[nothal]

I think a fundamental part of the reasons that Russia and the West cannot seem to escape a death-march to war is that Russia is so often conflated with the USSR. They are ideologically and politically distinct entities, even as much as some in the current state of Russia might wish for the old days.

[TulliusCicero]

Conflated? Russia literally declared itself the successor state of the USSR and assumed the latter's position on the UN Security Council.

[lostlogin]

> Russia and the West cannot seem to escape a death-march to war is that Russia is so often conflated with the USSR.

Do you think that invading your neighbours might be a contributing factor? We are in a thread about Russia shooting down an airliner, again. It’s pretty amazing to claim equal culpability here.

[ivan_gammel]

Russia legally declared itself a successor to USSR, took the UN seat, nuclear weapons, assumed debt and foreign assets, kept contacts with former communist allies like Cuba, so it’s not completely wrong. The topic of admission of Russia to NATO demonstrates this very well: Putin thought that Moscow is peer to Washington D.C. and needed special invitation (as if USSR resolved hostilities and wanted to partner with the Western bloc). NATO was treating him like any other country in Eastern Europe: apply and we will think about it — didn’t even bother to formally invite (IIRC Stoltenberg basically said in one of the interviews that even if the door was closed, the doorbell was working).

[etc-hosts]

Interesting, I did not know Russia assumed almost all of the USSR debt

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/10nnw9s/comm...

[glogla]

It is not that Russia is USSR, it is that USSR was Russia + colonized, enslaved nations, like Russian Empire before it.

The evil of USSR did was because Russia was in charge.

[int_19h]

There was never such a thing as a Russian state that didn't include colonized neighbors.

Even if you unwind all the way to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, we'd have to talk about Kazan etc.

[ivan_gammel]

I‘d reserve the word „colony“ for its original meaning. USSR was a dictatorship, but not a colonial state. As a matter of fact it even prioritized the reduction of inequality between the republics of the union for several decades.

[epolanski]

I think this is highly debatable, as even the European part of Russia hosted no less than dozens of different ethnicities. What you say makes little sense in the context of Russian and generally eastern European history.

[fnqi8ckfek]

Now this is gonna shock you, but USSR is Russia.

Russia created the USSR as a legal framework to exert power over its neighbors. This was engineered by Stalin himself.

The most important feature of Russian culture is the sentiment that Russia is great but the world is conspiring to put it down. That's 100% the same in present day Russia as it was in the USSR. They're the same.