They disliked Russia because the Russians were fellow Slavs who left home, fought off the Poles, the Swedes, the Mongols, breached the Urals and settled in the Far East, went to Alaska and all the way to California. They are the brothers who left home and even went to space. They hate the Russians in a family kind of way because Ukraine has been eclipsed. And yes, Russia eventually absorbed Ukraine by the pleadings of Ukraine's own elites who needed protection from the Poles and Habsburgs. Most of Ukraine's territory today was gifted to it by Soviet era leaders in order to make being part of the USSR more palatable. Problem was, these areas were lived on primarily by ethnic Russians in towns founded by Russian monarchs. This led to an explosion of hatred and resentment post 1991 because these people didn't want to be part of Ukraine. That's why this war is happening: a Russian friendly government elected in Ukraine was overthrown by nationalists in 2014 who have a strict view of what Ukrainian society should be and went about engaging in an anti-Russian pogrom.
The area has been contested for centuries. Some Slavs don't want Russian suzerainty. I doubt it has anything to do with jealously of the accomplishments of Russians.
If that were true than why is Ukraine trying to alter history books editing out Russian accomplishments? Why are ethnic Russians born in Ukraine suddenly "Ukrainian" in Western museums? Why is Ukraine altering maps to pretend that some ancient Ukrainian state existed in Russia's place? It's not myth-making to confirm historical reality: Yuri Gagarin was Russian, Fort Ross California was settled by Russia, Vladivostok isn't a myth, it was founded by Russia, and Russians won World War 2 while much of Ukraine set it out or actively collaborated with the Third Reich. Of the USSR's 26 million deaths in the war well more than 20 million were ethnic Russians.
Having "won" WW2 with a great deal of material support from the US, the Russians expanded their empire into Eastern and Central Europe. I doubt there are any Poles today who feel any great gratitude to the Russians. Having suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and Stalin there is little desire for Russian suzerainty in Eastern or Central Europe.
If Russian achievements are being removed from Ukrainian text books that is hardly just. Russian civilization contributed significantly to European art, music, literature, and science. Certainly the Wehrmacht was broken on the Eastern Front. Russia has much to be proud of. That said, maintaining its empire and colonies is no longer feasible. At this stage, Russia needs to consider whether it is a part of Europe or a vassal of China.
In an age of nuclear weapons no nation is going to invade Russia (or China) in the manner of Operation Barbarossa.
You should research WW2 more. Lend Lease provided the USSR with some 11% of the war material used to prosecute the war. The USSR produced some 89% of all material used for the war effort and nearly 100% of items for civil use. What the USSR did use from the West was paid for in full, the last check being paid by the Russian Federation, with interest, in 2006. Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2 victory where Russians did the bulk of the fighting and dying but Western histories pretend that the War in the East was a sideshow, ignoring the fact that more than 80% of German resources were deployed in that direction, including manpower. Russian expansion into Central and Eastern Europe post war was understandable when viewed from the lens of alliance politics; create a system out of those states or watch distant enemies come and do the same, turning them into hostile bastions close to your borders. We have watched this play out since 1991 and events have justified Stalin's fears, certainly.
I agree about some degree of protection for nuclear states, but it's the USA government who doesn't. It is they who withdrew from the ABM Treaty and who publically declared the principles of "Prompt Global Strike" and "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia's strategic defense buildup since 2005 is a reaction to these stated programs, including hundreds of new Russian ICBM's and SLBM's designed to evade missile defenses. One of the ways Russia paid for this was to downsize the Army. The USA participation in the 2014 coup, the fueling of nationalist elements in the Ukrainian state and security forces can be seen quite rightly as an American effort to go around Russia's strategic arsenal and attack Russia using a large proxy force, fueled by hate.
Everybody knows that it was the American G.I. who won the war, landing on the Normandy beaches, breaking out from hedgerow country and into northern France, liberating Paris, then thrusting into the heart of Germany itself, singlehandedly destroying the Wehrmacht, and finally laying siege to and conquering Berlin, all the while Russian krasnoarmiich were dancing the Malinda, guzzling vodka, and stuffing their faces with syrniki and kasha...
But seriously, it's more than a bit hyperbolic to state that "Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2." The Soviet Union's outsized contribution to fending off the Nazi's and eventually whacking Hitler is well understood by those who understand such things and misunderstood by those who don't much care to understand most things.
After the war no doubt there was a bit of unattractive American chauvinism that surrounded and exaggerated the American war effort. But that was to be expected by a victorious nation that wanted to pat itself on the back, relax, and watch movies that confirmed their recent valor and bravery in the fight against fascism.
American film studios and directors understandably focused almost exclusively on the American experience in the war, and no doubt were responsible for the average American's (at the time) tunnel vision and ignorance.
But a question I'm certain that many film directors have asked since the war is: how do you film the Battle of Kursk?
Here in Canada we know the American invasion of Mexico was an act of selflessness and altruism.
Texas needed Slavery returned after Mexico freed its slaves in 1829. Its Catholics also needed to understand they were second and third class citizens and needed to serve the master race.
In case you need clarification this is satire from an old Jewish Social democrat suffering from senility dementia and autism who loves writing jokes to himself because he is 75 and blind in one eye and limited in his mobility.
I ENJOY ROLLING ON THE FLOOR AND LAUGHING WITH TEARS IN MY EYES. ЁЯдг
The people's of America (we're getting a taste now), Russia and China have all been victim to the distorted and manipulated application of power by those capturing and weaponizing government and ideology as a means of acquiring personal wealth and power. But, the realpolitik has always been the poor guy bleeding out in a trench. Tracking the collapse of nation's, human suffering, mayhem, lies and tragedy always leads to the international financier who holds no allegiance to anything but himself. And who, always survives war and conflict in style. As Bob Dylan observed:"the executioner's face is always well hidden".
Criminal international finance holds the legitimate struggle for human dignity and progress and the voice of the people's laboring for it in complete contempt. The two competing "ism's" today, capitalism and communism resemble two thug's bitch slapping a poor man senseless because his pockets are empty of the money they stole from him the day before. This is a new age and it demand's a new consciousness. Fortunately for American's, the core principal's of human dignity, liberty and freedom were set down by our founder's two centuries ago. With, the proviso that it was ours: "If we could keep it."
Nothing is all one way or another. One problem, which we are fighting here, is the total capture and intentional distortion of the American national dialogue by corrupt international finance. Again, the recent Taibbi/Shellenberger DNC congressional farce makes it clear. We landed a blow that both hurt and scared the perp's and the lie they represent. Truth is a powerful light and that isn't hyperbole.
