Fin da quando ero molto piccolo, in Ucraina, persino nel villaggio in cui sono cresciuto, c’è un detto comune: anche i liberali russi prendono la pistola non appena sentono parlare della “questione ucraina”.
Questa settimana, mentre guardavo una conferenza stampa tenuta da russi rilasciati, ci sono state alcune strane dichiarazioni fatte dal cosiddetto “politico dell’opposizione” Kara-Murza e altri. Dopo più di due anni di guerra su vasta scala, sono ancora desiderosi di accusare solo Putin stesso, insieme alla sua cerchia ristretta, di aver scatenato la guerra in Ucraina. Ma per oltre 2 anni questi membri di alto rango del regime, e certamente non Putin stesso, sono quelli che hanno impugnato i fucili mentre attraversavano il confine per sparare agli ucraini. Né hanno programmato ed eseguito il complesso e sostenuto bombardamento delle città ucraine, distruggendo Mariupol, Bucha e molte altre. Non hanno colpito ospedali e infrastrutture ogni giorno. E Putin e il suo entourage non si stanno impegnando nella produzione di sempre più carri armati, droni, missili e bombe. Queste attività vanno di pari passo coordinamento di milioni di personeQuesto dovrebbe essere chiaro a chiunque di noi presti un minimo di attenzione, o anche a coloro che hanno un minimo di buon senso.
Vediamo chiaramente che la popolazione che sostiene con gioia la loro guerra che uccide civili, compresi bambini, è la stessa popolazione che è colpita dalle sanzioni. Ma la cosiddetta opposizione russa vorrebbe che il mondo pensasse che le sanzioni durature Qualunque conseguenze delle proprie azioni è “antidemocratico”.
Queste affermazioni sono ovviamente una manipolazione rivolta ai paesi occidentali. La manipolazione è deliberata; e cito, "Abbiamo visto negli ultimi anni, soprattutto dall’inizio della guerra, che molti paesi democratici si sono discostati da questo principio. E spesso vediamo che le sanzioni dei paesi democratici occidentali sono dirette non contro il regime di Putin e non contro specifici criminali ai piani alti del regime di Putin, ma contro l’intero paese, contro tutti i cittadini russi."
Non ti suona un po’ familiare?
In effetti, questi sono gli stessi argomenti di Putin, che accusa i paesi occidentali per la situazione attuale. Secondo lui, il mondo è destabilizzato dalle azioni delle élite occidentali e la Russia, e la sua guerra genocida contro l’Ucraina, non hanno nulla a che fare con questo. "Il potenziale di conflitto nel mondo è in aumento e questa è una conseguenza diretta dei tentativi di alcune élite occidentali di preservare a qualsiasi costo il loro predominio politico, economico, finanziario, militare e ideologico." Lo ha detto Putin durante un incontro dei ministri della Difesa dei paesi membri della CSI.
Povera innocente Russia. Non è strano come queste idee del Cremlino e della cosiddetta opposizione russa siano notevolmente simili?
L’opinione espressa è nello spirito delle classiche operazioni di informazione russe, che mirano a screditare senza dettagli (quali paesi? quali sanzioni?). Il loro obiettivo è semplicemente quello di revocare tutte le sanzioni con qualsiasi mezzo necessario. Questa linea di argomentazione equivale a sostenere che le sanzioni imposte alla Germania nazista negli anni ’40 erano “ingiuste” (come Kara-Murza ha descritto di recente le sanzioni contro la Russia) perché quei poveri cittadini incompresi potrebbero subire conseguenze a causa della loro partecipazione alla guerra.
E ora aspettiamo il prossimo passo di Kara-Murza e soci: non passerà molto tempo prima che suggeriscano che il popolo russo ha sofferto e vuole la pace, ma quei furfanti ucraini vogliono continuare a combattere invece di dire semplicemente: “La merda succede, l’acqua è passata”. In effetti, questa opinione è già stata piuttosto popolare tra i “liberali” russi anche dopo il 2022. Vedi l’articolo di Meduza, ~”L’unica cosa peggiore della guerra è perderne una”~.
