[The link leads to 2 min. video.]
Alexander Borodai is a member of Russian Duma and one of the founding fathers of the “DPR” (Donetsk People Republic) under FSB control.
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First, he admits that any ceasefire for Russia will only be a temporary freeze in the war, because Putin’s main goal will not be achieved - taking control of all of Ukraine and establishing a puppet Russian regime. Any independent Ukraine for Russians is “Western weapon”.
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Second, he admits that Russia has been waging war with the help of people like him in Ukraine since 2014, and in 2022 it only continued with a full-scale invasion.
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And most importantly, third, he directly says that the problem is not that Ukraine can be in NATO. The problem for Russians is that they consider all of Ukraine to be their “historical territory” and that Ukrainians “do not exist as a nation at all”, and that Ukraine is inhabited by “divided Russians”.
I believe this is the issue: if there were a way for Ukraine to genuinely believe that Russia would not attack them again, they might accept certain territorial losses—in fact, they might have accepted them long ago. But no one believes that a Russia that wins in Donbas would stop there and not feel emboldened to push for more. Only a Russia that perceives this as a painful defeat might refrain from coming back for more.
I could plausibly see a meaningful defensive agreement working for Ukraine too. I believe we should back Ukraine to the hilt for as long as they want to fight, but if we aren’t going to send in troops ourselves then when and how to negotiate is not for us to decide
It would have to be sonthing other than NATO thanks to the current American administration, but I do think that an EU + UK agreement with sufficiently strong language - stronger than NATO’s article 5 and the EU’s mutual defence article, an actual requirement to actively deploy the military to the front - would be deterrrent enough to for Russia
EU accession would cover it. The mutual defence part is fairly ironclad - “obligation” and “by all the means in their power”. Definitely less wishy-washy than article 5 IMO.
edit: Here’s the relevant text:
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.
Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.
Link to treaty. It’s at the bottom.
Poland and the Baltics would be so excited at the prospect of dishing out some historical retribution so I feel like it would be enough to deter Putin.
Fair point regarding the mutual defence clause actually, I had misremembered it as being significantly more vague. I’d be in favour of welcoming Ukraine into the EU, although as a Brit it would provoke a significant degree of envy in me
The carve-out for neutral nations might throw people off (“This shall not prejudice…”) but with Sweden and Finland not neutral any more only the Austrians are left and we can manage without the catastrophe relief force they call an army.
Ah c’mon back in neighbour. I really hope you do soon.
edit: And there is some vagueness in there but it’s only to cover neutral countries - their obligation would be financial I think.
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57 upvotes and zero downvotes.
based.
Doesn’t matter what the negotiations result in
Anything less than a compete defeat of Russia will just invite Russia back. Zelenski knows this, for sure.
If Ukraine won’t be allowed to join NATO then Europe must put up multiple army bases with European weapons in Ukraine. This not only for Ukraine but also for Europe.
On a side note: if everyone, Europe included, could stop giving into every shit demand from Cheeto, that would be awesome
A lot of people in the West reflexively don’t want to admit this, but this the view of the overwhelming majority of the russian population. They are committed and genuine genocidal imperialists.
Usually sweeping generalizations about an entire ethnic group are spurious at best.
Why do you think this is a sweeping generalisation?
This is backed by a variety of research (both quantitative and qualitative, with different methodologies, some even run by opposition-minded russians). Not to mention historical reality since the breakup of the USSR. You do realize that russia is occupying 3 independent countries and is openly pursuing a policy of destruction of national identity?
Keep in mind that things like “preference falsification” can actually be measured and there is a wide variety of research that specifically estimates preference falsifiaction (with some rather interesting results). So don’t play dumb with the “they are all afraid to say the truth!1!!” and “all research is wrong if it doesn’t portray russian society in a good light.”
EDIT: Don’t know if it was you who downvoted me, but if it was, there is a beautiful irony considering all your talk about avoiding generalisations and actually knowing something about a topic.
Buddy, I didn’t even read your comment until just now, let alone downvote it.
