Relatives of the soldiers gathered to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, outside the Kremlin walls in the Alexander Garden. The demonstration marked 500 days since President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 ordered the “partial mobilisation” of up to 300,000 military reservists in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
The call-up prompted more than 260,000 men to flee the nation, with Moscow reportedly setting up drafting offices at borders to intercept fleeing reservists.
What a shithole country where you (+ hundred of thousands others) have to give your life because your autocracy leader is desperate for an idolized achievement before he dies.
Russia, formally knows as Muscovy, was culturally defined by the mongol horde for the long time of occupancy. When they left, Muscovy wanted to align itself more with the west and was envy of the more modern and more sophisticated culture of the Kievan Rus in todays Ukraine. For a century Muscovy applied itself with art and culture from that region and in the End even applied the Rus name to itself, calling itself Russia. Coming now back to Ukraine to say “Hey, we are Russia, and the novorossiya belongs to the Rus” is just psychopath behavior 101. It is like dressing and talking like your neighbor and then even take his name and one day go to his house and tell him, that it is his name on the doorbell, so the house plus the garden must be his.
If Russia would be a human being, it would need psychotherapy for the last 300 years (borrowed plumes) and the last 100 years (failure of communism) and the last 50 years (The horror of Afghanistan, sellout, …) and the last 20 years (Putin, Ryazan, Beslan, 2007 Protests). But because it is a country, they always psycho-misdiagnosed themself from the leaders point of view and what came out is a country, where nobody trust anyone, where nobody believes in anything, where no vision to a better world exists and where people keep their head down as - like in OP articles - people get arbitrary deported for the smallest show of voice.
If only Muscovy could find itself a leader for once that is not slaying away their citizens. A Democracy could implement such a leader, but democracy is “west”, “homosexual” and “weak”. The remaining Russian man inside the country are too insecure/uneducated to look right through this lie, as they want to look strong. Ever body with a brain already left, so they simmering in their own inbreed mindset of toughness and suffering — until they fail. Again.
Thinking about that, trust in some leader is one of the symptoms. That’s how history is taught there, and how it was. A cult of personality and writing Them letters if local administration treats you wrong.
Democracy is a power of many with a leader being less relevant and balanced by branches of their government. Overcentralization breeds corruption, unequality and rigidness. IIRC, only Khrushev and Yeltsin just retired, most of others sat on the throne up intil dying.
They were also the two leaders that came after Mikhail Gorbachevs Glasnost Politics of (besides other things) dismantling the personal cult that russians followed for centuries. The West developed with democracy a form of replaceable power figures, where the train can still run the same and you just switch the conductor. Russians love the personification of power in one person and cultishly follow him. Putin actively revived the Stalin image to revive that persona cult thinking in a leader that led them into the abyss the last centuries. Those who left, left behind a very dense group of singularity mindset of leadership. And they never questioned that. They never reworked that. They never came to a coherent narration about these times. They apply the asian concept of “never talking about weakness” as russia is the brackish gradient to asian society. They could have embraced that fact with creativity and ingenuity. But there is no ingenuity in russia today. If only they could reflect themself, embrace their heritage, become a vocal public republic with tendencies to arrive in a democracy in the future. But they are not on their way. They dismantle the connection to the outside internet, like they disconnect their citizens from the public discourse.
I hope one day former Russians, who found their second citizenchip somehwere else, can go back and be proud to work on the real “Novorossiya” in the Ural region, formerly known as Moscovya. Imagine getting spawn as a progressive Leadership figure in the current landstate of russia. Putin really did not played his cards in a winning matter given that spawn potential: Resourcefull, sprawling masses of Land ready to be developed to attract minds and hearts of people by giving them a above average share of economic gain with minimal corruption and massive innovative potential by attracting bright minds into the country. A pro-west powerhouse. A European Canada. But: Nyet.
