I will never understand why it has to be this way and Russia cannot be a normal country that has the goal to join the EU and be prosperous instead of doing nonsense for over a hundred years now.
A thousand years almost. As a Pole I have no faith in Russia ever becoming anything other than a savage hostile wart on this planet. It's not just their leadership. It's the nation. More accurately their culture. Their malice is a result of a rare combination of ineptitude and megalomania all in one package.
Your enemy is not the people of the country you hate, it’s the government. If you believe it’s the people then you are a victim to propaganda, or some other source of highly biased information.
Think about what war really is, it’s almost always a bunch of powerful people who have a disagreement with a bunch of other powerful people, who then have to trick a bunch of less powerful people to fight on their behalf. If you feel like fighting you’ve been tricked.
When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.
I've met a few Poles in my life and they were friendly, positive and inquiring, and not contemptuous, inflammatory or nationalistically prejudiced like you, so I have faith your nation and culture are ok.
> It's not just their leadership. It's the nation.
I completely disagree. I know anecdata is useless but since you are generalizing I can as well add that all Russians I met, without exception, are normal people who just want to live a normal life, not to kill. And then there is the smaller violent part that is happy to mug, beat, and kill others, including their own people. What I can agree is that Russia has quite a problem with this "pat B" of their population because of systemic issues. But generalizing it like this, on the whole nation, is just like saying that violence has gender, rich people are bad and so on.
In the last 125 years Russia has been through monarchy, liberal communism (Kerensky), dictatorial communism (Lenin, Stalin), bureaucratic communism (Khrushchev to Gorbachev), liberal capitalism, oligarchy, and now dictatorship. None of them worked very well.
Whenever there's trouble, Russia's history demands a strong leader. When one arises, the strong leader soon becomes the trouble.
Considering Western countries have kept a lot of regions of the world controlled economically and resource-wise exploiting the populations, I'd say Westerners do understand - Russia is their biggest problem
Because the ruling gang has plenty of prosperity in their lives and "us vs the rest of the world" is the only way they know to keep the other 140+ million content with the few scraps they get. The more violent attitude they keep up against the rest of the world the less violent oppression they need at home to stay in power.
Nations make their own Logic. The US has to control or befriend the oil producing countries to maintain the petrodollar (which really maintains the dollar, which is the lynchpin of the global economy). This leads to “wars for oil” where the US doesn’t take any oil (it just needs the country to return to the dollar market - so price their oil in dollars).
Russia is a continental state so it requires its Neighbors to be weak so they cant threaten Russia. As much as it tries to escape this logic, it can’t. Russia’s core interest is to dominate and subjugate its near abroad. It has to. It’s the only way for it to become a global power.
> It has to. It’s the only way for it to become a global power.
Unless of course doing so makes them far poorer and isolates them culturally/economically, and completely embarrasses their image of having a strong military.
Because then they’d have to recognise their failures. It’s like an alcoholic that keeps drinking in order to keep pushing back the reckoning of reality.
The error most people make on this front is thinking that Russia is just another country with regular country goals like any other. Grow the economy, make lives better for its people over the long term, that kind of thing. But this is not the case. Russia has been run by thugs for centuries in, centuries out, and they want thug things. Make the head thugs richer and fatter while everyone else suffers, both at home and abroad.
For individuals, a person might ask "Why can't Rodney just behave himself" without accepting that Rodney is violently anti-social and likes to throw liquidy turds at everyone. And for species, a person might ask "Why can't spider monkeys just behave themselves" without accepting that spider monkeys are dumb animals and that's what they do.
But if I point out that this same thing applies to the Russians as a whole, then suddenly I'm racist.
Do you really believe the EU would have accepted a country with easily 1/3 of the population of everyone else combined (so, a third of the seats at the "European Parliament") and a huge territory requiring investment? Or that they would have risked a Russian immigration crisis? Put themselves on China's doorstep, voluntarily? With all due respect, it's extremely naïve.
It started to expand to the east in 16th century, which was and is still cruel to indigenous people of Siberia (e..g highest level of current war participation per capita).
South/Caucasus expansion was brutal and was displayed in Russian literature.
European states suffered from Russia for centuries as well.
Is one reason that Russia is an empire, created as the same time as the British and French empires, ruling over countries with their own long histories and separate cultures that would break apart without an autocratic government?
Look at the map. It's huge. In order to maintain its territorial integrity it has to act like a super power, or it has no reason to exist in its current form.
Because that wouldn't benefit Putin personally as much as the status quo? And he's the decision maker. Dictators routinely make decisions where they hurt their country to keep a much bigger slice of the pie for themselves...
