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> 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

> 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

orochi235 4y ago
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 4y ago
  > 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-to-prevent-world-war-iii https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-t...
  - orochi235 4y ago
    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-since-putin-invaded-ukraine-full-list-1700022 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.
ShivShankaran 4y ago
[flagged]
throwaway787544 4y ago
> 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.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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-to-weaken-russia-in-ukraine-austin-says-in-kyiv-visit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/u-s-aims-...
- russiano 4y ago
  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
- netsharc 4y ago
radu_floricica 4y ago
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?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- watersb 4y ago
  "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 4y ago
    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.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  > his taxes directly fund the war. You could say the same thing about Germans, and all the gas they burn.
CamperBob2 4y ago
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?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- russiano 4y ago
  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

orochi235 4y ago

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 4y ago
> 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-to-prevent-world-war-iii https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-t...
- orochi235 4y ago
  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-since-putin-invaded-ukraine-full-list-1700022 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.

ShivShankaran 4y ago

[flagged]

throwaway787544 4y ago

> 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.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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-to-weaken-russia-in-ukraine-austin-says-in-kyiv-visit https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/u-s-aims-...
russiano 4y ago
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
netsharc 4y ago

radu_floricica 4y ago

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?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
watersb 4y ago
"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 4y ago
  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.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
> his taxes directly fund the war. You could say the same thing about Germans, and all the gas they burn.

CamperBob2 4y ago

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?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
russiano 4y ago
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