Russia loses 2,000 troops in highest death toll for a single day
British spies are taking “covert action” against Russia to help defeat Vladimir Putin in his effort to take Ukraine, the head of MI6 has said.
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2000 people who probably didn't want to be involved in this shit any more than the Ukrainians.
I’m so tired of hearing this, can we stop with the “poor Russians under the tsar” narrative?
When Ukrainians got pushed towards the russian empire by their aspiring dictator they did Euromaidan, they got shot at and bravely pushed on, and have been fighting for their freedom ever since. They get to complain about Putin, and they get my sympathy for their suffering.
Russians have completely given up their agency, a couple of arrests and beatdowns by the police were enough to pacify them. I don’t see any protests or rallies anymore, I don’t hear about any partisans. Those in favour of the war have no sympathy from me. Those who are against it but kept silent because they chose a 0.5% chance of getting shelled in Ukraine over a 100% chance of getting arrested have no sympathy from me either.
To the dead Russian who “didn’t want to be involved”: cry me a river, you had your chance to not be involved. You get what you chose. Good riddance.
I get the sentiment that the Russian people are responsible for their government. But repression in Russia goes far beyond "a couple of arrests and beatdowns" - they are openly killing people, torturing them, putting them in labor camps and throwing them behind bars for years or decades for very minor stuff.
I would guess most of them being shipped out also don't have many of the facts about the invasion, the reason for it, or how it's been going.
You are right, and that is part of the problem.
Yes, it’s not easy being a dissident in Russia and many chose the easy way out by leaving the country. No judgement there. But if you stayed and you kept quiet you are responsible for what is happening.
Let me be absolutely clear: Putin is allowed to be a dictator because people chose to be “uninterested in politics”. Those who chose to not get involved politically are not the result of the oppression but the cause. Ask anybody who knows anything about the Russian people.
And yes I know repression is hard. But as I was saying, when Ukrainians faced a similar problem they went to the street and rallied, staring at death in the face. They fought for freedom ten years ago and are still doing it. Russians did nothing of the sort.
As an Italian I have no problem admitting that all those who did not side with the partisans - my family included - were responsible for the atrocities that my country committed. I don’t see why I should hold Russians to a higher standard.
Putin is allowed to be a dictator because people chose to be “uninterested in politics”.
It could happen here too, oh, wait.
I have a lot to discuss there, yet I won't, as this topic may be easily driven into a pit when we consider too many things in that complex and maddening situation.
From the european pov it's needed to take out agency from individual russians and see only the state calling the shots. Because it is. And it really doesn't matter how many of them do believe the myth, how many are pushed by the guns to their backs, they still shoot and dig trenches.
There is no use of going deeper as long as this power structure persists. And the time for protests and opposition is long gone by that point. The only thing to make one's empathy matter and for russians to get a hold of their state is to first crush the cancer core of putinism. It's not someone other's responsibility to make their state right, yeah, but they can't do it themselves, and as it exists now it is a threat to others, so for many eliminating it'd be a guranantee of their own safety first and foremost. That's in their own interest, even if they'd want to put a 3m concrete wall around that cursed place after that.
Being a russian myself* I find it's heartwarming to see others empathising with my folks on some basic human level and that's alright, it's healthy, but it misleads them from wanting to stop this state from butchering another country. Let's see it as a monolithical structure instead because it acts as a one. For if russians can't have a saying and aren't even informed, that's only their state to be worth of targeting.
Deciding on who threw their sieg hail and who didn't can wait until this war finally ends.
As a proof, a phrase in c2 Russian: Я смотрел как её распидорашенное в мясо лицо собиралось по деталям роботом-хирургом. Он щедро лил биоклейстер на стыках тканей стараясь собрать эту головоломку, и работал тонко. Только я знал, что как бы тонко он ни работал с её ошмётками, оставшимися после выстрела, она непременно разобьёт первое зеркало в котором себя увидит. В нём она уже не увидит себя.
Well written. Spasiba.
Пожалуйста ✋
Unfortunately I am identifying more and more with the Russians. It’s becoming increasingly clear that most of my fellow citizens are not interested in the fact that we are slipping into autocracy/idiocracy, and it is also affecting my motivation to do something about it. Maybe in 20 years I will be so resigned to the situation that I allow them to send my son for slaughter.
Sorry, really depressed in the moment. Also, Slavs Ukraine for setting the best example possible at the moment.
I understand your feeling man. But if I may: don’t identify with the Russians, rather, learn from them.
When you are feeling discouraged, look at them. They are showing us what happens when you give up. Let their failure to be decent humans be your warning. Stay politically involved.
So when are you next personally using direct action to halt arms sales to Israel?
🙄
Leave it to the chickenhawks to make big, sweeping statements in support of a war they'll never have to fight themselves.
I don’t understand, were you talking about me there?
I do not support this war in the slightest. Russia should not have started it, it was an idiotic mistake to start it and it is an astonishingly stupid mistake to continue it. If I could snap my fingers and let the war be over I would do it, I’d give a lung for the war to be over.
That does not mean I want Ukraine to fold. I want a just and durable peace, I want the peace that Ukrainians want. Unfortunately, the only way to achieve that is to keep fighting - so while I do not support the war, I support Ukraine’s resistance. As long as they will want to fight they will have my support - moral, political and economic.
And on this very rare occasion where history gives us a war with a clear aggressor and a clear victim, I have no sympathy for the aggressor and its personnel. May they all die.
Hope I made my position clearer, “chickenhawk”.
All of the Russians in Ukraine are volunteers. They signed up for this and deserve to die horrible deaths. Putin has specifically limited conscript deployments to Russia proper to avoid public blowback, so the only time they saw any fighting was during the early days of the Kursk offensive.
"volunteers". Press gangs are real.
It is a national emergency and most front line fighters are not volunteers. Russians are not, either, but most are willing because they've been brainwashed into thinking Ukraine shouldn't exist.
According to Putin, it's not a national emergency or war. It's a "special military operation", which is why the conscripts haven't been deployed and are still sitting on Russian soil.