A nation state's values should align with EU for them to be part of the group. I don't think Russia would ever choose to join the union considering that even UK(which is culturally closer to Europe) left it.
Many Brits immediately regretted voting for leaving after Brexit. They started educating themselves when it was to late and said they would have voted for staying had they known (instead of believing Nigel Farage). The regions that voted for leaving where the rural economically weak ones that even received money from the EU.
Russia would first have to be a "normal country". It would need an educated populace and a non-extractive (manufacturing or services) economy. It suffers from both a resource curse and Dutch disease. It is difficult to form a middle class that's independent of state institutions and employment. It has poor demographics and brain drain. It has no independent elites (academics, journalists, judges, business people), so the only restorative force in the society is brutal punishment for non-alignment with a cult of personal power.
Even if Putin wanted to join the E.U., the economy, social structures and institutions, and uneducated voting populace wouldn't allow it to be stable enough to join.
Russia at this point can't even be a successful authoritarian state like China. It's hard to say that it will never be a democracy, but those with a memory of the 1990's find that idea traumatic. Looking far forward in time, eventually global oil independence and demographic decline may force economic reform.
When I think about this, I often come back to thinking that the societies that underwent some conflict or difficult times, absolutely cannot have a member of an older generation in charge, because the only thing they do is to continue that conflict, completely manufacturing it again if needed, just to get their "revenge". Current Russian attempt at genociding Ukrainians is all the more tragic in that the generations, that remember the previous hostilities, were almost all gone by now. Alas, that corner of the world is again poisoned for several generations ahead.
The majority of Russian population genuinely believes that if the country "becomes weaker", some evil Western soldiers would come and either (belief A) physically exterminate every last of them or (belief B) enslave for eternity.
From that lens, loosing a few millions in a "pre-emptive strike" to save the bulk of population looks reasonable. Don't ask me how they ended up with this picture of reality.
Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR, in the 90s after USSR collapsed, and then again by Putin in the 2000s. It was rebuffed each time.
Joining the EU would be somewhat nonsensical as they would gain very little from it and cede substantial sovereignty in exchange. It's the same reason places like Norway have no interest in joining the EU.
>Russia did inquire about joining NATO multiple times, as far back as the 50s as the USSR,
But Russia never inquired in good faith. It was only ever sarcastically. And had it joined NATO (perhaps because the west was stupid, which it is), then right now we'd be in the pickle of trying to reconcile one NATO member invading another (likely) NATO member, and wondering what to do about it. Russia doesn't honor its treaties, neither according to the spirit of the law nor to the letter.
Now that there's no longer any point in hiding it, we should expand NATO to include everyone that is marginally adjacent to Russia. Japan, South Korea, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Hell, why not throw Taiwan in.
(0) GP didn't mention NATO, (1) NATO exists primarily to defend against Russian aggression, so obviously they're not allowed to join, and (2) besides the incidental details added for flavor, the actual question is why Russia insists on being broadly hostile to the world rather than broadly cooperative.
Not joining, of course, but Russia did, both the people and Putin. The West had different plans, as we learned.
'From Lisbon to Vladivostok': Putin Envisions a Russia-EU Free Trade Zone - SPIEGEL ONLINE, 2010 [0]
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0]
the fun part is that they don't even have to join the EU - perfectly positioned and enriched by natural resources to become a northern version of a Dubai
Because they had their own union called the USSR, which collapsed due to military spending, oil price drops and centralized inneficiency. This was before Putin's mafia took over.
I think the reason Russia today is relentless anti-West is rooted the post-Soviet era in many ways characterized by (the alcoholic) Boris Yeltsin. Wikipedia gives the summary: "Yeltsin oversaw the transition of Russia's command economy into a capitalist market economy by implementing economic shock therapy, market exchange rate of the ruble, nationwide privatization, and lifting of price controls. Economic downturn, volatility, and inflation ensued. Amid the economic shift, a small number of oligarchs obtained most of the national property and wealth, while international monopolies dominated the market." and I'd add millions of people died (not an exageration).
The Putin regime began with Putin using military force to arrest any disloyal oligarchs while formulating his anti-Western ideology. But sequence of event explains why most Russians today have zero faith/interest in joining the Western World.
Russia is anti-west because traitors Gorbachev and Yeltsin (who was indeed an alcoholic) sold the country to the West for nothing, for promises that we would be treated as equals that were never kept. As you can see in many comments here (and on other sites such as Reddit this is more prominent), West consider Russian people subhumans. Something that Hitler and others said openly before, and this wave of Nazism is becoming stronger now again.