Dovremmo prendere per buone le parole dei cosiddetti intellettuali russi come Nemzev, un intellettuale autoproclamatosi tale, ovviamente. Quando un conduttore di Radio Liberty gli ha chiesto se il pentimento sarebbe stato il problema principale in Russia dopo la guerra, come lo era nella Germania del dopoguerra, ha risposto: "No. Perché lo Stato ha bisogno di essere salvato." ~"No. Perché lo Stato ha bisogno di essere salvato."~
Le altre nazioni che amano l’idea dell’indipendenza semplicemente non vengono prese in considerazione. Questo è il vero volto degli “umanisti” in Russia!
Recent statements of the so-called “russian opposition” demonstrate once again that the russian people will never willingly take responsibility for what they have done to Ukraine.
byu/Bilo-Chornyi inukraine
di Bilo-Chornyi
22 commenti
I believe this is a propaganda post. The Russian government will do anything to discredit the russian opposition. This entire post reeks of Russian propaganda.
Moskovia is riddled with shit where the ‘people’ have no connection to politics, as it has always been.
Even moskovian ‘opposition’, seems to have gone quiet lately which is sad
Slava Ukraini
Thank you for this post. russians are like north koreans. They are broken psychologically, emotionally and morally. Unfixable. And this poses a problem to all of us. It’s not possible to take them in a country, because they bring g a mindset of destructive narcissistic behavior, chauvinism to the absolute limit and fascist mentality, that no democracy can tolerate. russia needs to collapse, and break into little states. This is the only hope for all of us, who want to have a chance for lasting peace. Slava Ukraini! Glory to the Ukrainian nation! Glory to our heroes! ❤️🖤🦈💙💛
without zero accountability why would Russian society change? when everything is always someone else’s fault what is there for them to fix?
Your argument would be better if you didn’t put words in other people mouths and then accuse them of “saying it in the future any moment now” – as if they do think exactly that and its only a matter of time.
And you base that on one relatively mild statement and then Putins own words as if the two are the same, or said by same person.
Really horrible argumentation, and the only result of it can be badmouthing – bad opinions about one of russian opposition that just got away.
account created only for this post. sus.
You make a very good case.
💯. It’s as clear as day. Russian society needs to be held accountable, like Germans were after the Nazis. Their society needs to recognise how they came to this fucked up point. I think it will take a couple of generations, though.
You are not wrong, also looking at russian culture and history… well, there’s a reason each nation who shares a border with them has a version of the phrase “to russian it up” meaning to f things up.
However, it’s impossible for a global media message to vilify an entire nation. It simply doesn’t stick. By focusing the message on Putin you can keep it up and no one can say against the principle that “there is good in him I know it.”
Also, there will be an “after putin” time. While yes, there will be factions that want to keep up the war, there will also be a whole bunch who will be more than happy to throw up their arms and go “it was all putin! He was the evil one, not us! We are leaving ukraine, please lift sanctions so we can go back to backstabbing each other” if you had instead a “blame all russians/russian elites” angle… those people will have a lot less purchase since they are already seen as evil, so why not go all the way?
In my opinion, one of the fundamental flaws with this type of russian liberal – which includes a lot (definitely not all) opposition type figures is that they fail to grasp a fundamental truth: **a better russia can not be built without facing what they are doing to Ukraine**, acknowledging what they are doing, educating themselves, and taking societal steps to atone for what they have done. They really need to look at and reevaluate their own history and stop lying to themselves about the entirety of russia’s history.
Without that, they will just repeat the same cycle again and again, tsar after tsar. To take responsibility for building a better country, they have to take responsibility for the country. How can they learn to engage if they ignore what they are doing and therefore ignore why it is happening? It seems to me the result will always be an endless loop of continued disengagement, continued KGB/FSB and Oligarch type power structures, and no end to all of their BS.
But I also think it is unrealistic to think that russian society as a whole would have any interest in opposition figures who were too aspirational – because that would not match their every day values and beliefs (indoctrination).
So personally, I think that unless there are seismic level events (further largescale fragmentation for example), russia will just continue along its circular loop for the foreseeable future.
Jade McGlynn’s book is purposefully and pointedly titled “Russia’s war.” It expands around the theme of your post, examining the Russian mindset. While imperfect there are interesting observations and it is worth a read.
It happened in Germany, too, after WWII. In order to kickstart society, there was a silent agreement to blame it all on Hitler and his inner circle. All the rest were innocent. Of course not, but that’s how it works: guild being put in the freezer for the next 40 years.
