[titanomachy]

I just want to point out that this is the first time I've read a Russian resident's perspective on what's happening right now.

The overall picture I get in Western media is that Russians are being dragged into this against their will by Putin. People have started calling for sanctions on certain regime members and supporters, but have so far avoided more broadly demonizing the Russian populace. I hope it stays that way.

Good luck.

[steve_adams_86]

My understanding is that older Russians tend to be more supportive of the war.

Not only do they more broadly believe Ukraine isn’t a legitimate country independent of Russia, they’re also more likely to perceive threats from the west and the potential for Ukraine to become a contributor to the threat very quickly. They’ve witnessed conflicts materializing very quickly in the past, and they’re aware it could happen again. Ukraine has dramatically improved their military training, equipment, and size since Crimea. Given that alone it’s clear to see how many Russians might see Ukraine as a threat with their non-NATO status and demilitarization not being guaranteed.

Having said that, it seems Putin has been trying to encourage acceptance of war in Russia for months because evidently there isn’t a broad enough acceptance as it is. At least from the government’s perspective, as they’ve been planning this war for quite a while. I believe the necessity of the war from their perspective came sooner than expected, otherwise they likely would have been seeding the idea of the need for war much earlier. I’m not sure.

So there are certainly a lot of Russian people who believe the war is justified. I’m not sure what the ratios of for/neutral/against are, but I suspect they’re not especially lopsided. Unfortunately. It doesn’t seem there’s significant reason to believe Putin will back down, or that Russian people will force him to.

[kirso]

The whole country premise is based on war. Unfortunately the world only became global in the past 2 decades which means a lot of Russians (despite being kind) still haven't gotten up to speed on all available information including the propaganda they have been subjected.

I was born in Russia and emigrated in 1999. Till then, I only heard about the glory days of USSR and how we liberated the world of evil.

I moved to Czech Republic and went straight to school. Little did I know that Russia has a bad rep by being an occupant as well as textbooks describing completely different picture of the world. Including the facts of red army raping everything in their way to Berlin's parliament building.

If you would have grown up subject to propaganda for more than 30 years, you would probably turn out in a similar way.

Asking a person to think independently without expanding their peripheral brain thinking is super hard and almost impossible IMO. Curious if there are any scientific studies how to do it.

I am not defending people for "not-knowing" just trying to paint the picture of how it was living and growing up there compared to the rest of the world. All my friends who left Russia are against the war. Unfortunately the divide is also growing in Russia and I had to forgo several people I knew from childhood because they are adamant on war being justified and I am sure I am not the only one.

Years of brainwashing... also partially the reason why people haven't revolted already.

[steve_adams_86]

Thanks for that, it’s really helpful to get more insight from people closer to Russia, the people there, and countries close to it. Although I can find a lot of information online, I find it difficult to find the experiences and opinions of people who aren’t from North America. Language is likely a large part of that - I’m sure many of the people close to this simply aren’t hanging out and communicating in English in the places I am.

Brainwashing is certainly a term that comes to mind as I learn more about this, but one I have a hard time using since it can seem sort of like a slur from here in Canada. The truth is though that it seems us here in North America are somewhat brainwashed to fear and resent many parts of the world as well, including Russia. It’s scary. As I’ve tried to make sense of this by asking questions or generally discussing the current conflict online, I’ve been attacked for being pro-Putin or a Russian troll several times. I’m nothing of the sort, I never take a side, and I do my best to be objective, but many of the people I live with here are furious if you aren’t laser-focused on condemning the war and Russia. I’m absolutely opposed to the war, but banging that drum eternally doesn’t help me understand it any better.

Regardless, you’re making a great point. Questioning the war would be difficult for any human being if they were raised in a culture in which it was justifiable. How many Americans supported the Iraq war which ended as an abject failure with very little support? All that changed was that people were forced to face reality. The war didn’t make any more or less sense from the day it started. It’s easy to criticize Russia from across the world, but they’re no different from us here in Canada or the USA in that sense. As you mentioned, it’s remarkably difficult to break out of the sort of cultural mould we’re born and raised in.

Thanks for the response. I hope the friends and family you left in Russia are safe, whether they support the war or not.

[5e92cb50239222b]

English is not very widespread in Russia and ex-USSR countries to the south. Even the IT crowd among me knows very little of the language (enough to read an answer on StackOverflow or write a badly worded commit message).

