The amount of mental gymnastics to justify censorship in this thread is off the charts. A really solid anti utopia material. One can probably make a dystopian museum exhibition with quotes from this thread.
On a similar note, I have never seen so much bigotry and populism on HN as in this and H1B threads.
It was very probably faulty stochastic language meaning "the median element of the group G", specifically felt by some after the naive proposal in some press years ago that there would be a revolt as a reaction to the war, and the subsequent presentation of data that went "actually, some support is there".
I think it's fair to assume that by "Russians" they meant "the society within the Russian Federation, which as everyone knows is multiethnic, and which by and large supports or acquiesces both the dictatorship and the war, or at least says so when asked by pollsters" rather than "Russians" as an ethic group.
One could also say "The problem is with Americans, not Trump" and that would also not be interpreted as racist.
Unless the outcome of elections in Russia is completely controlled by Putin, people do carry responsibility for their government's policies to some degree.
I had to discuss for months with a mate, who insisted proposing that "Bolsonaro [would be] responsible for the actions of Lula, and Lula [would be] responsible for the actions of Bolsonaro" (actually much worse). And this is just a formulation that should show a paradox; other complexities exist that in the proposed idea of "responsibility" are overridden.
Let's find out! Would you please answer three simple questions below:
1. Whose is Crimea?
2. Whose is Chechnya?
3. Whose is Tatarstan?
As a bonus, the fourth one:
4. Should Russia continue having nuclear weapons?
>We need @dang here to address this racism here.
That's not racism, that's just the reasonable assumption that the actions of your democratically elected government reflect the will of the population.
The actions are problematic, see. And the population is on board, as far as polls (not just elections) can tell.
>Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of nation.
My apologies, dang, but we're discussing an actual war here, and you're out of your depth.
I'm telling this to you as a Ukrainian, and as a moderator of /r/ukraina, a community of 100,000 people.
I urge you to read what follows, learn, and for once, stop siding with bigotry.
I'm writing this for you personally, for your education. Others will learn too.
----
These questions aren't about "nationalistic" "flame" wars.
I'm from Ukraine, where there's a real war going on, and I'm eligible for the draft. As of May, 2024, I'm required to register even as someone living in the US.
We're discussing this very war. Real war. In which I have a chance to die, unlike you, so I hope you can at least listen.
The person I asked these three questions is from Russia, and is asking what's wrong with them, personally.
Their answers, should they provide them, would help illustrate the issue, either by pointing out how people who answer that way their contributed to current situation, or observing that most Russians would have answered differently.
These aren't "provoking" questions — including the phrasing. The phrasing comes from Russia.
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See, Russia has annexed Crimea in 2014 using the slogan "Crimea is ours"[1], to the extent that it became a catch phrase, a neologism.
The first question is a litmus test that exhibits a problem with many so-called "good", liberal Russians who absolutely oppose Putin, while agreeing with Putin's expansionist politics.
This includes the martyred (now dead, killed in prison after repeated assassination attempts) opposition leader Navalny, whose wife is claiming the title of Russia's president in absentia.
Navalny famously quipped that "Crimea isn't a sandwich to be passed back and forth"[2], indicating that no matter what, what Russia takes won't ever be given back.
This question is how one can easily dismantle Myth #1: that liberal Russians who oppose Putin are necessarily anti-war. The question conclusively demonstrates that many are anti-losing, not anti-war per se.
2014 annexation met virtually no opposition from Russians. There are notable exceptions, like Valeriya Novodvorskaya.
If this name tells nothing to you, please look her up — and note, in that case, that you're in no position to be moderating a conversation about Russian aggression, as your assumptions are coming from a place of ignorance — and are insulting to both Russians and Ukrainians.
Unlike you, Valeriya Novodvorskaya didn't see question #1 as something to "flame" about. There was no question to her, as a self-respecting Russian citizen: she said, without doubt or fear, that annexing land of another, sovereign nation by force is unacceptable; and Russia's only sane and saving grace is unilaterally ceding it back to Ukraine.
Crimea is internationally recognized as Ukraine's territory. That's an impersonal, clear and dry answer. This is not a provocative or ambiguous question to anyone who thinks that having international laws is important. The fact that you think there's an issue with the question (but not the answer — which the OP didn't provide in any case) is, in itself, problematic.
As is the stance of over 80% of Russians who see no issue with armed annexation[3] — which, by the way, Russia openly lied about, saying that Russia has no idea where the so-called "little green men"[4] — as the invaders in unmarked uniforms were known — came from. The fact that it violated Geneva convention on the account of unmarked uniforms alone didn't bother 4 out of 5 Russians, many of whom, 10 years later, are asking the same question — what's my role in this?.
