Putin, czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival | Hacker News Reader

Putin, czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival

washingtonpost.com

43 pointsBalgair55 comments

> with no empire

I don’t know about that, Russia still looks like a full-blown empire (like it has invariably been for the last 300 years).

The worst part is that ethic minorities there look up to Russians as their overlords, they are even more brainwashed as being second class citizens than they were during Soviet times.

Do you have some sources on this? I would be fascinated to read more about it.

Read some about Kadyrov and his henchmen, also called Kadyrovites. Quite interesting and terrifying from the perspective of a somewhat healthy democracy.

Thank you!

My sources are my own, I have met few different ethnic minorities from there and the level of brainwashing they been trough in public schools and local tv is astounding. Contrast that to how China treats it minorities (except Uyghurs) and it's a paradise in comparison.

Even Tatars one of the biggest groups don't learn their own language in schools enough to preserve it.

- The head of Russia’s republic of Tatarstan will lose the title of “president”:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/12/23/russias-tatarstan-...

Yes, especially Chechens

Interesting article but I'm not sure it really makes the point the headline says. Maybe I don't understand the dynamics involved. The article claims Putin has used the war to strengthen his own position, and impose a surveillance state on Russia. Once you've done that your position is unassailable. The unnamed sources quoted all appear to be rivals or others in a position to take control. Not sure if their testimony is true.

Your comment reminds me of Ahmed Chalabi who the Washington establishment was so keen on propping up as having keen insight into what the people of Iraq were really thinking. Turns out he had keen insight into his ambitions and what Washington wanted to hear. That was a completely different thing that what the people of Iraq really thought.

I’m pretty disappointed in the reporting on this war. Something doesn’t quite add up, so I can’t shake the feeling that somebody is lying to me, so I don’t follow it and remain ignorant.

I know exactly what you mean. I can't put my finger on it, but it feels a bit "always been at war with Eurasia".

A good insight into putlers precarious position from successfully brainwashed people living in ru:

Disconnection | A film by Andrey Loshak (Разрыв связи | Фильм Андрея Лошака) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qmQs2LbnaE [english subs]

>But since the war started your support of Putin only grew, right?

>>No, I’m still unhappy with him, with his rule. The number of oligarchs grew tremendously, right? Money keeps going somewhere abroad. So now they’ve been arrested there, and we’re happy. Thank God, we don’t get their money but neither will they. We became malicious. When they could’ve developed the country in all these years, right? 20 years they could’ve made a piece of cake out of the country. First 10 years we admired him. He’s giving interviews, we rush to listen, we’re all ears. But these last years we didn’t even want to listen anymore. We think, here we go, he’s going to tell bulls**t again, lie again.

>>Of course, people are unhappy, but the country is in danger, it’s not about thriving, it’s about surviving. We’re gonna support him so that he wins. But we can’t back out anymore, I think, they’ll peck us to death right away.

>We have to fight till victory?

>>Yes, sure.

They'd be loyal to whoever is tsar. Russia is a profoundly authoritarian paranoid country. Hierarchy is more important than the individuals who make it up. Removing Putin would mix things up for a while, and rearrange some of the players while removing others. But the social dynamics are unlikely to be transformed.

Kamil Galeev on Twitter has said some interesting things about this.

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani

Putin needs to remain in power as long as possible, because there is no exit other than death or jail.

Ukraine was a gamble. It hasn’t gone the way he had hoped, but he can’t pull out of the war. Pulling out would show weakness. And his political enemies would jump on the opportunity. He doesn’t even need to win. As long as the war is ongoing his situation remains perilous, but stable. Putin only loses if he decides to end the war. Ukraine can’t actively take the fight to Russia. They don’t have the manpower for that.

Many people have the wet dream of Navalny replacing Putin. First, this is not happening, second, Putin is one of the most liberal feasible czars of Russia! Most other alternatives are worse and Navalny is more nationalistic than Putin. Putin is a liberal, he keeps calling the West "partners" and he didn't want this war - in fact, most of the criticism of him is that he didn't start this earlier, not that he started the war!

Headlines like this promote narratives, not facts.

A narrative isn’t true until the story is finished. We have no idea today if Putin‘s survival depends on victory, but it’s a great story.

Russophobia is a fatal mental disease!

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