There are people who deserve to live their lives in peace. And then there are people like Putin, who deserve to have their dick put in a blender. Rarely do these two match up.
Classic elementary school bully bullshit. Mercilessly pick on a kid until that kid punches them square in the nose. Then all of a sudden they (the bully) are the poor helpless victim. Cry me a fucking river.
As Russian military continues to purposely destroy supermarkets, homes, schools, hospitals, energy infrastructure, entire towns, etc.
I wonder how many "innocent" Russians know of any of that. Or that their soldiers kidnapped and raped women and children. Tortured and executed others. "Fake news" I'm sure they'd conveniently claim. Ignorance is bliss, until the bombs start dropping on their town.
This is massively embarrassing for Putin. Getting counter-invaded by your small, theoretically much weaker neighbour is a joke. And the Ukrainians have faced relatively little resistance. If Putin wasn't the evil bastard that he is, he'd call time on this pointless, wasteful war.
The concerning thing now is that he can use this Ukrainian incursion into Russia as justification for his claims that the west is trying to destroy Russia, even though he set off this chain of events with his actions.
The Russian babushkas who chatted in a friendly manner with the Ukrainian mobile cav passing by didn’t seem to take issue with anything, and they were left alone - as civilians should be in a conflict, to the greatest degree possible.
Not to mention, life in a Ukrainian oblast is probably going to be nicer than life in a Russian oblast, long term.
Agh, figures that the Russian Volunteer Corps was apparently in on the action. It just never fails to boggle my mind that the majority of the anti-Russian militias that are fighting in Ukraine are so far right that they think Putin isn't fascist enough.
Like, yeah, it's great that they're fighting Russia, but holy fuck is it this hard to find people in Russia who aren't complete pieces of shit and are also willing to fight Putin?
Shoulda considered that before intimidating the peaceful population of Ukraine. I have a friend who completely uprooted her life and career trajectory to manage humanitarian aid to her home country. The fact of the matter is peaceful Russians are want enables the Orkish horde. My view is that they've been kept in the dark about the truth of their reality. Their lack of concern is a result of not knowing what is and isn't real (and to many degrees us Americans live in the same situation with regard to our actions throughout west Asia). All Ukraine is doing right now is bringing truth to Kursk. I hope it doesn't turn into reprisals. From what I've seen, they're trying a winning hearts and minds strategy. But the bottom line is Russia initiated total war. They have no one to complain to about that there's a total war going on at their borders
I don't understand the nuances well enough to know, but the thought control is still pretty strong in Russia. I do wonder if the populous will see this as the manifestation of what Putin has been saying all along, which is that the Ukraine means to bring violence to them and all efforts so far have been to keep this at bay. If so they will double down on their support for the dictator.
I often think about how much brain washing the Trump group has been able to do in the US even with free press and open access to the rest of the world. Imagine the power of the mind control one could achieve with an entire infrastructure built to support just that.
Nothing will make a difference unless it reaches Moscow or st Petersburg. Most of the population is too poor/oppressed to make a big difference at this point. The people Putin needs to avoid upsetting are all living in the cities, at least according to an ex-pat friend of mine
There is plenty, and the general sentiment is anti-war. It's just hugely unsafe to speak out publicly against the regime. In private, most people seem to agree that this is a bloody massacre nobody asked for.