I stopped talking to most people I knew from my time in 2014 because they supported the invasion of Ukraine (while never having visiting Donbas in their life and not caring about the lives of people there).

Many of the people fighting in Ukraine are indigenous from near Mongolia and are being genocided. Many are prisoners who have no other options for freedom.

This is false. Total population of Buryats in Russia is 460 K (men, women children, elderly). Approximately ~1.7 million russians (killed, heavily wounded, currently in Ukraine) have directly taken part in the full scale russian invasion of Ukraine as soldiers. Even if every single Buryat (including toddlers) was fighting in the full scale invasion, that would still be a mere 28%. Use of prisoners peaked in 2023 and likely was never more than a few ten of thousands (and limited to a few directions). Then there are also about 2.5 - 3 million russian settler colonialists.

Preference falsification adjustment methodologies are widely used to evaluate regular polling results. Regular polling shows support for the full scale invasion at 75%, preference falsification (e.g. people who are afraid) is at 10% for 65% true support for the full scale invasion. That's the full scale invasion. Regular polling shows consistent support for the annexation of Crimea (the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine) at 85% over the 2014 to 2021 period. Preference falsification adjustment methodologies are unable to find a statistically significant difference from 84%, i.e. almost no one is actually afraid to share their real view and ~85% truly support the annexation of Crimea.

If you prefer non-quantitative methodologies, there is interesting qualitative analysis of "non-political" russians in a smaller Siberian town. Results are damning for russian society, even non-political russians are largely supportive of the invasion and are willing to support all actions of the russian military.

While russian TV has been dominated by government narratives since the mid 2000s, from 2010 onward every russian had access to youtube. Starting from 2010, multiple reputable international services (BBC, DW, RFERL/CurrentTV) launched russian language youtube channels with independent information. Additionally well known russia-based opposition media TV Dozd launched their YT channel in 2010 (many other russian opposition media too). I believe Youtube isn't censored in russia to this day. It definitely wasn't censored all the way up to Feb 2022.

In 2010, access to YT was universal was mostly on computers, but by 2014 when the russians invaded Ukraine, everyone had access to youtube on their phones, literally 5 seconds to accessing independent news. Even older russians actively use youtube, so you can't argue that it's too difficult (it's really not). They don't like free speech and they don't want to hear the truth.

The vast majority of the russian people are genocidal imperialists and they support and enable the putin regime. There is nothing suspicious about this.

Sources are at the bottom of my post. Do you have anything beyond "To quote one Russian woman"?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20531680221108328
https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/05/19/crimea-3/
https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/majority-russians-still-unwilling-return-occupied-parts-ukraine
https://meduza.io/feature/2024/06/25/a-kogda-uzhe-pobeda-to-nasha-budet (qualitative paper in russian on the town in Siberia that I mentioned)

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Lol "white washing Russian racism," when I say we shouldn't advocate to genocide a country for having racist people. You aren't advocating for genocides of all the other racist countries.

Again, what people are allowed to say publicly isn't the same as their actual opinion. Many many Russians are literally related to Ukrainians, especially at the border, and many have married each other and would travel back and forth between the countries as is common in Eastern Europe.

What I said wasn't false at all. You in fact confirmed it lol. Also, those casualties could be repeat casualties as they have sent people back to war even with injuries.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/crp/2025/07/31/putins-militant-buryats-and-the-ukraine-war-myths-and-facts/

As Russia’s military leadership doesn’t disclose any data on the true scale or ethnic/regional composition of its war losses, the only sources of such information are obituaries and social media posts about Russian army soldiers killed in action. This type of data has been collected by various activist groups, including those collaborating with Mediazona and BBC News Russian.

During the first 20 days of the invasion, a staggering 4.1% of Russia’s confirmed war casualties were from Buryatia, though only 0.6% of Russia’s working-age male population lives in the region. Ethnic Buryats (almost exclusively from Buryatia and Transbaikalia) made up 2.5% of Russia’s confirmed death toll over the same period, though Buryats make up only 0.35% of Russia’s population.

Again, their lives depend on them lying about this. It's like asking North Koreans if the absolutely love Kim Jong Un. They have to say yes publicly. They literally send bad faith actors tontest people and snatch them into prisons. Anyone is dangerous and suspect, even a poll.

By your own admission there are significant Russian peoples rising against this administration. So by your own admission everything you said justifying your advocacy of their genocide was false. One being Pussy Riot ofc. Use Youtube? Some of these people don't have electricity or plumbing and cant read. Not to mention many literally believe their government monitors absolutely everything online anyway, so they can't really seek out online content without significant education in cyber security... which they also can't look up without suspicion.

YOU are a genocidal imperialist. That's you projecting onto them.

Lol this is all so pathetic of you and stems from your inability to make friends/being a loser when there, so you have a personal vendetta to genocide them all. Assuming you aren't a literal warmongering bot.

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I knew you would ignore the research I cited. If you bothered to read the articles, you would have known that the list experiment methodology specifically addresses the notion of preference falsification (i.e it accounts for the number of people lying; it is small).

By your own admission there are significant Russian peoples rising against this administration.

I cited a source that show 85% support for the annexation of Crimea (with accounting for preference falsification) and you come up with this bullshit.

Thank you for this! I couldn't have done a better job myself.

P.S. I do know several Ukrainians from border oblasts with russian relatives. Not a single one even called them to ask if they were OK.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

How can a poll get an accurate answer if everyone is paranoid they will be killed unless they all say the same thing? Do you think the polls of North Koreans are accurate? Yeah, 100% of North Koreans SAY they love their government, but that isn't actually true.

There is no way to detect lying. That is the consensus of every expert on lying in the world. We have never been able to trick people into revealing inner thoughts they didn't want to, not for thousands of years. Not with all the drugs and torture by intelligence agencies for decades, not with lie detectors. In fact what you linked admits there are limitations, because asking ANY question about the war scares Russians and makes them think it is a government entity spying on them. Also, the survey was done online, where Russia psyops dominate, and could partially be a measure of online bots.

I doubt you know any Ukrainians, because they are literally working with Russian rebels and they understand this as well. Russians not being able to communiate for fear of death by their government supports my points.

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

I told you you that we are not going to create a Nobel in sociology just for you. Just because you think "There is no way to detect lying" doesn't make it true. The methodology is clearly explained in the first article I cited, list experiments don't involved asking question you lazy ignoramus.

I live in Ukraine. I am originally from Donbas. You don't know jack shit about russia, Ukraine or the war.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Also, sure, Jan, you totally live in Ukraine and are just happening to mention it now, so that you can justify your advocacy of genocide.

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago (2 children)

What about the big drinking problem that most Russians have. How does that factor into it?

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What SPECIFICALLY do you want done to the Russian people to make them suffer via violence - your words - be specific. List the actions, coward. And then we can discuss if those fall into torture or mass killing categories.

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

i dont want anyone to suffer. Peace and love to all.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Lol substance use is a medical condition, don't be ableist.

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago

Seriously, do you think the fact that 90% of Russian men are drunkards affects their world view and makes them more prone to violence?

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago

What SPECIFICALLY do you want done to the Russian people to make them suffer via violence - your words - be specific. List the actions. And then we can discuss if those fall into torture or mass killing categories.

I read that article and again, anything mentioning the war will always get that response from Russians because they fear government crackdown. But I accept we disagree here, fine.

So: What SPECIFICALLY do you want done to the Russian people to make them suffer via violence - your words - be specific. List the actions. And then we can discuss if those fall into torture or mass killing categories.