Let's go further. Question #2, whose is Chechnya. The phrasing is chosen to mirror the first question.
Again, from the point of view of international law, this is not provocative in any way. Chechnya is Russian territory.
It wasn't that clear cut in early 1990s, when Chechnya declared independence. It's Russian territory because Chechen independence movement, led by Dzhokhar Dudayev, was fiercely crushed in two Chechen wars. The first one was lef by Boris Yeltsin — and it was a was which Russia has lost, losing any control over what became known as Ichkeria Republic. While it didn't get much recognition, Russia's control over that territory only existed on paper.
But as devastating the loss was to Russia, the war was, effectively, over. The fighting has stopped. The obvious path forward was recognition of the independent Republic, and peace.
That's not what happened. Putin has infamously faked apartment bombings[4] (as in, all evidence points to FSB, the succesor agency to KGB from which Putin comes, planting the bombs) to get a pretext to start an absolutely brutal Second Chechen War.
Many people died. Grozny was leveled. But Putin got a collaborator on the inside — imam Kadyrov who turned on his people, and in doing so, became Chechnya's vassal king. After his assassination, his son, Kadyrov Junior, inherited the throne, and rules Chechnya with an iron fist, entertaining himself with activities such as exterminating gay people in Chechnya (by killing, torturing, and all but hunting them for sport).
Hunting us for sport, that is. People like me[6]. I felt safe in Kyiv last year. You get used to air raid sirens. That means air defense is working. Where Russia took hold, people like me live in constant fear of death. Not everyone had the means to get out.
That gives me a reason to support my country in this fight, but so far, we haven't talked about what this has to do with bigotry or responsibility for the war.
After all, Russia won, and according to international law, that land has been Russian since 1991, and civil wars like that are Russia's internal affairs.
Well here's how it factors into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. See, the invasion started in 2014, and not just in Crimea, which was annexed outright, but also in Donbas, where Russia instigated and supported armed rebellions against Ukraine's government, covertly aided by Russian armed forces[7].
Russia lied blatantly about that, too. When Russian regular soldiers were taken as POWs in Ukraine, Russia said they were simply there "on vacation", having crossed the border "by accident"[8].
Russia lies because the war was posed to be a separarist movement. Two fledgling "republics" were formed, LNR and DNR (Luhansk/Donetsk people's republic). In 2022, Russia dropped the pretenses, and annexed them too. But for 8 years — through the sham Minsk ceasefire agreements — Russia maintained that they were merely supporting a righteous independence movement, which Ukrainian government had no right to fight.
Fighting LNR/DNR was the excuse Russia used to label Ukrainian government a "Nazi regime".
And that's where Question #2 shines. Millions of Russians justify the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by the "need" to back what they called LNR/DNR separatists, because the separatists have the right to self-determination.
In the same breath, they are 100% behind crushing the "terrorists" in Chechnya (as Putin said, quote, "whacking them in the shitters").
Those people — the people who vehemently support separatists who want to join Russia (self-determination!), while equally vehemently supporting brutally crushing those who want to break away from Russia (territorial integrity!) are bigots.
Not all Russians, of course.
But about 80% of Russians oppose Chechnya's independence[9], and 80% support Russian intervention in Ukraine to "protect" LNR/DNR "independence"[10]. These variables aren't independent.
When the USSR was breaking apart, various parts of it held a referendum on whether to become independent, stay with what's left of the Union, or something else.
Tatarstan held such a referendum in 1992, and 3 out of 5 people have clearly and unambiguously chosen independence. Tatarstan was to become a sovereign state (as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan did).
This didn't happen. The results of the referendum were ignored. Russia has considered Tatarstan its territory ever since.
That highlights another form of bigotry: Russia's infamous referenda, held at gunpoint [12], that are used to give its annexations an air of legitimacy.
That includes Crimea[13]. "Anti-war" Russians are still prone to deferring to that sweet 95% "secede" vote. Even if that referendum were legitimate, curiously, Russians don't have the same overwhelming support of the results of the beyond shadow-of-a-doubt legitimate[14] referendum in Tatarstan.
As Putin's regime slowly eroded Tatarstan's sovereignty to zero, Russians did not object [15].
The question "Whose is Tatarstan" is not controversial by any measure either. It surely belongs to the Tatars, the people who live in Tatarstan.
One can argue that Tatarstan being a part of Russia, in reality, reflects what people of Tatarstan wanted: autonomy, not necessarily independence, secession, sovereignty. And if they did want this, then the current state of things is an acceptable, workable compromise.
It's a valid argument. And it's also valid for Crimea being a part of Ukraine, where it enjoyed an autonomy far stronger than that of Tatarstan today.
It also removes the "not a sandwich" objection, as well as the nonsense about "protecting the rights of the Russian-speaking minorities" in Ukraine that was used as a pretext for the 2022 invasion.
