[russiano]

> do you feel that the Russians have started to detest "West" more?

It's certainly true for me and a few more people that I know. I used to be a cookie-cutter west-loving liberal, and now I'm slowly turning into a bitter vatnik. One of the things that made me change my mind (aside from diving deep into the history of the conflict after which many things started to make sense) is seeing how petty and ridiculous sanctions could be. Ironically, those people who embraced the western values have suffered the most, not only financially, but morally too, seeing how every day new sanctions pushing them towards the world's pariah status. For the average Putin voter nothing has changed really (except McD, that was harsh) - financial instututions work just fine and we are not going to suffer from food or fuel shortages

I still think Putin is a bloody dictator and that the war is a historical mistake and a catastrophe. However, seeing rabid mccartism and imposing collective guilt only makes me feel under siege. And the natural response is to stick to the leader, no matter how bad he is

I don't even want to start on the hypocrisy, this rant would go well beyond HN's allowed comment length

[CamperBob2]

I appreciate your perspective even though I disagree with it, and I'm sorry that you're being flagged and downvoted for posting what amounts to your opinion. Having said that, I'm curious: what does the Russian public education system teach you about Hitler and the events leading up to WWII?

Here in the US, we are taught that Hitler first threatened, then proceeded, to invade his country's neighbors. His rationale: we are protecting ethnic German enclaves, we are seeking to recover losses from Germany's previous disastrous approach to world politics (i.e., WWI), and we are entitled to secure more living space for the German people along with the economic self-determinism that it will bring.

I imagine that most Europeans are taught similar things.

So, is it surprising that many Westerners are disturbed by the parallels between Hitler's actions in the 1930s and Putin's actions today? It is easy to convince us that Putin has to be stopped at (almost) any cost, because we have seen -- or at least, we believe we have seen -- the consequences of letting a schoolyard bully dictate terms at the international level.

Certainly it feels awkward to lecture a Russian on such matters, since your country suffered by far the worst losses due to Nazi aggression and expansionism. Yet the lesson seems entirely lost on your countrymen. What do they teach you over there, exactly, that makes Putin's behavior seem acceptable?

[russiano]

Thanks

I am not sure how it's taught currently but the events between 1918 and 1941 haven't been drawing much attention traditionally. Even more so now that laws forbidding justification of fascism are getting harsher every year

I find it a little bit funny that after all these years of practicing in drawing comparisons with Hitler, people try really hard at not noticing Azov. Answering your last question, russian propaganda is focusing on Azov way too much, trying to make an impression that they are not a few thousand strong unit, but represent most of Ukraine's military and we don't talk to nazi. Any dissent is steamrolled

[throwaway787544]

> However, seeing rabid mccartism and imposing collective guilt only makes me feel under siege.

Seeing as that is the whole point of the sanctions, I'd say it's working. The point is to piss off regular Russians enough that at some point they might decide to overthrow their dictator.

[russiano]

Oh no, quite the opposite actually - the most pissed off demographics is people like me, faint-hearted internet liberals. A coup is extremely unlikely, like less likely than an actual nuclear war

Another funny fact that I wanted to tell about is that a couple of years ago Google/Apple helped to derail opposition effort to consolidate and push people not from the ruling party to parlament. They banned apps offering vital information on voting patters. Now they are on the high moral horse, along with FB

[toomuchtodo]

It seems very unlikely at this point Putin will be overthrown. Sanctions will need to do to Russia’s economy what Russia is doing to Ukraine’s cities, reducing them to rubble. You have to salt their economic earth to prevent this from occurring again after Putin dies, is couped, etc (allow for an authoritarian who will likely fill the power vacuum, without any military power).

[toomuchtodo]

It appears this is the path the US will be adopting.

> Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Kyiv visit: "We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine"

> Russia “has already lost a lot of military capability, and a lot of its troops quite frankly,” Austin said. “We want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/u-s-aims-...

[orochi235]

What's the alternative, though? The leader of your country is terrorizing Europe in ways not seen in almost 80 years. We all know all-out war between nuclear states is not an option, so what should Western nations do? Just sit back and ignore the indiscriminate war crimes?

It's ironic to me, given how clearly Putin's worldview presumes that power is all matters, how quick Russia has been to cry foul over sanctions. If you want to live in a world where the one with the biggest stick gets to do whatever he wants to everybody else, you should probably at least make sure you have a big stick first.

I'm sorry that your local McDonald's closed, and I do have some sympathy for the Russian people, most of whom probably wanted nothing to do with this war. I have an enormous amount of sympathy for those brave enough to speak up in the face of frankly terrifying state oppression. But honestly, after enabling that maniac for 22 years, I do think Russian citizens bear a little bit of responsibility for this senseless war (not to mention all the other ones!). And if you think that's unfair, well, how about what's happening to the citizens of Ukraine? Is that fair?