This is a NEW AGE. Everything we are fighting is a representation of the retro graft/grift/grab pathology that defined the 20th Century. The perp's are so desperate the A-Bomb is back on the table. (American's should note the Dutch farmer's who are taking back their country and considering giving boot to the Davos crowd and the EU.) It's time to shake off the numbing effect's of the psyop. And, it's time for personal and national renewal.
Like is like Billiard's. It's often how you hold the stick and approach the table.
The life expectancy of ethnic Russian men is decreasing.
Numbers are always difficult to verify; however, some estimate that 1+ million ethnic Russians have left Russia and moved into Europe since the outbreak of this war. Even if it is 100s of thousands that is still a sizable number.
It seems a matter of perspective and projection. Hostile nations at the end of WW2?
Nazism was destroyed.
Japanese militarism was destroyed.
What threat was there to the Russian people?
Doubtless there were individuals within the Allies who would have invaded Russia but I sincerely doubt that such an event would have occurred. With Russia's successful detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949, any opening for invasion from the West closed completely.
Politics being what it is (always about who controls the river of wealth), the West may be a threat to Russia's elite; however, it is not military.
As far as attacking Russia, you may consider the expansion of NATO as an attack; however, it takes time to overcome the mistrust resulting from centuries of conflict. Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has resulted in two traditionally very neutral nations (Sweden and Finland) seeking NATO membership. As with the former Warsaw Pact states, their elites see Russia as a threat.
All states that have adopted modern NeoLiberal economic models have seen rapid demographic declines as societies disintegrate. Russia's demography is actually healthy, compared to many others. Russian fertility is at 1.55. Taiwan and South Korea's are below 1.0. Yep. At this rate S.K. will have a smaller population than North Korea by 2065. Singapore the same and even the PRC demography is now 1.1. In the West it's all in the lower 1's, the U.S. census bureau announcing that the USA has been below replacement rate since 2007. Even Mexico is at 1.6. Nothing is happening to Russia that isn't happening elsewhere, faster and deeper. At least in Russia there is a large Orthodox establishment fighting (with governmental support) for a return to family and community values and economics.
The population of Russians that left the country in 2022 did amount to between half a million and a million, true. But 5 million former ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine voted with their feet and at the ballot box to leave Ukraine and join Russia. So Russia is 4 million to the positive side then. Except a full quarter million Russians returned to Russia so far in 2023. The primary reason given? It was way too expensive to live in the West and secondarily they had encountered way too much Russophobia to feal safe. It's Ukraine that one should worry about. The country had a population of 51 million in 1991. By 2022 it had declined to 42 million. Last year some 8 million Ukrainians fled to the West and five million departed for Russia. Ukraine's population has now declined to some 28 million, and its economy has contracted by close to 40%. Ukraine's demography in terms of fertility is way lower than Russia's. Want to see a country study in self-destruction? Look no further than Ukraine.
Everything you say matches well with what I've found in trying to understand the situation on my own. I think you'll find this interview with Scott Ritter worth hearing. He just got back from a long tour of Russia.
1. The economy is in better shape than the economies in the West, and it is improving.
2. Much of this is THANKS to Western sanctions!! (BTW, this was predicted more than a year ago by several people. The sanctions forced economic reform that Putin badly wanted, but couldn't enact because of internal politics.)
3. The people who fled were exactly the people Putin wanted gone! It's almost comical -- he just showed them the door.
That's patently false. The Russian economy has been shrinking since the start of the war and continues to shrink precipitously. And Scott Ritter is quite obviously not only a tool's tool, but a Russian tool to boot.
"We conclude that when applied to a large, resource-rich, technically proficient economy, after a period of shock and adjustments, sanctions are isomorphic to a strict policy of trade protection, industrial policy, and capital controls. ***These are policies that the Russian government could not plausibly have implemented, even in 2022, on its own initiative.***"
Good luck with those ad hominems -- I'm sure they work wonders for getting at the truth. I suspect you didn't even bother to listen to what Ritter had to say.
I would hardly consider, Japan, South Korea, or many of the European nations as embracing American "neoliberal" economic policies. They tend to pursue their own self-interests.
China is not interested in taking in Russia as a vassal state. To China, Russia is little more than a not-very-exotic middle eastern bazaar, where they go to buy, with a little haggling, a few things they want and need: oil, gas, coal, minerals, maybe some wheat and barley. Hard to conceive of a bigger pain-in-the ass for a nation than having to wet-nurse Russia as a vassal state.
Russia has a great deal that China needs in the way of natural resources and land. It was a vassal state of China during the time of the Mongols. If China proclaims that the US wants China as a "vassal state", it is no less ridiculous that China would manage Russia as one.
Frankly having either Russia or China as a "vassal" would be a horrible situation.
We have been liking and disliking each other for over a thousand years, that included fighting, eating, celebrating, marrying and having kids together.
Ever meet a survivor of the Holodomor? I have met lots.
The irony being that the most ardent promoters of russophobia in Ukraine are the Galicians. Galicia was under Polish control during the 1930s, where there was no Holodomor. The Ukrainian nationalists of the time knew, but paid little significance, since, like the fascists that they were, they were all about The Nation whilst being indifferent to the fate of the people living in it.
In fact, the areas of Ukraine that suffered the most were some of the least Ukrainianized.
But, since we're talking about historical events here, why are the people Iraq or Vietnam not entitled to hate the US?
Some of them certainly do. But in my experiences long after the war in Viet Nam, many in the south appreciated the real sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans. Up north, not so much...
I can only report my experiences. I didn't meet every person in the country. I was surprised by it though. You may also recall the Boat People. Those people had to leave after the war because they would receive zero government services. They were ostracized and left to die for being on the losing side. War is not recommended.
It was more than being on the losing side. They betrayed their own country to side with an invader that killed ?3 million Vietnamese, dropped more bombs on them than were dropped in all of WWII, rained illegal chemical weapons on them, caused epidemic congenital malformations, landmined their farms, defoliated their jungles, carpet bombed their neighbours, whored their women, and ruined their society and if Goldwater and ?Hillary Clinton had had their way, they would have nuked the peasants. The thousands of Amrtican war criminals who ran and executed these atrocities have never done hard time, not even Calley who mowed down an entire village of women, children and old people.
Wash your mouth out with soap and go visit the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
тАЬbetrayed their own countryтАЭ is a stretch, as it had been a united country as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for only 20 days before the French seized back control in late 1945. After that, people had differing views on the direction the country should take, and their actions reflected that.
Denying it is a stretch. The South was an active collaborator in the atrocities mentioned. There is civil war on one hand and then there are the abject depths of depravity plumbed by American forces in Nam, and just about anywhere they are, when no one is looking.
War museums are usually pretty gruesome. The above sounds like warfare to me. Which is why it should be avoided. I also rode by the Hanoi Hilton while I was pedaling around Hanoi. Is that where they put the musuem?
