[floppyd]

> What do you think about Ukraine? Should it be a free country? What about its territorial integrity, to whom does Crimea belong?

Just wanted to let you know that asking those questions as if there can be any variation in my answers really shows you are judging russians from the outside. The Crimea question has been akin to a meme for a decade at this point. I'm obviously not saying "everyone" is thinking one way or another, because there's no "everyone", and there's also no "almost everyone". There are huge chunks of the population that are very much on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and judging one chunk by opinions and action of another one is highly disingenuous, imo.

[jimbohn]

Couldn't you just answer those simple questions? Why is that question a meme? I've yet to find a russian that "just didn't want to get involved" able to provide me straight, simple answers to those questions. I wish other Westerners would wake up to this behaviour, because even navalny was just another russian imperialist (see his past comments about Georgians, for example).

About the "everyone", you mentioned that "I, and everyone I know of, left russia not because [...]", so I assumed you must know at least a bunch of like-minded people that share your opinion on the aforementioned facts (not that we know your opinion yet).

About the "huge chunks" on a certain spectrum, I am not sure that chunk is huge at all. It's likely a tiny minority that would very much put an asterisk next to their answers to those questions. That minority has been quite silent, regardless of their geographical location and relative safeness.

[veeti]

Did you consider the possibility that not all people in the world enjoy such a huge degree of freedom of speech? If I had family in Russia and I didn't want them to fall out a window I would also "avoid getting involved". For the same reason I also recommend you don't try using Tiananmen 1989 as a conversation starter when talking to Chinese people.

[Tadpole9181]

So that answers their questions, then.