Liberation without victory: “Russians don’t just need access to facts; they need help understanding their own history, what they have done to their neighbors […] they are afraid to admit guilt […] they have to learn to accept the truth”

6 comments

  1. Speaking to people who side with RF. They are of the opinion that if you were part of the Russian Empire, you only exist now thanks to Russia so you have no right to “sell out” to the West. “Don’t forget who gave you independence.”, “I give, I take.” etc

  3. I’m not sure how helpful are these kind of articles. You’re basically telling the Western audience who is already receptive to anti-Russian messages what they wanted to hear, the less familiar they are with Russia the better.

    While at the same time you’re pushing away the small and overwhelmingly young Russian audience who consumes Western sources by repeating to them messages that can be condensed to “you’re a piece of shit” with how personal and direct the tone can be.

    If you genuinely believe this war can be stopped or won by shifting opinions within Russia don’t radicalize the apathetic Russian youth who just wanted to live their lives, since they’re the key, silent demographic running this war machine. My 2¢

  4. Huh, reminds me of another country that acts as if they’re champions of freedom. And whose actions have destroyed the world a lot more than Russia has.

    (i’m not pro-russia, but downvote anyway)

  5. During the Soviet occupation of Ukraine (USSR), 6 million Ukrainians starved to death in famine. Ukraine was known as the bread basket of Europe because it is so fertile. The Soviets moved grain out of Ukraine and into the cities while people starved. Ukrainians will not submit to Russian occupation quite rightly.

  6. It might sound like an oversimplification but actually a lot of current problems in Russia are caused by soviet mentality, not Russian Empire or earlier periods. There aren’t many people who support Putin. But the overwhelming majority of those who support Putin also support soviets. Not all of them want USSR back but they all think that dissolution of USSR was one of the world’s biggest tragedies and that it was caused by USA. They want a “strong leader” and consider masses to be too stupid to make decisions on government level, hence they also dislike the concept of democracy.

    I think this was because Yeltsin didn’t do enough to erase communists which allowed them to reappear in a new form. He didn’t organise mass arests or at least lustrations of previous members of USSR’s communist party, he didn’t even ban communist ideology as he should have. Even Lenin’s body is still in Kremlin when it should have been burned to ashes years ago. And in the end that’s what we got – a mix of nationalism fueled by nostalgia for communist USSR.

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