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by scotty79 1559 days ago
Ok. So we should hug and support Russia in those difficult times and it will inevitably result in lowering Russian patriotism and becomming more westernized? Because we were trying to do for the last 3 decades and nothing like that happened. Russians are very patriotic and strongly support their government when it confronts the western world by bombing civilians.

If nothing works I prefer to apply punishment in hopes that smart Russians emigrate and Russia will crumble. And yes, punishment should affect more civilised and smarter Russians too to either motivate them to clean up their country or leave it.
1 comments
mardifoufs 1559 days ago
No, not at all. My only argument is that we can't pretend it's all just for their own good because it will make them finally see the light and get rid of their government. That's just not true, it won't happen and I think it's just something people say to themselves because they aren't comfortable with the reality that they are pushing for an entire civilian population to suffer.

It's war, so again no moral judgment on that, but sugar-coating it is even worse than admitting the truth.

A bit off topic but if you think the west was supporting and hugging russia or ukraine in the 1990s and 2000s, you might need to revisit how we got here.

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scotty79 1559 days ago
It's for their own good because result of that is them getting out of dictatorship rather sooner than later. And it's a greater good than enjoying conveniences of life while living in a dictatorship.
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mardifoufs 1559 days ago
Why would that result in changes in their political system? And sorry but your last sentence is clearly coming from a very... western perspective. It's only true until it's you actually face hardship. I'm sure for most people security is more important than ideology or freedom; even in the west we saw in the past 2 years that a huge chunk of the population was willing to trade pretty much any right or freedom in exchange for safety.

There's just no need to pretend it's for their own good when it's trivially easy to prove that sanctions rarely lead to the end of a dictatorship. Just look at Cuba,Iran,NK or even venezuala.

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scotty79 1558 days ago
I'm from Poland. I stood in the breadlines for hours as a kid. I remember rationing basic foodstufs like sugar, sweets, meat, flour, eggs.

And trust me, democaracy that we got out of discontent stemming from economic devastation is worth every hardship we endured.

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