The worst part is that ethic minorities there look up to Russians as their overlords, they are even more brainwashed as being second class citizens than they were during Soviet times.
Read some about Kadyrov and his henchmen, also called Kadyrovites. Quite interesting and terrifying from the perspective of a somewhat healthy democracy.
My sources are my own, I have met few different ethnic minorities from there and the level of brainwashing they been trough in public schools and local tv is astounding. Contrast that to how China treats it minorities (except Uyghurs) and it's a paradise in comparison.
Even Tatars one of the biggest groups don't learn their own language in schools enough to preserve it.
- The head of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan will lose the title of “president”:
Interesting article but I'm not sure it really makes the point the headline says. Maybe I don't understand the dynamics involved. The article claims Putin has used the war to strengthen his own position, and impose a surveillance state on Russia. Once you've done that your position is unassailable. The unnamed sources quoted all appear to be rivals or others in a position to take control. Not sure if their testimony is true.
Your comment reminds me of Ahmed Chalabi who the Washington establishment was so keen on propping up as having keen insight into what the people of Iraq were really thinking. Turns out he had keen insight into his ambitions and what Washington wanted to hear. That was a completely different thing that what the people of Iraq really thought.
I’m pretty disappointed in the reporting on this war. Something doesn’t quite add up, so I can’t shake the feeling that somebody is lying to me, so I don’t follow it and remain ignorant.
>But since the war started your support of Putin only grew, right?
>>No, I’m still unhappy with him, with his rule. The number of oligarchs grew tremendously, right? Money keeps going somewhere abroad. So now they’ve been arrested there, and we’re happy. Thank God, we don’t get their money but neither will they. We became malicious. When they could’ve developed the country in all these years, right? 20 years they could’ve made a piece of cake out of the country. First 10 years we admired him. He’s giving interviews, we rush to listen, we’re all ears. But these last years we didn’t even want to listen anymore. We think, here we go, he’s going to tell bulls**t again, lie again.
>>Of course, people are unhappy, but the country is in danger, it’s not about thriving, it’s about surviving. We’re gonna support him so that he wins. But we can’t back out anymore, I think, they’ll peck us to death right away.
They'd be loyal to whoever is tsar. Russia is a profoundly authoritarian paranoid country. Hierarchy is more important than the individuals who make it up. Removing Putin would mix things up for a while, and rearrange some of the players while removing others. But the social dynamics are unlikely to be transformed.
Kamil Galeev on Twitter has said some interesting things about this.
Putin needs to remain in power as long as possible, because there is no exit other than death or jail.
Ukraine was a gamble. It hasn’t gone the way he had hoped, but he can’t pull out of the war. Pulling out would show weakness. And his political enemies would jump on the opportunity. He doesn’t even need to win. As long as the war is ongoing his situation remains perilous, but stable. Putin only loses if he decides to end the war. Ukraine can’t actively take the fight to Russia. They don’t have the manpower for that.
Many people have the wet dream of Navalny replacing Putin. First, this is not happening, second, Putin is one of the most liberal feasible czars of Russia! Most other alternatives are worse and Navalny is more nationalistic than Putin. Putin is a liberal, he keeps calling the West "partners" and he didn't want this war - in fact, most of the criticism of him is that he didn't start this earlier, not that he started the war!
This question is irrelevant because we all know that if Ukraine secedes Donbas/Crimea today, next decade Russia will attack again for other lands. There is no end to this. You cannot appease dictators by letting them do exactly what they want. They will come back for more. This rhetoric of "let's secede some land to Russia to stop the war" feeds into Russia's hand.
Even if Russia withdrew its forces, they would still have the potential to attack again. So the the choice is really between pursuing a compromise now, or losing perhaps a million troops trying to weaken Russia’s future negotiating position by retaking separatist territories (and probably failing to do so).
That isn't a compromise, it's just delaying the inevitable. The Ukrainians can decide for themselves how much they're willing to sacrifice. As long as they're willing to fight we should give them whatever weapons they need. The more Russian soldiers they kill, the better it is for all NATO members. Bleed the Russian Empire to death.
You say they can decide for themselves, but in reality the troops are conscripted and forced to fight at the behest of the leadership or its suzerain. Massive agency problem.
Not at all. Ukraine is a democracy. If the troops didn't want to be conscripted then they should have voted for leaders who favored appeasement and surrender.
The last time they tried to "compromise" was called the Minsk accords, and Putin quickly taught the Ukrainians an important lesson about trusting anything he says. Compromise is simply not an option. Unfortunately, the only options are victory or defeat. The vast majority of Ukrainians are very clear eyed about this.
