[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.