And now I know why it's not being taught more widely, despite the obvious economic advantages this could provide. You don't want the population to be able to speak to their 'enemies' or read news from the other side easily. It's pretty obvious now the mad lunatic has been preparing the country for what's happening for about a decade, and he truly believed when he talked about the 'encirclement' and 'sending nukes to Florida'.

[richarme]

I think you are right regarding limiting English teaching to prevent the population from consuming "enemy" media. Definitely also happening in China where they massively cracked down on English language tutoring two years ago. Probably due to the governments ongoing effort to ramp up nationalism and spread increasingly improbable narratives about current events and history.

[Luxyadian]

"Definitely also happening in China where they massively cracked down on English language tutoring two years ago" - oh you really do not know How much the next two generations of China kids will be able to read in other languages!

[anonAndOn]

If it's any consolation, there's a noticeable difference in the framing of this war from the US side. The West is slowly waking up to the fact that Putin has been waging a war for years without declaring it. It is being framed in the US media as Putin's War instead of the Russian Peoples' War. I think many recognize that ordinary Russian people are about to suffer greatly as collateral damage in his conquest for glory. Be well & stay safe.

[kirso]

Trully Orwellian NEWSPEAK!

[netmonk]

May be because langage is deeply tied to culture and sovereignety. foreigns langage are cultural weapons, just look how european countries are slowly but surely turning into a chimeric federation mimicing USA just by cultural war.

For exemple a simple brainwashing illustration in the west is the fact that Imperalism is synonym to weapons/war/bombs and all things related to military. While indeed the biggest treat and real imperalism is culural and linguistic.

Hollywood and affiliates are bigger treat than any US Battaillon into subverting and destroying nation.

And it's even more dangerous because im an active actor of my own subvertion, of my own languistic and cultural destruction like im forced to use English (not my native language to expose my opinion here)

[kirso]

Thanks for the kind words!

Precisely. Imagine your area of knowledge is like a circle, you think you kind of get 80% of it in terms of worldview and subjective opinions. Now some random people come in and saying you are wrong and there is this other big circle which is in order of magnitude 100x bigger which shrinks your knowledge and understanding. Its very difficult to recognise that we might not be understanding all the things. But just being open for trying to get the other side helps tremendously. Even understanding the root cause of why perhaps people even think that way?

It's kind of scary... and we tend to block the scary things. Because well... its easier.

The issue in the conflict such as this is that it's never black and white. And if someone is telling you that you are pro-putin by just not condemning Russia without hearing your reasons or just blatantly attacking you - thats very short-sighted and personally I just end the debate right there, because its not up to my standards of rationality.

There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc. And again, what is right and what is wrong? Never that easy to say - all depends on your personal context.

I wish we could have a conversation something like that: - Ok lets look at the claims: - Claim X - Claim Y - Claim Z

Alright, claim Y is not that simple, because remember what happened was A, B, C.

Ok valid point, but B is also not so certain because of G.

I feel like our world really needs more education on critical-thinking and meta-learning.

[newby]

> There are obviously now messages coming through condemning US and EU for their actions in various conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Kosovo etc.

However strongly I am angered and scared by the current attack on Ukraine, I am also deeply shaken by questioning my own views. If one nation can be brainwashed into thinking that they are saving Ukraine from fascists, and they do not know they are brainwashed and think the other side is brainwashed... what am I brainwashed into? I already know I was also deceived big time (I totally believed that lie about WMDs in Iraq), what else is there? And I know that it can be argued that "western media" is more open and pluralistic, but don't Russians think the same about their media?

After seeing Brexit, Donald Trump, Covid, now Ukraine... we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.

Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on the views from someone closer to Russia.

[NoOn3]

Western media has almost the same amount of propaganda unfortunately. And in Russian media is a small amount of truth...

[prirun]

> we humans really need to figure out how to improve our ability to converge on models of reality closer to what really happens.

It's a good idea, but people with power and money have an agenda, and their agenda is often not in sync with current reality. They want their agenda to be future reality, and suppress current reality to get there. Just my opinion.

[wildmanx]

> The whole country premise is based on war.

Oh please. I'm all on board with criticizing the war, criticizing the human rights abuses, criticizing the megalomaniac Putin.

But once you go into this kind of criticism, you start the same propaganda you are criticizing Putin of. Make a difference between a corrupt regime and the country, the people. If you really want to make the point of the "whole country" being based on war, you need to be fair and do that to every country. The U.S.? Based on genocide of the natives, slavery and oppression of Africans and now playing world police bullying everybody who does not want to play along. China? Thousands of years of history of basing their power on war or the threat of it. British Empire? India?

