[5e92cb50239222b]

> supporting countries or democratic, pro-Western parties/groups that are threatened by an aggressor (e.g. every former Soviet state)

Every one? I am from one of those states, and most of them are even worse democracy-wise than Russia.

The only thing we have over Russia is not going after neighbors' territories, and even that's debatable (see conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan vs Tajikistan).

Your governments do overlook serious human rights violations, though, when it suits them. We had widespread protests in January 2022 that were brutally suppressed by the government, which ended up killing more than 300 protesters (that's according to official figures that are thought to be undercounted).

No fucks given by Western propaganda or government talking heads because several European, US, and Canadian companies have massive investments in our oil, gas, and minerals industry.

About six months ago Macron visited Astana to beg for uranium fuel after France got kicked off from Niger, and a group of political activists tried to seize the rare moment and did everything they could to meet him for a few minutes and talk about human rights violations in our country. You can probably guess the result of that endeavor.

One of the major gas projects (managed by Shell IIRC) ends in 2030, and I have a strong suspicion "human rights violations" will become a permanent theme in our relations right after that moment.

[mschuster91]

> Every one? I am from one of those states, and most of them are even worse democracy-wise than Russia.

I agree, and part of the cause is that us Western countries don't give a shit. We don't even give a shit about those countries right on our border like Ukraine or Bosnia.

> No fucks given by Western propaganda or government talking heads because several European, US, and Canadian companies have massive investments in our oil, gas, and minerals industry.

Or because they were bought off such as in the case with the massive corruption by Azerbaijan.

> About six months ago Macron visited Astana to beg for uranium fuel after France got kicked off from Niger, and a group of political activists tried to seize the rare moment and did everything they could to meet him for a few minutes and talk about human rights violations in our country. You can probably guess the result of that endeavor.

My opinion of Macron is probably just as low as yours, the only thing the guy can do is talk. All talk, no act.

[vladms]

> Western countries don't give a shit

People talk too easily about countries as if they are a person. I have lived in the east, I have lived in the west: every actual person has problems, everybody thinks their problems should come first, too many people have the tendency to think "outside influence" is very strong and lots of people think they have "the solution" which is different than what their government does.

At the end of the day I think the (boring) truth is that many countries end acting similarly to the average citizen. Including their fears, stupidities, insecurities and knowledge.

Yes, "the west of Europe" does not care as much as some people think about "the east of Europe", same way "the east of Europe" does not care that much about I don't know, Yemen, Myanmar or Sudan (just to name places with horrible conflicts that nobody seems to care about, unless they delay their Amazon package by a couple of days...).

[5e92cb50239222b]

Eh, it wasn't as much a jab against France or Macron in particular, as just an example of the general policy. Pretty much all of Europe (and US, and Canada) behave in a similar way and see us as a well of natural resources to be scooped out dry and then thrown aside. Some people here call it a new form of colonialism. Every country follows their interests and that's fine, as long as we don't hear lectures about this or that thing while those same lecturers behave in a hypocritical way contrary to what they're saying.

Edit: as opposed to China and Russia that pour serious money into large infrastructure projects like the new Silk Road. Russia has only started doing this recently, though. People have their reservations about those countries, but can't help but see the difference between e.g. China that builds railroads and power plants, and Western countries that only suck out money, paying tiny salaries to local workers and circumventing things like air pollution regulations.