[alexejb]

You should look into "shock therapy" and how western powers advised the Russian government at the time. Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years. I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times. They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.

We'll see how the European Union will "grow" in the next years...

[wiseowise]

> I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_(1992%E2%80%93...

And many more here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_involving_Russ...

And all that ignoring the puppeteering they’re trying to do in post Soviet republics.

[Lapsa]

`I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along"` - in Latvia, national banks got smashed, sugar factory closed, steel factory closed, bus factory closed, state forced to take billions in debt from IMF just to stay afloat and avoid default, forced to follow way too often stupid, profit hindering and barely relevant EU regulations (e.g. lawn cutting length), take into account USA sanctions, comply with multiplying foreign auditors while trying to compete in markets with participants hundred times bigger in size. my whole life I've been an observer of "recovery of economy" that never arrives. for a teacher - it takes 75 years of work to afford a modest house. currently - I have no income and can afford only food for couple more months (with 15 years of software development experience across dozens of programming languages, tools, projects, business domains, companies and organizational structures) while marked as schizophrenic dissident, actively stalked and isolated from society. it's slightly harder than figuring out what brand of car your daughter wants as a gift for her sweet sixteen

[alexejb]

...and what has Russia to do with it? The Baltics wanted to be independent, they became independent and started getting rid of their industries in order to focus on service economy and EU integration.

All the propaganda I've heard tells me that they are prosperous rich countries now.../s

[Lapsa]

it's a neighboring country that is suffering along. apart from that - ethnic Russians are a huge minority here. economically - a majority. western world is incapable to tell the difference and sees everything Russian corrupted. it's a similar story in Ukraine but sharper cause of language similarities and much higher stakes (did you know that UA produced most if not all the helicopter engines for Russia?). Russian propaganda also compares their law enforcement mild compared to harsh one Belarus has. because there's like 30 different separatist groups in Russia.

[alexejb]

those neighbouring countries had the opportunity to develop themselves. they all wanted independence and sometimes started great efforts to promote russophobia in order to emancipate themselves (the baltics are champions in this regard). but as soon as everything went north they immediately started to blame the russians for their own inept politicians and choices. and yes, I know that there were good business relationships between rf and ua. so well indeed that even gas, stolen in transit to europe, was subsidised by russia ;)

[Lapsa]

sure. and the internet cable near Visby broke by itself

[alexejb]

or like all the russian drone sightings at european airports last year. the russians are everywhere, everywhere!!1

[libertine]

So once again, the narrative of Russia having no agency...the government, the People, the elites, are all reactive without choice?

It's the narrative that Russia is a victim that invades other sovereign countries because of those countries, not because it's a choice, a continuous wrong choice by the way.

> Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years.

How's that different or worse from the current regime? In fact, how many Russians died in the wars of the 80s and 90s, and how many Russians have died under this regime? And for what - to try to justify a failed military operation in a country where they're unwanted?

If you don't see neighboring countries suffering, it's because you either don't care or you refuse to look.

> e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times.

Yeah, and Ukraine surrendered its nukes, and look at what's happening. And Russia got funding from USA and the perks of the USSR, with all the contributions from other countries of the union.

> They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.

Ukraine did basically nothing?

- They have one of the strongest national identities in Europe; Russia doesn't even come close to them in this regard (remember the world witnessed the Wagner coup).

- They have one of the strongest and most competent armies in the world.

- They will join the European Union and NATO;

That's not bad for a country so young.

[alexejb]

> So once again, the narrative of Russia having no agency...the government, the People, the elites, are all reactive without choice?

No, that's not the narrative. It's you assumption.

> How's that different or worse from the current regime?

The current regime made sure that the oligarchic caste doesn't meddle in politics and applied measures that critical resources, money and industries stay within russian borders and don't get off shored. The nineties were wild in that regard. Ukraine never really managed to get oligarchs under control. Look at Poroshenko, Kolomoyski, Mindich and the people around Ze and his party.