Sorry dude, it was a racist statement. I’m sure Russia is chock full of people like that. But that’s not what you said, is it?
So do you believe the propaganda they are being fed is going to push that Ukraine needs to be taken back or left to their own permanent sovereignty? In this day and age we have to realize that in a authoritarian government led country with an oligarchy, that their propoganda is what the general population is going to go with. When it comes to civil war or war on their neighbors, and they have already gone to war with their neighbors… Its hard to believe round 2 they won’t choose war with their neighbors as well. Animosity only grows for the neighbors when the military members come back and spread stories.
The tricky part is justifying that without a source due to the state of journalism in Russia
From one of my posts in this thread. [2] explicitly addresses the canard about russians all being secret liberals and humanists but being forced to answer in support of genocidal imperialism because they are afraid. [3] also briefly touches upon this (among other things).
Sources
- The reluctant consensus: War and Russia’s public opinion - Relatively recent.
Some more specialized research that addresses some of the clown logic that you often hear in such discussions “they don’t actually support genocidal imperialism, the vast majority are very afraid and lying in the polls!!!”
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Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine - Note how the authors explicitly state that their preference falsification adjusted estimate for support for the full scale invasion (65%) likely underestimates the true level of support.
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Do Russians support the military invasion of Ukraine? - This is minor part of the report, but they do show how preference falsification is irrelevant with respect to often criticized (by allegedly liberal russians) Levada findings about ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea that has been stable from 2014 to 2021.
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«А когда уже победа-то наша будет?» - In russian, maybe somebody made a good English language translation, I don’t know. A damning take on “non-political” russians’ view of genocidal invasions. The funny thing is that this qualitative research was run by opposition-minded russians. I am surprised they even published it.
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Don’t trust opinion polling about support in Russia for the Ukraine invasion. A weak counter argument to findings similar to [1], does not in any way address the general points in [2],[3],[4]. The author explicitly denies [2] without providing any context or explanation. It’s the “I don’t believe any research unless it portrays russian society in a good light” factor so to speak.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that, and I suspect a majority of Russians supported the war for the first few months, but currently support Putin and not all of his actions, including the war. The list experiment uses data from 3 years ago.
It’s difficult to get accurate information from a country during a war, and when a country is willing to arrest protestors or disappear journalists who present a dissenting view of the country’s leadership or wars it’s worth taking the information we do get with suspicion.
Ah the classical “I don’t believe this research because it doesn’t align with what I think”. You’ll be surprised how often I’ve heard this. It’s actually one of the reasons I don’t bother posting detailed sourcing. Don’t give me this “it’s complicated” bullshit, you have no clue what you are talking about.
You quote Minialo from the NPR article. Let me tell you a little story about Minialo. So he had some sociological research about russian support for the war. Since the numbers were high (i.e. they didn’t align with goal of white washing russian genocidal imperialism), he decided to massage the numbers. There were three questions around related to genocidal imperialism (continuing the war to take Kyiv, the role of occupied territories and something else). So to lower the “support war” stat he only counted the responses that said yes to all three questions. So you could say, let’s continue the war to take Kyiv, but have a more ambiguous view on the role of occupied territories - that would disqualify you from supporting the full scale invasion of Ukraine (in Minialo’s view that’s a fair approach).
I’ve actually interacted with Minialo on Twitter (don’t use it anymore). He said pretty typical russian BS “what about iraq?” and “many russians want to stop the war” (and he of course ignored that would also imply annexation of 20% of Ukraine, including my home town). I posted this rather provocative vignette questioning how he would feel if Ukraine did everything russia has done to us and then suddenly some part of the population would call for peace (with 20% of European russia occupied, bombing of Volga dam, razing Rostov to the ground like they did to Mariupol, Russian style torture of everyone involved with government or military in occupied territories and so on). He immediately started getting aggressive and dismissive (even though I merely suggested a completely equal scenario).
Minialo is a russian imperialist.
