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> Evaluation of Russia by Finnish Intelligence Colonel I can't take this talk seriously. it's just a bunch of history bits used to explain and reinforce stereo

> Evaluation of Russia by Finnish Intelligence Colonel I can't take this talk seriously. it's just a bunch of history bits used to explain and reinforce stereotypes about Russians. "Russians like strong leaders" because Russia was once invaded by mongols who also had strong leaders. Russians always think the leader is infallible because he gets his power from God. Then almost in the next sentence he says Russians hate Gorbachev because he ruined the Soviet Union. It's all just a bunch of shower thoughts. All it does it reinforces stereotypes and hate.

waihtis 5y ago
Reality shatters your point really quickly, it's even mentioned in the lecture (suggesting you didn't watch it): Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy in the past 600+ years, otherwise it's always been an autocracy.
- supergirl 5y ago
  My point was the explanations in the video are shower thoughts. If you want to understand why Russia is how it is just read a real history work on Russia not this guy’s shower thoughts
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    What are some sources you'd recommend? The thing that impressed me about the colonel's lecture is that it seems to have had some predictive power. Someone who watched that lecture a couple of years ago will be less surprised at Putin's actions today.
  - waihtis 5y ago
    Just parroting the word "shower thought" isn't making any effect here. How about presenting an opposite view instead?
    - madaxe_again 5y ago
      Their entire recent comment history is contrarian “maybe the Ukrainians are Nazis, maybe they aren’t, how can anyone know”, “the Soviet Union mostly did good things”, etc. This is either a victim of Russian propaganda, or an agent of Russian propaganda. As to the presented ideas in the talk - as someone who knows Russia well, speaks Russian, has Russian family, he’s spot on - but no Russian will ever agree, because that is part of their complex.
      - supergirl 5y ago
        yeah that talk is designed to reinforce your bias by mixing a bit of history to make it look scientific. just watch a real history of Russia lecture. you’re basically watching a history lecture from a career spy instead of from a historian. and you think I am a victim of propaganda lol
        madaxe_again 5y ago
        Have you ever been outside of your oblast? I guarantee that I’ve seen far more of Russia than you - my views are based on far, far more than some video with which I happen to agree.
        saiya-jin 5y ago
        Not addressing the points raised and just repeating the same senseless blah over and over... how russian. Luckily for me, I did actually spent 1 hour watching the video (more like 4 hours in between managing kids) and it made sense of many things I didn't understand before. As somebody coming from country brutally occupied by russian forces for 21 years on a 'friendly special mission', yes the part about mentality is spot on. I don't think Putin is on some holy mission for slav unification, seeing how he immediately ordered 10,000 chechen killers on their closest slavic neighbor. He is just an ordinary smart thug, highly functioning sociopath, who got lucky being at the right time and place and having good KGB experience to get him to the top and sustain. Also, its a great lecture on how to not even react and completely ignore the russian news full of 'pravda', intended to just divert attention from other nefarious activities purported by them. Don't play the games they lay for the west.
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  The Yeltsin regime was more democratic to you? How so?
  - waihtis 5y ago
    More democratic to what? To an autocracy? Yes by definition
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      Yeltsin did do a coup in 1993. But still, yeah.