> how many Russians died in the wars of the 80s and 90

By supporting radical islamists, I mean "freedom fighters", in Afghanistan the US made sure to bleed out the soviets - good job. It backfired a few years down the road for them. The first Chechen war began when a bunch of radical islamists started to harass / massacre the russian population in Grozny. Bad decisions, a decimated and demoralized army didn't help to win a war which was also side tracked by arms deals to the chechens by some government officials and yet again oligarchs. It counts as a 'forgotten war' in Russia. Read up on what happened during the time when Chechnya was 'independent' and why it led to the Second Chechen war. Exercise for the reader ;)

> If you don't see neighboring countries suffering, it's because you either don't care or you refuse to look.

Sure man, but it's not Russias fault, is it?

> Yeah, and Ukraine surrendered its nukes, and look at what's happening.

It weren't 'their' nukes. Those were Russian nukes stationed there and the ukrainian state didn't have the means or the expertise to maintain the arsenal anyway.

> They have one of the strongest national identities in Europe

Do you mean the partying people in Kiev, the far right nationalists or the poor bastards getting dragged from the streets to fight in the mud for strips of land which were considered full of 'terrorists' from 2014 on. Or do you mean the ethnic russian population in the eastern part which was bombed constantly during the so called ATO? UA is a multiethnic country, it was held together by a constitution which guaranteed the different groups freedoms of language and culture. This constitution was gradually dismantled after the 2014 coup. Don't be fooled by nafo propaganda.

> remember the world witnessed the Wagner coup

Where's the connection between the mutiny of a war lord and national identity?

> They have one of the strongest and most competent armies in the world.

So does Russia. It comes with the fact that both armies are fighting a peer opponent. I don't think that any army right now, besides UA and RF, has this kind of expertise in modern warfare. (Abducting presidents from third world countries and bombing civilians in the middle east for 20 years has no particular training effect, I suppose.)

> They will join the European Union and NATO

I highly doubt it.

I'm constantly in awe by the power of western propaganda, the bigotry and lack of knowledge and respect from people who consider themselves and their culture as the pinnacle of human civilisation. Speaking as a half Russian, half Ukrainian living in central europe, btw.

EDIT: just skimmed through your comment history, fuck me for wasting my time replying to you. even after some really good explanations and hints by other, capable people, you haven't learned a thing during the last months. Don't bother replying.

[dh2022]

The Chechen Wars did not start because islamists started killing Russian people-it started because Islamists wanted independence from RF.

Russia does not have the strongest army. Blinken summarized it pretty well: Russian Army is not the second strongest in the world, it is the second strongest in Ukraine.

About Ukrainian identity: this type of struggles unite people into a nation.

I do not know you personally, but your writing like a Russian shill.

[wiseowise]

> It weren't 'their' nukes. Those were Russian nukes stationed there and the ukrainian state didn't have the means or the expertise to maintain the arsenal anyway.

Nonsense. That might be the case initially for ICBMs stationed there, but it would be trivial for them to crack tactical nukes and have a bootleg force de frappe. The only reason they fave up nukes is because they’re were pressured by both Russia AND the West. Ignoring the whole economy impact, if anyone could predict full scale Russian invasion.

[mopsi]

  > Speaking as a half Russian, half Ukrainian living in central europe, btw.

Speaking as a standard-issue vatnik, rather, hitting all the traditional made-up grieviances of the national victim narrative that is supposed to legitimize Putin and his buddies robbing the country blind. And as always, the most passionate patriots live abroad.

[mopsi]

Since your post is dead already, I'll respond here:

  > speaking as someone who has an interest in history 

If you have interest in history, then why are you clinging to the meme-level Soviet boomer grudges? It's strange to see the USSR mismanage itself to the brink of starvation and then watch Russians blame foreign governments, who to the best of their abilities provided aid and expertise to help find a way out of that situation.