“The majority of Russians do not want to seize Kyiv or Odesa,” What great humanists! Occupying 20% of the country and holding ten thousands of civilians in torture camps, banning Ukrainian, banning Ukrainian churches and implementing a policy of settlers colonialism (I am from Donbas, so I know what goes on there). I wonder how russians would view a symmetric situation (similar to what I described to Minialo).
This is really the best you have?
A country prosecuting people with dissenting views does not mean a majority of the population hold dissenting views. On the contrary, broad support makes it far easier to prosecute dissenting views. If truly most of the country is opposed to something, you’ll eventually get pushback and local resistance.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that, and I suspect a majority of Russians supported the war for the first few months, but currently support Putin and not all of his actions, including the war. The list experiment uses data from 3 years ago.
Sources my man. You were acting all high and mighty about sources and now we have to believe your opinion?
~85% stable support for the annexation of Crimea (cross validated with list experiment studies showing no preference falsification) is not a sign of support for genocidal imperialism? I hope you realize that for people in Ukraine the war started in 2014, the full scale invasion started in 2022.
Overwhelming majority is hard to prove, but a simple majority is pretty clearly the case. There have been multiple good polling done by outsider firms enough to show that there is a majority support for it at least.
It is, as usual, a bit more complicated than that. Of course there are hard-boiled imperialists there, as anywhere. But it is unlikely that even Putin himself is one, he just has his own agenda.
Russians are a nation with too dark a history in the last couple centuries (and of course before). They were oppressed by their own, killed by their many neighbours in millions, and the memory of this lives deep in them. The major driver for many of them is to avoid harm first of all, powered with fear of their own government and instilled fear of “foreign malign forces” (definition changes by the day, rather easily, driven by propaganda). It is not safe to be against the war, so naturally the majority goes with the flow.
Do they want to actually conquer neighbours? In a way, there is a sense of pride in belonging to the strongest gang in the hood. As in, it is better to be a part of said gang than be chased by it.
Source: am russian-born, with a lot of contacts in the country.
Sense of belonging? This is exactly what I am mean by genocidal imperialism being universal among russians.
You (and other russians) fundamentally do not believe in self determination and will always find excuses to justify violence, occupations, torture and ethnic cleanings. The russians are even OK with being put down and abused by their own regime as long as there is imperial conquest.
I don’t buy the “dark history” narrative. There is nothing inherent (in a physical sense) about russians that leads to degeneracy and debauchery. It’s all the choices they make. The somewhat peaceful breakup of the USSR was a unique opportunity for russians and we can see the choices they made.
Source: I’ve lived in russia for many years and I speak fluent russian. I’ve also lived in North America, Asia and Europe and speak other languages.
I don’t buy the “dark history” narrative. There is nothing inherent (in a physical sense) about russians that leads to degeneracy and debauchery. It’s all the choices they make.
There’s a fuckton of cultural baggage from, following Emmanuel Todd, exogamous communal family structures. Stuff like this. There’s a whole theory about how the “really existing socialism” states started out with that family structure, replaced the actual pater familias with a grand national one, to silently change the actual family structure to nuclear in a rebellion against the violence inherent in that particular arrangement (Todd explains that way better than me). But the fundamental values that the system was an expression of still isn’t gone, and definitely alive and well in the military context. And mafia / prisoner culture. There’s one truth in that system: If you’re not a perpetrator, then you’re a victim. As such the “fear drives people to do things” is true, the question Russia should be asking itself, though, is where that fucking cart of theirs is headed. Where they want it to be headed. Have yourselves a February revolution and this time not have it usurped by October. Normalise civic agency.
I don’t believe in cultural or ethnic essentialism. And at any rate, to move away from what you describe as cultural baggage, you have to start somewhere. A lack of desire to move beyond this is a choice made by the vast majority of individuals that constitute russian society.
Even large parts of their allegedly liberal opposition supported the annexation of Crimea (and the 2008 Georgia invasion). They are not even trying, they see genocidal imperialism as a good thing irrespective of any cultural baggage.
They are not even trying, they see genocidal imperialism as a good thing irrespective of any cultural baggage.