It's in everyone's interest that we all learn to get along. Nobody wants the Russian people to suffer for no reason. I hope you guys eventually figure out how to stand up an honest and functioning democracy, for your sake as well as everyone else's. But we can't condone this senseless brutality, and if that makes you see us as your enemy, that's unfortunate, but hopefully temporary.

[russiano]

> It's ironic to me, given how clearly Putin's worldview presumes that power is all matters, how quick Russia has been to cry foul over sanctions.

Unfortunately this is exactly how the world works. Decades of unipolar world order may have led to the wrong impression though

I really liked the recent Noam Chomsky's interview on the subject of geting along. It's called How To Prevent World War III

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-t...

[orochi235]

Noam Chomsky has had a remarkable career, but he's really old and was never anywhere within shouting distance of the political center. Neither is Current Affairs, for what it's worth. His argument seems to be that Putin's belligerence is effectively an act of God, and that our only choice from now until eternity is to submit to it. Dr. Chomsky's childhood was apparently so long ago, he's forgotten that appeasing a bully only ever makes him worse.

For the record, no country is capable of making another country's citizens resist an invasion to the last man. Look what happened to the army in Afghanistan. Despite what Russian state TV is telling you, Ukrainians want to fight far more desperately than the rest of the world wants them to. They all grew up learning about the Holodomor, for one thing. And that was true even before Putin razed a bunch of their major cities and killed tens of thousands of people. The US is just providing weapons—many of them old and Soviet-made, no less—to a people desperate to protect themselves from what they clearly see as a fate at least as bad as, if not worse than, death.

Nothing about this is inevitable. The world works however the people in it want it to work. We can build a better one, or we can all decide that we're OK repeating the endless brutality of the past. The West has (imperfectly, sporadically) chosen the former since the fall of Nazi Germany, and the result, despite all the missteps, has been an unprecedented era of global peace and prosperity. Russia was welcome to join this fraternity in the 90's, but instead was consumed by corruption and mob rule and retreated inward to misguided nationalism and xenophobia.

It seems to have been forgotten in Russia that the Soviet Union was a disaster, and its primary victims were its own citizens. Stalin murdered tens of millions of his own people. It promulgated a culture that installed bloodthirsty dictators who were almost as bad in dozens of countries, and whose ideology was so ineffective that it led to devastating famine in many communist countries. It gave us Chernobyl. For all the talk about hating Nazis, the USSR (and, increasingly, Putin's regime) much more closely resembled Nazi Germany than any country you'd recognize nowadays, except maybe China or North Korea. Soviet vassal states all voted to leave the USSR by >80% margins the second the regime collapsed.

Russia is hell-bent on being recognized as a great power, but there's little to substantiate that claim. The country has been hollowed out economically by seemingly endless and endemic corruption. It turns out the military is only really good at committing war crimes. Russia's two greatest military victories—a point of great national pride—are both seen by historians as much more akin to enemy self-owns than great acts of brilliance or might. Its intelligence agencies have likely been the single most destabilizing force in world politics over the last hundred-plus years, dating back to the Tsars. Many of the most persistent and idiotic conspiracy theories—e.g. the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the CIA creating AIDS as a weapon to use against Black people—are literally fabrications of Russian intelligence programs. Your dictator deliberately creates refugee crises around "enemy" countries with the aim of exploiting their compassion and generosity to cause political unrest. And you're either one of the only countries brazen enough to regularly carry out state-sponsored assassinations, or the only ones sloppy enough to keep getting caught. You even cheat at the f--king Olympics.

Case in point, here's a list of Russian oligarchs who have conveniently decided to commit suicide after killing their families in the last two months: https://www.newsweek.com/every-russian-oligarch-who-has-died.... It's amazing how many of them have fallen from tall buildings over the years, too.

You're right, as long as Russia has a bunch of nukes, they'll be treated with a certain amount of deference. But don't conflate fear—which Putin wields very effectively—with respect, which will never, ever be earned on the world stage through this kind of behavior. You can't butcher and threaten your way to esteem. It's a lesson Xi could stand to learn as well.

[russiano]

I am not sure there is such a thing as "respect" at the very high level. The public opinion is easily swayed and important actions are dictated by pragmatism

>Despite what Russian state TV is telling you

I am trying to read as many different sources as I can. I think the only thing that every party could agree on is that ukrainians are fighting harder than expected. Nearly every other event and opinion is controversial and you have to check many sources first to get a vague idea of what's going on. The fog of war is real, despite what Twitter's collective opinion is telling you

>Your dictator deliberately creates refugee crises around "enemy" countries with the aim of exploiting their compassion and generosity to cause political unrest

Right, our dictator bombed Libya back to the stone age and killed Gaddafi who kept economic migrants from countries devastated by our colonial past and present at bay. Oh, wait, I am not from France!