Country was destroyed, markets were destroyed, industries were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands died in ethnical conflicts, hundreds of thousands died from hunger. It was all a huge mistake and I hope we'll never repeat it.
There’s a Russian joke that Russia’s mission in the world is to show other countries how not to be.
Or if we get more serious: it's mix of imperial ambitions, feeling of been humiliated by west and desire of revenge, (cultural level) aggression, arrogance, ignorance and been sure that Russia is a special country with special pathway and superior culture and one of world superpowers (that been ignored and this is not "fair")
A couple of days after russia started war, on it's official news agency site was auto published article that was supposed to be victory lap (after all it was supposed to be 3 day special operation). It was promptly removed but not before it was archived. You can read decent translation here and it will show you some glimpses of what I wrote above https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2vz4v/ria_news_ac...
For reference: I was born back in USSR and lived there till my early teen years. Been closely following russian media, discussion platforms, etc ever since.
"Benevolent" more in the sense of "currently unable to order the next massacre". The German unification only went ahead because soviet troops didn't intervene like they did in many prior instances:
Glasnost and Perestroika under Gorbachev were not benevolence but necessary because the centralized power of the Soviet Union was dwindling. The SU became more and more occupied with fixing its own problems and could no longer hold together the Eastern Bloc by influence or force. Which is why the Eastern Bloc then slowly dissolved. This didn't start with the German unification, but earlier, and encompassed Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia:
The SU (who are actually dominated by, but different from "the Russians") certainly would have liked to hold it together. And while under Yeltsin, there was a period of acceptance of the dissolution of the SU, currently Putin seems to want to revive it, at least in terms of territory.
It's a government comprised of people that weren't elected that destroys countries it supposed to govern by forcing non-rational choices that people hate but too afraid to openly criticize.
The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
Look at any chart that shows any useful economic metric or things like life expectancy of eastern/central European countries before and after they joined the EU. It's almost to good to be true.
> The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
That's quite easy when your GDP per capita is behind Trinidad & Tobago or even Cuba.
> The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
Citations, please.
> What EU can offer us? Nothing.
Right, what is clear from your messages in this thread is that Russia only sees value in other things it can take over / steal / destroy. May I ask what Russia has to offer to the rest of the world?
abraxas|1 month ago
zvorygin|1 month ago
These things can and do change.
left-struck|1 month ago
Think about what war really is, it’s almost always a bunch of powerful people who have a disagreement with a bunch of other powerful people, who then have to trick a bunch of less powerful people to fight on their behalf. If you feel like fighting you’ve been tricked. When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.
ZoomZoomZoom|1 month ago
benterix|1 month ago
I completely disagree. I know anecdata is useless but since you are generalizing I can as well add that all Russians I met, without exception, are normal people who just want to live a normal life, not to kill. And then there is the smaller violent part that is happy to mug, beat, and kill others, including their own people. What I can agree is that Russia has quite a problem with this "pat B" of their population because of systemic issues. But generalizing it like this, on the whole nation, is just like saying that violence has gender, rich people are bad and so on.
Animats|1 month ago
Whenever there's trouble, Russia's history demands a strong leader. When one arises, the strong leader soon becomes the trouble.
lovegrenoble|1 month ago
usrusr|1 month ago
keernan|1 month ago
The same wealth disparity exists in the west. Are you suggesting Russia is the governing model in our future?
kranke155|1 month ago
Russia is a continental state so it requires its Neighbors to be weak so they cant threaten Russia. As much as it tries to escape this logic, it can’t. Russia’s core interest is to dominate and subjugate its near abroad. It has to. It’s the only way for it to become a global power.
dmix|1 month ago
Unless of course doing so makes them far poorer and isolates them culturally/economically, and completely embarrasses their image of having a strong military.
jgilias|1 month ago
Etheryte|1 month ago
NoMoreNicksLeft|1 month ago
But if I point out that this same thing applies to the Russians as a whole, then suddenly I'm racist.
throw-the-towel|1 month ago
sneak|1 month ago
Really though it’s because Russia mostly has nothing going for its millions of people except petrochemical exports.
oxag3n|1 month ago
It started to expand to the east in 16th century, which was and is still cruel to indigenous people of Siberia (e..g highest level of current war participation per capita).
South/Caucasus expansion was brutal and was displayed in Russian literature.
European states suffered from Russia for centuries as well.
Gupie|1 month ago
anigbrowl|1 month ago
fc417fc802|1 month ago
a96|1 month ago
gpm|1 month ago
ridiculous_leke|1 month ago
scns|1 month ago
sharts|1 month ago
avidiax|1 month ago
Even if Putin wanted to join the E.U., the economy, social structures and institutions, and uneducated voting populace wouldn't allow it to be stable enough to join.