How would I know? Because that was the Viet Cong line in 1975. I'm making no effort to defend anything or anybody. Discussing the war with a Viet Cong guerilla on a street corner in Ho Chi Minh City in 1975, I imagine the content of his or her conversation would have been quite similar to your diatribe.
I will say one thing, though. I believe that was the first time I've heard an American (assuming you're American) go off on the South Vietnamese in that manner. That was interesting. It was a civil war, after all, between one people with two differing political viewpoints on how to govern a country. They're messy affairs. We just happened to wander into the neighborhood and turned a bad dream into an unholy nightmare.
Singling out the South Vietnamese for the carnage that took place seems quixotic and misguided at best. Now, as for the American-induced carnage that followed...and the North Vietnamese weren't exactly sticking flowers into the barrels of guns and conducting sit-ins.
That seems a benign and generous take (humbuggery?) on the US thuggery in Nam, if you donтАЩt mind me saying. The crackpot DominoтАЩs pizza theory on which the half-crazed invasion was based, did not sit well with my generation and I marched Vs the invasion in both NYC and Toronto. America learned little and Iraq became Nam redux.
There has been no invader in modern history that has behaved as badly as the US in Nam and with total impunity. Milosevic was surely a comparator.. So I was not тАЬsingling outтАЭ the South, who were more than complicit, having been fully aware of the atrocities and they participated in them with gusto.
Uh, my Ukrainian grandparents, from the Sumy area, could personally attest to the Holodomor NOT being a тАЬWesternтАЭ invention. The commissars and cannibals were not media inventions. But thanks for your input in this thread Mr. Duranty, always good to see The NY Times maintaining itтАЩs high standardsтАж..
I donтАЩt know what kind of twisted rabbit hole you are trying to shove your head down. I can sleep at night just fine with whatever happened with my relatives in WWII, and not provide moral cover for a piece of shit like Putin and his cronies in the 21st century. If being a propaganda bot for his agenda floats your boat, go for it, you are one deluded individual on the interwebz.
One has to wonder why someone would fight against Russia. Expecially after centuries of enduring war. There is a reason the USSR was so big. Because the Russian empire conquered many people.
No it didn't. The West conquered many people. All over the world. Russia settled in lands all across Siberia and even the Pacific Northwest of North America and never once herded anyone into an Indian reservation. Russians founded communities without trying to conquer every tribe they encountered. Russia has a history of being invaded but has very little history as an invader. You are switching around who did what to whom. Africans say over and over that Russians were the first Northerners to treat them as people.
I have read about that. And Russians did battle Native Siberian tribes too. The expansion outward nearly always leads to conflicts. But in the pantheon of European expansion and conflict with the "other" Russians acted the least atrocious among all. Russians generally fought defensive engagements outside their Forts which grew in Russian cities and Russians declined broadly at assaulting native communities. And even today, there are no Siberian Indian Reservations. Native Siberians are Russian Federation Citizens and live in cities in their own communities. Russia's defense minister is himself a member of one of these minorities, a fact that has subjected him to hate filled comments in Ukrainian Telegram channels and militia videos. And Russia's exploitation of native labor was bad but it wasn't slavery and exacted far less economic price or blood than the British-American slave trade, slavery in America, or the brutal costs of the Raj in India. You are trying to make Russians into the American West or the British Empire and that's untruthful to a huge degree. It might not have been fair or even pretty but Russians East of the Urals were saints compared to European-American standards of conduct.
The Russians very nearly arrived at the 20th century while effectively still occupying the 17th century. Serfdom was only abandoned in 1861.
Russia was little more than a late medieval feudal society while the West was busy creating new modes of government administration based on egalitarian principles, initiating the modern system of alliances and treaties among nation-states, jump-starting and spearheading the Industrial Revolution, and incrementally engineering an economic system that produced historically unprecedented wealth while dramatically raising living conditions for millions.
The inhabitants of the Russian steppe were closer in outlook to Genghis Khan than Abraham Lincoln. In effect, the whole of Russia was incapable of making mischief on an international scale even if they had the inclination to do so. They were, however, quite adept at beating back other nations' large and substantially more sophisticated armies, as Napoleon learned and Hitler later would.
On the other hand, War and Peace was a hell of lot more readable than Moby Dick or Middlemarch.
Sure. There's a lot there to dislike, including Russian Fur Companies forcing Inuit to hunt for them with little compensation, and even some battles when natives attacked Russian settlements but never once did Russians massacre anyone or conquer their villages. In all the time Russians spent on Hawaii they never overthrew the Queen and annexed the islands, as the Americans did in the 1890's. Reading List:
Journal of Early Modern History: "Political Claims, an Extensible Name, and a 'Divine Mission': Ideology of Russian Expansion in Siberia"
"The Russian Fur Trade 1550-1700" by Raymond Henry Fisher"
Andrei Grinev Val'terovic translated by Richard Bland "Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development 1741-1799. University of Nebraska Press.
Thanks. Appears I don't know much! I'm trying to accept that there's a lot to know. And yet, Magritte: "We think that if life is seen in a tragic light it is seen more clearly, and that we are then in touch with the mystery of existence. We even believe that we can reach objectivity thanks to this revelation. The greater the terror, the greater the objectivity. This notion is the result of philosophies (materialist or idealist), that claim that the real world is knowable, that matter is of the same essence as mind, since the perfect mind would no longer be distinct from the matter it explains and would thus deny it." I've been trying to absorb information for 71 years. ЁЯд╖ЁЯП╗тАНтЩАя╕П Maybe I'm missing the bigger point. Thanks for the references!
MissAnneThrope for what itтАЩs worth I live in PNW. Have engaged in conversation with elder Russians while walking around an Orthodox Russian cemetery. Also agree with RickyтАЩs other comments. Hard for me to understand why Americans get so enmeshed with the slaughter of peoples in other countries while тАЬ not rememberingтАЭ the past & yes even present atrocities done to ( outdated label btw) Native Americans.
It appears we hold a similar world view. No people - no nation, no empire - is exempt from committing atrocities against others, however they be sorted and named. I'm not excusing any of it. I'd like to think maybe - maybe - we can do better. We already know that individuals are able to overcome prejudices and long-held animosity when working towards a common goal. In this perilous time for humans, it seems that's a reasonable way to proceed. (Y'all can rain on me for being foolish. Hope remains a smoldering ember in my heart for my grandchildren and all living beings.)
I think you will be waiting a long time, then. The history of Russian expansion from the time of Peter the Great until the collapse of the Soviet Union is well known. Russia conquered Finland and the Baltic States, took its chunk of Poland (and suppressed several revolts in the 19th century), grabbed parts of the Ottoman Empire (including the Caucasus and up to Crimea) among other things. The sparsely populated Siberia could not resist Russian military advances. ThereтАЩs a reason that today the bulk of PutinтАЩs conscripts for his Ukraine war came from the Russian hinterlands and not Russia proper. ItтАЩs suggestive of how Russians value their non-Russian fellow citizens.
