Why is Russia like it is?

[Ben@Forest]

A true story of what the USSR was like, but I think to some degree still holds good as to how Russians think or are told to think. In the 1970s a British businessman who had dealings in the old Soviet Union got talking to a group of Soviet university students. The businessman had served in WW2. The Soviet students did not know that Britain had participated in 'The Great Patriotic War'.

I'm sure nowadays someone could point to how clueless UK students are about WW2, but this was only 30 years after the war - and it was an event that was (and still is) glorified in Russia. For university students in 1975 not to know that the UK was a major ally says a great deal about the way things worked there.

[jimlews]

The notion that there can be meaningful negotiation to end the invasion of Ukraine is, in my opinion, based on an erroneous premise.
Namely that it is possible to have fruitful negotiation with an unreasonable aggressor.
Putin is not a reasonable man. He has a Stalinist mindset and Stalin's answer to any problem was murder.

FWIW.
Re: Chimsky. I think he is a "useful Idiot".

[DevonDamo]

Re: Chimsky. I think he is a "useful Idiot".

The irony meter has just gone off the scale.

[Ben@Forest]

There has been an interesting series about Putin on R4 recently. It was not about Russia or Ukraine but of course addressed the Ukraine War in the last episode.

One of the commentators came up with what l thought was a very believable reason for the Ukraine war. Putin is a strongman but knows he can't (and probably doesn't want to) stay in power for ever. Given the virtual criminal despotism he has created he probably also knows his future in retirement would be uncertain. Would a new strongman feel safer with Putin behind bars? Would a fledgling democracy hand him over to an international court?

But if he conquered Ukraine and 're-unified' Russia he may have been such a hero that nothing could touch him, just live out his days as the man who made Russia great again.

[slowster]

Interesting to look back in this short video in the link below by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, which he recorded in 2020:

https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/15 ... CGj_grAAAA

One thing that struck me was how it was (or at least that Steve Rosenberg focused on) an artist who appeared to recognise and understand the nature of what was happening in Russia and what they were living through, and see disaster ahead. Maybe they were just more vocal and willing to speak out; maybe as a russian artist they were more sensitive to what was happening given Russia's history and the past persecution of anyone who was considered a threat to the state, including many artists/writers etc.

In stark contrast are the videos of current russian state TV programmes posted by the journalist Julia Davis with subtitles in English. Like Francis Scarr of BBC Monitoring, she mostly concentrates on the programmes containing propagandists, which make up a significant amount of russian broadcasting. However, in the last few days she has posted clips from the main channel's News Year's Eve special. They are jaw-dropping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1xmM2bwG8k

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/stat ... 6561317892

[squeaker]

Thanks, slowster, that cheered me up no end, especially as I'd just finished watching Adam Curtis' last episode

[wheelyhappy99]

For anyone interested in learning more about the history of Ukraine, Russia and surrounding regions, and with several hours to spare, there's a series of lectures by Prof Timothy Snyder (Yale) on YouTube. Central and Eastern Europe have been his specialism for years, and he has spent a lot of time there. A lot of stuff I didn't know, but passed the time whilst on the trainer on wet evenings recently. Fun fact 1. A Ukrainian royal who married the king of France thought Paris was backward and poverty stricken in comparison to Kyiv at the time. Fun fact 2. Kyiv was a major trading and cultural centre before Moscow existed.

[wheelyhappy99]

Another time consuming but interesting source of information about Russian society is Life and Fate, written by Vasily Grossman. Think War and Peace set in WW2. It's unsparing in its description of events from Germany to the Caspian, but gives some insight of how the population of Russia and it's satellites (colonies?) were treated by their government, and how they responded.

[UpWrong]

I've heard much discusssion of Putin by people who knew him personally and have listened to various Radio 4 documentatries and the BBC's Ukrainecast with many expert interviews including some with Russion academics and former Russian soldiers.What comes across is that there existed a general Russian arrrogance and supremecist belief that Ukranians are backward peasants, and a thinking they have a right to subjugate them. The Russian people have been fed a supremecist ideolgy for decades. Putin became obsessed with leaving a legacy of a Russian empire. He believes his own rhetoric, inflated by isolationism during the pandemic and sycophants, including his intelligence and security services, telling him what he wants to hear rather than the truth. His behaviour has always been manipulative and sociopathic. He's driven by grievances and revengeful mafiosi power plays. He cannot be trusted, ever. He is a thug and a war criminal.