Russia at this point can't even be a successful authoritarian state like China. It's hard to say that it will never be a democracy, but those with a memory of the 1990's find that idea traumatic. Looking far forward in time, eventually global oil independence and demographic decline may force economic reform.
p1esk|1 month ago
How do you measure that?
yks|1 month ago
RuslanL|1 month ago
From that lens, loosing a few millions in a "pre-emptive strike" to save the bulk of population looks reasonable. Don't ask me how they ended up with this picture of reality.
drysine|1 month ago
[deleted]
somenameforme|1 month ago
Joining the EU would be somewhat nonsensical as they would gain very little from it and cede substantial sovereignty in exchange. It's the same reason places like Norway have no interest in joining the EU.
NoMoreNicksLeft|1 month ago
But Russia never inquired in good faith. It was only ever sarcastically. And had it joined NATO (perhaps because the west was stupid, which it is), then right now we'd be in the pickle of trying to reconcile one NATO member invading another (likely) NATO member, and wondering what to do about it. Russia doesn't honor its treaties, neither according to the spirit of the law nor to the letter.
Now that there's no longer any point in hiding it, we should expand NATO to include everyone that is marginally adjacent to Russia. Japan, South Korea, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Hell, why not throw Taiwan in.
andrewflnr|1 month ago
drysine|1 month ago
Not joining, of course, but Russia did, both the people and Putin. The West had different plans, as we learned.
'From Lisbon to Vladivostok': Putin Envisions a Russia-EU Free Trade Zone - SPIEGEL ONLINE, 2010 [0]
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0]
[0] http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vl...
lukashoff|1 month ago
petre|1 month ago
Maybe this could offer more insight:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/27/vladim...
exogeny|1 month ago
joe_the_user|1 month ago
The Putin regime began with Putin using military force to arrest any disloyal oligarchs while formulating his anti-Western ideology. But sequence of event explains why most Russians today have zero faith/interest in joining the Western World.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
anticodon|1 month ago
Country was destroyed, markets were destroyed, industries were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands died in ethnical conflicts, hundreds of thousands died from hunger. It was all a huge mistake and I hope we'll never repeat it.
tguvot|1 month ago
Or if we get more serious: it's mix of imperial ambitions, feeling of been humiliated by west and desire of revenge, (cultural level) aggression, arrogance, ignorance and been sure that Russia is a special country with special pathway and superior culture and one of world superpowers (that been ignored and this is not "fair")
A couple of days after russia started war, on it's official news agency site was auto published article that was supposed to be victory lap (after all it was supposed to be 3 day special operation). It was promptly removed but not before it was archived. You can read decent translation here and it will show you some glimpses of what I wrote above https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2vz4v/ria_news_ac...
For reference: I was born back in USSR and lived there till my early teen years. Been closely following russian media, discussion platforms, etc ever since.
lovegrenoble|1 month ago
thyristan|1 month ago
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Georgian_demonstrations
Glasnost and Perestroika under Gorbachev were not benevolence but necessary because the centralized power of the Soviet Union was dwindling. The SU became more and more occupied with fixing its own problems and could no longer hold together the Eastern Bloc by influence or force. Which is why the Eastern Bloc then slowly dissolved. This didn't start with the German unification, but earlier, and encompassed Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
The SU (who are actually dominated by, but different from "the Russians") certainly would have liked to hold it together. And while under Yeltsin, there was a period of acceptance of the dissolution of the SU, currently Putin seems to want to revive it, at least in terms of territory.
LunaSea|1 month ago
anticodon|1 month ago
It's a government comprised of people that weren't elected that destroys countries it supposed to govern by forcing non-rational choices that people hate but too afraid to openly criticize.
The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
What EU can offer us? Nothing.
ajmurmann|1 month ago
Look at any chart that shows any useful economic metric or things like life expectancy of eastern/central European countries before and after they joined the EU. It's almost to good to be true.
> The level of life in EU is declining, while rising in Russia.
That's quite easy when your GDP per capita is behind Trinidad & Tobago or even Cuba.
breppp|1 month ago
Russians are essentially a european people and has a lot more in common with the EU than BRICS.
Also, both are headed full-throttle towards a demographic disaster so might as well do it together
And of course your comment about unelected officials acting irrationally that people cannot criticize surely reminds you of home
myvoiceismypass|1 month ago
Citations, please.
> What EU can offer us? Nothing.
Right, what is clear from your messages in this thread is that Russia only sees value in other things it can take over / steal / destroy. May I ask what Russia has to offer to the rest of the world?