Aside from Russian being under no threat in Ukraine (as half the country still speaks it), surely Russian has never been threatened in Crimea as much as local languages in Tatarstan were outright suppressed.
That's before you realize that Crimea was never Russian in the first place, and today's 90%-ethnic Russian population is the result of the ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars, the natives of the peninsula (and, like people of Tatarstan, also Tatars), who were subject to mass deportations during the USSR time, as well as persecution under Russian occupation today.
Crimean Tatars — those who have returned after the deportations and their descendants — aren't big supporters of the annexation.
Tatarstan and Crimea can't be both Russian unless you have double standards on whose votes actually count in Russia.
Or, as Stalin said — who counts the votes.
----
Question #4 is the cherry on top of a pie.
By now, I hope most people are aware that Ukraine was left with one of the largest nuclear weapons stockpiles in the world after its split from the USSR.
The weapons, the planes, and rockets that Ukraine helped build. These weren't "gifts" or "inheritance", as Russian sources like to label this asset.
More of a property you get in a divorce.
Russia wanted it all. And the US — in what Clinton admits was a huge mistake [17] — pushed Ukraine to unilaterally disarm and send its nuclear weapons to Russia [18].
The logic was: the fewer nuclear-armed states, the better; the more stable and safe the world is.
All Ukraine got for its nukes was a security assurance that its sovereignty and territorial integrity will be respected. An assurance signed by the US, the UK — and Russia.
We all know by now that Russia's assurance wasn't worth the paper it's written on. Fewer people take time to think about what it means for the US to give such a promise, and then provide lackluster support that is always on the verge of being withdrawn (and, as far as we can tell, will be). What it means for the world, and nuclear proliferation.
But the real interesting part, to me, is how most Russians see the issue. Regardless of how the war goes, Russians think that of course Russia SHOULD have nuclear weapons.
And equally strongly they feel that Ukraine had NO RIGHT to retain its nuclear weapons, and SHOULD NOT have them going forward either.
It's not a contentious question either. Russians simply don't see Russia without nuclear weapons. They're absolutely essential to its security, even though they have what (was) seen as 2nd strongest army in the world.
Reasoning beyond this point is where things get interesting.
----
Above, I have provided extensive, well sourced explanations of why these for particular questions are important, and what they have to do the the current war that Russia is waging in Ukraine.
These four particular questions were posed by Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian politician and a former advisor in Zelenskyy's cabinet (now in exile) to Yulia Latynina, a Russian opposition journalist and commentator (also in exile) during one of their semi-regular joint live streams [19].
The subject of the discussion was exactly the question raised by the Russian person we're responding to: to which extent is the average Russian responsible for the invasion their country is perpetrating?
The argument goes, the average Russian never wanted anything bad to happen, why are they seen as a problem? It's their bad government, Putin, whatever! Not them!
The four questions beautifully bring us to reality, in which Putin is actually doing what his citizens want him to do. At least 4 out of 5 on each question.
And when you ask all 4 questions, you'll be hard pressed to find a Russian whose answers would NOT indicate that Russia is still a country that's a threat to its neighbors, and WILL REMAIN ONE for the foreseeable future, because THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Russians support Russia's expansion by means of force.
In my experience, the discussion hardly gets past Question #1. Their thinking doesn't proceed past "well it's ours now, so...".
And the questions aren't about any new borders that may or may not be agreed on in the negotiations to come.
The problem is that 4 out 5 Russians don't see the rest of Ukraine any differently than Crimea, and it's just a matter of time before Kyiv will be "returned" to the fold.
And if Kyiv resists, Kyiv will get the Chechnya treatment, and 4 out 5 Russians want it that way.
Whatever elections or referenda happen in Ukraine (or occupied territories), 4 out 5 Russians will consider them legitimate if the results favors Russia, and and illegitimate otherwise.
And most importantly: Russia should always have nuclear weapons, so that it never has to follow any rules. That's the unspoken part, but it doesn't take long to get to.
This is why Ukraine sees Russians (not just the Russian state) as a threat.
This is also why the Russian I asked these questions downvoted me, and left without answering. All the context I told you above — all the links — is everyone's lived memory there.
And four simple questions make them have themselves. At the very least, it's hard for an intelligent person to lie to themselves.
I want to emphasize (again!) that there's nothing apriori contentious or inflammatory about these questions, nor "nationalistic". Here's an answer that shouldn't be hard to swallow:
—The land belongs to the people who live there, and it's to to them to decide. In all cases.
—After the war, Russia will be better off without nuclear weapons — as are Germany and Japan to this day. Taking away the trump card to blackmail the world leaves the next government with no choice but developing the country and its people, not wars and schemes. And if Ukraine could stand to to us without nuclear weapons, we can do that too, if needs be — and with far less sacrifice.