Sure, you can say that their advice was often misguided, but as much as Yeltsin was shocked to see what a regular western supermarket looked like, Europeans and Americans were shocked to see the poverty of the USSR and couldn't even fully grasp that kind of life. You can entertain our western friends by describing how plastic bags with foreign logos like Sony or Adidas were treated like luxury items in the USSR in the 1980s and carefully folded and stored after every use, or how it was children's chore to cut up newspapers for toilet paper because that's the best many could access; or how it was common even for the best and brightest engineers to put in a full day of work, and then go and work on small plots of land in the evening to grow food for their families. It was an unbelievable shithole.

The difficulties that followed the dissolution of the USSR were of your own making, in no way limited to Russia alone. To survive, the entire former USSR and the Eastern Bloc had to pivot overnight to producing something globally useful instead of milling screws at artificial prices for the now-extinct Soviet arms industry. Most swallowed their pride, did what needed to be done, and ultimately saw a meteoric rise in living standards.

Russians turned out to be pussies who balked at the first difficulties and allowed the KGB dinosaurs who had led the USSR into disaster to crawl back and take the lead again. And by the look of it, Russia is heading toward a rerun of the late 1980s and early 1990s, bogged down in pointless wars as its economy rapidly deteriorates.

The narratives you've thrown around are a cheap cope, assigning blame for Russia's failure to modernize to external actors. All of us who lived in the USSR and its aftermath and have an IQ above room temperature know that it is unfiltered bullshit. What interests me is why you cling to it. What would happen if you let go of the victimhood narratives and actually faced the fact that Russians fucked up the ample opportunities they had?

It's the same with the current war against Ukraine, which was lost in the first three weeks, and now is just a meatgrinder with no prospect of success. Why is it so difficult to admit that you fucked up, and let it go? The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope, and quite pathetic as such. Nobody's forcing you to hold these views in Germany, so why do you hold them?

[alexejb]

> All of us who lived in the USSR [...]

Interesting where are you from and how old are you?

> The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope, and quite pathetic as such.

The narratives about the benevolent West reaching out it's hand to help and framing every perspective which contradicts yours as "victimhood" (your post history) is also quite pathetic.

> Nobody's forcing you to hold these views in Germany, so why do you hold them?

Free will? My own opinion? Gut feeling? Literature? Culture? Personal history and experiences? Nobody is forcing you to spew russophobia, insults and outright NAFO propaganda but here you are.

[mopsi]

  > The narratives about the benevolent West reaching out it's hand to help and framing every perspective which contradicts yours as "victimhood" (your post history) is also quite pathetic.

But that is exactly that - strange Russian victimhood. The entire USSR and the Eastern Bloc went through a societal collapse, yet Russians treat it as an exceptional event that affected only them and believe it was an intentional humiliation.

Enough time has passed that people who were in top leadership positions at the time have retired, and their memoirs and internal documents have been published. None of these sources show any such intentions, quite the opposite, people like Swedish PM Carl Bildt were scared stiff of potential humanitarian disasters and millions of potential refugees and they did everything they could to stabilize the socio-economic conditions in the former USSR. I vividly remember the photo of the first western cargo ship with a grain shipment in the port of Leningrad, and the celebratory tone that accompanied the photo in the newspaper. Now it's suddenly all forgotten.

Instead of getting credit for their hard work, they are blamed for the fact that Russians fucked up the USSR to the point that it was on the verge of starvation.

  > Free will? My own opinion? Gut feeling? Literature? Culture? Personal history and experiences?

Arguments like "coup in Kyiv" are demonstrably false. Only ignorance can defend them.

[alexejb]

> The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope

Here you go, chapter 2.4: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396694016_The_Russi...

coups, nazis, us-meddling...

