alexejb

Anne Applebaum is a "historian". There, I fixed it for you.

The tropes about Putin in my sarcastic post above are all from western media or were said by high ranking Western officials at some point in time. The cloned Putin / Putin doubles thing was claimed by Budanov himself as far as I can remember. And Kiev never lies, does it?

I get it.

Like a great statesman once said: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

> Zero karma Yep, that is the high price one must pay for dissenting opinions in a discourse where nuance and discussion no longer exist.

absolutelly – I didn't mean to say that other literary traditions don't have their valid perspective on the same issues. my best guess is that russian culture is on the surface understandable / relatable from a western readers point of view but differs in nuances, which makes it "exotic" but not unrelatable. I don't think that this comes at the expense of the others – you're free to read chinese classics after all, but I assume that the threshold of "getting it" will be much higher since most people in the west are not accustomed to the radical different culture which it is based upon.

those books are considered as classics because they deal with different aspects of the human condition which haven't changed significantly. they also give a different and valid intepretation / perspective on these "eternal topics", which are unique and discernible enough from their counterparts from other countries and cultures.

> effectively enslaved by invading russian forces for decades to serve as nuclear battlefield with the west

seems like western germany, which was also considered to be a nuclear battlefield with the warsaw pact, but the marketing was nicer, I suppose.

cynical take: propaganda value

I don't think that this was the intention of the original blog post. It's about _digital_ migration for tech savvy folks who want to decouple from us-based tech monopolists.

Assuming your assessment is correct, how do you think this will affect the digital sector?

do you even read books or just headlines, wiki articles and nafo memes, 'bro'?

don't know man - somehow he doesn't waste time on dead hn posts in order to convince other people of nafo trash. instead he's doing research, publishes peer reviewed articles and writes books about whats happening in his home country. perhaps you and libertine should do the same instead of posting bbc clips and wikipedia articles.

if you're so inclined, you can just hop his citations. yes, sometimes he cites his own papers but you can follow the path until you'll find the original source. his sources are for the most part stenographs, reputable news articles, witness interviews and for the maidan massacre he analyzed all the footage from news reels and cctvs he and his colleagues could find.

and by the way: he's Ukrainian, lives in a nato country (Canada) and works at a legit university. was it you or libertine who asked me why I think what I think, 'despite' living in Germany - here's another specimen for you.

reality hits hard, boys.

edit: it was mopsi whos mind was blown. fitting name for a shiba inu;)

> The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope

Here you go, chapter 2.4: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396694016_The_Russi...

coups, nazis, us-meddling...

> All of us who lived in the USSR [...]

Interesting where are you from and how old are you?

> The narratives about coups, Kyiv neo-nazis etc are all obvious cope, and quite pathetic as such.

The narratives about the benevolent West reaching out it's hand to help and framing every perspective which contradicts yours as "victimhood" (your post history) is also quite pathetic.

> Nobody's forcing you to hold these views in Germany, so why do you hold them?

Free will? My own opinion? Gut feeling? Literature? Culture? Personal history and experiences? Nobody is forcing you to spew russophobia, insults and outright NAFO propaganda but here you are.

> So once again, the narrative of Russia having no agency...the government, the People, the elites, are all reactive without choice?

No, that's not the narrative. It's you assumption.

> How's that different or worse from the current regime?

The current regime made sure that the oligarchic caste doesn't meddle in politics and applied measures that critical resources, money and industries stay within russian borders and don't get off shored. The nineties were wild in that regard. Ukraine never really managed to get oligarchs under control. Look at Poroshenko, Kolomoyski, Mindich and the people around Ze and his party.

> how many Russians died in the wars of the 80s and 90

By supporting radical islamists, I mean "freedom fighters", in Afghanistan the US made sure to bleed out the soviets - good job. It backfired a few years down the road for them. The first Chechen war began when a bunch of radical islamists started to harass / massacre the russian population in Grozny. Bad decisions, a decimated and demoralized army didn't help to win a war which was also side tracked by arms deals to the chechens by some government officials and yet again oligarchs. It counts as a 'forgotten war' in Russia. Read up on what happened during the time when Chechnya was 'independent' and why it led to the Second Chechen war. Exercise for the reader ;)

> If you don't see neighboring countries suffering, it's because you either don't care or you refuse to look.