Sadly, that's not the answer I expect to hear.
On that note: dang, I hope you have reached this point in my writing — and I do expect to hear something from you.
Treating the questions I asked as "perpetuating nationalistic flame wars" was unwarranted, disrespectful, and demeaning.
As you can see, there's more depth to the questions than you perceived — and that the ultimate goal of posing them is reconciliation and understanding.
Nobody but Russians can fix Russia. But it's an uphill battle when, after centuries of indoctrination, we expect them to start seeing things differently, and don't even bother explaining what's wrong with that way they are now (that Russians are the problem was a sentiment expressed by others here — which prompted this thread in the first place!).
This thread can and will be helpful to that end. I know many Russians, and the truth is, they are often unaware of their biases, as most of us are. But as long as they have them, the Russian government will exploit them to wage war.
And so many are putting in effort to discover and grow.
Your remark is not helping. At the very least, you could've asked about the subject you can't be as well informed on as those of us whose lives are directly affected by it before judging. It includes the Russian person too —
— and not the random folks who decided to treat as quiz the question not posed to them that they didn't understand.
I expect a response from you. And, if not an apology, then at least a bit of human compassion.
You haven't lost it yet, have you? Asking as a mod.
> reasonable assumption that the actions of your democratically elected government reflect the will of the population
No, sorry, with this I will lose reticence: that above is plain insanity. NO, people are not "represented" by elected governments in their will in the way the user declares to have understood. It's not just that "spheroidal economic agents" cannot be accused of obesity - it is not just that gross models do not overlap reality: it is really a nonsensical model.
Sorry Dang, but that was not related to nationalistic flamewar - I do not see how. Edit: well, it could have kindled fire with a different public, but you did a good job in educating this one...
About Crimea, it seemed that the poster proposed a clear-cut situation, to which I replied with a prestigious example of disagreement: Gérard Chaliand. That has nothing to do with any nationalism. It just happen to be a position (an intellectual position) that some nationalists will appreciate more than others - but that is just a coincidence. The intellectual in question is French; the rebuttal from Aguaviva is appreciated.
The latter part of the post from Romwell, I honestly and not without some reason mistook for a statement that "if you are a citizen for nation N, democratic, then you are responsible for the actions of your governments". Being that a twisted idea, that Romwell in the end does not hold but as I also specified later some people do hold, I countered it. Again, this does not seem to be to be especially tied to nationalism.
It seems to me that we all discussed in very civilized manner - rhetoric aside. (From my post replying to Romwell on, I mean.)
If I am missing any detail (as I seem to be), please indicate.
Edit: Dang, are you simply afraid that people will "trigger"? If so, I think this branch proves otherwise... It seems to show that we are able to discuss quite rationally (well, with these members we have been lucky).
Seconding this, and wanted to emphasize that I see no issue with your responses or questions (and don't really understand why you've been downvoted either — advice on style appreciated).
As I wrote in the other comment, my point of asking those questions was to get answers from the Russian person who asked what's wrong with them specifically, not from other people (as the subject I wanted to discuss was, ultimately, why people could see well meaning Russians as a threat based on responses to those questions).
But I didn't make it clear (and again, corrections on style were very welcome!), and the points mdp2021 brought up were valid.
As far as I can tell, we didn't disagree on anything.
mdp2021 lacked some of the context, but so would most people, including me prior to the 2022 invasion.
What they will tell you is -- up until the genocide against the Tatars (and other groups), the majority of its population was always solidly non-Russian.
And that its prior ownership by whichever colonial powers is entirely irrelevant to its current legal jurisdiction.
And when he flatly says "the population became 80-85 percent Russian", he's referring to the time period after the 1944 genocide (which he's choosing not to mention for for some reason). Before which the Russian population was, as he knows, always a minority. Moreover, essentially all of the influx of non-indigenous groups after 1783 was as a result of settler-colonialist policies of the Russian and Soviet empires. Before which the population was 93 percent Tatar, about 7 percent other groups -- with no Russian population to speak of.
The article studies properties of a nationalist group, which is in extreme minority, especially after 2010s, and doesn’t make claims that ‘most Russians are nationalists’.
You have to lurk really hard to find a nationalist there unless you count people love Dostoyevsky into this group. There are also a lot of glass ceilings in place for ethnical Russians, and distribution in elite universities, politics, and business don’t represent the country average, which suggests there’s an intentional ’reverse racism’ in place towards majority. Moreover, the word ‘Russian’ is banned in media and is replaced by ‘citizen of Russia’.
On a similar note, I have never seen so much bigotry and populism on HN as in this and H1B threads.