@SoniKozak I am all ok for supporting Russia and Russians as long as Russia will pull out it's forces from Ukraine, stop invading and threatening other countries, stop with the imperialistic & superior stance it currently has and reverse it's current way to authoritarianism.
Russian culture is indeed wonderful, the Russian language is indeed beautiful but that's no excuse for supressing other countries' culture, language and identity
The point here is that today, not in the fantasy future where russia is free and liberal and respects human rights, russian perspectives can be damaging in the fact that they are diluting and drowning out the real voices of a peoples resisting occupation and battling genocide. Just like there was a distaste for all things German in the forties, fifties, and even later, it will take decades and generations for Ukrainians to digest the trauma of this war and ultimately decades of not centuries of repressions. The world outside of Ukraine and russia need to be able to see this perspective. Especially since the russian empire has spent tremendous resources promoting their "culture" abroad, while burning Ukrainian books since the time of Catherine I.
Once the war is won, then we can start having discussions about who was and wasn't complicit, as this war is also being fought in the information space. Russian culture has always been intertwined with propaganda.
@SoniKozak yes, Russian perspectives, especially in contexts directly linked to the war are damaging and we here in this community should stray from them for as long as possible in order to have a constructive discussion regarding this.
However, that's not to say that the drama of Russians does not have any links with the drama of Ukrainians (even though it doesn't seem that severe). Every one of these 275.000+ ordinary Russian soldiers that are dead are directly caused by the irresponsible decisions of the Russian leadership. Every single one of the millions of Russians that were forced to leave the country are a direct consequence of the irresponsible Russian leadership. Every person that had to quit their jobs (perhaps a well paid one, in a multinational, well above the average) and adopt a fugitive life in order not to be drafted into the army suffers the direct consequences of the Russian leadership's decision. Every person that is fined, jailed or beaten by the Russian police suffers the direct consequences of the Russian leadership's decisions etc. - and I say Russian leadership instead of Putin because I think the whole chain of command in Russia is responsible for making our world an unsafer place like it is today. I hope you get my point.
Russia is not a place where you could have anti-war demonstrations of the size of the anti-Vietnam-war ones in the US a few decades ago. We all know what happens if you come to the street even with a white blank paper in central Moscow for example.
Even Ukraine understood this, that's why you have the Freedom of Russia battalion within the Ukrainian Army for example. But indeed, the chances of the current system being beaten from within are next to 0 rn. It is impossible to support anti-war activists inside of Russia pretty much and it seems there's nothing they can do to change that system - a system that does everything it can get them in or crush them. Perhaps supporting Russian expats or entities that are against the Russian governmental narative might help. I for instance have donated to @meduza_en for their wonderful coverage of Russian events (they have both an English and Russian edition as well). Perhaps these outlets can help these people see there is something else than what the government wants them to see - just like @rferl helped us in Romania before 1989.
Sorry if I'm being off topic anyway.
I am not sure posting pootin speeches qualifies as "dissident" lol
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