Ukraine is a country similar in size to France with a population which was around 44 million before the invasion. They had free and fair democratic elections. In the last election, the right-wing vote was less than the right-wing vote in the UK. It would be a tragedy if they were crushed and coerced into being an unwilling satellite of a Russian empire.

[UpWrong]

Coincidentally, from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... obal-en-GB
"Putin is sometimes described not as commander in chief, but as Russia’s historian in chief. The ground for this war was prepared by the Russian president’s pseudo-historical essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, published in July 2021. In this document, Putin argued Ukraine was, historically, indistinguishable from Russia, citing Oleg the prophet’s 10th-century dictum: “Let Kyiv be the mother of all Russian cities."

"Radosław Sikorski, the former Polish foreign minister, said he became sure an invasion would happen when he read that essay and learned Putin had ordered it to be sent to every serving Russian soldier. 'The plan was to do again what Russia had repeatedly done to Ukraine in the past: extermination of its elites, Russification of its culture and population and the subjugation of its resources to its own imperial needs. Ukraine could be permitted as peasant folklore but not as a free and democratic nation choosing its own destiny and allies.' ”

[Sweep]

If anyone is looking for the inside gen on La Putin I can unreservedly recommend Putin's People.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607 ... sb_ss_1_13

An incredible work of fearless research.

Can be a tad heavy going at times it's true as there is so much detail.

For a shorter read, this by John Sweeney.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/607 ... sb_ss_1_13

Both pretty much say (well first maybe strongly implies it) that Putin slaughtered hundreds of his own citizens in the apartment block explosions for electoral advantage.

And then there's the theatre "siege" and the school massacre.

The powers that be in Italy followed a "strategy of tension" in the 70s/80s but kiddie stuff compared to Putin.

Sweeney reckons that he is most probably not long for this world.

Tho obvs could get bumpy when he goes.

May he rot (not worth the fuel to burn) in Hell.

Sweeney does have some hope for Russia and Russians though.

[fossala]

I do find it interesting we weren’t having these debates when a pro western coup happened in Ukraine. How about the murders from Ukrainian forces to the people of Donestk? I dislike the capitalist Russian state as much as dislike the aggressive occupational forces of the west. But damn people seem to lap up whatever is fed to them.

[UpWrong]

I do find it interesting we weren’t having these debates when a pro western coup happened in Ukraine.

You mean Euromaidan, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
when the people of Ukraine rose up against the traitor Viktor Yanukovych. There have been free and fair elections since which did not see his return.

[Jdsk]

I do find it interesting we weren’t having these debates when a pro western coup happened in Ukraine. How about the murders from Ukrainian forces to the people of Donestk? I dislike the capitalist Russian state as much as dislike the aggressive occupational forces of the west. But damn people seem to lap up whatever is fed to them.

Which "aggressive occupational forces of the west" is that, please?

Thanks

Jonathan

[slowster]

I do find it interesting we weren’t having these debates when a pro western coup happened in Ukraine. How about the murders from Ukrainian forces to the people of Donestk? I dislike the capitalist Russian state as much as dislike the aggressive occupational forces of the west. But damn people seem to lap up whatever is fed to them.

From what I have read the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians call the Euromaiden the 'Revolution of Dignity'. They protested because Yanukovich back-pedalled on signing a deal with the EU which had already been approved by the Ukrainian parliament, as a result of pressure applied by Putin to enter into an arrangement instead with the Eurasian Economic Union, which is dominated by Russia.

I doubt many Ukrainians would agree with the description of the Euromaiden as a pro-western coup, and I think many would be angry to hear it characterised as such by a foreigner in a far away country.

As for the 'murders from Ukrainian forces to the people of Donestk', to which murders are you referring?