Sure man, but it's not Russias fault, is it?

> Yeah, and Ukraine surrendered its nukes, and look at what's happening.

It weren't 'their' nukes. Those were Russian nukes stationed there and the ukrainian state didn't have the means or the expertise to maintain the arsenal anyway.

> They have one of the strongest national identities in Europe

Do you mean the partying people in Kiev, the far right nationalists or the poor bastards getting dragged from the streets to fight in the mud for strips of land which were considered full of 'terrorists' from 2014 on. Or do you mean the ethnic russian population in the eastern part which was bombed constantly during the so called ATO? UA is a multiethnic country, it was held together by a constitution which guaranteed the different groups freedoms of language and culture. This constitution was gradually dismantled after the 2014 coup. Don't be fooled by nafo propaganda.

> remember the world witnessed the Wagner coup

Where's the connection between the mutiny of a war lord and national identity?

> They have one of the strongest and most competent armies in the world.

So does Russia. It comes with the fact that both armies are fighting a peer opponent. I don't think that any army right now, besides UA and RF, has this kind of expertise in modern warfare. (Abducting presidents from third world countries and bombing civilians in the middle east for 20 years has no particular training effect, I suppose.)

> They will join the European Union and NATO

I highly doubt it.

I'm constantly in awe by the power of western propaganda, the bigotry and lack of knowledge and respect from people who consider themselves and their culture as the pinnacle of human civilisation. Speaking as a half Russian, half Ukrainian living in central europe, btw.

EDIT: just skimmed through your comment history, fuck me for wasting my time replying to you. even after some really good explanations and hints by other, capable people, you haven't learned a thing during the last months. Don't bother replying.

or like all the russian drone sightings at european airports last year. the russians are everywhere, everywhere!!1

ah yes, the famous "операция скрепка" or was it "paperclip"?

Which ones have you read already? I just want to know where to pick you up.

those neighbouring countries had the opportunity to develop themselves. they all wanted independence and sometimes started great efforts to promote russophobia in order to emancipate themselves (the baltics are champions in this regard). but as soon as everything went north they immediately started to blame the russians for their own inept politicians and choices. and yes, I know that there were good business relationships between rf and ua. so well indeed that even gas, stolen in transit to europe, was subsidised by russia ;)

just read some books instead of parroting highly skewed and biased wikipedia articles like in your other post. 'wise o wise'

...and what has Russia to do with it? The Baltics wanted to be independent, they became independent and started getting rid of their industries in order to focus on service economy and EU integration.

All the propaganda I've heard tells me that they are prosperous rich countries now.../s

You should look into "shock therapy" and how western powers advised the Russian government at the time. Also how oligarchs came to power from the late 80s to the late 90s. Russia experienced unhinged free market reforms applied by incompetent politicians and opportunists who managed to sell out the accumulated wealth of the former RSFSR in just a few years. I don't see how neighboring countries are "suffering along" – e.g. Ukraine got all its debts forgiven and inherited specialized industries which were subsidized by Russia during soviet times. They had 25 years to make something out of it and did basically nothing.

We'll see how the European Union will "grow" in the next years...

then just read some history books from different perspectives and make you own conclusions. it's rather baffling to see how many tech people on hn are die hard believers of old clichés and western war propaganda.

are move operations for trees implemented now?

I think western propaganda rather promotes the use of "orcs" or skewed history in the shape of "mongols" towards russians.

it's the other way around - ukrainians are depicted as pigs. Сало уронили - героям сала!

As a Russian living in Germany, I perceive that many of the notions surrounding Russia were never truly embraced by the general public. A significant number of people hold preconceived negative opinions and some harbor personal grievances against Russians and Russian culture.

The soft power that Russia may have once wielded in the Western mind was fragile and easily dismantled. It became an easy target for Western propaganda. Just days before the invasion, I explained to a colleague that if it were to happen, the media would likely present a simplistic narrative of the conflict, creating a classic good-versus-bad dichotomy. This would undoubtedly lead to the resurrection of old clichés and propaganda that the British, French, Germans, and more recently, the Americans have historically crafted about Russia.

KOreader is quite nice after some setup.

South america took fugitive nazis. The US didn't really denacify Western Germany and let a lot of the old cadre become leading actors in the post war politics and military of W-Germany. The list could go on and on.

All animals are equal but some are more equal.