As to the views of Africans, it was more a consequence of Russian тАЬanti-colonialismтАЭ which itself was a policy directed more at weakening the West than out of any regard for the long suffering Africans.
That the West is hardly without sin does not exonerate Russia. Invoking a phony Russian past doesnтАЩt help clarify matters either.
Again, this is a misreading of history. A lot happened before Dorothy dropped in. There are backstory's to everything. Finland was part of the Russian Empire because of Prince politics and marriage, as happened to France with regards to a 300 year war waged on them by England who claimed the French throne. The Baltic states and Poland invaded Russia many times over the past thousand years, often using either subterfuge or the help of distant and more powerful states. In WW2 these alliances played out again: Finns helped besiege St. Petersburg, Balts joined the Third Reich, Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian Armies joined in the German invasion, In fact, the first blows in the Red Army counterattack at Stalingrad fell on flanking Romanian and Hungarian armies.
The part about Russian conscripts is nothing but a lie. Russian mobilized last autumn came from all geographic regions of Russia and were 100% without fail men of previous military service. Russia's annual conscription includes some 80,000 young men divided by levy from all across Russia; there are no ethnic percentages and burden forcing as you suggest.
And in most of Russia's history in Siberia there were no military advances. The Siberian landmass was HUGE, still is. An indigenous settlement 100km up some river like the Yenesei might as well have been on the far side of the Moon. Russians did exact tribute in Pelts. That was the custom in those centuries, and the Mongols had done the same in the region for centuries before. This led to conflicts where natives attacked Russian settlements and Russian expeditions punished them, but there were no tribal massacres or village conquests. No Indian reservations either. Westerners are creating these fictions out of their own histories; they have zero relationship to the historical realities. One can see it today, ethnic Siberians across Russia live in self-governing cities, in self-governing Oblasts, while American Indians still live in Reservation trailers, with large percentages of alcoholism, domestic violence, and drug abuse.
I take your point, but every nation can justify its past if it wishes too. If geography is to some extent destiny, the Russian people chose (so to speak) a pretty indefensible location on the Eurasian plains. Over the centuries, you could argue that Russia gave as good (or better) than it got.
But that was then, and the days of the Mongols, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and much else is past. Now in 2023 we might hope that Russia could see things in a, shall we say, less paranoid light. One personтАЩs economic opportunity or chance at greater democratic possibilities is an autocratтАЩs nightmare. But that doesnтАЩt mean invasion is nigh, only that many citizens might be dissatisfied with the current economic and political structures in their own country.
NATO is a defensive alliance, but if you project onto it the Warsaw PactтАЩs interventionist streak (even though its invasions were limited to other Warsaw Pact countries), you can easily imagine the West will invade at any moment. Maybe Putin is simply channeling his inner-Stalin and doesnтАЩt want to be caught flat footed when your ally suddenly turns against you and wages a war of conquest - this time not with but against you. Who can say.
In the end, and in the case we are discussing, itтАЩs up to the Russian leadership to decide their countryтАЩs fate. Personally, I had hoped they would have opted for a future in collaborating with the West, but they would have had to recognize and internalize their economic status as a middling power, not that of a superpower.
ThatтАЩs a very difficult adjustment for any previously Great Power to make. Neither the UK nor France have completely made that transition and our turn will no doubt come eventually.
If things continue on their present course, RussiaтАЩs future might prove to be that of a Chinese vassal state.
Anyway, it doesnтАЩt really matter what we may think. Time will tell.
Russia tried a future of collaboration with the West. In the 1990's CIA Agents literally lived in the Kremlin and ran Yeltsin's 1996 campaign, facts covered in a Time Magazine cover story of that period. Western financiers created the Oligarch class and helped steal billions in Russian state assets. Vladimir Putin said last year "they called us 'friend" but treated us like a colony, siphoning trillions of dollars out of the Russian economy by various schemes." The West wants integration but on their terms only; other states and societies must agree to be a cog in the western scheme servicing western elites and their international constructs. Russia rejected that, being a civilizational state with its own manifest destiny. Instead of sharing the world the West chose confrontation, withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and promulgating "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia responded to this and the West struck back by overthrowing Ukraine's elected government in 2014 and creating a Russophobic and extremely nationalistic government in Kiev to try and take down Russia by way of a huge conventional proxy force next door. That's the reality.
If what you say were true, one would have expected a true Russian leader to confront these oligarchs who stole RussiaтАЩs wealth. Instead, any тАЬconfrontationтАЭ resulted in a redistribution of wealth among Putin and his loyal oligarchs. So maybe something isnтАЩt quite correct in your narrative of Russian victimhood, weakness and lack of agency.
Lots of that stolen wealth ended up abroad, City of London lived on it for decades and still does. However during Putin's "oligarchic dictatorship", the average Russian gained 8 years of life expectancy and per-capita BDP (in real purchase parity terms) doubled. Last time similar advance happened in the US was in the 1950 and 60ies.
Defensive alliance? That destroyed countries like Libya (which now only exists in name), occupying Afghanistan and brutalizing their population for 20 years, bombing Serbia and creating a NATO puppet state to surround one of the largest NATO bases in Europe (Camp Bondsteel). Fine "defensive alliance". NATO member Turkey now occupies parts of 3 countries (Cyprus, Syria, Iraq) and we don't hear much about "sovereign and internationally recognized borders" for those. US itself occupies almost 1/3 of Syria, without UN (or for that matter US congress) authorization.
Probably didn't like Russians for a whole lot of historic reasons including later the Holomodor.
They disliked Russia because the Russians were fellow Slavs who left home, fought off the Poles, the Swedes, the Mongols, breached the Urals and settled in the Far East, went to Alaska and all the way to California. They are the brothers who left home and even went to space. They hate the Russians in a family kind of way because Ukraine has been eclipsed. And yes, Russia eventually absorbed Ukraine by the pleadings of Ukraine's own elites who needed protection from the Poles and Habsburgs. Most of Ukraine's territory today was gifted to it by Soviet era leaders in order to make being part of the USSR more palatable. Problem was, these areas were lived on primarily by ethnic Russians in towns founded by Russian monarchs. This led to an explosion of hatred and resentment post 1991 because these people didn't want to be part of Ukraine. That's why this war is happening: a Russian friendly government elected in Ukraine was overthrown by nationalists in 2014 who have a strict view of what Ukrainian society should be and went about engaging in an anti-Russian pogrom.
