You wouldn’t think of a European community of being so insanely pro Russia, yet on every single post mentioning Russia, any negative comments about Russia or their government will get downvoted to hell, some people get banned. I would not be surprised if I am banned or downvoted for posting this. People who are not just blatantly spamming Kremlin propaganda, please say why you are so pro Russia, to someone confused.
Russia is no more a kleptocratic police state than any other. The reason your metaphor is “anime villain” is because your understanding is cartoonish. Russia is a real country with a long history and over 140 million people. It has a total all-in police budget of $47B. The USA has ~350M people and an all-in police budget of $237B.
Russia’s per capita incarceration rate is significantly lower than the US. Russia recidivism rate is significantly lower than the US.
Essentially on all metrics you could measure a police state, the US is worse than Russia.
But of course, people will argue, just because the US is worse doesn’t mean that we can ignore Russia’s problems. And we don’t. We just understand that in a contest between Russia, who primarily has conflicts at its borders, and the US who primarily has conflicts in the periphery of the world where it does immense harm, we support any and all back pressure against the US even if that means a corrupt and violent state like Russia wins that contest.
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I don’t think it’s you being salty. I’m sure you can find point by point differences for everything, because every country is individually quite different. It doesn’t do anything about the macro perspective. Domestic policy is nearly irrelevant to the larger geopolitical contest.
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Your condescension is noted.
I will note that Russia has not conquered any of the countries it has had border disputes with. And again, the number is pretty telling. From 1992 to today Russia has been involved in handful of conflicts over its borders and national security. In that same time the US has destroyed 14 countries around the world. It’s not even comparable.
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These things are true, but they lack context. This has nothing to do with deserving punishment. The US decided to threaten Russian national security through its activies inside Ukraine. Russia’s response was against Ukraine. Ukraine is suffering immensely. It could have ended a long time ago had the West pulled out all support and worked to negotiate a mutual security regime. Instead, the West decided to keep Ukraine fighting and forced it to abandon any attempts at negotiations. This is the result of Western proxy war.
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It takes a big person to admit when they’re wrong and an even bigger person to eat a fourth of a pie in one sitting.
The reason I brought up Marxism-Leninism earlier is because many of us are Marxist-Leninists or adjacent to Marxism-Leninism here. Russia factually is not conquering neighboring countries, and has no actual reason to do so. In the conflict between a nationalist country and an imperialist coalition, ie Russia vs. the West, harming the position of imperialism strengthens the position of the global south, and therefore the prospects of socialism move forward.
This isn’t really an “absolutist” position, nuance exists. Ideally, Russia and Ukraine both return to socialism. However, this does not appear to be an immediate prospect, we do not pick the conditions we live in, we must deal with the hands we are dealt the best we can.
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Millions die regularly due to the predation of the global south by the global north. Ideally Kiev surrenders, ending the war as soon as possible. At present, billions live under the oppression of the global north, the west owes reparations for centuries of colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism.
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Ukraine isn’t being “Thanos snapped out of existence,” at least not by Russia. Russia wants to annex the 4 oblasts that are already pro-Russia, the ones Kiev was committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing against. After the war, which should have ended had the west not interfered and propped it up for profit, Ukraine will face a demographic crisis but will still exist. In an ideal world, the Banderite coup in 2014 never would have happened, but the current phase of the decade-long war is a direct result of that coup.
The worst-case scenario for the world is a Russian loss, where the west gets to Balkanize Russia and dominate it financially like they did in the 90s. This would give western capital a fresh lease on life, extending the brutality of imperialism for longer. I cannot overstate just how bad the present brutality of imperialism and neocolonialism are. Further, this also sacrifices those in Donetsk and Luhansk to the Banderites in Kiev, who want them dead.