Who’s being essentialist now. Culture is more than the decisions of individuals, there’s reference frames, there’s inertia, generally speaking there’s natural laws dictating how and when cultures change. Even if a Russian oppositional were to suddenly be perfectly enlightened, to make any sense to their compatriots they would have to use language, reference frames, that the others can understand. We’re not talking about fashion, here, this is deeper – not “let’s stop hating black people and move on to Muslims” or something, that’s not a fundamental shift in culture, but “let’s stop hating people”. That’s a very different thing.
The usual way how this kind of thing gets overcome is by getting your gob bashed in, because as long as all goes well for the culture which is being an asshole it will justify the assholery with the success it’s having, and indeed you’ll see Russians taking pride in Russia’s capacity to withstand its own cruelty. The tentative good news is that there’s no nation better suited to cut of Russia’s balls than Ukraine precisely because they’re so closely related, because a kind of brotherly envy is part of the equation. Maybe the specific choice was even a kind of death drive, subconsciously Russian culture knew where it could the battering it desires so that’s where they went.
What’s essentialist about what I said? I genuinely don’t see it.
Large parts of the russian opposition do not see genocidal imperialism (e.g annexation of Crimea and destruction of Ukrainian and Crimea Tartar identities) as a bad thing. They have made no efforts to oppose genocidal imperialism. They openly called for supporting chauvinist parties under their ironically named “smart voting” strategy, even though they knew that those parties are not independent and are directly controlled by the Kremlin.
Your point about “reference frames” honestly sounds like white-washing russian genocidal imperialism. This is not a matter of becoming perfectly enlightened, it’s a matter of understanding that if someone is committed to genocidal imperialism, they are not going to choose a hypothetical Navalniy over putin. They will choose the real deal.
But let’s just say I agree with you for the sake of argument. So what has the russian opposition achieved by using imperialist reference frames (that you seem to imply they don’t actually support, but need to use to connect with russians) in their outreach?
What are their achievements over the last 15 years? Surely tacit endorsement of imperialism would have helped them connect to the average russian?
What’s essentialist about what I said? I genuinely don’t see it.
“Russian opposition can’t think beyond imperialism”. It’s not so much that that’s wrong, it’s blaming them that ends up being essentialist – because that kind of inability is not a specifically Russian thing. It’s like saying “Calicos are beautiful” while implying that not all cats are beautiful, you’re making beauty an essence of being Calico.
This is not a matter of becoming perfectly enlightened, it’s a matter of understanding that if someone is committed to genocidal imperialism, they are not going to choose a hypothetical Navalniy over putin.
The Roman Stoics argued that women had the same mental capacities as men, therefore, they should also be educated. For that, they are sometimes called the first feminists, all within a ludicrously patriarchal society. Epictetus, very prominent Stoic, was a (white-collar) slave. Yet they never even thought about considering whether slavery was a thing that should be abolished. It didn’t cross their mind. It was not a thing that was could be questioned – not because of a prohibition against it, but because civilisation, nay life itself, was not conceivable in a way that excluded slavery.
If, today, people take that as an opportunity to attack the Stoics then they’re, rightly, accused of historicism: Not taking into account the historical context in which those people lived, which influenced everything about them, judging them by modern values those individuals might very well would share with us, had they been capable of conceiving of them. You’re doing the same to the Russian opposition.
So what has the russian opposition achieved by using imperialist reference frames (that you seem to imply they don’t actually support, but need to use to connect with russians) in their outreach?
It’s not so much about an “imperialist frame” but attempting to go beyond the “there’s only victims and perpetrators and we don’t want to be victims” thinking. Try to explain how stupid a concept that kind of thinking is to someone who is caught up in it and what’s going to happen is they’re going to consider you a victim, so they won’t listen.
They achieved nothing because talking cannot achieve anything in that situation. Navalny-type balls of steel “yeah Putin lock me up, torture me, make me a martyr” is the best that can be done and not everyone has balls of steel. Some things cannot be solved from inside the system, an external shock has to be applied. As said: Getting their face smashed in. That’s going to be a catalyst, a “we thought we were strong, we thought this was strength” moment shared by enough of the population to allow core cultural assumptions to shift.