The area has been contested for centuries. Some Slavs don't want Russian suzerainty. I doubt it has anything to do with jealously of the accomplishments of Russians.
Seriously, this smacks of Russian myth making.
If that were true than why is Ukraine trying to alter history books editing out Russian accomplishments? Why are ethnic Russians born in Ukraine suddenly "Ukrainian" in Western museums? Why is Ukraine altering maps to pretend that some ancient Ukrainian state existed in Russia's place? It's not myth-making to confirm historical reality: Yuri Gagarin was Russian, Fort Ross California was settled by Russia, Vladivostok isn't a myth, it was founded by Russia, and Russians won World War 2 while much of Ukraine set it out or actively collaborated with the Third Reich. Of the USSR's 26 million deaths in the war well more than 20 million were ethnic Russians.
Having "won" WW2 with a great deal of material support from the US, the Russians expanded their empire into Eastern and Central Europe. I doubt there are any Poles today who feel any great gratitude to the Russians. Having suffered at the hands of both the Nazis and Stalin there is little desire for Russian suzerainty in Eastern or Central Europe.
If Russian achievements are being removed from Ukrainian text books that is hardly just. Russian civilization contributed significantly to European art, music, literature, and science. Certainly the Wehrmacht was broken on the Eastern Front. Russia has much to be proud of. That said, maintaining its empire and colonies is no longer feasible. At this stage, Russia needs to consider whether it is a part of Europe or a vassal of China.
In an age of nuclear weapons no nation is going to invade Russia (or China) in the manner of Operation Barbarossa.
You should research WW2 more. Lend Lease provided the USSR with some 11% of the war material used to prosecute the war. The USSR produced some 89% of all material used for the war effort and nearly 100% of items for civil use. What the USSR did use from the West was paid for in full, the last check being paid by the Russian Federation, with interest, in 2006. Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2 victory where Russians did the bulk of the fighting and dying but Western histories pretend that the War in the East was a sideshow, ignoring the fact that more than 80% of German resources were deployed in that direction, including manpower. Russian expansion into Central and Eastern Europe post war was understandable when viewed from the lens of alliance politics; create a system out of those states or watch distant enemies come and do the same, turning them into hostile bastions close to your borders. We have watched this play out since 1991 and events have justified Stalin's fears, certainly.
I agree about some degree of protection for nuclear states, but it's the USA government who doesn't. It is they who withdrew from the ABM Treaty and who publically declared the principles of "Prompt Global Strike" and "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia's strategic defense buildup since 2005 is a reaction to these stated programs, including hundreds of new Russian ICBM's and SLBM's designed to evade missile defenses. One of the ways Russia paid for this was to downsize the Army. The USA participation in the 2014 coup, the fueling of nationalist elements in the Ukrainian state and security forces can be seen quite rightly as an American effort to go around Russia's strategic arsenal and attack Russia using a large proxy force, fueled by hate.
Everybody knows that it was the American G.I. who won the war, landing on the Normandy beaches, breaking out from hedgerow country and into northern France, liberating Paris, then thrusting into the heart of Germany itself, singlehandedly destroying the Wehrmacht, and finally laying siege to and conquering Berlin, all the while Russian krasnoarmiich were dancing the Malinda, guzzling vodka, and stuffing their faces with syrniki and kasha...
But seriously, it's more than a bit hyperbolic to state that "Westerners love to try and take credit for a WW2." The Soviet Union's outsized contribution to fending off the Nazi's and eventually whacking Hitler is well understood by those who understand such things and misunderstood by those who don't much care to understand most things.
After the war no doubt there was a bit of unattractive American chauvinism that surrounded and exaggerated the American war effort. But that was to be expected by a victorious nation that wanted to pat itself on the back, relax, and watch movies that confirmed their recent valor and bravery in the fight against fascism.
American film studios and directors understandably focused almost exclusively on the American experience in the war, and no doubt were responsible for the average American's (at the time) tunnel vision and ignorance.
But a question I'm certain that many film directors have asked since the war is: how do you film the Battle of Kursk?
Here in Canada we know the American invasion of Mexico was an act of selflessness and altruism.
Texas needed Slavery returned after Mexico freed its slaves in 1829. Its Catholics also needed to understand they were second and third class citizens and needed to serve the master race.
In case you need clarification this is satire from an old Jewish Social democrat suffering from senility dementia and autism who loves writing jokes to himself because he is 75 and blind in one eye and limited in his mobility.
I ENJOY ROLLING ON THE FLOOR AND LAUGHING WITH TEARS IN MY EYES. ЁЯдг
The people's of America (we're getting a taste now), Russia and China have all been victim to the distorted and manipulated application of power by those capturing and weaponizing government and ideology as a means of acquiring personal wealth and power. But, the realpolitik has always been the poor guy bleeding out in a trench. Tracking the collapse of nation's, human suffering, mayhem, lies and tragedy always leads to the international financier who holds no allegiance to anything but himself. And who, always survives war and conflict in style. As Bob Dylan observed:"the executioner's face is always well hidden".
Criminal international finance holds the legitimate struggle for human dignity and progress and the voice of the people's laboring for it in complete contempt. The two competing "ism's" today, capitalism and communism resemble two thug's bitch slapping a poor man senseless because his pockets are empty of the money they stole from him the day before. This is a new age and it demand's a new consciousness. Fortunately for American's, the core principal's of human dignity, liberty and freedom were set down by our founder's two centuries ago. With, the proviso that it was ours: "If we could keep it."
Nothing is all one way or another. One problem, which we are fighting here, is the total capture and intentional distortion of the American national dialogue by corrupt international finance. Again, the recent Taibbi/Shellenberger DNC congressional farce makes it clear. We landed a blow that both hurt and scared the perp's and the lie they represent. Truth is a powerful light and that isn't hyperbole.
This is a NEW AGE. Everything we are fighting is a representation of the retro graft/grift/grab pathology that defined the 20th Century. The perp's are so desperate the A-Bomb is back on the table. (American's should note the Dutch farmer's who are taking back their country and considering giving boot to the Davos crowd and the EU.) It's time to shake off the numbing effect's of the psyop. And, it's time for personal and national renewal.
Like is like Billiard's. It's often how you hold the stick and approach the table.
All very interesting.
Russia's population continues to decrease.
The life expectancy of ethnic Russian men is decreasing.
Numbers are always difficult to verify; however, some estimate that 1+ million ethnic Russians have left Russia and moved into Europe since the outbreak of this war. Even if it is 100s of thousands that is still a sizable number.
It seems a matter of perspective and projection. Hostile nations at the end of WW2?
Nazism was destroyed.
Japanese militarism was destroyed.
What threat was there to the Russian people?
Doubtless there were individuals within the Allies who would have invaded Russia but I sincerely doubt that such an event would have occurred. With Russia's successful detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949, any opening for invasion from the West closed completely.
