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by ifokiedoke 1572 days ago
There's some real vitriol here and comments bordering on being open discriminatory attacks ("Russia is a wasteland of civilization and we should just nuke them", "stop drinking Vodka, Sergei"). I hope that folks remember that the state isn't the Russian citizenry, and even if there is a minority support for this in the country it doesn't represent the people... _especially_ when the leader is a murderous autocrat.

This is a disaster and heartbreaking for everybody on the ground, Ukrainian and otherwise. We shouldn't forget that when the USSR fell, folks had moved all over the place. Friends and families are very blended in the former Soviet Union, and there are many, many Ukranian-Russians as well. My wife was born Russian-Estonian, with a lot of Russian-Ukranian family, and it's unhelpful to have one half of your heritage bombed and the other half being called the wasteland of civilization.

Don't make the situation for everyone even worse, no one needs that.
3 comments
PoignardAzur 1572 days ago
Yeah. There's a lot of cause for vitriol, but it shouldn't come out as dehumanizing attacks against Russian people.

Whether or not the Russian people supports the war, using racist slurs doesn't help the peace process.

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CogitoCogito 1572 days ago
I feel bad for the innocent Russians receiving unwarranted vitriol, but I feel much worse for the innocent Ukrainians currently being killed.
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walkhour 1572 days ago
Putin's approval rating is at 70% [0]. From [1] (referring to the invasion of Crimea):

> President Putin's approval rating among the Russian public increased by nearly 10% since the crisis began, up to 71.6%, the highest in three years, according to a poll conducted by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research, released on 19 March.[346] Additionally, the same poll showed that more than 90% of Russians supported unification with the Crimean Republic

So it looks to me that most Russians supported the Crimea invasion. Why would it be different now? Why do you think a minority supports this?

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/896181/putin-approval-ra...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_...

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