there are 430 Teboil stations in Finland. This is about one fifth of all 2,250 Teboil stations that exist in Finland.

What??? That does not make one bit of sense! So are there 430 or are there 2250? And what was the actual purpose of showing 2 numbers?
Sorry, but I have to downvote this for being nonsense.

WTF? blocked.

Authoritarian means it is NOT a democracy, which was the point.

That’s completely irrelevant, the argument was democracy vs authoritarianism.
You seem to have some sort of attention problem.

If you are referring to South Africa you are a moron.
Because South Africa was very much an authoritarian leadership, and ruled by a white minority by force.
WTF is that reference supposed to show that does anything but support democracy?

No that all the problem you mention are worse in totalitarian countries.

Why do you first support my point, and then call me a moron?

Again with USA as the example, no other democracy had slaves like USA did.
On the other hand comparable stories to Stalin can be found in multiple autocratic systems.
Where USA is the exception as in exceptionally bad among democracies, what Stain did is commonplace among autocracies.

Please read my edited post.
And no I’m not anything remotely like a tankie, I am one who favor ACTAUL democracy, where among the best models we have running currently is the Scandinavian model.
A 2 party system can never be accepted as a functional democracy, also the level of corruption in elections is undemocratic. preventing people from voting and gerrymandering.
All those things detract from USA as a democracy.

You are delusional and create strawmen and then you think you have a superior view based on your delusions and false equivalences that have no basis in reality.

Compared to genocide by Stalin, ICE is peanuts.
But no it’s not justified, that still doesn’t make it an equal atrocity to what Stalin did.
Also USA is not a democracy, it is a deeply dysfunctional democracy. And In USA it can go 2 ways now, they either go full dictator, or if they go the other, these things will be softened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin

official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.

So kindly piss off with your false equivalences.

My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.

But that’s the point, they don’t. Atrocities can happen, but not as bad as such.
Just give one example of a democracy where an atrocity remotely close to that happened.

Oil production is lowest in 4 years it’s down to half now, and so are the prices. Meaning that Russia only has a fourth the revenue that they had 4 years ago.

I don’t think tomorrow is what most have claimed, but maybe “any time now”, which has kind of been true for the past year.
The signs have been clear for a couple of years now, that the Russian economy can’t handle the war effort against Ukraine in the long run. But the time scale is very hard to predict, if not outright impossible. But in the beginning we knew that when the war chest Putin had saved up was dry, it would only be a matter of time before the Russian economy would see a steep downturn, those early predictions have come true.
But if for instance we get an extremely mild winter, Russia might actually push through it this year too.
But the way it looks, the infrastructure is collapsing, one aspect is that Russia commonly has centralized heating plants, that supply hot water to apartments. These are often based on waste heat from electricity production. And we known in many areas they are behind on maintenance of those, which potentially can leave people without both electricity and heat.
How bad this goes is hard to predict, but we are seeing problems already, despite we are only just out of maintenance season!
The Russian economy, infrastructure and population have been stretched beyond their limits for some time now, the real question is when the parts begin to snap.
I am pretty certain this winter will do it to a big enough degree on the economy and infrastructure for the population to snap too.
The story from the power plant where the workers strike is an example of it. Remember this is GRU (KGB) country, workers don’t complain unless they have really really serious reasons to do so. If you complain you risk going to prison, and going to prison is almost like a death sentence in Russia.

All the Scandinavian countries support Ukraine more than Canada.
So although we appreciate the help from Canada, canadianaffairs.news can fuck right off with this moronic rhetoric.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/total-aid-to-ukraine-by-country

Norway has given 14 billion against Canada 13 Billion.
And Canada is a country of about 40 million while Norway is only 5½. So per capita Norway is giving 7 times more than Canada!

I agree, Those 2 are connected, because Putin knows he won’t survive politically if he ends this war at a point where Russia has gained almost nothing, at extreme cost to the country.
And for Putin, not surviving politically is probably the same as simply not surviving.

I think they will. Russia has had revolutions 2 times before.
As they say, third time is the charm. 😀

The Russian economy was already strained by the war and sanctions. But now the Russian economy is outright collapsing. Ukraine’s attacks and sanctions have cut Russian oil exports in half compared to the beginning of the war, and in the same time the price has dropped to half.
That means that oil exports are only worth a fourth now compared to the beginning of the war!
But it is not only oil, it is EVERYTHING!

Russian oligarchs overall are estimated to have lost about half their net worth!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_billionaires

As shown in my original post, Russian companies are now at a point where they can’t pay workers, transportation is failing, and some people can’t even get food reliably.

There were recent stories about how Russians in certain regions wouldn’t have power or water or heat due to “planned” maintenance. Except this is not possibly planned maintenance, because that is ALWAYS done in the summertime!

Russia is out of options to cover the deficits in creative ways. From now on they will have almost immediate effect, and old deficits will catch up too, and the whole thing will probably collapse over the next 3-6 months, or earlier if the Russian people decide they’ve had enough.

Seems to me that Russia is already unable to handle the current level of attacks. But of course if the attacks on Russia were escalated, the end of the war would come sooner.

I included a very thorough post with documentation that the story is actually true.
I admit the headline is clickbaity, but if you read my comment I absolutely do provide information on what it is about, with 2 other sources confirming it.

As I’ve been posting many times before, many workers in Russia are behind on payments. People working in factories being 3 months behind is not uncommon.
Anna from Ukraine explains the situation here. She is an excellent source, because her English is excellent, and being Ukrainian she understands Russian, and makes frequent news updates about the situation in Russia.

Anton Gerashchenko on Bluesky confirms the story with documentation:
https://bsky.app/profile/antongerashchenko.bsky.social/post/3m56ndvbujs2i
The post contains video from the situation.

Inside Russia on youtube was first to report on the Russian population beginning to have had enough to a degree they are actually beginning to complain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoR5_bJywWQ

I’ve claimed before I don’t think Putin will last through the winter, and I see this as the first signs that the Russian people is about to have had enough.
The story reported by Anna tells that the workers are at least 2 months behind on wages, they were promised transportation to work, something that is important because of the lack of fuel, and public transport becoming unreliable. But they do not get the promised transportation. They were also promised 1 hot meal per day, but do not receive that either.
Finally in their homes, they are out of water and heat.

This is the economic and infrastructure collapse many have predicted was inevitable, that is now beginning to really show. And it isn’t even really winter yet!