Aren’t they trying (and failing) to do it now? Oil, specifically.

Don't you think that they just don't want to sell oil at all? Not specifically deny payments in yuans from some selected buyer they don't like and selling oil to everybody else without problems like West did.

I don’t respect China in any way.

I respect them for how they grow in short time from poor communist country where people was ready to work for rice meal to the serious power on the stage. They find their superpower and use it in full. Yes, they are not good in inventions, they have very strange attitude to nearly anything, but they find out how to not become world shithole.

I don’t trust any numbers that come out of it

Wise not to trust any numbers coming out from any government, statistic or financial institution. It's like trusting the advertising of some corporation.

All that statistic is an advertising for their masters and to each other - "look, we are doing good!". But even in basics it is bullsit from the beginning. Like in simple example about GDP I provided recently for another user.

your different perspective results in many of the same conclusions on this front.

That is a good sign. If very different approaches gives same conclusion, then, highly probably it is a correct conclusion.

I’ve never understood the (seemingly) artificial animosity between “Europe” and Russia (never called "part of Europe” despite being quite evidently European).

It is a long and strange story. Following is just my simplified view on that thing.

When most European etnicities finally settled in Europe, it turned out that those who become nowdays Europeans choose moderate climate and not very muddy soil. Russians, for whatever reason, choose tough climate and muddy soil but with a lot of space, fresh water, and forests. If you are curious, check weather and soil maps, the boundary of climate, clay content in soil, rivers/lakes and all that stuff. Even looking on real-time weather maps like ventusky.com you could easily find a clear difference and observe, how cold front from somwhere behind Ural just wrap into cyclone right before the Poland and other European states.

But eventually, Europeans find out that along with nasty weather and permanent dirt, Russians got enormous amount of resources nobody knew about.

Add to that differences between Catolicism and Orthodox Christianity, population density differences and so on.

But all that was not the reason for discord. Of course there was some border battles betwen dukes and other ancient shit, as it was regular thing at the time. But nothing really serious.

And here comes jewish question. After duke Svyatoslav complete destroy Khasar Kaganate, that bothered Russians a lot by permanent robbery, population of defeated Judaic state rushed to Europe. At the time when it become obvious that Russia is rich with resources, that Khazarians already penetrate using usury into nearly every European elite. So, instead of fair trading between Western and Eastern Europe jews began to push European elites into unending wars with Russians. Partly in revenge for Khazaria defeat, partly not willing to spend money on what could be taken by force.

And so it goes. Each time, when realtions between Russia and Europe began to improve, some shit always happens without any sensible reason with big losses for both sides. There was times when Russia and USA was allies. During war for independence, Catherine the Great strictly denied Britis King request to help with fleet to defeat rebels, and later even send fleet to protect newborn state from brits to prevent possible serious world war. Washington could have been named Ekaterinburg at some point. :)

Meanwhile in Russia, jews was not allowed to settle in central parts or take any power. They was limited to the so-called "pale of settlement" on the outskirts of Rus or Russian Empire lately. F.e. in modern Ukraine. Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk still are most jewish cities. Only after first revolution (and not that communist one, in October 1917, but bourgeois one in 1917) that pale of settlement for jews was repealed. And shortly, second revolution happened.

IDK, may be if our Sviatoslav would have been more rude and exterminated all that Khazarians, we would live in completely another world now.

Something like that.

It's not that we can't live peacefully, we could and actually did it for centuries, moreover, each time after war relations always stabilised for a realtively long time. As with any physical system, if objects could stay in some balance for a long time, and return to that state after any external influence, then this is their "natural" state, not that temporary mess that was provoked by influence. So it is definitely some external power that provoke discord and wars between us.

Aren’t they trying (and failing) to do it now? Oil, specifically.

Don't you think that they just don't want to sell oil at all? Not specifically deny payments in yuans from some selected buyer they don't like and selling oil to everybody else without problems like West did.

I don’t respect China in any way.

I respect them for how they grow in short time from poor communist country where people was ready to work for rice meal to the serious power on the stage. They find their superpower and use it in full. Yes, they are not good in inventions, they have very strange attitude to nearly anything, but they find out how to not become world shithole.

I don’t trust any numbers that come out of it

Wise not to trust any numbers coming out from any government, statistic or financial institution. It's like trusting the advertising of some corporation.

All that statistic is an advertising for their masters and to each other - "look, we are doing good!". But even in basics it is bullsit from the beginning. Like in simple example about GDP I provided recently for another user.

your different perspective results in many of the same conclusions on this front.

That is a good sign. If very different approaches gives same conclusion, then, highly probably it is a correct conclusion.

I’ve never understood the (seemingly) artificial animosity between “Europe” and Russia (never called "part of Europe” despite being quite evidently European).

It is a long and strange story. Following is just my simplified view on that thing.

When most European etnicities finally settled in Europe, it turned out that those who become nowdays Europeans choose moderate climate and not very muddy soil. Russians, for whatever reason, choose tough climate and muddy soil but with a lot of space, fresh water, and forests. If you are curious, check weather and soil maps, the boundary of climate, clay content in soil, rivers/lakes and all that stuff. Even looking on real-time weather maps like ventusky.com you could easily find a clear difference and observe, how cold front from somwhere behind Ural just wrap into cyclone right before the Poland and other European states.

But eventually, Europeans find out that along with nasty weather and permanent dirt, Russians got enormous amount of resources nobody knew about.

Add to that differences between Catolicism and Orthodox Christianity, population density differences and so on.

But all that was not the reason for discord. Of course there was some border battles betwen dukes and other ancient shit, as it was regular thing at the time. But nothing really serious.

And here comes jewish question. After complete destruction of Khasar Kaganate, that bothered Russians a lot by permanent robbery, by duke Svyatoslav, population of defeated Judaic state rushed to Europe. At the time when it become obvious that Russia is rich with resources, that Khazarians already penetrate using usury into nearly every European elite. So, instead of fair trading between Western and Eastern Europe jews began to push European elites into unending wars with Russians. Partly in revenge for Khazaria defeat, partly not willing to spend money on what could be taken by force.

And so it goes. Each time, when realtions between Russia and Europe began to improve, some shit always happens without any sensible reason with big losses for both sides. There was times when Russia and USA was allies. During war for independence, Catherine the Great strictly denied Britis King request to help with fleet to defeat rebels, and later even send fleet to protect newborn state from brits to prevent possible serious world war. Washington could have been named Ekaterinburg at some point. :)

Meanwhile in Russia, jews was not allowed to settle in central parts or take any power. They was limited to the so-called "pale of settlement" on the outskirts of Rus or Russian Empire lately. F.e. in modern Ukraine. Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk still are most jewish cities. Only after first revolution (and not that communist one, in October 1917, but bourgeois one in 1917) that pale of settlement for jews was repealed. And shortly, second revolution happened.

IDK, may be if our Sviatoslav would have been more rude and exterminated all that Khazarians, we would live in completely another world now.

Something like that.

It's not that we can't live peacefully, we could and actually did it for centuries, moreover, each time after war relations always stabilised for a realtively long time. As with any physical system, if objects could stay in some balance for a long time, and return to that state after any external influence, then this is their "natural" state, not that temporary mess that was provoked by influence. So it is definitely some external power that provoke discord and wars between us.