Politics being what it is (always about who controls the river of wealth), the West may be a threat to Russia's elite; however, it is not military.
As far as attacking Russia, you may consider the expansion of NATO as an attack; however, it takes time to overcome the mistrust resulting from centuries of conflict. Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has resulted in two traditionally very neutral nations (Sweden and Finland) seeking NATO membership. As with the former Warsaw Pact states, their elites see Russia as a threat.
All states that have adopted modern NeoLiberal economic models have seen rapid demographic declines as societies disintegrate. Russia's demography is actually healthy, compared to many others. Russian fertility is at 1.55. Taiwan and South Korea's are below 1.0. Yep. At this rate S.K. will have a smaller population than North Korea by 2065. Singapore the same and even the PRC demography is now 1.1. In the West it's all in the lower 1's, the U.S. census bureau announcing that the USA has been below replacement rate since 2007. Even Mexico is at 1.6. Nothing is happening to Russia that isn't happening elsewhere, faster and deeper. At least in Russia there is a large Orthodox establishment fighting (with governmental support) for a return to family and community values and economics.
The population of Russians that left the country in 2022 did amount to between half a million and a million, true. But 5 million former ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine voted with their feet and at the ballot box to leave Ukraine and join Russia. So Russia is 4 million to the positive side then. Except a full quarter million Russians returned to Russia so far in 2023. The primary reason given? It was way too expensive to live in the West and secondarily they had encountered way too much Russophobia to feal safe. It's Ukraine that one should worry about. The country had a population of 51 million in 1991. By 2022 it had declined to 42 million. Last year some 8 million Ukrainians fled to the West and five million departed for Russia. Ukraine's population has now declined to some 28 million, and its economy has contracted by close to 40%. Ukraine's demography in terms of fertility is way lower than Russia's. Want to see a country study in self-destruction? Look no further than Ukraine.
Everything you say matches well with what I've found in trying to understand the situation on my own. I think you'll find this interview with Scott Ritter worth hearing. He just got back from a long tour of Russia.
https://rumble.com/v2rxcw8-scott-ritter-natos-war-on-russia-has-failed-redacted-with-clayton-morris.html
Three things stood out for me:
1. The economy is in better shape than the economies in the West, and it is improving.
2. Much of this is THANKS to Western sanctions!! (BTW, this was predicted more than a year ago by several people. The sanctions forced economic reform that Putin badly wanted, but couldn't enact because of internal politics.)
3. The people who fled were exactly the people Putin wanted gone! It's almost comical -- he just showed them the door.
That's patently false. The Russian economy has been shrinking since the start of the war and continues to shrink precipitously. And Scott Ritter is quite obviously not only a tool's tool, but a Russian tool to boot.
>> "That's patently false. The Russian economy has been shrinking since the start of the war and continues to shrink precipitously."
Really? Care to show me your research/data? Here, I'll show you mine: https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/WP_204-Galbraith-Russia-Sanctions.pdf
From the abstract:
"We conclude that when applied to a large, resource-rich, technically proficient economy, after a period of shock and adjustments, sanctions are isomorphic to a strict policy of trade protection, industrial policy, and capital controls. ***These are policies that the Russian government could not plausibly have implemented, even in 2022, on its own initiative.***"
Good luck with those ad hominems -- I'm sure they work wonders for getting at the truth. I suspect you didn't even bother to listen to what Ritter had to say.
I trust that what you are saying will be considered as Western propaganda since it comes from the IMF.
A place that's cheap to live is almost always a place where most people would rather not live.
I would hardly consider, Japan, South Korea, or many of the European nations as embracing American "neoliberal" economic policies. They tend to pursue their own self-interests.
China is not interested in taking in Russia as a vassal state. To China, Russia is little more than a not-very-exotic middle eastern bazaar, where they go to buy, with a little haggling, a few things they want and need: oil, gas, coal, minerals, maybe some wheat and barley. Hard to conceive of a bigger pain-in-the ass for a nation than having to wet-nurse Russia as a vassal state.
Russia has a great deal that China needs in the way of natural resources and land. It was a vassal state of China during the time of the Mongols. If China proclaims that the US wants China as a "vassal state", it is no less ridiculous that China would manage Russia as one.
Frankly having either Russia or China as a "vassal" would be a horrible situation.
I believe I mentioned those items on the "shopping list." And "time of the Mongols." Ya, well, this ain't the time of the Mongols, is it?
Or a chat GPT botтАж.
Are you a Russian bot?
ItтАЩs Holodomor. ╨У╨╛╨╗╨╛╨┤╨╛╨╝╨╛╤А.
We have been liking and disliking each other for over a thousand years, that included fighting, eating, celebrating, marrying and having kids together.
Ever meet a survivor of the Holodomor? I have met lots.
The irony being that the most ardent promoters of russophobia in Ukraine are the Galicians. Galicia was under Polish control during the 1930s, where there was no Holodomor. The Ukrainian nationalists of the time knew, but paid little significance, since, like the fascists that they were, they were all about The Nation whilst being indifferent to the fate of the people living in it.
In fact, the areas of Ukraine that suffered the most were some of the least Ukrainianized.
But, since we're talking about historical events here, why are the people Iraq or Vietnam not entitled to hate the US?
Some of them certainly do. But in my experiences long after the war in Viet Nam, many in the south appreciated the real sacrifices made on their behalf by Americans. Up north, not so much...
You apparently think that American bombs, napalm, WP and Agent Orange only fell on one part of the country.
Some sacrifice Americans made, bravely trying at gunpoint to thwart unification of Vietnam.
I can only report my experiences. I didn't meet every person in the country. I was surprised by it though. You may also recall the Boat People. Those people had to leave after the war because they would receive zero government services. They were ostracized and left to die for being on the losing side. War is not recommended.
It was more than being on the losing side. They betrayed their own country to side with an invader that killed ?3 million Vietnamese, dropped more bombs on them than were dropped in all of WWII, rained illegal chemical weapons on them, caused epidemic congenital malformations, landmined their farms, defoliated their jungles, carpet bombed their neighbours, whored their women, and ruined their society and if Goldwater and ?Hillary Clinton had had their way, they would have nuked the peasants. The thousands of Amrtican war criminals who ran and executed these atrocities have never done hard time, not even Calley who mowed down an entire village of women, children and old people.
Wash your mouth out with soap and go visit the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.
тАЬbetrayed their own countryтАЭ is a stretch, as it had been a united country as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam for only 20 days before the French seized back control in late 1945. After that, people had differing views on the direction the country should take, and their actions reflected that.
Denying it is a stretch. The South was an active collaborator in the atrocities mentioned. There is civil war on one hand and then there are the abject depths of depravity plumbed by American forces in Nam, and just about anywhere they are, when no one is looking.