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      That's not really an argument. All you've done is label the Yeltsin administration a democracy, and the Putin administration an autocracy, and then told me a democracy is more democratic than an autocracy. What I specifically want to hear from you - presumably someone knowledgeable about the political history of the Russian Federation - is how the Yeltsin administration was more democratic. Because my understanding is that the Yeltsin administration was extremely unstable (ie Yeltsin shelling the Russian white house after trying to unconstitutionally dissolve the parliament).
      - waihtis 5y ago
        ”The 1993 constitution declares Russia a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government. State power is divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. ” Yes, their attempt was a miserable failure in many ways, but it was a democracy, albeit a very shallow one.
        LAC-Tech 5y ago
        And in what ways is the current administration not a very shallow democracy? I feel like ever since the Ukraine invasion Russia has been down-graded from "flawed democracy' to 'autocratic dictatorship' - I mean it's not Switzerland but it's hardly North Korea..
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  > Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy in the past 600+ years, otherwise it's always been an autocracy. To pin this on the Russian people is ludicrous. I think Russia has been consistently dealt a bad hand when it comes to leadership. And interference from the "west" has also been a negative influence in modern times. Consider Lenin[1] and western economic advice that led to the looting of the Russian state after the fall of communism[2]. [1] https://m.dw.com/en/how-germany-got-the-russian-revolution-off-the-ground/a-41195312 https://m.dw.com/en/how-germany-got-the-russian-revolution-o... [2] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-piratization-russia-russian-reform-goes-awry https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-piratization-ru...
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Whom else should one pin it on, if not the people??? Constantly abetting and abiding dictatorship is ultimately the responsibility of those who abet and abide it. No Space Aliens came down in their UFOs and bequeathed enlightenment and democracy on anyone else in the world either. It's up to each people themselves.
  - waihtis 5y ago
    I'm not pinning anything on anyone. The parent comment claimed that "Russians like strong leaders" is a falsehood yet the history claims otherwise.
    - mejutoco 5y ago
      This might have happenned in the past without people liking/approving of it. History does not prove any liking here.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        They obviously liked it enough not to do anything about it.
  - saiya-jin 5y ago
    Governments tend to reflect and represent the worst out of given population. That's why Swiss won't in foreseeable future have any dictator like Putin, and that's why Russians will never have anybody who will bring Russia into real prosperity that will actually benefit common citizens. The endless complaints about 'the others' completely mitigates the facts that its Russians who stole from Russia and made it into crap place it is now. You want a simple proof? Check nationalities of all the oligarchs, all the politicians at power.
- p1esk 5y ago
  Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy What are you talking about? There have never been any democracy in Russia.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    The first years of the Kleptocracy were, at lest formally, politically more or less democratic. Also possibly a few years somewhere in there between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917; perhaps some of the last years of Czarist rule could be said to have been more of a contitutional monarchy than an absolute one. But yeah, that's at most two decades out of the last thousand years or whatever. So on the whole as soon as the Russian people have got rid of one dictatorship, they seem to have been pretty damn eager to replace it with another one.

