Where were they 12 years ago? And 4 years ago? Ah, yes, they wanted a quick adventure — 20 mins in and out. Welp… Fuck them.
In their defence it’s a heavily controlled state where speaking out can literally land you in the gulag. Doesn’t mean things are peachy, and I’m sure a fair few people are just drinking the coolaid, but it’s something to consider.
When USSR ended, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were in very similar situation, politically and economically. Belarus got Lukashenko from the very beginning, he immediately bought off police and squashed all dissent. Ukraine had a wannabe dictator Yanukovich, bur kicked him out.
Russia got a big window of opportunity between Yeltsin and Putin, they could totally do their own Maidan, plus storming Kremlin is a historical Russian tradition.
No one cared.
They got a taste of Europe and civilized world, the young people got tech jobs with lots of money. Instead of fixing their own government, they mostly emigrated, and now formed a diaspora instead of learning the language and blabbering about mysterious Russian soul and wanking on WW2 photos.
One of Putin’s fears is that Ukraine showed a clear scenario how to depose a dictator.
Heavily controlled state that kills or imprisons political opponents, and disappears or imprisons protesters even for holding a blank white paper on the streets. Russia has the same issue USA does. It’s a gigantic country with spread out cities, with most money going to Moscow and St. Petersburg. It’s extremely difficult to organize effective protests. Especially now that their internet is more walled off than the Great Firewall of China. It’s one thing to have centralized, effective protests in smaller countries where driving to the capital is a couple of hours.
When the war started, there where those in Russia that did protest the war. You could see them getting picked up and dragged away.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them are young and spent their teenage years fearing their inevitable turn in the meat-grinder. I also wouldn’t be surprised if those most on-board with the war already had their turn to fight and didn’t make it back home.
Though the page does say it was a “phone poll,” and if the youth in Russia are as averse to strange phone calls as many in the rest of the world, I’ll stand corrected.
Also, the ones making the decisions to fight these wars are not the ones fighting.
It would help if those who start a war are required to spend a portion of their time at the front lines. See how fast these boomers walk back their armies.
It would help if those who start a war are required to spend a portion of their time at the front lines. See how fast these boomers walk back their armies.
Not sure about that though. For a large portion of the (european) middle ages it was common and even expected from rulers to fight in battle. It’s not like that was an exceptionally peaceful time (nor was it exceptionally warlike though). Yet it should be mentioned that high ranking combatants like kings, knights and other nobles could expect to be captured and ransomed instead of being killed. But still, it was a risk and many a ruler were killed in battle.
Well, yeah, but those were different times altogether
Fatigued by a war that officially doesn’t exist in Russia…
The war can end in the next hour if Russia decides to piss off behind their internationally recognised borders, still leaving them with more land than they’ll ever need.
Not so fast!
What about reparation?
What about returning abducted people?Pissing off from anywhere in Ukraine (including Crimea ofc) is simply not enough.
Letting them off the hook this easy sends the message that anyone can invade random countries and in the worst case just doesn’t conquer any land.
81%, according to the article
Doesn’t really matter much in a country where only 0.0000000612% of the population have a say in politics.
That’s the problem!
That doesn’t say in which favour the war should be ended. Would they accept russian defeat or do they think they could keep their occupied parts of Ukraine or even the entire regions of Ukraine?
Yeah… I’m guessing a lot of these 81% want the war to be over … with Ukraine’s unconditional surrender.
It would be illegal for russian people to say they want russia to lose, so a lot of people (and everyone in the poll) just say they want it to be over and the other side can guess which one that was
That means 19% are still in favor of invading neighbors and committing war crimes in Ukraine.
It’s not like the state media will honestly report on all the war crimes being committed.
I’d chalk it down to the majority of that 19% simply not being aware of what is going on UkraineYou can probably make a poll is almost any country and find ~20% in favour of a (hypothetical) war they think they are winning 🤷
20% of Cologne residents are open to starting a war with Düsseldorf over beer.
Nah. Many people in Russia have no problem with Putin starting the war, as long as he does it “competently”. They see Putin as a “mastermind” who is “playing the long game”. They are content as long as they can be convinced that Russia is winning (or at least not losing).
They don’t give a fuck about war crimes or human cost of war if it doesn’t directly affect their own lives.
It is too late losers, russia would have been fine if they exited the war a year ago, but now? It is WAY too late.
Why?
What’s stopping them?
They can still exit the war, but the collapse of the russian empire is a foregone conclusion now.
However, Putin was in the 19%.
One man, one vote.
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.
Russia has a record population again?
/s