"abject depths of depravity". War by another name.
Agree but there are hierarchies.
War museums are usually pretty gruesome. The above sounds like warfare to me. Which is why it should be avoided. I also rode by the Hanoi Hilton while I was pedaling around Hanoi. Is that where they put the musuem?
You sound like a Viet Cong in 1975.
How would you know? And are you trying to defend the indefensible and unconscionable?
How would I know? Because that was the Viet Cong line in 1975. I'm making no effort to defend anything or anybody. Discussing the war with a Viet Cong guerilla on a street corner in Ho Chi Minh City in 1975, I imagine the content of his or her conversation would have been quite similar to your diatribe.
I will say one thing, though. I believe that was the first time I've heard an American (assuming you're American) go off on the South Vietnamese in that manner. That was interesting. It was a civil war, after all, between one people with two differing political viewpoints on how to govern a country. They're messy affairs. We just happened to wander into the neighborhood and turned a bad dream into an unholy nightmare.
Singling out the South Vietnamese for the carnage that took place seems quixotic and misguided at best. Now, as for the American-induced carnage that followed...and the North Vietnamese weren't exactly sticking flowers into the barrels of guns and conducting sit-ins.
That seems a benign and generous take (humbuggery?) on the US thuggery in Nam, if you donтАЩt mind me saying. The crackpot DominoтАЩs pizza theory on which the half-crazed invasion was based, did not sit well with my generation and I marched Vs the invasion in both NYC and Toronto. America learned little and Iraq became Nam redux.
There has been no invader in modern history that has behaved as badly as the US in Nam and with total impunity. Milosevic was surely a comparator.. So I was not тАЬsingling outтАЭ the South, who were more than complicit, having been fully aware of the atrocities and they participated in them with gusto.
Well, I have more Ukrainian experience than most here, and I've met more Holodomor survivors than most. I was surprised by what many told me.
Uh, my Ukrainian grandparents, from the Sumy area, could personally attest to the Holodomor NOT being a тАЬWesternтАЭ invention. The commissars and cannibals were not media inventions. But thanks for your input in this thread Mr. Duranty, always good to see The NY Times maintaining itтАЩs high standardsтАж..
I donтАЩt know what kind of twisted rabbit hole you are trying to shove your head down. I can sleep at night just fine with whatever happened with my relatives in WWII, and not provide moral cover for a piece of shit like Putin and his cronies in the 21st century. If being a propaganda bot for his agenda floats your boat, go for it, you are one deluded individual on the interwebz.
That's a Nazi talking point!
One has to wonder why someone would fight against Russia. Expecially after centuries of enduring war. There is a reason the USSR was so big. Because the Russian empire conquered many people.
No it didn't. The West conquered many people. All over the world. Russia settled in lands all across Siberia and even the Pacific Northwest of North America and never once herded anyone into an Indian reservation. Russians founded communities without trying to conquer every tribe they encountered. Russia has a history of being invaded but has very little history as an invader. You are switching around who did what to whom. Africans say over and over that Russians were the first Northerners to treat them as people.
Perhaps you should read about Russians keeping natives captive and ransoming their families for Sea Otter pelts. Humans suck.
I have read about that. And Russians did battle Native Siberian tribes too. The expansion outward nearly always leads to conflicts. But in the pantheon of European expansion and conflict with the "other" Russians acted the least atrocious among all. Russians generally fought defensive engagements outside their Forts which grew in Russian cities and Russians declined broadly at assaulting native communities. And even today, there are no Siberian Indian Reservations. Native Siberians are Russian Federation Citizens and live in cities in their own communities. Russia's defense minister is himself a member of one of these minorities, a fact that has subjected him to hate filled comments in Ukrainian Telegram channels and militia videos. And Russia's exploitation of native labor was bad but it wasn't slavery and exacted far less economic price or blood than the British-American slave trade, slavery in America, or the brutal costs of the Raj in India. You are trying to make Russians into the American West or the British Empire and that's untruthful to a huge degree. It might not have been fair or even pretty but Russians East of the Urals were saints compared to European-American standards of conduct.
The Russians very nearly arrived at the 20th century while effectively still occupying the 17th century. Serfdom was only abandoned in 1861.
Russia was little more than a late medieval feudal society while the West was busy creating new modes of government administration based on egalitarian principles, initiating the modern system of alliances and treaties among nation-states, jump-starting and spearheading the Industrial Revolution, and incrementally engineering an economic system that produced historically unprecedented wealth while dramatically raising living conditions for millions.
The inhabitants of the Russian steppe were closer in outlook to Genghis Khan than Abraham Lincoln. In effect, the whole of Russia was incapable of making mischief on an international scale even if they had the inclination to do so. They were, however, quite adept at beating back other nations' large and substantially more sophisticated armies, as Napoleon learned and Hitler later would.
On the other hand, War and Peace was a hell of lot more readable than Moby Dick or Middlemarch.
Thanks Ricky!
Wow. I believe you. I would value finding out more about this. Books? Sources? Sincerely, not sarcasm.
Sure. There's a lot there to dislike, including Russian Fur Companies forcing Inuit to hunt for them with little compensation, and even some battles when natives attacked Russian settlements but never once did Russians massacre anyone or conquer their villages. In all the time Russians spent on Hawaii they never overthrew the Queen and annexed the islands, as the Americans did in the 1890's. Reading List:
Journal of Early Modern History: "Political Claims, an Extensible Name, and a 'Divine Mission': Ideology of Russian Expansion in Siberia"
"The Russian Fur Trade 1550-1700" by Raymond Henry Fisher"
Andrei Grinev Val'terovic translated by Richard Bland "Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development 1741-1799. University of Nebraska Press.
Thanks. Appears I don't know much! I'm trying to accept that there's a lot to know. And yet, Magritte: "We think that if life is seen in a tragic light it is seen more clearly, and that we are then in touch with the mystery of existence. We even believe that we can reach objectivity thanks to this revelation. The greater the terror, the greater the objectivity. This notion is the result of philosophies (materialist or idealist), that claim that the real world is knowable, that matter is of the same essence as mind, since the perfect mind would no longer be distinct from the matter it explains and would thus deny it." I've been trying to absorb information for 71 years. ЁЯд╖ЁЯП╗тАНтЩАя╕П Maybe I'm missing the bigger point. Thanks for the references!
Russian fur companies... Hudson's Bay...
They saved all that for Russians. 25 million dead thanks to Lenin, Stalin, and their buddies.
MissAnneThrope for what itтАЩs worth I live in PNW. Have engaged in conversation with elder Russians while walking around an Orthodox Russian cemetery. Also agree with RickyтАЩs other comments. Hard for me to understand why Americans get so enmeshed with the slaughter of peoples in other countries while тАЬ not rememberingтАЭ the past & yes even present atrocities done to ( outdated label btw) Native Americans.
