Worked as an American consultant for the Dutch government in IT, can confirm this absolutely. It's a case of finding private companies to funnel money to instead of actually creating capacity, all because of the incorrect illusion that the private sector is magically efficient.
My unofficial advice to my colleagues while leaving my posting was "stop hiring people like me. Spend the money on developing good internal devs".
Do you not understand that just because something is to Russia's advantage, and Russia wants it to happen, does not mean that Russia can make it happen?
If you think Brexit was to the benefit of Russia, and you oppose Russia's government (as you should) - OK. Then why wouldn't you want to address the root causes that are powering anti-EU parties all over? Take away the fuel.
Although the more I learn about Russia the more I hate the every day Russian
Meh, if we're going to blame the citizens for the country, my ire goes first to the US. Who's populous doesn't even have the excuses of WWII and the horrors of the 90s in Russia for their embrace of monsters.
Putin is a war criminal and should hang - but what he claims as precedents (illegal NATO unilateral bombing of Yugoslavia, illegal invasion of Iraq, etc) isn't made up either. The West is pretty ridiculous in yelling about warmongering when George W Bush is still a respected former President making pictures after killing a million people and most Americans can't even tell you what countries the US is bombing this week.
I don't need you explaining anything to me? You're claiming it was a land grab, and it wasn't. Seems you should get a better idea of the subject before deciding you need to lecture others.
As I said, that's a different argument. But claiming that Russia was demanding land is just not the case.
in a war of pure aggression and greed
I don't support Russia or Putin. But their aim has been blatantly to not have NATO on their border here, and to have a series of buffer states.
The only deal Ukraine should accept
Given neither one of us is fighting in the trenches, I don't think either of us should be telling Ukrainian conscripts what they should or shouldn't accept. It's pretty morally repugnant to me to demand someone else fights and dies for something I won't.
But demonizing entire peoples is part of how warmongers get us to support this awful shit to begin with. It's one reason why my take is no war but class war, personally.
Again, if you want to say it's a bad deal,it's a different argument. Russia wasn't demanding territory,and that's what the poster was claiming.