Merkel has stated that the West had no intention of honoring the Minsk agreement. The purpose was to buy time for Ukraine to build up its army. The West negotiated in bad faith.
If the west knew that Russia wouldn't honor any agreement and prepared for their inevitable attack I don't how is that 'in bad faith', they were right after all
I would say that technically the US invaded Ukraine by installing a subservient government after the ousting of Yanukovich. This is why Hunter Biden's laptop was buried as much as possible, it would reveal the connections and the financial interests. If Putin truly wanted to conquer Ukraine, he would have taken out the electricity and water supply, things of that nature.
This is not Ukraine vs Russia, this is the US/NATO vs Russia
That is what you believe. It is an irrational belief with no logical basis.
I believe that Putin has no desire to conquer Ukraine. The days of empire building are a relic from the past. Everybody in Donbas/Crimea speaks Russian anyway.
How many lives should be spent to prevent Russia taking the next bite out of some other country? Do we just need to give them more 'breathing room'? That didn't go well last time.
How many Russian lives do you think it’s worth spending to keep these territories occupied? (Wars are almost like natural catastrophes, they do not give people much choice.)
Lets just imagine the world you prefer where every leader like Putin decides it's okay to grab a pieces of neighboring countries.
I mean Poland wasn't a separate country for a long time and should be part of the new Russian Empire. Right? Ditto Finland. Maybe China needs to take some of Northern Vietnam. Return Korea to it's proper status as a Vassal State. And Taiwan of course. And Crete, Syria, and Greece need to be returned to the Turks. And Israel can retake Jordon and Lebanon. Next we can get to all the countries in Africa where you have ethnic groups straddling borders.
I'm suggesting that letting Russia annex Ukraine without any push back will open the floodgates to that sort of thing. And if you think it won't you are an absolute utter fool.
> Have you heard about the people killed by the ukranian nazis
During WW2, even the German nazis were surprised by how ruthless the Ukrainian nazis were, even they thought the Ukrainian nazis went too far. The Ukrainian nazis are worse than the German nazis.
Unfortunately Nazi and/or extremist right-wing ideologies are a staple in militaristic organisations. But you should acknowledge that the Azov Brigade, an arguably Nazi-infatuated militia is broadly following orders from a Jewish president. That should tell you something about how welcomed the Russian Invasion is in the Ukraine.
You're right in that I should've clarified I'm somewhat projecting from the state of the military and law enforcement in Germany. In recent years multiple special operations teams have been dissolved [0][1] due to extremist right-wing ideologies which have been known to exist for years but only after multiple journalistic publications these groups have been dissolved. There's also a history of Nazi and radical right-wing stuff in the regular army. [2][3]
Federal Police and the Intelligence Community aren't excluded from this either, especially the intelligence service belonging to the Bundeswehr, the Military Counterintelligence Service MAD. [4]
And while I don't have any evidence at hand for this right now and thus it can be dismissed as irrelevant, I have a hunch that it may not be all to different in the various military and law enforcement agencies around Europe.
I am a jew myself. So? You bought this Zelensky, and now the ukranian nazis are kosher? Since they are murdering Russians, and not Jews, as they did in the past?
Don't twist my words, that's not what I said. Read again.
My point was never that Nazis killing Russian invaders is a morally good thing, but that a military brigade with a higher than normal Nazi-percentage is following orders from a jewish president and is killing other Nazi types in the form of Wagner Group.
Nazis are bad one way or another. But that they are going against their own sentiments should be food for thought for you. But I know you're not here to argue for real, so why do I bother.
I am talking about Russians who live in Ukraine! They get murdered! Actually, there are very many of them, but for you these people do not exist. They don't have a right for their own identity, according to the west.
which "evidence"? The one published by you? Or the fact that there were Russian people murdered in Izyum and Kupyansk after ukranians entered there, and for which they proudly posted the pictures of murdered " Russian collaboratirs" on social networks? Or the fact that they dispersed multiple times anti infantry mines inside Donetsk? That they often shell Donetsk living quarters and center just because these are "russians* (in the past they blamed the Russian army for that, but Donetsk people know better).
Go to their telegram channels, and read how they speak about killing Russians, because they are Russians. " Rizat rusnyu".. And before you tell me this is s because if the war, I will remind yoi about the massacre in the trade union house in Odessa, none of the perpetrators punished, and about what was going on in Donbass since 2014.
You are just being fed one part of what happens, and also this in a heavily censored form.
It is by far not just the Azov batallion.. you just don't have a clue to what is going on, and of course your state and your supposedly objective media have no intention of helping you to find out.