It appears we hold a similar world view. No people - no nation, no empire - is exempt from committing atrocities against others, however they be sorted and named. I'm not excusing any of it. I'd like to think maybe - maybe - we can do better. We already know that individuals are able to overcome prejudices and long-held animosity when working towards a common goal. In this perilous time for humans, it seems that's a reasonable way to proceed. (Y'all can rain on me for being foolish. Hope remains a smoldering ember in my heart for my grandchildren and all living beings.)
I think you will be waiting a long time, then. The history of Russian expansion from the time of Peter the Great until the collapse of the Soviet Union is well known. Russia conquered Finland and the Baltic States, took its chunk of Poland (and suppressed several revolts in the 19th century), grabbed parts of the Ottoman Empire (including the Caucasus and up to Crimea) among other things. The sparsely populated Siberia could not resist Russian military advances. ThereтАЩs a reason that today the bulk of PutinтАЩs conscripts for his Ukraine war came from the Russian hinterlands and not Russia proper. ItтАЩs suggestive of how Russians value their non-Russian fellow citizens.
As to the views of Africans, it was more a consequence of Russian тАЬanti-colonialismтАЭ which itself was a policy directed more at weakening the West than out of any regard for the long suffering Africans.
That the West is hardly without sin does not exonerate Russia. Invoking a phony Russian past doesnтАЩt help clarify matters either.
Again, this is a misreading of history. A lot happened before Dorothy dropped in. There are backstory's to everything. Finland was part of the Russian Empire because of Prince politics and marriage, as happened to France with regards to a 300 year war waged on them by England who claimed the French throne. The Baltic states and Poland invaded Russia many times over the past thousand years, often using either subterfuge or the help of distant and more powerful states. In WW2 these alliances played out again: Finns helped besiege St. Petersburg, Balts joined the Third Reich, Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian Armies joined in the German invasion, In fact, the first blows in the Red Army counterattack at Stalingrad fell on flanking Romanian and Hungarian armies.
The part about Russian conscripts is nothing but a lie. Russian mobilized last autumn came from all geographic regions of Russia and were 100% without fail men of previous military service. Russia's annual conscription includes some 80,000 young men divided by levy from all across Russia; there are no ethnic percentages and burden forcing as you suggest.
And in most of Russia's history in Siberia there were no military advances. The Siberian landmass was HUGE, still is. An indigenous settlement 100km up some river like the Yenesei might as well have been on the far side of the Moon. Russians did exact tribute in Pelts. That was the custom in those centuries, and the Mongols had done the same in the region for centuries before. This led to conflicts where natives attacked Russian settlements and Russian expeditions punished them, but there were no tribal massacres or village conquests. No Indian reservations either. Westerners are creating these fictions out of their own histories; they have zero relationship to the historical realities. One can see it today, ethnic Siberians across Russia live in self-governing cities, in self-governing Oblasts, while American Indians still live in Reservation trailers, with large percentages of alcoholism, domestic violence, and drug abuse.
I take your point, but every nation can justify its past if it wishes too. If geography is to some extent destiny, the Russian people chose (so to speak) a pretty indefensible location on the Eurasian plains. Over the centuries, you could argue that Russia gave as good (or better) than it got.
But that was then, and the days of the Mongols, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and much else is past. Now in 2023 we might hope that Russia could see things in a, shall we say, less paranoid light. One personтАЩs economic opportunity or chance at greater democratic possibilities is an autocratтАЩs nightmare. But that doesnтАЩt mean invasion is nigh, only that many citizens might be dissatisfied with the current economic and political structures in their own country.
NATO is a defensive alliance, but if you project onto it the Warsaw PactтАЩs interventionist streak (even though its invasions were limited to other Warsaw Pact countries), you can easily imagine the West will invade at any moment. Maybe Putin is simply channeling his inner-Stalin and doesnтАЩt want to be caught flat footed when your ally suddenly turns against you and wages a war of conquest - this time not with but against you. Who can say.
In the end, and in the case we are discussing, itтАЩs up to the Russian leadership to decide their countryтАЩs fate. Personally, I had hoped they would have opted for a future in collaborating with the West, but they would have had to recognize and internalize their economic status as a middling power, not that of a superpower.
ThatтАЩs a very difficult adjustment for any previously Great Power to make. Neither the UK nor France have completely made that transition and our turn will no doubt come eventually.
If things continue on their present course, RussiaтАЩs future might prove to be that of a Chinese vassal state.
Anyway, it doesnтАЩt really matter what we may think. Time will tell.
Russia tried a future of collaboration with the West. In the 1990's CIA Agents literally lived in the Kremlin and ran Yeltsin's 1996 campaign, facts covered in a Time Magazine cover story of that period. Western financiers created the Oligarch class and helped steal billions in Russian state assets. Vladimir Putin said last year "they called us 'friend" but treated us like a colony, siphoning trillions of dollars out of the Russian economy by various schemes." The West wants integration but on their terms only; other states and societies must agree to be a cog in the western scheme servicing western elites and their international constructs. Russia rejected that, being a civilizational state with its own manifest destiny. Instead of sharing the world the West chose confrontation, withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and promulgating "Full Spectrum Dominance." Russia responded to this and the West struck back by overthrowing Ukraine's elected government in 2014 and creating a Russophobic and extremely nationalistic government in Kiev to try and take down Russia by way of a huge conventional proxy force next door. That's the reality.
If what you say were true, one would have expected a true Russian leader to confront these oligarchs who stole RussiaтАЩs wealth. Instead, any тАЬconfrontationтАЭ resulted in a redistribution of wealth among Putin and his loyal oligarchs. So maybe something isnтАЩt quite correct in your narrative of Russian victimhood, weakness and lack of agency.
Lots of that stolen wealth ended up abroad, City of London lived on it for decades and still does. However during Putin's "oligarchic dictatorship", the average Russian gained 8 years of life expectancy and per-capita BDP (in real purchase parity terms) doubled. Last time similar advance happened in the US was in the 1950 and 60ies.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/RUS/russia/life-expectancy
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-per-capita-ppp
Defensive alliance? That destroyed countries like Libya (which now only exists in name), occupying Afghanistan and brutalizing their population for 20 years, bombing Serbia and creating a NATO puppet state to surround one of the largest NATO bases in Europe (Camp Bondsteel). Fine "defensive alliance". NATO member Turkey now occupies parts of 3 countries (Cyprus, Syria, Iraq) and we don't hear much about "sovereign and internationally recognized borders" for those. US itself occupies almost 1/3 of Syria, without UN (or for that matter US congress) authorization.