Yeah, there’s nothing to admit here. The inherent chauvinism apparent in statements like yours should repel everybody with a little bit of decency.
No chauvinism. These are facts. And you know this. There are even russians who agree with what I am saying, not because they lack decency, but because they actually want their society to change.
Playing into russian victimhood narratives, treating them like children and coddling their worst instincts is not doing russians any favour.
Kinda weird that you assume that I know, and you know, what the overwhelming majority of Russians is thinking. I mean, I can make a general assumption, that obviously, they are no revolutionaries. They go to work every day. They have children they have to take care of. They have a pretty similar life to ours and therefore don’t want trouble upending their lives for the worse. If the government has imperial ambitions, it usually collides with people’s interests. I can say that without knowing one Russian.
Now I have a little bit of an…advantage? That is, I do know many Russians and yeah, none of them has genocidal tendencies. They also don’t claim that it is one of their national traits. National victimhood is just pretty fashionable inside nationalist governments. It is not limited to Russia, too.
Life isn’t a Star Wars movie. Going to work everyday and taking care of your children is not incompatible with being a genocidal imperialist. You can even not want any invasion to impact you directly and still be a genocidal imperialist.
So what that the russians you know aren’t genocidal imperialists? All the russians I speak to aren’t genocidal imperialists either, what are you trying to say? The reason why I said you know this and you’re just playing is because of these sort of arguments.
“We don’t know anything and even if we do it is all wrong unless it portrays russians as innocent children and who should never take responsibility for anything.”
You almost certainly know that all research (literally from any source, using any methodology, even multi-decade longitudinal research) shows that anything between a strong majority to an overwhelming majority of russians support genocidal imperialism.
And unlike you, I’ve actually lived in russia for many years and I speak fluent russian (and yet I constantly had to deal with racism by the russians because I am of a mixed ethnicity).
So spare me your fake humanism. It’s just more convenient for you to white wash their support for genocidal imperialism.
Your assumptions about me are just as ludicrous as the ones about Russians.
Goodbye
Unfortunately, these are not assumptions, but factual results of a very broad range of research, sometimes conducted over decades.
You on the hand assume that I am just shitposting or “spreading hate against the innocent”. That’s why I brought up the fake humanism. You can’t even imagine the possibility that I more than happy to read critiques and alternative viewpoints on the research I am alluding to. The problem being is that none of it is convincing and similar to your arguments it devolves into “trust me bro!” and “all research is wrong unless it aligns with my opinion of russian society”. Do you want some examples?
If you knew what you were talking about and weren’t engaging in fake humanism, you would have had an argument that goes beyond “your views are ludicrous!1!1!!”.
But you don’t.
Ah, the research you are alluding to:
all research (literally from any source, using any methodology, even multi-decade longitudinal research)
Why should I trust you, bro?
Instead you want to show me examples of your arguments with some other posters? I’ve seen some examples here, and all it boils down to are anecdotal references of yours. That’s also why I brought up mine. Of course they don’t account for much.
You really didn’t bring up anything to prove your accusation of enthusiasm for genocide ingrained in the Russian people.
So water is wet.
Interesting that it comes from the Duma though.
I wonder how this, if at all, will affect the “negociations” and the European involvement.
The 2014 events were driven by the really nasty people, proper “russian jihadists”, if you like. Cut-throats armed by Russia dealt a lot of damage in Eastern Ukraine. Most of them now are either dead or in prison for being too unpalatable for their own. Borodai is one of the few survivors, but he still retains the spirit.
Not sure if what he says is the real set of ideas behind all the war drama.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the rest of Duma/government are fluffy kittens, just that he is an extremist not necessarily reflective of the majority even in Duma.
Or maybe I am still too optimistic, after all these years.
Yeah let’s hope we (Europe) can grow a spine. We were actually quite good at war before …
He should avoid being near windows, and also eating or drinking.
