Both are true. The standard of living did improve. But it was so abysmal, that even after the improvement only very few parts of Russia can compare to the rest of Eastern Europe, not to mention anything richer.

Is it really that good or is it just a meme?

If so is it good compared to other cheap brands or as good as the stuff I can buy in dedicated tea shops?

Oligarchs. You’re missing oligarchs. The issue with Ukrainian agricultire is that a lot of it is a big, concentrated business with ties to Western capital on top of the traditional post-soviet oligarchy. This influences actions of both Ukrainian and EU politicians. The matters of imports or transit from Ukraine could be very well sorted out for the short term, but no one in power is really willing to do so.

In the long term Polish agriculture faces a serious challenge from Ukraine when it gets more and more integrated with the west but it’s also not so binary in terms of who floods whom with produce.

I recommend everyone who hasn’t to look up the idea of “Potiomkin villages” (and subsequently Potiomkin anything eg. Potiomkin AI). In short: back in the tzarist days lower ranks put up mock villages which looked clean, modern and prosperous for higher ranks (and tzars) to see during visits. These mockups were essentially theatre decorations which hid the real state of the matters - dilapidated, dirty, poor and corrupt. For at least the last decade everything we saw of Russia was Potiomkin in nature - either to show off before the West or to hide corruption before own superiors.

Ahaha we’re so fucked. The sea temperature is not just higher, it was rising the whole previois year and it’s flatter than in the past. Say goodbye to seasons, we’re heading into the “flood season and heatwave season” territory. Last year I heard top scientists saying “it’s bad and anomalous but not exponential”, this looks… increasingly exponential.

No no no no. It’s, you know, just warfare. Terrible things happen at wars. But you can always send more missiles and bombs so Israel can end the war faster! No genocide to speak of! Just mundane defensive war.

(/s obviously)

Care to elaborate why is this relevant?

Oh and I forgot an important one:

There is no way this could be prevented!!!

What could cause this??? What a mystery!! Why would people succum to viruses?!?!?! Inexplicable!!! If only here was a reason why so many people have weakened immune system??? No one could foresee this, also covid case number is low, don’t look in this direction.

Solidifying control over the Suez Canal - note that Saudis and Iran are (at least for now) not at their throats so some or other kind of cooperation for mutual trade profits may be in order. Their agreement was brokered by China, and the Chinese are very much interested in keeping Suez open. For the local powers the best case scenario is to make westerners GTFO. But the westerners won’t gtfo as long as their ships are under fire. It’s not unlikely that Houthi got “off the leash”, in such case the Iranian warship would paradixically sail there to discipline the attackers and reduce tensions. Howevwr obviously no one would admit it openly.

A more conspirational take is that the heat in the ME, from Hamas to Houthi, is a bid to pressure the US into unpopular moves (stubborn support to Israel, actual violence on the seas, maybe some diplomatic fuckups) and produce an electoral advantage for Trump.

To people who say it’s oVeRbLoWn CoNsPiRaCy

Every viral disease may leave long term consequences, including the common flu. So can COVID. But we as a society got quite good at handling common flu. Also most people don’t contract it that often and if they do it’s a cause for medical attention. Meanwhile people are getting infected with COVID 3-4 times within 4 years and no one bats an eye besides “yeah, you’re not lucky”. So we were forced into pretending that going through a potentially heavily debilitating disease every 1-2 years is a perfectly normal thing and those who eventually “find out” are either just unfortunate or straight up lying.

Sadly facts don’t care about our feelings and social setups. The endgame (that is max percentage of affected people) is at the level of 50% of the entire population with long covid at all times because the damage from subsequent infections accumulates. I just don’t remember if the timescale for this was 10 or 20 years of unmitigated spread of the virus (that is: what we have now)

Meanwhile the new mutations are not really less severe. Only vaccinations make it so we’re not seeing death rates of 2020 until today. And sooner or later one or another mutated form will evade all immunity, wheteher it emerges tomorrow or in 5 years.

Fun times ahead and, oh, remind me how well are health care systems faring right now when “the pandemic has ended”? Yeah, thought so. And these people are first in line to be affected so it won’t be getting better. If anythong COVID is the one topic where doomerism is perfectly justified as we don’t even try to pretend we’re doing something like we are with climate.

Last time I checked BBC wasn’t a Fox News cosplay

Correct with the caveat that the Polish truckers have to comply with the EU regulations (laws designed to make sure drivers aren’t forced to drive 12 hours straight and their trucks are not falling apart) while the Ukrainian ones don’t. Polish and Ukrainian govts are slowly getting to work on the issue but that’s just the beginning. When Poland and others accessed the EU the German truckers, farmers… were also quite dissatisfied. It’s a complicated matter and while I wholeheartedly support Ukraine and agree that all measures should be taken to make grain exports smoother I should also acknowledge, that this time the conflict is not just mere pettiness from the Polish side.

I’m not American, can someone explain why Biden does this when his “one job” for 2024 is to not look like a fash?

Azerbaijan gets a nod to host COP29

Ah yes, host the climate summit in an authoritarian fossil fuel exporting country, it has never caused problems.

Ohhh elections, so the plan is to get bogged down in a low-intensity border conflict and then say “oh no, we can’t do the voting in the middle of a war!”

Is that a ploy from Russians who are too cheap to bribe three juntas at the same time and want to consolidate assets?

Oh yes, as someone somewhere said:

“The safest border of Russia is the western one because NATO guards it”.

In Poland it’s “hybrid attack”. Devious, disgusting dehumanisation which makes even otherwise smart or kind people cheer for forces literally letting people freeze to death in forests. Rebrand helpless, misguided refugees as “Russia’s hybrid weapon” and you can get away with any atrocity.

To add a bit more and a few clarifications:

At current rate it is not possible for Ukraine to actually, seriously lose the war. Even if UA was forced to start peace talks today they would remain a sovereign state, badly beaten and poor, but with immense will to ally themselves with the West, and the West won’t object (too much).

So for a Slovakian politician there is little to no risk in becoming a putin simp since there is no way Russia can credibly threaten him within the next 5 years. The very same mentality Orban is most likely having - Hungary is sheltered behind Carpathian mountains so there is no actual risk of russian boots on the ground. All the cash and dirty tricks from putin without much fear of his aggression, what’s not to like.

Fico must have gotten some sweet deals from the east and also there are all the suspicions around him that make him look like a plain mafia boss - and if there is one massive difference between russia and the EU it’s that russians don’t ask unpleasant questions and don’t bother too much with all this “rule of law” thingy.

It’s too early to call russia’s collapse and I would not underestimate the country’s resilience to isolation. “Best we can do” is a regime change, but there is zero viable political forces which would be willing to maintain long-term peace. At least in Central Europe the thinking is “russians lost this one, and badly, but round two is coming, if not in 5 years then in ten”.