Funny that my algorithm served me this article just after I read this.
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Even though there are strong ties between the Ukranian people and the Russian people, it looks like most Ukranian refugees rather flee to Poland than to Russia, when they have a choice. Maybe Putin is surpised by that, but Iām not.
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I donāt think there was internet back then. Nowadays you can get a clear opinion of the nation regarding the actions of the government. And I think the opinion of russians has been made clear enough in case it needed any clarification at all. Iām fully convinced that both nations attribute these actions to their governments instead of the opposing nation, as their default opinion. Itās the way we coexisted up until now whenever anything happened.
I think itās a fairly underrepresented topic. But I think itās due to that when discussing it, the outlet needs to acknowledge that both of these nations are the occupants of their governments, which I think is a fairly inflammatory statement. But in the end itās the main reason why we donāt hate each other. Itās like walking your dog and then it starts fighting with another dog randomly, and you think of it as āoh crap our dogs are fighting againā and you donāt even spare a thought about the other owner because thereās no doubt that it wasnāt them who ordered so. Weāre just watching our governments fight, thatās all. Thereās no reason to hate each other.
Why would they want to flee to russia though? People who have a residency here fled here, but those who donāt arenāt even sure what would happen if they crossed the border now, on the legal side of things.
Your dog story makes it look as a symmetrical situation, but is it?
What if you have a chihuahau and they have a dobermann and the dobermann eats the chihuahua? Would both (befriended) dog owners still think: āTheyāre at it again, whateverā?
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It is symmetrical in a sense that the nation is seen as a separate entity here. Because factually it is, on both sides. If russia conquers ukraine to both of us this wouldnāt be ārussians conquered ukraineā but putin. If ukraine conquered russia it wouldnāt be ukranians, it would be zelenskiy and whoever else is leveraging it.
To start an actual national conflict there would need to be a systematic genocide of one or the other, like the one that the ukranian extremists had on us in the last few years in ukraine, except with an open support from the entire nation, like how it was in georgia at some point. Then youāre meddling with the people. Until then to us itās all āup thereā and all we do is adjust and adapt.
This applies to belarus as well by the way.
Donāt kid yourself. Whether I say it or not, whether itās fair or not, Russians will bare the burden of this āMistakeā for decades if not generations to come. Putin didnāt reach his current position without support. If it is hard for Russians to oppose him now it is only because they failed to do so earlier.
There are no winners in this situation. It is the rich and powerful who are most likely to be in a position to forget or ignore that simple truth.
The heroes of Russiaās past defied Fascism. The heroes of Russiaās future will be those that said, āNo!ā, those that placed common humanity above nationalism.
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Oh youāre in for a treat if you decide to actually learn about the situation in russia. Iām sorry but this cancels the rest of your post because youāre projecting western democracy on our totalitarian regime and expect a level of activism to match that. Most russians would like to live in the version of russia in your vision though.
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What the west seems to think will happen when they say that russians should stop being lazy snobs and go protest against the government
What actually happens
There is a wide range between not protesting against Putinās invasion (understandable) vs defending Putinās invasion and blaming everyone else for any adverse consequences, especially when you donāt have the excuse of āI didnāt knowā.
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Generally in your comments you seem to portray a situation where most russians are clearly against the invasion, and against Putin in general, and are just powerless to stop him.
How true is that though? My understanding is that thereās actually a pretty significant support for Putin and for the war in Russia. Itās hard to get data on that to confirm, but I donāt think you can just assume everybody is simply quietly opposing the government.
And if there is significant support in Russia for the war, it also questions whether Ukraine will really solely attribute it to Putin.
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There is. Though itās lost on me who youāre describing as the latter. People in support of the invasion usually donāt know enough about it.
Iād like to take the daoism route here, dao de jing verse 2
When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
So I would like to start by posing a question, what does it mean to support the government? Itās a non-thing here so I can only speculate by how I see governments on the west. Elections? We donāt have them. No system like the house of commons + MPs either (putting aside whether it works or not in the UK). So whatās left? Investing into government subsided entities? Buying war bonds? Not sure how else.
The best you can do here to support the government is to follow its reasoning and opinions, but you have no effect on the government with this sort of support. They donāt care if 100% of russians support the invasion or if 100% of them condemn it. What does it change for them.
As for āyou express your unsupportive position by protestingā they donāt care about the protests either. This is how itās going. You can just check the videos and the pictures. You walk with a phone out on the street? They check what is it there that youāre watching on your phone. You start chanting anything and they instantly detain you. There are entire teams of not just the police but special force units scattered all over every city. They actively supress any protest. Itās even paradoxical because the official team for the war is āspecial operationā and yet they detain people who chant āno to warā, thus acknowledging that itās actually a war.
So to summarise, if you canāt support it, and the only way to oppose it are the protests and riots, of which they donāt care either, then a question arises - are there really ā2 sidesā here, the supporters and the opposition? What is the difference in impact between the āsupporterā and the āopposerā?
Edit: in case youāre wondering why everyone are detained because itās illegal to protest against the government here. To muscovites the fine is maybe 25% of the pay on average, in saints petersburg itās more like 35%, but pretty much everywhere else itās between 50% and 70% of monthly pay.
Local television channel Kurdistan24 posted images on social networks of its damaged offices, with collapsed sections of false ceiling and broken glass:
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When I posted an exactly the same video from here it got promptly deleted, but OK
Iāve read that in a lot of articles and I have yet to understand where is the mystery and they consider it as news. As you said this is not suprising at all.
a) You rarely flee one country in war to get into another country in war.
b) War not-withstanding, given the choice to go to a country where there are no sanctions and a country that its economy is already under heavy pressure, which would you choose?
If you take the tough decision to flee your homeland, you try to go all the way to a better place. It is odd that of all things, this is considered āworth reportingā by so many outlets.
Very true.
No winners indeed:
Once you give power away, it is very hard to get it back.
I think thatās the point. Propaganda worked well during the times of the USSR, it still works today. Western countries also practice propaganda to support their military actions. During the Iraq war (starting in 2003),
At the time (2003), most of the US population believed the propaganda and supported the US invasion which killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. How could Russiaās population nowadays behave differently when their State propaganda is even more powerful?
Always relevant. Although it is a bit of a drag, isnāt it. Couldāve cut it down.
The chap from donetsk working in my flat left early today because news came around (through his friends) that the ukranian forces weeded out the people who were hiding in his apartment buildingās basement (thatās what people do over there) and used a huge portion of them as live shields. His family is fine but 3 of his childhood friends were killed just like that. Heās been cussing on zelenskiy&co for like 5 hours straight and then left, said heāll come around sometime next week.
Quite a situation for everyone involved.
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77 civilian deaths during the last three years of the conflict in Donbass and 596 civilians killed in the first three weeks of the invasion. To save dozens by killing hundreds doesnāt look like a correct decision at all.
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I bet people of donbass are having a good laugh at these numbers if thatās what their government has been reporting. I guess we will never know the exact numbers. The news of them finding more and more death pits around donbass with corpses from 2014~2020 were quarterly in the last few years.