> I’m angry at the countries that support Ukraine because they’re not insisting on an immediate cessation of hostilities, on an end to the senseless killing. Instead, they’re supplying the country with weapons, understanding all the while that it’s only increasing the number of victims.
Pavel, Germany
My first question is, Pavel, how does it feel to be in Germany? Safe? No war?
Secondly, until now, the war has been on Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. For every 100 rockets Russia launches, Ukraine responds with only 10-15. That’s hardly equal. If Ukraine’s allies had provided timely and sufficient support, it’s likely that not only the Russian army but also the Russian population would have suffered significantly. Why should Ukraine agree to a ceasefire when the enemy is still on their land? Invaders are marching, killing, and raping on their soil. Who in their right mind would ask for a ceasefire under these circumstances? It’s Russia that should be asked to cease fire, not Ukraine.
One of the most intelligent things I have read in a long time, as a Westerner (from Canada) when this full scale invasion happened in February 2022, I had hoped russians would take to the streets by the millions a la Syria or Libya to overthrow their dictator, because my logic was oh millions of them have relatives in Ukraine, surely they care about them.
Oh how wrong we were as we had been about russia for decades. Instead what I saw was sporadic protests where bystanders would film a protestor being dragged away by a cop with their cellphone, contrasting that with Iran where people got together in packs to beat the crap out of the cops. I also saw russian YouTubers bitching about the price of iPhones, French cheese (I wish I was making that up) and their inability to travel. Not realizing hey mofos the Ukrainians right to live supersedes your right to sit in a resort in Spain. I was truly done, right up there with the Navalny crowd especially, or diet Putin as he really should be called. Honestly I believe that the West got the wrong people released, instead of Kara-Murza and his lot, the West should have asked for Igor Girkin and sent him back to russia, now there’s a psycho who is a real threat to Putin.
I think it is possible, that at least some of the opposition may try to lay the blame largely on Putin (though it’s obvious the issue lies far deeper in the society) to unite the audiences around a specific target, to aim the rage towards something tangible, and to also dissociate Russians from the actions of the state.
Even though evidently, Russians are part of the society too and the ones who carry out the actions of the state. It may still be in the interest of defeating the issue, to want to encourage some temporary dissociation in order to fuel anger and action towards the state. Otherwise, people tend to get defensive, and tend to shut-down due to the inability to handle a guilty conscious, and then they’re more likely to find delusional ways to defend the state, instead of separating themselves from it, and then turning against it.
Like you see people in abusive relationships defend their partner time and time again, and even let their partner abuse others, because they still identify with them and they can’t separate themselves from them, and it can be scary and shameful to acknowledge what is really happening.
Reminds me when I was studying an exchange year in Germany, we had this older professor in his mid-70s (still sharp though) and whenever the topic of Nazi Germany somehow came up in the discussion, he would frame the Nazis as “occupiers” and the allies as the ones who “freed *them* from occupation”. Of course this isn’t quite right, because German society was actively involved in the horrors that went on, but it seemed to me that there had been some effort to dissociate the German identity from the horrible actions of the Nazis, so that they could more easily label them as the “enemy” and the “other”, and work towards not allowing that to happen in their society again.
I watched this yesterday https://youtu.be/iiOfjpNmMM8?si=YgzMUpH014beGBzV
His point that political change in Russia happens quickly and that the world should be prepared to support that change and rehabilitation is valid. That doesn’t absolve the Russian population of all guilt of course.
Good article and nicely written but you have forgotten a key point, which is, one should pay no attention to anything any Russian says.
What about Feygin
Hear hear!
What gets my blood boiling is listening to radio hosts in my country always saying that Ukraine cannot possibly win against Ruzzia. That surely peace talks are the only way forward… It astounds me how deep Ruzzian information operations have penetrated western countries. And almost all refuse to look. Let alone recognise it. As to see it means they have been taken for fools. And they will never admit that.
the “state” he talks about is the last and largest continuous land empire ever, its not a nation, a state, a country, its 25 enslaved natios with different languages, religions, ethinicities etc, anyone talking about “russian nation” or “russian state” is a imperialist
Russia is the only nation that simultaneously proclaims itself to be the greatest empire on the planet, and at the same time, always the eternal victim.
Russia is fatalistic society. I think thats basics of it and it will take a long time to change.