>The country has been hollowed out economically by seemingly endless and endemic corruption

>Case in point, here's a list of Russian oligarchs who have conveniently decided to commit suicide after killing their families

Even the thought that another great purge has begun fills my heart with warmth and childlike joy

[orochi235]

> I am not sure there is such a thing as "respect" at the very high level. The public opinion is easily swayed and important actions are dictated by pragmatism

This seems like a convenient way of just hand-waving away the entire concept of morality. Maybe this is how Russians view the world, but it's not how anyone else does. They say this is part of the problem with Putin: he just can't conceive of a world where every entity isn't a CIA or FSB puppet. It also illustrates why the civilized world feels like it can't in good conscience keep trading with a nation that acts like this.

It's not like this whole thing materialized out of thin air. Ukraine has been trying to free itself from Russia's grasp for decades. Everything that's happened there has Putin's fingerprints all over it: puppet leaders who promise one thing and then betray their people to Russia; the jailing of former leaders on garbage corruption charges; the red-handed vote rigging; the not-very-well-concealed assassinations. This isn't the norm anywhere else in the developed world.

Another hallmark of Putinist rhetoric is whataboutism. I mean, when everything you do is so cynical and violent, I guess it's the only real defense you have. Debating what actually happened in Libya is an enormous distraction—which may be the entire point—but the US had nothing to do with that uprising until Gaddafi sent a column of tanks after a bunch of poorly-armed rebels and the world reacted in horror. Was it a mistake to intervene? Maybe. But that's nowhere comparable to straight-up invading a peaceful country (twice!).

It's funny to hear anyone in Russia hand-wringing about the well-being of "economic migrants." Russia is one of the most ethnically segregated countries in the world and has done absolutely nothing for refugees anywhere except create more of them. It's widely believed that Putin's intervention in Syria was designed to displace as many civilians into Europe as possible, with the goal of causing a populist backlash. It may be downright evil, but he's gotten away with it for years.

In terms of which sources to trust, the Russian government has done nothing but lie to everybody for the last 20 years. US intelligence accurately predicted the invasion even when it seemed to take most Russian soldiers by surprise. There's all kinds of primary-source war footage, if you can stomach it. And Putin's objectives keep drastically changing, which sure makes any claims that he's succeeding seem suspect. As does the really harsh media crackdown and the threats to jail people for years just for saying the word "war." You don't have to aggressively "sway" public opinion like that when the truth is on your side.

> Even the thought that another great purge has begun fills my heart with warmth and childlike joy

I really hope you're kidding. Those things never stop where they're intended to, and it's certainly not your interests they're being carried out in.

[russiano]

I like how every time US has absolutely nothing to do with regime change and somehow the wiki page on that is mile-long. I guess this ok, because there are obviously "civilized" countries with proper morals and other countries that are eager to do a transition to democracy, just in need of a little push. With Yanukovich, it was already a democracy, almost a right one but not exactly

Whataboutism is about dropping the subject in favor of an unrelated topic, which is different from calling out double standards. I have a convenient example of the latter - the events that are unfolding right now on Solomon islands. Would you think threatening a sovereign nation for entering a military alliance while talking about Ukraine's freedom of association is hypocrisy? Please note that this not an attempt to justify the war, just questioning moral integrity

>the not-very-well-concealed assassinations

Wholly agree here, their incompetence is staggering

>Russia is one of the most ethnically segregated countries

What are you talking about? I lived most of my life in Russia and this is a ridiculous statement. Have you been to Moscow?

>You don't have to aggressively "sway" public opinion like that when the truth is on your side.

I am sorry to say that, but if you find your media tells truth and only truth that you can't question, it's time to get suspicious. I am saying that as someone who watched freedom of press deteriorating over the last 20 years

>I really hope you're kidding

I am. That was a phrase from a meme and I couldn't resist using it, sorry :)

[radu_floricica]

As an outsider, of course I dislike the average Russian and hold him at least somewhat responsible, for two reasons: 1. his collective historical actions led to Russia being led by a mafia regime and 2. his taxes directly fund the war.

> aside from diving deep into the history of the conflict after which many things started to make sense

I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing?

[watersb]

"Dislike the average Russian"

I find that quite surprising, actually. I absolutely don't dislike a Russian I don't know. How could I?

Maybe I don't understand this correctly. I'd like to know more about this feeling.

I am upset by the slaughter with impunity that I see of Ukraine, guilty of nothing more than being in the way. (I realize this may sound hypocritical, coming from an American, but we can talk about that.)

