Having lived for a significant part of my life in a former USSR country, having learned their language, their history, their way of life, after having shared so many deep and meaningful moments together especially during the holiday season I am presented with a certain vantage point to share my point of view in matters relating russian politics and what role their play on the international arena. The Russian political class and Russian oligarchy that more often than you can possibly comprehend happens to be one and the same, is a force to be reckoned with and from the looks of it, global leaders such as US, Germany, France and other prominent european nations seem to be grossly underestimating.

One important aspect that for the life of me cannot believe it’s not more obvious even if it screamed into our faces till it got blue is, since the fall of the former soviet union, they’ve been working tirelessly to reestablish its former glory and stand as a leader and world ruler for its rich to get richer and its poor to get poorer. It’s actually that simple. At the base of it all there is a basic human greed and the desire to make sure the gravy train never stops, those multi-million dollars yachts are not going to pay for themselves. And you can’t have infinite monetary resources unless you have infinite political power. As some US politicians are most certainly aware of, you can’t have one without the other.

In the last few decades, russians have made aggressive moves and been successful in derailing some or all of the progress made in the newly formed democracies of the eastern european region and so far it has suffered little to no significant consequences. While far from being a major economic power, the vast majority of its resources have been directed towards its military ambitions which makes it a very dangerous foe to us all. It’s been quite a while since the cold war ended yet the Russian Federation still employs some of the same tactics, this time around enhanced by technological progress and the unfeathered access provided by social media networks. Its reach is wide and often times effective especially in times of political instability and division that many western nations have been plagued with and the from the looks of it United States has not been immune to.

For the past few decades, US, the European Union, NATO and other influential organizations have been engaged in diplomatic talks to deescalate armed conflicts that often times have been started or amplified by the Russian Federation itself. With a strong military presence in many of its former territories it has never been more ready to act and regain full control of each and every one of them until there is no more of them left to be conquered. Its military planing and strategic positioning at the border of Ukraine should tell us all just about how serious they are to engage into a full on armed conflict to claim what they think rightfully belongs to them and the only way to stop them is to isolate them from the rest of the world and impose crippling economic restrictions, ban any business entities and russian rich from traveling or otherwise engage in any economic activities as well ban any exports to the russian federation. Not only that, impose same restrictions to any country that seeks to aid them in evading those very same restrictions.

A proper response to curtailing russian ambitions is an aggressive response, employing the same tactics that have been employed in the aftermath of the Crimean annexation clearly have not worked as intended. Diplomacy is not the answer here, it’s been tried before and has proved widely ineffective. Even with the biggest carrot we can find, it simply won’t match the effectiveness of the stick they’ve been waving around for quite some time now. Not only are they dedicating a significant amount of their time to grow strong and powerful while destroying everything in their path they will waste no opportunity to destabilize other world leaders through vaccine propaganda, just to give one prominent example, so that there is very little anyone can do to stop or otherwise slow them down. Under no circumstances do not underestimate the dangers a nation that once stopped nazies from taking over the world can pose to us all.