[wiseowise]

> The Yanukovych treason trial revealed various witness testimonies and other evidence that he fled from Kyiv and then Ukraine not because of his responsibility for the Maidan massacre but because of a number of assassination attempts by the Maidan forces, in particular the far right, and after their attempts to capture him and his residence near Kyiv and likely execute him (Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a). Witnesses testified at the Yanukovych treason trial that right after the Maidan massacre the presidential motorcade was shot at a checkpoint, which was manned by activists with Right Sector and Svoboda flags and that the bullets hit one of the cars and a gun of one of the Yanukovych bodyguards. Helicopter pilots, who flew Yanukovych in Ukraine after the massacre, testified that the air traffic controllers relayed them an order from Maidan leaders to land the helicopter with Yanukovych under threat of its being shot-down by military planes. The witness testimonies also referred to information received by his security personnel about a plan involving Svoboda activists to assassinate him during a congress in Kharkiv where he flew after the Maidan massacre, and then on the road near Melitopol (See Eks-okhoronets’, 2018; Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a).

Lmaooo, who the fuck is this guy, I want to smoke what he smokes.

Was so afraid for his life that you can see more than 10 packed bags, family and multiple pets in the open.

https://youtu.be/DzG6V4PSfa0?si=7y6Wkakg3_hhOU8L

That’s all you need to know about credibility of his opus. It bears as much resemblance to reality as Tom Clancy’s novels.

[libertine]

> No, that's not the narrative. It's you assumption.

No, it's a narrative propagandized and rooted, and your replies just show that.

> The current regime made sure that the oligarchic caste doesn't meddle in politics

The current regime is an oligarchy. No one claims Ukraine was perfect, or didn't have corruption. But their people clearly wanted to change that and be part of the EU.

That's the beauty of democracy, you're not stuck with one guy.

> Exercise for the reader ;)

The true question is why are you avoiding talking about the much larger losses in Ukraine? The only comparison are loses from WW2.

How can you even complain about the rest with an abhorrent amount of casualties Russia is suffering, and causing, and again, for what? I mean, Westerners are complaining about importing labor due to the lack of opportunities... and Russia is importing Indian labor because they're losing their young men in a pointless war with a country that was at peace and posed no threat... All because of bad intel and a miscalculation that should have easily ended in a resignation in any other country.

But somehow, you put the accountability on everyone else. The war could have been stopped on the same day.

> Sure man, but it's not Russias fault, is it?

Isn't? What about Moldova? Georgia? Ukraine? The constant meddling in politics, threats of economic and military action?

> Do you mean the partying people in Kiev

No, I mean the people who in the 90's chose to be an independent state, and refused to welcome occupiers. Remember that in the occupied territories, the Russian regime had to organize demonstrations of support for the invasion? That's how absurd this all is.

> Where's the connection between the mutiny of a war lord and national identity?

Well, the owner of a state-sponsored PMC was marching towards Moscow, and some people were cheering for him, and the rest? Silent, no one seemed to care that much for the coup, everyone was waiting on the sidelines. Does that look like engaged people with their national identity? Where were the protests? The revolt for what was happening?

Ukrainians, even during the war shown their protests against the government.

> Abducting presidents from third world countries and bombing civilians in the middle east for 20 years has no particular training effect, I suppose.

Wait but wasn't Ukraine considered a third-world country, where Russia tried to abduct its president and failed? Are you talking about Russia bombing civilians in Syria?

> I'm constantly in awe by the power of western propaganda, the bigotry and lack of knowledge and respect from people who consider themselves and their culture as the pinnacle of human civilisation.

The "west" is too big and too different for a single propaganda thread - that's just an old soviet thought pattern, that the USA controls everyone. And again, here comes the "russophobia" narrative.

Let that sink in into the "russophobia": No one in Western countries cared about NATO until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 (so after Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine in 2014), and the vast majority didn't even know what the point of it was. Russia was supplying energy to German industry, with prospects of expansion. And China, with the Belt & Road initiative linking China to Europe. These are just a few things that were going on before the biggest strategic blunder in modern Europe - and you refuse to see this. In fact, you choose to think it was the other way around lol