waihtis 5y ago

Reality shatters your point really quickly, it's even mentioned in the lecture (suggesting you didn't watch it): Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy in the past 600+ years, otherwise it's always been an autocracy.

supergirl 5y ago
My point was the explanations in the video are shower thoughts. If you want to understand why Russia is how it is just read a real history work on Russia not this guy’s shower thoughts
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  What are some sources you'd recommend? The thing that impressed me about the colonel's lecture is that it seems to have had some predictive power. Someone who watched that lecture a couple of years ago will be less surprised at Putin's actions today.
- waihtis 5y ago
  Just parroting the word "shower thought" isn't making any effect here. How about presenting an opposite view instead?
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    Their entire recent comment history is contrarian “maybe the Ukrainians are Nazis, maybe they aren’t, how can anyone know”, “the Soviet Union mostly did good things”, etc. This is either a victim of Russian propaganda, or an agent of Russian propaganda. As to the presented ideas in the talk - as someone who knows Russia well, speaks Russian, has Russian family, he’s spot on - but no Russian will ever agree, because that is part of their complex.
    - supergirl 5y ago
      yeah that talk is designed to reinforce your bias by mixing a bit of history to make it look scientific. just watch a real history of Russia lecture. you’re basically watching a history lecture from a career spy instead of from a historian. and you think I am a victim of propaganda lol
      - madaxe_again 5y ago
        Have you ever been outside of your oblast? I guarantee that I’ve seen far more of Russia than you - my views are based on far, far more than some video with which I happen to agree.
      - saiya-jin 5y ago
        Not addressing the points raised and just repeating the same senseless blah over and over... how russian. Luckily for me, I did actually spent 1 hour watching the video (more like 4 hours in between managing kids) and it made sense of many things I didn't understand before. As somebody coming from country brutally occupied by russian forces for 21 years on a 'friendly special mission', yes the part about mentality is spot on. I don't think Putin is on some holy mission for slav unification, seeing how he immediately ordered 10,000 chechen killers on their closest slavic neighbor. He is just an ordinary smart thug, highly functioning sociopath, who got lucky being at the right time and place and having good KGB experience to get him to the top and sustain. Also, its a great lecture on how to not even react and completely ignore the russian news full of 'pravda', intended to just divert attention from other nefarious activities purported by them. Don't play the games they lay for the west.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
The Yeltsin regime was more democratic to you? How so?
- waihtis 5y ago
  More democratic to what? To an autocracy? Yes by definition
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Yeltsin did do a coup in 1993. But still, yeah.
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    That's not really an argument. All you've done is label the Yeltsin administration a democracy, and the Putin administration an autocracy, and then told me a democracy is more democratic than an autocracy. What I specifically want to hear from you - presumably someone knowledgeable about the political history of the Russian Federation - is how the Yeltsin administration was more democratic. Because my understanding is that the Yeltsin administration was extremely unstable (ie Yeltsin shelling the Russian white house after trying to unconstitutionally dissolve the parliament).
    - waihtis 5y ago
      ”The 1993 constitution declares Russia a democratic, federative, law-based state with a republican form of government. State power is divided among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. ” Yes, their attempt was a miserable failure in many ways, but it was a democracy, albeit a very shallow one.
      - LAC-Tech 5y ago
        And in what ways is the current administration not a very shallow democracy? I feel like ever since the Ukraine invasion Russia has been down-graded from "flawed democracy' to 'autocratic dictatorship' - I mean it's not Switzerland but it's hardly North Korea..
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy in the past 600+ years, otherwise it's always been an autocracy. To pin this on the Russian people is ludicrous. I think Russia has been consistently dealt a bad hand when it comes to leadership. And interference from the "west" has also been a negative influence in modern times. Consider Lenin[1] and western economic advice that led to the looting of the Russian state after the fall of communism[2]. [1] https://m.dw.com/en/how-germany-got-the-russian-revolution-off-the-ground/a-41195312 https://m.dw.com/en/how-germany-got-the-russian-revolution-o... [2] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-piratization-russia-russian-reform-goes-awry https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-piratization-ru...
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Whom else should one pin it on, if not the people??? Constantly abetting and abiding dictatorship is ultimately the responsibility of those who abet and abide it. No Space Aliens came down in their UFOs and bequeathed enlightenment and democracy on anyone else in the world either. It's up to each people themselves.
- waihtis 5y ago
  I'm not pinning anything on anyone. The parent comment claimed that "Russians like strong leaders" is a falsehood yet the history claims otherwise.
  - mejutoco 5y ago
    This might have happenned in the past without people liking/approving of it. History does not prove any liking here.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      They obviously liked it enough not to do anything about it.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  Governments tend to reflect and represent the worst out of given population. That's why Swiss won't in foreseeable future have any dictator like Putin, and that's why Russians will never have anybody who will bring Russia into real prosperity that will actually benefit common citizens. The endless complaints about 'the others' completely mitigates the facts that its Russians who stole from Russia and made it into crap place it is now. You want a simple proof? Check nationalities of all the oligarchs, all the politicians at power.
p1esk 5y ago
Russians have literally had 8 years of democracy What are you talking about? There have never been any democracy in Russia.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  The first years of the Kleptocracy were, at lest formally, politically more or less democratic. Also possibly a few years somewhere in there between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917; perhaps some of the last years of Czarist rule could be said to have been more of a contitutional monarchy than an absolute one. But yeah, that's at most two decades out of the last thousand years or whatever. So on the whole as soon as the Russian people have got rid of one dictatorship, they seem to have been pretty damn eager to replace it with another one.