the mandate to form a government for which they’ll need at least two other parties to form a majority. The anti EU/NATO stance might be a problem here as it’s not universally shared among possible coalition partners.

    It is misleading to draw such a strong “Slovakia is pro-russian country” conclusion based on a single party getting the most votes, because many of the other parties that are at the very least silent if not outright pro-nato/eu with significant amount of the votes.

    Even comparison to Hungary is a huge stretch as Orbán’s party alone got more than 50% of the votes. As it is now, Smer has to form a coalition with other (in many ways more moderate) parties which is already not 100% given - it would not be the first time when the winning party ends up in opposition. And going forward they either avoid these friction points (so they end up acting more moderate) or they risk coalition breaking apart with early election or opposition forming government.



  • The working in the article is a bit confusing:

    was charged with justifying terrorism and refused to plead guilty

    To me this sounds like he was charged with justifying terrorism, not for refusing to plead guilty. Reading further the charge is based on “conversations with other inmates during which Miftakhov allegedly expressed support for a 2018 attack on a regional office of Russia’s Federal Security Service”. In reasonable legal system it would stand on very shaky legs given the other inmates have every reason to say whatever FSB told them to say otherwise they will be tortured as well. But this is russia.

    Which is to say he wasn’t really charged for refusing to plead guilty, but in practice the FSB can just keep making up false charges and torturing him until he pleads guilty, so there’s very little difference. It might as well be an offense as you implied.