[radu_floricica]

See the reply below. I don't want this to be interpreted as hate or anything. I just think there's such thing as responsibility, bad decisions over a very long time and yes, even collective responsibility. So all in all, I can't say I have very warm feelings for the _average_ Russian, for all they did as a nation since... times immemorial, honestly.

Just like I'm pretty ok with Germans having had a few dozen years of collective guilt. I think they should be getting over it, and probably had - but I definitely think that just wiping the slate clean and pretending Auschwitz never happen would have been a horrible mistake. For about 20 years after it _should_ be a bit awkward to be a German tourist. And now it's Russian's turn - for a decade at the very least.

The very few russians I know personally - awesome guys. Last time I met one he was helping Ukrainians buy tactical gear.

[russiano]

1. How do you reconcile the two thoughts that, at the same time, it's a mafia regime and that people somehow elected them and therefore are responsible?

2. Do you also hold Germans responsible for funding the war? They pay for gas a lot and their contribution is indispensable

>I'm very curious about that... would you mind sharing?

Not sure I am able to direct you to one comprehensive place, but in short, this is a war with NATO that has been brewing for decades but most people thought it'd never happen. As a bonus, I'd recommend checking this thread https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592

[radu_floricica]

(no idea why your reply below is dead. didn't flag it or downvote it, for what it's worth, and I don't find it flag-worthy anyways. we did fight with the germans in ww2 for reasons I'm not getting into right now, and it would be overly hypocritical of me to no accept that when I'm talking about responsibility)

[russiano]

Not sure how HN works, my comments seem to be dead by default and then resurrected after a while (manually?)

Anyway, thanks for a civil discussion. I am against this war, just wanted to share how I feel about this situation and the fact that Russia barely lasted 30 years without another historical shift

[radu_floricica]

1. I'm Romanian, and we were a step away from the same mistake. In the 2016 we had two perfectly valid options, but for some reason we ended up with a majority coalition that weeks after elections started to dismantle the democratic state. Cue lots of protests, a few years of back and forth, them voting down their own government for not going far enough... a shitfest. Their leader finally got imprisoned a few years later for corruption charges, but in a way that made it abundantly clear that it was the result of his party losing a popularity vote, and not justice doing its job. tl;dr: we were fking close. And because we were in close to the same place, I can tell that some things we did - voting, freezing our asses off in protests, occasionally eating a mouthful of tear gas - were necessary. Having a mafia leadership doesn't happen overnight. By some accounts, even Putin had to stage fake attacks to make sure people vote for him in the beginning.

2. Yes, actually, to a much much lower degree. There's a huge difference between buying things in the open market and, well, every decision in domestic policy in the last 110 years.

Will read the link, thank you.

[russiano]

We actually tried to do the same thing with a coalition but it didn't work out for a few reasons. Putin is extremely paranoid about regime change (for a good reason) and he is well-prepared. Rumors are he was really going to leave around 2010 but Libya and then US-sponsored revolution in Ukraine made him change his mind

>Yes, actually, to a much much lower degree. There's a huge difference between buying things in the open market and, well, every decision in domestic policy in the last 110 years.

Yes, some of the decisions in domestic policy resulted in stopping your friends in WW2. Sorry for that

[radu_floricica]

Skimmed the link. This is... I'm struggling to say this nicely, but taking it at face value, it pretty much implies Russia should be treated as an animal instead of a rational actor. tl;dr of it is "don't poke the bear".

Everything in that thread makes sense only with the assumption that Russia is not integrated in the global community and is still seeing things as a zero-sum game. This is the key here. Everybody else is _not_ seeing things as a zero-sum game. "you get this country, or we get this country".

90% of europe is living in a state of mind where border control buildings have already been razed down. We don't get this "control area" or "buffer country" concepts anymore, they're obsolete.

Let me give you a concrete example. I'm Romanian. Moldova is pretty obviously part of Romania, but for historical reasons (coughrussiacough) is now a separate country. We could theoretically go for reunion, but there are issues (coughrussia*cough). But we don't WANT to go for a union. We'd like it, it'd be nice, but it's, again, an obsolete concept. Gone with the 20th century. Archaic. What we want is for Moldova to be part of the EU, and ideally all of us part of Schengen, so we can trade with them and go there freely. Who cares if they have their own parliament or not. Fuck all that shit.

So when you say that "NATO expansion caused Russia's invasion of Ukraine" I can only look in disbelief. It makes no sense here. Did you even try to be part of NATO? EU? no? You like being your own little empire with a total economy slightly larger than Italy's? Well, good luck to you then, but the sympathy you're getting from me is dead zero.

[FooBarBizBazz]

> his taxes directly fund the war.

You could say the same thing about Germans, and all the gas they burn.