One day it can work. Its a long way to go but we are not even wearing socks yet. Getting Russia into a working Democracy is like helping your drunk friend getting into his pants and jacket so he can go to work. Literally
To be fair every western nation needs psychotherapy for similiar reasons too. The pathology of supremacist believes is alive and well in the US, UK, France, Germany and many other countries, that refuse to learn from their history
That is true. Over time we also got our new untreated depressions as nations too. But here I said it. I stated that we have that and we could/should talk about. And act upon it. That is not possible in Russia, North-Korea and China and some other autocratic nations. I would be in jail or my post deleted. Renting a Podium with 5 speakers to talk about this topic in a public talk is impossible. Printing a book or documentation about the Events is not possible. A russian or a chinese citizen can come to europe and public a book named “Why democracy failed!”. I can not publish a book like that about china or todays russia on why their system failed. My point is: I would argue, that we in the west do activly have discourses about many things. Including history, the past, Society, Roles, Emancipation, Gender, Power, Rights, Social, Health, Religion, Massacres, Local Politics and National- and Foreign Politics and many more. We are not doing the best job to totally reflect every aspect of our doing, misdoing and unnoticed misdoing, but we are very vocal and leave people the right to write and document about many topics from the past and the present (without jail!) and allow also a demand for certain rights in the future to give society a trajectory on where it wants to develop into.
Russia does not.
I agree that the possibility to voice contrary opinions is lacking in those countries and that is a big difference to the West. Of course it is a vital necessity for democarcy, that people can voice different views and demand a new look at history.
I am deeply worried though, that in the western countries the pathologies are equally dangerous as they are more subversive and efficiently denied as pathologies, even in the face of contrary opinion. We see it in the casualness in which the US is toppling governments, or invading countries. We see it in the British crackdown on climate protests and similiar actions in other countries, like Germany. We see it in the prevalence of racism and antisemitism and the normality of denying human rights, like in Germanys far right deportation plans and the new deportation laws.
It is all to easy for democracies to develop and maintain pathologies as the system is easily considered immune to them. When and how gravely those pathologies express is often just a matter of fragile stability on the political and economic level, that can change quickly, as we saw with Trump, Johnson, Macron and all the other vile leaders the western nations have elected in the past few years.
That is why i think we shouldn’t focus on Russias actions in terms of pathologies. The pathologies play a role, but they are easy to create the image of the pathological others and the healthy us. This makes us all the more blind to when we (western nations) commit similiar acts.
Absolutely agree. But I would mention, that the climate crackdown in the UK would had created tensions while still inside the EU. People could call a EU instance to talk about these events and the disintegration of protest rights to ask for commissions and maybe even sanctions. But they are not anymore in the Union. It is an island in the Atlantic that next higher power is now the sky above them. People wanted the power (or were told by russia to “claim back your land”) and are now feeling the authoritarian changes that a EU can only comment on, but not act. And in Russia someone is delighted that this worked as fine as his work on the US.
My point is: If a big and strong country like russia is not distracted because it is working on its own topics and prosperity, but turning his whole attention on everyone other but his own people, it has a enormous scale to make others fail or at least stumble. If the guy in the Bike-Race decides that he has not to win the race by finishing first, but by throwing sticks in the wheel of the others, we have to acknowledge that our bruises are not because our bike is bad designed and unstable, but maybe that spokes are really weak compared to sticks.
None of those countries would support a genocidal land grab against their neighbors. I’m fact, all those countries are completely peaceful with all their neighbors, unlike Russia or the Kremlin’s allies in Iran, the CCP, Venezuela, North Korea, etc.
What a shithole country
Well that’s not very nice.
Russia, formally knows as Muscovy, was culturally defined by the mongol horde
Do you think Mongols are bad?
Muscovy wanted to align itself more with the west and was envy [I assume this is supposed to say envious] of the more modern and more sophisticated culture of the Kievan Rus in todays Ukraine
I guess they must be since “western” Kiev was more modern and sophisticated.
From your other comment:
They apply the asian concept of “never talking about weakness” as russia is the brackish gradient to asian society.
Yeah well your racism is showing. “Brackish gradient to asian society”??? Like do you come up with this yourself or is there some race theorist you’re reading? Is it called Pop Psychology for the Sophisticated Bigot by Dr. A. Whitey?
The Mongolian horde were absolute psychopaths. They murdered and raped their way across an entire continent, truly disgusting human beings.
They protested against mobilization.
They were immobilized.
And now they complain???