Please, let's just not go there.

[kofejnik]

> Russians are being dragged into this against their will by Putin.

Unfortunately, this is profoundly incorrect. I know a lot of young(-ish) educated Russians, and at least 50% (by my estimate) kind of agree with Putin that "they were left no other choice".

[ulzeraj]

> I know a lot of young(-ish) educated Russians, and at least 50% (by my estimate) kind of agree with Putin that "they were left no other choice"

I grew up in South America. If you knew the kind of crap we are fed by our own very teachers that vilify american citizens as invading thieves without any care to make a distinction about the people and the government. I clearly remember during a certain heavy metal concert the keyboard player innocently tried to make a solo of the country national hymn followed by the american hymn and he was attacked by an angry mob of retards throwing things while literally chanting "Bin Laden". And yeah I was young and I thought "the yankee bastard had it coming".

I was in my 30s when I started realizing its all bullshit and the american people don't really have a say about the atrocities their government is causing in foreign lands. We've been fed with propaganda and programmed to hate people we don't know.

[newby]

There is one thing I do not understand and I was hoping you (or any other person who knows a lot of Russians) can explain: I hear that Russia and Ukraine have many personal connections from the past. I happen to be from the Czech Republic and I imagined that it is probably similar to our relation to Slovakia - we used to be one state, many people having friends or relatives in the other country, mutually intelligible languages, mixed marriages... I always assumed that personal ties are stronger than propaganda (if I know that my Slovak brother in law and all of his friends are not fascists, I would hardly believe the propaganda claiming that they are). My view was obviously incorrect, but how? Did I overestimate the connectedness between Russia and Ukraine? Or underestimate the influence of propaganda? Or something else?

[p1esk]

Many Russians I know believe that Ukrainian forces have been attacking Russians living in Donetsk and Lugansk regions for the last 8 years.

[NoOn3]

And it's not completely a lie...

[SerLava]

Haven't they killed thousands

[dobrinya]

8 millions to be precise

[Moru]

This is what propaganda will make. If you keep your population only speaking a language that the rest of the world does not use, it makes propaganda so much easier.

[buran77]

With enough determination (and it doesn't take that that much) you can make propaganda work just fine in any language. And that's they key part, it doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough. Look at Fox News or Alex Jones.

And even if you make the effort to evaluate both sides objectively, having too much information in any language doesn't work that great either. Most people aren't equipped to properly select their information sources, to parse everything and discriminate fact from feeling, propaganda from truthful reporting. To highlight how difficult it is, this happens at scale even in the most civilized of countries, with solid education systems, and freedom of speech and press.

Most people tend to choose sides which become core to their beliefs, and are reluctant to reconsider ever again. Once they picked a side it's "just" a matter of selecting the information that supports it. This is why the same person can read the same information and decide whether it's good or bad based on who did it rather than what was done? Some people read "country X bombed school in country Y" and purely depending on their "allegiance" will decide whether the school was full of terrorists or the bomb was launched by terrorists.

Whatever you do to change that will earn you the label of "other side's troll" (sometimes, ironically, from both sides) and you quickly learn that freedom of speech only works when you exercise it in your own bubble, thus reinforcing that bubble.

[nfin]

true.

I hope it is not an argument againt freedom of speach?

I wonder what are your conclusion on how to tackle the problem? Because I ask myself this question regularly when I observe both sides arguing on the topic of free speach. But it’s very hard for me to be against free speach.

Education (and future to be invented tools) isn’t any magical stick, but the best I can think of for the long term.

possibly tools like: having feed filtering algorithms also implemented clients side. You’ll always be in some sort of bubble, but having more say in it (like many inventions have evolved). This of course creates new challenged, but that’s a natural thing

[Moru]

Yes, and the propaganda starts already before kindergarden and continues in school. And since the parents are already convinced by the propaganda, it's reinforced from there too.

[NoOn3]

Propaganda works on both sides. Don't think the West and Ukraine tell's only the truth and don't think Russia tell's only the lie and vice versa.

[eptcyka]

Sure, there's propaganda on both sides. But it'd be lying if one was to say the amount and intensity of the propaganda was equal on both sides.

[ymolodtsov]

True, but that's propaganda against the reality.

[kirso]

Unfortunately more than that... see my comment above.

[nikanj]

The regime and supporters are also Russians. If it was just Putin, there would be no war. A lone, old, crazy man would be hardly a threat to Ukraine.