Thank you for the respectful interchange, much appreciated. I wonder at what level of the military hierarchy you will start to see a 'Western' Russian majority.
I don't know, I know exceedingly little about Russian military. I did not serve.
Every time I am slightly hopeful, I am again disheartened by how brainwashed people can be. Apparently, among the ethnic minorities sent to Ukraine some do indeed support Putin.
My parents grew up in USSR, were aware of repressions and the Tiananmen uprising, and shared this sentiment with me when I was growing up. However, I know some others imbued their kids with nostalgic feelings about the Soviet Union.
When and where I went to school, teachers were more or less independent about how history was taught. These days I hear there are military parades and strong ideological side.
Some people overcome this, but an average person may not be equipped to live a normal life constantly filtering propaganda and questioning everything they see or hear in the media, maintaining independent thought and internal distrust towards vocally expressed opinions by people of status. Especially someone well-integrated, with a mostly positive childhood and no major trust issues.
